Free Speech Isn't an Academic Value

Now, I only went to a school that had a campus of 28,000. But, while I was there, I met communists, conservatives, liberals, anarchists and all kinds of crazy ****. Any of whom were free to use the campus facilities to protest or demonstrate or rally or whatever the hell they wanted.

Now, what I don't remember seeing, was a lot of racists spouting bull**** unchecked. Meaning, when the odd white power asshole came to school and started their bull****, others would step in and make their life hell. Now it was rare, but you can say that their freedom of speech in the non legal sense was violated. I'd agree. And then I'd say tough cookies, I don't care, let me know when it's the State or the Federal Government and then your complaints will be valid.

Until then, enjoy being shouted down by college kids amped up on energy drinks fresh out of feminism 101.

ThoughtEx. said:

Now, I only went to a school that had a campus of 28,000. But, while I was there, I met communists, conservatives, liberals, anarchists and all kinds of crazy ****. Any of whom were free to use the campus facilities to protest or demonstrate or rally or whatever the hell they wanted.

Now, what I don't remember seeing, was a lot of racists spouting bull**** unchecked. Meaning, when the odd white power asshole came to school and started their bull****, others would step in and make their life hell. Now it was rare, but you can say that their freedom of speech in the non legal sense was violated. I'd agree. And then I'd say tough cookies, I don't care, let me know when it's the State or the Federal Government and then your complaints will be valid.

Until then, enjoy being shouted down by college kids amped up on energy drinks fresh out of feminism 101.

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Yes, and . . . ?

Why do so many people feel that Freedom of Speech extends beyond governmental actions? Yes, one can argue a state funded university is subject to uphold the First Amendment. A private university, not so.

And it is not a university's job to uphold all speech as valid. They just cannot take active steps to squelch free speech. Since campus facilities are not infinite, simply not honoring a group's request for sponsoring a speaker, should not be viewed as an infringement on free speech. Otherwise, I could sue nearby UNC for failing to give me a room for my presentation on Tiddlywinks: the Origin and Future of this Exciting Sport. Similarly, if a university has a reasonable expectation that a speaker may stoke controversy, requiring high levels of law enforcement to maintain security (think: Richard Spencer and counter-protests) I don't believe they are obligated to provide a platform, if the expectations of riots is, reasonable.

Todzilla said:

Why do so many people feel that Freedom of Speech extends beyond governmental actions? Yes, one can argue a state funded university is subject to uphold the First Amendment. A private university, not so.

And it is not a university's job to uphold all speech as valid. They just cannot take active steps to squelch free speech. Since campus facilities are not infinite, simply not honoring a group's request for sponsoring a speaker, should not be viewed as an infringement on free speech. Otherwise, I could sue nearby UNC for failing to give me a room for my presentation on Tiddlywinks: the Origin and Future of this Exciting Sport. Similarly, if a university has a reasonable expectation that a speaker may stoke controversy, requiring high levels of law enforcement to maintain security (think: Richard Spencer and counter-protests) I don't believe they are obligated to provide a platform, if the expectations of riots is, reasonable.

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From the link in #50:

. . . These episodes illustrate new tensions straining the social fabric: Suddenly outsized outrage is routinely provoked by typically tame opinions, especially those touching on the hot-button topics of race and sexuality. They reveal how the effort at universities and other institutions to curb hate speech and reduce sexual misconduct has led to what can only be called a defining down of outrage.
No doubt such incidents, including years-old comments made by people in less sensitive times and contexts (see here and here), can threaten the safety and damage or even ruin the careers of specific individuals. But their wider impact in the intimidation of others is harder to measure in a kinetic environment where the instantaneous judgments of social media have a growing prominence.
First Amendment scholars have long noted that strong limits on the government’s ability to suppress speech (“Congress shall make no law,” etc.) have led to a range of informal mechanisms and customs restraining speech – most notably, the social sanction against use of the “N-word.” In the age of Twitter, Trump and political correctness, these informal strictures are extended to utterances that fall well short of hate speech or harassment to the point of being shouted down and even punished.
“Students act as de facto arbiters of free expression on campus,” John Villasenor, an engineering professor at UCLA, wrote in a Brookings Institution survey of current attitudes toward free speech. “If a big percentage of students believe that views they find offensive should be silenced, those views will in fact be silenced.”
A closer look at these four incidents, then, offers a window into the often vigorous efforts by which free speech is being threatened not by the government, but by prestigious schools that train the country’s ruling elite as well as the private corporations and public institutions where they go on to work. They suggest the potential ripple effects this public harassment and shaming of unwelcome speech might have in chasing non-conforming opinions and even scholarship out of the marketplace of ideas, or at least causing such grief to the speakers that they will hesitate to advance their opinions in the future. . . .

