Georgetown University’s Free Speech Problem

Modern minds, even sophisticated ones, increasingly struggle to recognize two completely orthogonal concepts: A) The content of speech (which we might disagree with or even find offensive) and B) the right to speak. That a large university purporting to uphold free and open inquiry (see comments) refuses to recognize this distinction and promptly act on it is an embarrassment.

FIRE's Headline: "Georgetown’s investigation of a single tweet taking longer than 12 round-trips to the moon." The money quote:

“It’s laughable that Georgetown Law’s administrators would need even one day to pore over a tweet,” said FIRE Executive Director Robert Shibley. “But if they’re determined to use their magnifying glasses on the tweet until they find something punishable, they’ll be investigating until their retirement.”
Here's Georgetown's policy strongly in favor of free speech.

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Free Speech: A Shield Against Oppression

Historically speaking, free speech has primarily served as a shield against oppression. Jacob Mchangama, who has written Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media, also wrote an article at the Heterodox Academy blog. Here is an excerpt that I will have ready the next time I hear the free speech is a "problem" or that it is a tool of "oppression" or "violence."

A global look at the history of free speech suggests that free speech is in fact a shield against oppression. White supremacy, whether in the shape of American slavery and segregation, British colonialism, or South African apartheid, relied heavily on censorship and repression. Conversely, advocates of human equality like Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela all championed the principle and practice of free speech to great effect and at huge personal cost. In the words of the late Congressman John Lewis, “Without freedom of speech and the right to dissent, the civil rights movement would have been a bird without wings.” Tragically, several countries, not least India, still use hate speech laws, with roots stretching back to the era of British colonialism, to silence dissenters as well as the minorities these laws were supposed to protect. Moreover, the current tsunami of Republican-sponsored bills aimed at censoring “divisive” teachings on issues such as race, gender, sexual orientation, and even American history, are often uncomfortably close to their anti-racist speech code counterparts when it comes to wording and the underlying philosophy that words constitute, or are comparable with, tangible physical harms. Far from serving as a remedy against “cancel culture,” such bills are likely to increase partisan and ideological policing of nonconformist speech to the detriment of free and open discourse without which higher education becomes stale and ultimately meaningless.

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Jonathan Haidt Explains Why Progressives Should Support Heterodox Academy

Jonathan Haidt, speaking on behalf of Heterodox Academy, which he co-founded. Here is an excerpt:

Universities are by their very nature progressive institutions. They encourage students and faculty to study the existing order and try to come up with something better. They broaden students’ minds and encourage curiosity about different people and ways of living. The ranks of nearly all progressive institutions are full of the top students from our top universities.

But something started going wrong on many campuses in the early 2010s. The combination of more polarizing social media, an intensifying culture war, and a changing Republican party drove an intense new kind of activism among a subset of progressive students that — whatever its noble motives — is damaging what is most precious about university life: the ability to have open and wide-ranging conversations. Students and faculty across the political spectrum now say that they are “walking on eggshells,” afraid that one slip could bring about terrible social consequences. As they learn to avoid making verbal “mistakes” in an unforgiving environment, students are being trained in habits of mind and heart that are antithetical to their own mental health, their own success in life, and the success of their political activism.

This is why many leading progressives have been warning, since 2015, that the new university culture is harmful to the country overall and to the Democratic party in particular . . .

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Two Versions of Free Speech

Tara Henley describes two versions of free speech citing to Jacob Mchangama's excellent new book. Henley's article is "Who gets to speak?If we want a free society – we must affirm freedom of speech for everyone, including Joe Rogan and the truckers." Here's an excerpt:

Danish lawyer Jacob Mchangama is set to publish his brilliant debut next week, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media. In it, the human-rights advocate chronicles “elite panics” of the past, which, he points out on Twitter, hold relevance for the current moment.

Elite panics involve an outbreak of angst among the wealthy and powerful — and they’ve been happening for millennia. And, while such outbursts can reflect real concerns, Mchangama writes in his book, “it is notable that they tend to erupt whenever the public sphere is expanded.” He goes on to explain: “Upon the introduction of new technology that gives access to those previously unheard, the traditional gatekeepers of public opinion fear that the newcomers will manipulate the masses through dangerous ideas, and propaganda, threatening the established social and political order.”

These conflicts, Mchangama notes, represent a clash between egalitarian and elitist conceptions of free speech. One sees free speech as a right for all; the other would have it be a privilege for those enlightened enough to use it properly.

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