From the Deans

April 21, 2007

To:                   Chicago GSB Community

From:               Deans Stacey Kole, Richard Leftwich, Ted Snyder, and Mark Zmijewski

Subject:            Deans’ Statement on General Pace’s Visit to the GSB

In June 2006, we invited General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to give the keynote address at our Management Conference next month.  Gen. Pace formally accepted our invitation in July 2006 to speak on the topics of leadership and management. 

Recently, Gen. Pace characterized homosexual behavior as immoral, which, we recognize, offended many members of our community.  His personal views are contrary to the School’s longstanding and clear policy of inclusion of all members of its community, which is reflected in the following excerpt from our handbook:

The Chicago GSB community is committed to building and sustaining an environment in which its members can freely work together, both inside and outside the classroom. We want to promote and capitalize on our rich diversity as a source of intellectual and interpersonal openness, while recognizing that differences between us will always be present.  All members of our community must be treated with the same level of respect regardless of sex, race, cultural heritage, religious practice, and/or sexual identity.  [emphasis added]

The Deans considered, carefully and at length, alternative courses of action in response to Gen. Pace’s statements, including whether to retract the invitation or leave it stand.  While retracting the invitation to Gen. Pace might be the easier course of action, it could suggest a lack of confidence in the strength of our community and culture; and it goes against principles of free speech, which we value greatly.  Moreover, convergence to an open and inclusive community cannot, in our view, be achieved by censoring people with differing points of view.  Our bottom-line view is that we become a stronger institution by including people with wide-ranging views and encouraging dialogue.  We therefore chose to leave the invitation stand.

We see in the upcoming visit by Gen. Pace and in the many challenges our community faces on a daily basis the ongoing need and opportunity to address many relevant issues related to the importance of an inclusive culture.  We also see a need to provide an opportunity for those who want to have a dialogue concerning inclusion and diversity to do so in a systematic way.  Toward this end, the School’s leadership will work with various groups within our community to develop a conference in the fall quarter to focus on issues of inclusion and diversity within the GSB community.  We will consult with our students, staff, faculty, alumni, and friends of the School on the design and development of the conference.  For those of you who are interested in being involved in the planning, Dean Stacey Kole will serve as a point person for volunteers.  We hope that this conference will promote dialogue, generate useful insights for our great institution and beyond, and will serve to make our community yet stronger. 

Additional Information:
See also the Kalven Report; the University's long-standing policy on political and social action