Xelor said:

These are truths."[/URL] In other words, you and Charles Murray have opinions, but we are in possession of the truth, and it is a waste of our time to listen to views we have already rejected and know to be worthless.

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Critical Thinking allows a person to recognize and identify fallacious lines of reasoning very quickly and very easily with confidence. Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, Islamophobia, ... each of these are very obvious examples of hasty generalizations. They are wrong. Knowing what is right can be difficult sometimes, but recognizing what is wrong can often time be very easy. Unfortunately for many older people the so-called wisdom that comes from age is very often more accurately described as prejudice. You get to a point where you think your age and experience has taught you all you need to know about the world and when young people with their new ideas come along it can be hard to see the merit without admitting to your own blind spots and failures for not realizing these things sooner.

Your nonsense sounds like nothing more than standard issue generational hatred. The kids didn't put Trump in office, baby boomers did. It's time to start admitting that the kids are smarter than their parents.

MrWonka said:

Critical Thinking allows a person to recognize and identify fallacious lines of reasoning very quickly and very easily with confidence. Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, Islamophobia, ... each of these are very obvious examples of hasty generalizations. They are wrong. Knowing what is right can be difficult sometimes, but recognizing what is wrong can often time be very easy. Unfortunately for many older people the so-called wisdom that comes from age is very often more accurately described as prejudice. You get to a point where you think your age and experience has taught you all you need to know about the world and when young people with their new ideas come along it can be hard to see the merit without admitting to your own blind spots and failures for not realizing these things sooner.

Your nonsense sounds like nothing more than standard issue generational hatred. The kids didn't put Trump in office, baby boomers did. It's time to start admitting that the kids are smarter than their parents.

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In general, yep.

Jack Hays said:

From the link in #50:

. . . These episodes illustrate new tensions straining the social fabric: Suddenly outsized outrage is routinely provoked by typically tame opinions, especially those touching on the hot-button topics of race and sexuality. They reveal how the effort at universities and other institutions to curb hate speech and reduce sexual misconduct has led to what can only be called a defining down of outrage.
No doubt such incidents, including years-old comments made by people in less sensitive times and contexts (see here and here), can threaten the safety and damage or even ruin the careers of specific individuals. But their wider impact in the intimidation of others is harder to measure in a kinetic environment where the instantaneous judgments of social media have a growing prominence.
First Amendment scholars have long noted that strong limits on the government’s ability to suppress speech (“Congress shall make no law,” etc.) have led to a range of informal mechanisms and customs restraining speech – most notably, the social sanction against use of the “N-word.” In the age of Twitter, Trump and political correctness, these informal strictures are extended to utterances that fall well short of hate speech or harassment to the point of being shouted down and even punished.
“Students act as de facto arbiters of free expression on campus,” John Villasenor, an engineering professor at UCLA, wrote in a Brookings Institution survey of current attitudes toward free speech. “If a big percentage of students believe that views they find offensive should be silenced, those views will in fact be silenced.”
A closer look at these four incidents, then, offers a window into the often vigorous efforts by which free speech is being threatened not by the government, but by prestigious schools that train the country’s ruling elite as well as the private corporations and public institutions where they go on to work. They suggest the potential ripple effects this public harassment and shaming of unwelcome speech might have in chasing non-conforming opinions and even scholarship out of the marketplace of ideas, or at least causing such grief to the speakers that they will hesitate to advance their opinions in the future. . . .

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I'm confused as to the relevance of your quotes on the argument and my reply specifically.

One of the reasons that racist speech is not welcomed on college campuses is that universities purportedly seek enlightenment. Racism is based in ignorance and fear, the very things that intellectualism seeks to combat. Academia is not interested in presuming all viewpoints are valid. In fact, it seeks to arbitrate them according to intellectual debate and underlying reason, reducing arguments to the indivisible kernels of their rational foundations.

I would submit that current American Conservatism, unlike much of its historical namesakery, is based on will mis-perception and vague anger, neither of which seem to be congruent with the mission of intellectualism.

Todzilla said:

I'm confused as to the relevance of your quotes on the argument and my reply specifically.

One of the reasons that racist speech is not welcomed on college campuses is that universities purportedly seek enlightenment. Racism is based in ignorance and fear, the very things that intellectualism seeks to combat. Academia is not interested in presuming all viewpoints are valid. In fact, it seeks to arbitrate them according to intellectual debate and underlying reason, reducing arguments to the indivisible kernels of their rational foundations.

I would submit that current American Conservatism, unlike much of its historical namesakery, is based on will mis-perception and vague anger, neither of which seem to be congruent with the mission of intellectualism.

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I'm not discussing racism. Nor am I interested in your view of modern conservatism.

The best way to curb the insanity on college campus would be to pull all govt funding if schools are unwilling to provide equal access . Additionally, there should also not be ANY political bias in the classroom. We don’t allow sexual harassment so why should students be ridiculed, bullied or threatened if they have conservative views? If I didn’t agree with my professor’s views, my grades would have been lowered. That’s a fact on many college campuses. Even conservative professors are harassed at many colleges and universities since the liberal ideology dominates.

If riots are expected when free speech is exercised—ALL free speech should be eliminated until such threats are eliminated. This is how liberal neonazis think they can control political thought but it is wrong and hypocritical.

Stillshopping said:

The best way to curb the insanity on college campus would be to pull all govt funding if schools are unwilling to provide equal access . Additionally, there should also not be ANY political bias in the classroom. We don’t allow sexual harassment so why should students be ridiculed, bullied or threatened if they have conservative views? If I didn’t agree with my professor’s views, my grades would have been lowered. That’s a fact on many college campuses. Even conservative professors are harassed at many colleges and universities since the liberal ideology dominates.

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I am a fortunate soul, perhaps, that years ago the economics department where I study for a PhD left the humanities faculty to become part of the management school.

The disucssion I witness are largely centered on data, facts and logic, more often than not with evident intellectual curiosity.

Yes, there are people working on possible discrimination issues, but they are seldom presumed. In an act that is probably impossible in the current US climate, a professor in the department once objected that men and women might have different preferences and a serious discussion followed to see if it could account for a result shown in a seminar.

There was no circus of freaks yelling with a degree of certainty only stupidity can grant to a person. Just experts talking, listening and genuinely wondering what was going on. Science as it should always be done: check the empirical fit, check the internal consistency, make sure other explanations do not work before excluding them and make all of this thoroughly, even if it sometimes sound shocking.

As an undergrad, I also took courses in philosophy at that same university. I never felt like I couldn't speak my mind and some more conservative students did speak without causing a panick.

This is in part why it pains me to read about how Americans behave on campus. I had the luxury and immense privilege to learn, debate and exchange freely and it benefited me immensely. I cannot see how any sane person would not also want others to enjoy that kind of experience as well.

Stillshopping said:

If riots are expected when free speech is exercised—ALL free speech should be eliminated until such threats are eliminated. This is how liberal neonazis think they can control political thought but it is wrong and hypocritical.

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'liberal' and 'neonazi' are mutually exclusive.
But I understand. There's a level of comfortable delberate ignorance where truth is re-created every time a mouth is opened.

Stillshopping said:

The best way to curb the insanity on college campus would be to pull all govt funding if schools are unwilling to provide equal access . Additionally, there should also not be ANY political bias in the classroom. We don’t allow sexual harassment so why should students be ridiculed, bullied or threatened if they have conservative views? If I didn’t agree with my professor’s views, my grades would have been lowered. That’s a fact on many college campuses. Even conservative professors are harassed at many colleges and universities since the liberal ideology dominates.

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Typical conservatism- rely on the big, strong Daddy-state to make education institutions behave.
Talk about admitting the nose of the camel. Anyone who thinks the government should monitor and correct political issues in universities and says it's in the name of 'free speech' is deluding themselves.

Harshaw said:

This is a very disturbing thesis from you, from the point of view of someone who cherishes free speech.

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You don't seem to know what freedom of speech is. How can you possible cherish it?

And one more thing to add: one's "right to have an opinion" has precisely zero relation to the value of that opinion or whether it deserves respect or whether you deserve respect for having it, whether in academia or elsewhere.

Far too many times I've seen people respond to counter-arguments with "but he has a right to his opinion, just like you", as if that somehow rebuts the counter-argument.

Xelor said:

I'm of the mind that academic institutions don't need to be "fair" to "both sides." They need only be "fair" to the side that puts forth the most cogent/sound position. Quite simply, the fact that something crosses one's mind to say doesn't make that thought worthy of, "in the public square," as it were, being heard.

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Public academic institutions do need to be fair to all sides. However, there different ways of doing that. In your Middlebury College example, the college should have ensured a disruption-free experience. If the student protestors wanted to hold their own anti-Murray protest meeting, the college should ensure that also remains disruption-free. Everyone gets to express their opinion freely, just not at the expense of the other.

If the protesting students who disrupt the meeting refuse to leave voluntarily, then they have crossed the line from their right to "peacefully protest" to violating the law and then it becomes a law enforcement issue. Perhaps after a few are arrested and charged with criminal trespass and disturbing the peace they will grow up and learn their lesson, or maybe not.

The point being that public universities are compelled, as your belief in refined incorporation of the Bill of Rights requires, to be fair to all sides concerned since they are a division of State government. It would be more difficult to make a fairness argument on behalf of an entirely private institution.

Stillshopping said:

The best way to curb the insanity on college campus would be to pull all govt funding if schools are unwilling to provide equal access . Additionally, there should also not be ANY political bias in the classroom. We don’t allow sexual harassment so why should students be ridiculed, bullied or threatened if they have conservative views? If I didn’t agree with my professor’s views, my grades would have been lowered. That’s a fact on many college campuses. Even conservative professors are harassed at many colleges and universities since the liberal ideology dominates.

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Cutting all federal and State funding is certainly possible with private academic institutions, and one method for promoting equal expression. However, you cannot take that approach with public universities and colleges. State institutions are compelled to comply with the First Amendment.

With regard to bias I found that the best approach is to confront them directly. Be prepared to specifically identify the bias, and then demand a more balanced curriculum. If you feel your grades have suffered unfairly there are administrative avenues that you can take in order to rectify the problem.

Stillshopping said:

The best way to curb the insanity on college campus would be to pull all govt funding if schools are unwilling to provide equal access.

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The idea of using funds to threaten colleges into adopting a less biased point of view is problematic specifically because you need politicians to give this idea shape and force of law and you need bureaucrats to make funding choices, giving or pulling funds according to however they read the law. None of these people have incentives to acquire a very accurate picture of what is going on anywhere. The last thing you need is to provoke incidents on colleges for a policy that ends up making distant bureaucrats the last arbiters of who gets funds and who doesn't.

That is what Jordan Peterson proposed in Canada, though he changed his mind since. He said he long thought the government should just drastically cut the funding of universities and let the departments fight for the remaining crumbs. The idea is that nonsense like gender studies department would never be chosen over departments in STEM fields, management, finance, etc. They would eventually lose that fight and go out of existence. But he realized that you never choose who administrate the cuts and the specifics well enough so that it does exactly what you want. Just the wrong person in charge might turn a good idea into a political weapon. We don't want a second Inquisition, but this might just be how it plays out with people chasing the ideas they dislike.

He then ran into a few computer scientists who were programming algorithms to identify courses and programs inspired by post-modern philosophy. Relying on evaluations that are given to the public, feedback from the public and encouraging people not to study these things might just do it the trick in the long run. It would be more powerful, I suppose if money is also tightly linked to students and their choices. Currently, in many universities, money is pooled across faculties, schools, and departments such that people who turn departments into useless money pits don't pay the price of their irrelevance.

Stillshopping said:

Additionally, there should also not be ANY political bias in the classroom. We don’t allow sexual harassment so why should students be ridiculed, bullied or threatened if they have conservative views? If I didn’t agree with my professor’s views, my grades would have been lowered. That’s a fact on many college campuses. Even conservative professors are harassed at many colleges and universities since the liberal ideology dominates.

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While the goal is laudable, any attempt to institute this by force of law might backfire. To be implemented, the law will require a working definition of excessive bias, as well as protocol for identifying bias and responding to bias. I highly doubt that the people who would craft such a law have the right knowledge or incentives to make sure things will run smoothly, not to mention it is quite the task to amend laws once we figure out ways that could potentially circumvent the inevitable problems that emerge as we try to apply our plans in the real world.

Glitch said:

If you feel your grades have suffered unfairly there are administrative avenues that you can take in order to rectify the problem.

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The universities are administered by people who voluntarily institute internal regulations on speech and who prefer to ban guest speakers than to get violent protestors arrested. They might be individually well intended, but it doesn't seem like they will do an unbiased job. Moreover, every dispute concerning grades will at best lead to the administration asking another professor from the same department to grade the paper a second time -- usually without appeal. I would not be surprised if accusations of political bias toward his colleague or the additional workload put the professor in a bad mood and I would question the chance of coming across a fair judgement from a department who hired someone who was so biased it was obvious in how they graded the paper. And, if it wasn't enough, all disputes that lead to a second grading means the entire paper or exam is graded again: the grade may end up being lower, in other words.

In short, you only have the semblance of fairness in some departments.

Grand Mal said:

Typical conservatism- rely on the big, strong Daddy-state to make education institutions behave. Talk about admitting the nose of the camel. Anyone who thinks the government should monitor and correct political issues in universities and says it's in the name of 'free speech' is deluding themselves.

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To be fair, if you institute a law that bans all speech codes, it would be hard to argue you're not taking actions against censorship.

As for the accusation of Nazism, while it can be formally dismissed on grounds of inconsistency, the analogy is not entirely devoid of sense. Jordan Peterson in Canada once was invited to participate in a discussion on freedom of speech by a group of students. In a video that is now famous, another group of students came in to stand in front of Peterson. They made noise, chanted slogans and altogether tried to drown Peterson. The irony is that the group hosting the discussion on freedom of speech was disposed to let them take their turn at the microphone and expose their views. The discussion could not be hosted inside and had to be moved outside. Peterson bothered talking directly one-to-one with some of the protestors. They were insulting him, yelling at him and accusing him of trying to promote hatred. If you watch these videos on youtube, you will notice that while his arguments take account of what others say, the others in question show no sign that they even were listening.

That's why the other user calls them Nazis: they use threats, insults, noise and every gimmick or trick they can come up with to prevent someone with whom they disagree to speak on campus. There are even incidents where students physically assault professors and guests or manage to cause so much trouble people to resign or get fired on account of their political views. They might say they hate Nazis and they might give you very different reasons for their behavior than Nazis, but they really do act like Nazis.

Of course, it's not all students or all people on the left.

Mr Person said:

And one more thing to add: one's "right to have an opinion" has precisely zero relation to the value of that opinion or whether it deserves respect or whether you deserve respect for having it, whether in academia or elsewhere. Far too many times I've seen people respond to counter-arguments with "but he has a right to his opinion, just like you", as if that somehow rebuts the counter-argument.

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This is true and, in my experience, when someone resorts to "I have the right to an opinion" as a response to something you said, they hold an opinion they cannot defend. I'd say that is a very good reason to let them speak.

TheEconomist said:

To be fair, if you institute a law that bans all speech codes, it would be hard to argue you're not taking actions against censorship.

As for the accusation of Nazism, while it can be formally dismissed on grounds of inconsistency, the analogy is not entirely devoid of sense. Jordan Peterson in Canada once was invited to participate in a discussion on freedom of speech by a group of students. In a video that is now famous, another group of students came in to stand in front of Peterson. They made noise, chanted slogans and altogether tried to drown Peterson. The irony is that the group hosting the discussion on freedom of speech was disposed to let them take their turn at the microphone and expose their views. The discussion could not be hosted inside and had to be moved outside. Peterson bothered talking directly one-to-one with some of the protestors. They were insulting him, yelling at him and accusing him of trying to promote hatred. If you watch these videos on youtube, you will notice that while his arguments take account of what others say, the others in question show no sign that they even were listening.

That's why the other user calls them Nazis: they use threats, insults, noise and every gimmick or trick they can come up with to prevent someone with whom they disagree to speak on campus. There are even incidents where students physically assault professors and guests or manage to cause so much trouble people to resign or get fired on account of their political views. They might say they hate Nazis and they might give you very different reasons for their behavior than Nazis, but they really do act like Nazis.

Of course, it's not all students or all people on the left.

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Oh, I don't defend the actions of people who shout down and drown out a speaker they disagree with but I do say they're not infringing on his right to free speech, they're exercising their own, if in an odious, loutish manner. Any group of radical leftists who try to disrupt an address or discussion like that deserve all the scorn, ridicule and contempt that can be heaped on them, but even worse than the abuses of the free-speech principle by a crowd of loudmouthed dolts is the efforts to monitor and enforce it by the government.

Glitch said:

Public academic institutions do need to be fair to all sides. However, there different ways of doing that. In your Middlebury College example, the college should have ensured a disruption-free experience. If the student protestors wanted to hold their own anti-Murray protest meeting, the college should ensure that also remains disruption-free. Everyone gets to express their opinion freely, just not at the expense of the other.

If the protesting students who disrupt the meeting refuse to leave voluntarily, then they have crossed the line from their right to "peacefully protest" to violating the law and then it becomes a law enforcement issue. Perhaps after a few are arrested and charged with criminal trespass and disturbing the peace they will grow up and learn their lesson, or maybe not.

The point being that public universities are compelled, as your belief in refined incorporation of the Bill of Rights requires, to be fair to all sides concerned since they are a division of State government. It would be more difficult to make a fairness argument on behalf of an entirely private institution.

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I agree with you. Were I a public college's/university's administrator charged with sanctioning various student airings of opinion, I'd be very circumspect about the nature of undergraduate "outcry" I'd forbear on campus. Truly, I'm not particularly tolerant of poorly conceived/structured expressions, period, be they the liberal or conservative variety.

In the classroom, that's fine. In the public sphere, where it may poison the minds of folks even less well-informed than the kids carrying on about "whatever."

Glitch said:

Cutting all federal and State funding is certainly possible with private academic institutions, and one method for promoting equal expression. However, you cannot take that approach with public universities and colleges. State institutions are compelled to comply with the First Amendment.

With regard to bias I found that the best approach is to confront them directly. Be prepared to specifically identify the bias, and then demand a more balanced curriculum. If you feel your grades have suffered unfairly there are administrative avenues that you can take in order to rectify the problem.

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Cutting funding will do little other than make private institutions ones only kids from well-enough heeled families or who earn non-need-based scholarships, something such a policy would surely inspire to far greater extents than extant now, attend. Indeed, such a move would be a major step toward establishing an existential aristocracy.

Xelor said:

Cutting funding will do little other than make private institutions ones only kids from well-enough heeled families or who earn non-need-based scholarships, something such a policy would surely inspire to far greater extents than extant now, attend.

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I disagree. Johns Hopkins University is a private institution that receives more than a $1.88 billion federal grant annually. Threatening to cut off that federal funding would be a significant incentive for them to ensure free expression. Granted John Hopkins University is an extreme example, but the overwhelming majority of private academic institutions do receive substantial federal funding. Stanford University in California, for example, receives $656 million annually in federal funding.

If they want to separate themselves from all those federal funds, then they can be as unfair as they like. But until they do so they are also compelled to be non-discriminatory, just as if they were a public institution.

Xelor said:

Indeed, such a move would be a major step toward establishing an existential aristocracy.

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You mean like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale?