I guess that emergency in Florida was really a big over-reaction, right? Two guys only tried to kill peaceful protesters afterward - no cause for any alarm, right? What a pathetically stupid and tone-deaf argument to make.
31
As a University of Chicago alum (as is Mr. Stephens) I believe I have a unique perspective on Mr. Zimmer's comments, which reflect a long standing U of C tradition, and on the broader issue of what is being referred to as, perhaps inaccurately, as "free speech". One of our fellow commenters has reminded us that Justice Holmes, in reference to the same case for which Justice Brandeis crafted his famous opinion, Mr. Holmes reminded us that no one has the right to yet "fire" in a crowded theater if there is no fire. That is a very concrete example of behavior, that happens to involve utterance, that leads to a consequence that could endanger lives and damage property. The speech that Mr. Zimmer and others refer to, and whose free expression I fully endorse, is that of ideas—engaging, positive, repugnant and plain stupid ideas—that, if suppressed could deprive the individual, and our culture of important insight. The only way for a Richard Spencer, or a Milo Yiannopolis to be made irrelevant is to invite them to speak more, rather than less. Eventually, like George Wallace, Bull O'Connor, Anita Bryant, and the whole list of malign apostates, these horrendous ultra-nationalist racist bigots will be exposed for who they are. If this does not happen, and their academic and media enablers (including sometimes Mr. Stephens) are allowed to speak to their echo chambers, the chamber inhabitants can become far more dangerous to us all. So, Mr. Zimmer and my alma mater, bring it on.
77
One can embrace critical thinking without giving nazis, homophobes, xenophobes, and misogynists platforms at prestigious universities. A real university wouldn't invite flat-earthers or alchemists to speak to its science department.
51
You miss the mark and so does Zimmer. Free expression of thoughts, yes -- giving cover to hate and its twin, violence -- no. Anyone who can't tell the difference between Milo Yiannopoulos and Bill Buckley needs to reexamine their own barometers. As usual, we have here in this column one wealthy, distinguished white man praising another for calling out "political correctness." If you are a college-aged girl who has been raped, laughter from conservative intellectuals about your triggers is just more elite contempt for your life story. Zimmer is the highest paid university president in America. Perhaps, that is what you mean by "best?" If you want the best, look at Freeman Hrabowski of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He balances diversity and academic freedom better than any college president in the country. And, UMBC does not start out from the elite perch.
40
It is a emergency when Richard Spencer speaks, which is not to say that he shouldn't be allowed to speak. The onus here is on the nazis for the millions that they killed. When people don't show up to disrupt spencer that's a bigger emergnecy. Stephens seems to blaming the universities for the emergency. I red the University of Florida spent a lot of taxpayer money protecting spencer's rights. What happens if he gets the same protection as anybody else. I guess we have trouble, but guess what? We already have trouble. The blame is on the nazis, not the universities. They're trying to deal with a very awkward situation. A group of people who advocate for mass murder, child molestation or sexual harassment also have the right of assembly and free speech and the university would have to respond. I don't see a huge difference.
7
Well said Mr. Stephens. Forward a copy of your article to the man in the White House who wants to revoke the licenses of those TV stations who disagree with him or have the audacity to question his assertions. While you’re at it, enclose a copy of the First Amendment.
45
Free speech is often a camouflage for fake speech.
In this viral world you can say anything 24 hours a day and create an ignorant herd in a second.
How do you combat this? With education, access to alternative views, viral forms of insight and the realization tsunamis of ignorance can occur in a split second.
Private universities may have more power to combat this than state ones.
11
The responses to this article among presumably well-educated NYT readers is shocking. One asserts that the speech that includes "lies" is not "permissible", and that "violence" may be allowed to prevent it. Another condemns The University of Chicago because many of its Nobel Prize winners received the "ersatz" medal for Economic and that it suffers from "implicit bias." A third states that this editorial praising free speech and its defenders is a "screed."
If this is what well-educated liberal intellectuals think, then our society truly is a risk. If only those that can be cleared of "implicit bias" and do not utter anything that could be called "lies" are allowed to speak, we will have no voices other than the government.
87
Mr. Stephens confuses the matter of free speech in order to justify his political ideology. Speech promoting hatred, discrimination, violence and slavery have no place in our society.
The Intellectual dogma touted in this article suggests that if we limit such speech we limit all speech. This is unfounded and amounts to little more than a justification for returning to the days of slavery, prohibition, etc. as too many conservative ideologues would have us do.
The problem with promoting hate speech is that it ultimately promotes violence, especially if condoned by university presidents and dogmatic columnists, not to mention radio and TV pundits alongside social media.
By the same token I don't think universities should be caldrons of political correctness either. Perhaps it is time for liberals and conservatives to stop their regurgitation of dogma before speaking so loudly. The most important thing I learned in college was that both ideologies are false and exist primarily upon interpretations of their respective nemesis'.
Recognizing hate speech for what it is may be something we all need to learn long before we ever think of attending college anyway.
But allowing undeterred "free speech" in our society is perhaps the biggest insult to those who fought and died for us in WWII. Hitler did quite a spectacular job of promoting "free speech" didn't he? And now Mr. Stephens wants more death and destruction in order to promote the same sort of speech rights?
10
What is the real crux of this column, to use Bret Stephens's words?
At first I thought is was an emblem of naive thinking-- that somehow Stephens believes that President Zimmer's declarations protect the U of C from truly difficult campus speech---
Possibly, Zimmer would not give the same speech today as it occurred BEFORE the University of Virginia and University of Florida were visited by speakers whose presence intentionally pushes the boundaries of civil discourse in the campus--forcing the distinction among unpopular claims, false claims and remarks meant to incite and provoke violence. The U of C ( as well as other universities) has been simply lucky that it has not been tested with the appearance of Richard Spencer or Ann Coulter or Jeff Sessions or Steve Bannon-- yet. And it is no stretch of the imagination to comtemplate how much they would relish that confrontation.
Today's real life is not simply an exercise in rhetoric.
I hope the U of C or my university never has to face this practical situation.
...........
But how about the other statement imbedded in Stephens's essay " [Free speech]: not that it is necessary for democracy ( strictly speaking, it isn't)"
What?
A newspaper opinion writer is hinting that he might be ok with all of us giving up speech in the service of democracy? What?
That is what this article should explore. I want to know what Stephens really thinks.
6
On both sides, the extreme political nitpickery of this argument only serves reductionist tribal rhetoric. I am firm believer of Time and Place.
There is a Time and Place for Free Speech. These Times and Places nees to be explicitly and strongly a Place for open discussion. It is up to university discretion to see that speakers have an intellectually rigorous and interestingly challenging point of view, so that their speaking befits the intellectual goals of the Time and Place. Then, a speaker making their case should also be subject to criticism, with a Time and Place for individuals attending to hash out arguments within themselves. In this, stupid ideas are heard and challenged, as it should be.
Finally, there is a Time and a Place for those spooky """"safe spaces."""" Everyone has personal ones, with friends or family, at home or a gym or a park. These places of encouragement and gentleness, giving students a more solid emotional and mental base, a preparation for creating a lifetime critical thinker, not a burnout. People of a group may desire their own Space, like AA or discussion Spaces for a minority identity, so they can hash out their feelings with people who intimately understand them, to strengthen their identities and cultural status, to connect on similarity.
People bring their sense of self into arguments, and if their school has the right Times and Places set up, they go into battle fully armed.
7
How empty and complicit are many of the comments in response to Zimmer's and Dean Ellison's defense of free speech and an open forum. As a University of Chicago graduate I am proud of their willingness to take a stand at a time when other universities (and apparently New York Times readers) would cowardly sacrifice these sacred principles.
43
It is distressing that so many comments cling to Holmes' "fire in a crowded theater" line from Schenck without understanding the full context of First Amendment jurisprudence. The Court has written often on the First Amendment since publishing Schenck in 1919. Indeed, Holmes often wrote on the topic in dissent. Holmes made clear (such as in Abrams) that statements of opinion are nearly always protected speech. The type of pure speech (not conduct) that legislatures may punish is quite limited; that is, speech advocating "imminent lawless action" (Brandenburg). The dangerous creep of suggesting that repulsive opinions based on racism, etc., fit this very limited scope should trouble everyone. Saying racist things does not amount to advocating "imminent lawless action." Just as we can't toss aside our civil liberties in the name of "homeland security," we can't abridge the First Amendment to avoid painful experiences.
27
Hooray for Zimmer, but could we please atop pretending that the libertarian Right is a fertile bed of reason, discussion, solid research, and dissent?
There is little on the planet as politically-correct as Rand Paul.
13
Two additions of some relevance to this piece.
One, the U. of Chicago is know across the academic faculty grape vine as incomparably rude. One infamous type of rudeness is the request to a speaker early in a talk that she or he explain why an intelligent person would want to continue listening. Not that such questions are commonplace, but I can't think of another place for which the nation's faculty archive contains even one such story, much less several. (Personally, I've always regarded this feature of Chicago as a tolerable, indeed amusing if negative, by product, the place's energizing intellectual give an take.)
Another point relevant less clearly to the "free speech" thrust of this piece than to the phrasing of Stephen's (laudatory) title is the U. of Chicago's astonishing rise over the past decade in peer institutional assessments of college ranking (from around rank 10 to at and right around the very top) .
2
I only have one condition before speech is prohibited. I get to decide.
7
This old saw might already be buried somewhere in the comments mix, but then I'll simply restate it: "You are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts." Assuming we can all find a way to at least be transparent about our facts and sources, we can proceed with confidence that thoughtful discourse, however rancorous, will prevail. Universities should not be in the business neither of coddling nor needlessly provoking. Kudos to U of C.
22
I agree with much of what Mr. Stephens writes, and I applauded the position of the University of Chicago.
However, one element of this gives me pause. Mr Stephens wrote:
“You will be unable to test an original thought for fear that it might be labeled an offensive one. ”
What happens when the ideas expressed are not “original thoughts”, but tired old lies they refuse to die? If we’ve learned anything since our Civil War it’s that backward-looking institutions like racial segregation were kept alive by the oft repeating of myths and stories they appealed to people’s basest presjudices. And amazingly, it lives on today.
I embrace Mr. Stephens’ high minded sentiment about the free exchange of ideas. But when nefarious characters exploit this tolerance to re-broadcast discredited bile, solely to divide society and keep old wounds open - is this really the honest exhange of original thought?
While these provocateurs may not be breaking the letter of the law, they are certainly violation the spirit of it, as expressed well by Mr. Stephens. And in doing so they very often pollute the entire process.
11
Zimmer is correct, but to claim that he is unique is far-right propaganda. The President of Berkeley has repeatedly asserted the same principles, and put herself on the line financially to defend them. Thousands of dollars were spent for police protection to make sure that Milo and other conservative speakers could speak on campus. The people who attempted to obstruct free speech were not employed by the University. Many, perhaps all, of them were not even Berkeley Students. And yet Berkeley is put forth as the prototype for Leftist Free speech suppression.
8
Good moral learnings on free speech. So timely since we just learnt from our White House Press Secretary that it's inappropriate to question four star generals even those retired and in civilian roles. Also as "All hats and no cattle" people, the common citizenry that we are should desist from questioning our leaders. Thanks
9
You should ask the University of Chicago graduate assistants who voted last week to unionize--overwhelmingly, 1103-479--what they think about Zimmer's commitments. He oversaw the (very expensive) effort to suppress people's rights by:
seeding the "debate" with typical anti-union falsehoods that have long been refuted by actual academic studies;
misleading organizers and withholding voter information they have a right to;
confusing students about where and whether they could vote;
pursuing a ridiculous legal strategy that attempted to argue both that the University was for grads, and undergrad education was of secondary concern, AND that the work grads do by grading, teaching, working in labs, etc wasn't work and wasn't of benefit to the university;
and shadily electioneering: lawyers he hired were reported actually walking around trying to get students to vote no before the vote.
Needless to say, it didn't work; but it won't be surprising in the least if Zimmer refuses to bargain with the union and tries, again, to obstruct their democratically chosen path.
What people don't get is that people like Zimmer tout this "freedom" business from the stage to cover over the fact that they have almost ALL the power in almost every single situation, and all they care about is appearances. They'll spend millions of dollars of university money to burnish their bona fides and get hand claps. Meanwhile, UChi grads who teach undergrads are on welfare.
27
Excellent. I don't know whether Chicago goes so far as to embrace other counter notions of educating the whole person. To my mind academia generally has devolved into careerism in ways that have fueled hyper individualism and ignorance. What happened to the idea that there is curricula deemed basic to a knowledge of the history of ideas and that requires core components of knowledge itself. What ever happened to educating young people to be good citizens instead of specialist zombies?
10
This is a nicely done opinion on free speech. It might have been appropriate however, for the writer to formally disclose his alumnus status at the University of Chicago. Moreover, its Trustees include additional graduate and NYT columnist David Brooks. As for America's best, he is certainly America's highest paid (upwards of $3.5 million in 2016, and he recently purchased a nearly $4 million dollar private compound for himself in Chicago). Universities are in the business of education, but they are also in the business of business—theirs—and times are good: UC professors are also the highest paid in the country, along with Stanford and Harvard, and together, these two economic antagonisms go some way in explaining why UC graduate students recently voted in favor of union representation, including being encouraged by another UC grad, Bernie Sanders (who enjoys union financial support). Regarding that student vote, in the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, it is otherwise an interesting historical coincidence that the head of Karl Marx keeps resurfacing, hard as we try to keep pushing it back down, and that class struggle and conflict are still so central to societies, even or perhaps especially, in our educational institutions. America's best university president? That depends on your metric. Being a consensus free speech advocate is probably not conclusive. Regards from another UC grad (MBA, '96).
13
I do love irony. Here's a good one. Richard Spencer, Nazi nut, whose right to free speech on a Florida University Campus, cost taxpayers in excess of $500,000, and whose gathering resulted in three of his sympathizers now being charged with attempted murder for opening fire on protestors....here's the good part....was granted his demand that he would have total control over which journalists/press would be permitted to cover his rant at the University.
"A white nationalist has been given full control over which journalists will be permitted to cover his “freedom of speech” event at the University of Florida on Thursday, a university spokeswoman said, a situation one expert called “ironic”."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/18/white-nationalist-richar...
15
I agree with this piece entirely until one gets to nazism, white supremacy, and other things like genocide advocacy and ethnic cleansing. You really do have do draw the line, especially when these groups and ideologies have histories of horrific violence, when indeed implicit in their ideology is the goal of actualizing horrific violence. You do have to stop it there, when it's just words. Is spencer hurler? No, but his ideas sound a whole like hitler's. He could become hitler. And this is terrifying and must be stopped especially when our ruling party and president seem to actively court and represent such deranged "thinkers." They don't get to have our say. Not in America. Not in a country that has never truly had a prolonged reconciliation with its own white supremacist past. This is not snowflake liberalism. This is simple human decency, and it's simply prudent to set limits on the "intellectual" libertines of the sociopathic right who think it's fun to play dress up as ss and self identify as nazis.
5
Many commenters point out that incitement to violence and hatred should not be given a platform. I sympathize with that view but that is not the case with for instance Condoleezza Rice or others like her. In the case of hateful speech the most effective way to decrease its appeal is by having it given to an empty chamber by organizing a boycott. If too many are still willing to attend then students are right to demand that a rebuttal speaker be given the platform immediately following it. Riots leading to cancellations only give the deplorable speaker an even bigger platform through media attention.
7
In this era of deliberate income inequality and abandonment of the poor and the powerless to elite cultures, the University of Chicago just plays along pretending to be an essential voice of freedom.
It is in the forefront of institutions who take the genetics of educational achievement and the cruelty of overblown meritocracy in hand to build a wall that shuts out the majority of Americans. Does it help people like me, who aren't in the "top 10%" of intellectual ability, and help us find a career and life that is fulfilling, or is it just getting rich by sucking up to corporate America and the elite boardrooms?
What I just asked is vital, but irrelevant, to the brilliant and accomplished, who profit by gaining gaining degrees and training that most of America can only dream about. I would much prefer a fast internet and computer than a college education these days, they offer quick education without the arrogance of the phd. class.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
5
As somebody who worked their tailfeathers off to earn one of the darn things, golly, I am just in sorrow's clutch to see that you have a grudge against smart people studying complex things.
8
What is the difference between the machinations of Hitler's apologists, most importantly Joseph Goebbels, and Trump's attacks on free speech and the press? Time...
9
Robert Zimmer, as head of the University of Chicago administration, has been tirelessly working to literally suppress the democratic voice of grad students on campus for months. He tried - and failed - to do everything he could to delay and halt a union recognition vote. Now that grad employees voted in favor of a union 2-to-1, he's continuing to spend millions on overturning the NLRB ruling that recognized grad employees' right to a democratic say over their working conditions.
I suppose it's possible, somehow, that these authoritarian actions are consistent with Zimmer's alleged pro-free-speech stance. I doubt it. Either way, it's disappointing that Bret Stephens failed to address this critical, topical situation in this article.
24
Not sure how you make the dialectical jump from disliking unions to suppressing free speech.
8
UC Berkeley, which columnists love to criticize, has produced the most Nobel laureates. It is a public university, unlike University of Chicago. The residents of CA support the UC system. My tax money is spent on security every time a white supremacist is invited to campus. UC has a duty to protect diverse voices. To me, those voices are the students of color, of women, of different religions and cultures who attend because they are made to feel welcome and because our universities are academically excellent. College Republicans can invite these awful KKK people to a park or restaurant if they are so curious about their views. Discrimination hosted and protected by the state can be viewed as state sponsored discrimination.
82
The current freshman class at UC Berkeley is 39% Asian (including South Asian but excluding Filipino and Pacific Islanders), 10% Mexican (4% other" Latino"), 25% White, 3% African-American. These are facts. Take it from there.
According to the last US Census, California is 73% White, 39% Hispanic, 15% Asian, 7% African American. Do the numbers.
Go Berkeley, go diversity.
5
"To me, those voices are..." - you do understand how your personal list of approved speakers is not free speech - right?
12
NYT should look into UC attempts to bust the graduate student union.... the campus doesn't show support for free speech. But, the vote was 2:1 in favor.
11
The place where fun goes to die, in any university in America, is its engineering school. Trust me, I’ve been there, done that. I encourage every smart, young liberal in America to consider it. It’s an education that will never allow you to retreat from reality. If our Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, had gone to engineering school, he probably would never have said, out loud, in front of people, that you can violate the laws of physics some of the time, but not always.
Disclosure: I’m as big a “splodey-head liberal” as there is, and I’m thrilled to see any university get rid of “trigger warnings” etc. It’s ridiculous to insulate yourself from anything that’s actually happening in the world. Sure, if it makes you queasy to watch movies where aliens from outer space eat us for lunch, then don’t watch them. That’s okay, because we don’t have aliens here eating us for lunch. But, to insulate yourself from discussions of rape, incest, racism, homophobia, chauvinism, white supremacy, etc. etc., you are doing a disservice to yourself and this country, because it’s your job to get rid of these things in our society, not hide from them. So, if engineering school isn’t your thing, at least embrace the real world.
Sorry for the rant, but some of us liberals are actually rational, and rather unlike the nut-job, wimpy, air heads we’ve been painted as by right wing media for decades.
23
The threat to campus free speech is another one of those invented problems fueled by media hysteria (like the transgender bathroom non-issue) and wealthy right-wing backers (that the U of C is no doubt courting with their pandering).
8
Mr. Stephens,
So you're all for free speech, huh? Well, it seems as if your conservative base is much better at shutting down free speech than are the liberals you so decry.
Examples? How about a Republican legislature in Arizona shutting down a Hispanic studies program in the public schools, claiming that it "incited hatred" against whites? This law has recently been held unconstitutional, but the damage has been done, at least for several years.
Or how about the many states which now forbid the teaching of evolution -- solid science for a century and a half now -- in public schools?
I haven't seen you decry any of these measures, which are far worse than one university's decision whether or not to invite a controversial speaker to its campus.
In the former, our tax dollars are being used for the curtailment of free speech which you seem to have no problem with at all. In the latter, there is absolutely no "right" to be invited by a university, at incredible expense, to give neo-Nazi's a better platform to spew their hate than the ones freely available to them -- the street corners.
You are engaging in the same selective assessment of what speech is deemed worthy as those you criticize. And frankly, this is what we liberals find so disgusting about the current conservatives -- one set of rules for themselves, and another for everyone else.
106
I am reasonably confident that folks of all stripes can be against all form of shackling free speech - even when it is done by their own tribe.
2
There is no excuse for censorship--except in the case of direct appeals to physical violence or behavior that threatens life. Videlicet: "Come, let us break windows together!"
2
Free speech and truth are the fuels of democracy. However, that does not entitle one to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre when there is no fire. Hate speech is not fee speech and having a racist lying liar in the White House is not helping. How does one know Hate? It's like pornography, " one knows it when one sees it".
2
We should coin a phrase - the "Free Speech Exception". It can be used ironically when someone unironically claims to support free speech except when...
And if you're curious why the "Fire in a..." story does not apply, you can peruse this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-us...
2
I think we may be setting the bar a bit low for "America's Best University President", if not stretching the truth (many of the 90 Nobel Laureates listed as associated with University of Chicago have rather tenuous ties, and a large fraction are more closely associated with other institutions). Let Mr. Zimmer entertain purveyeyors of violent racism on campus and we'll find out if he lives up to Mr. Stephen's encomium.
6
"Nobody ever said it wasn't gonna be semi-tough." Although he was ostensibly writing about football, Dan Jenkins would have been right on target if his topic was the Bill of Rights. Living in a truly free society is a messy, sometimes dangerous business; it was never otherwise. We must be strong, unafraid and willing to suffer losses in pursuit of freedom. Imitating the three monkeys never got anyone anywhere.
7
If the attempts to shut out or shout down NeoNazis were the issue, there wouldn't be much outrage by conservatives such as Mr. Stephens. It the blocking of legitimate voices of opinions such as Condolezza Rice and Charles Murry that is irksome. If one can't listen to opposing views withot feeling threatened and triggered, or not see the humor at satire directed towards one's viewpoint, then one's viewpoint is not critically understood.
9
Most free speech proponents don't really believe in free speech. Here are a couple of examples, I think they'd oppose:
1. Allowing someone space on a campus to hurl a barrage of uninterrupted racial epithets for an hour straight.
2. Allowing someone with terrorist sympathies to propose the systematic annihilation of some group they don't happen to like.
No matter how much reverence anyone has for the concept of free speech, in principle, almost everyone has a line in the sand.
It's easy to reject the extremes, but it's the speech in that middle gray area that's the problem. An "easy" way out is to support all speech, even examples 1 and 2 above. The more difficult task is to figure out which kinds of speech are too close to 1 and 2 and therefore have no place on campus or anywhere else in the public sphere.
2
Perhaps the strongest arguments in favor of President Zimmer's position lie in these comments: rational discourse is essential to refine and sharpen issues. Suppressing unpleasant ideas only strengthens them: they must be exposed and melted in the crucible of public debate.
47
I'd note that Zimmer's position follows long precedent in Chicago. Robert Hutchins replied to the complaint that the University was teaching communism, "Yes, and we teach cancer in the medical school."
8
Applause to President Zimmer for rubbing against the grain other university administrations who succumbed to the influence of the leftist radicals and the so-called politically correct. The true role of a university is to nurture free inquiry in any scholarly field, question the established truths, and to promote exchange of ideas, be they unpopular, bizarre or even eccentric at that time.
5
Thank you, President Zimmer, for the excellent piece on a university's and our society's obligation to free speech. I just wish you were POTUS instead of heading the University of Chicago.
3
America's "best" university president spent the last year trying to prevent graduate students from unionizing.
Trigger warnings and safe spaces are grist to the Breitbart mill and distract from the real issues happening in academia today: corrupt labor practices. Universities relying on armies of grad students and adjuncts being paid a pittance to perform the actual teaching work that keep universities running.
Congratulations to the U of C GSU for voting to unionize this week. It's time to take down these neoliberal presidents and their minions and take America's colleges back from the incompetent, amoral managerial elite.
11
I rediscovered the 1969 conservative anthem, Oakie from Muskogee, yesterday. As I listened to Mr. Haggard make his case for the coolness of the status quo in the face of what he perceived as a threat, the drugs, the hippies, free love, sandals, and unAmerican protests, he traced a direct path from December 1969 to November 2016.
Despite huge changes in fad, fashion, and technology during the intervening years, modern conservatism offers nothing beyond what Oakie from Muskogee expounds. The song was dumb in 1969 and it is dumb today. Packaging it in vessels like Yiannopolis or Trump or Fox doesn't change its dumbness.
Such a song can hit the top or near the top of the charts for a while, but it will fall rapidly and assume its proper place in the abyss.
2
The ignorance and banality of this article are absolutely infuriating. There is no attempt here to analyze Zimmer's comments about Richard Spencer; no attempt to probe into whether Ellison's "trigger warning
Zimmer is leading the charge to strip away the gains of unionization by graduate students. Zimmer argues that free speech is neutral, that all opinions should be heard on every matter, that "both sides" should be listened to... Which, on graduate students' attempt to unionize, has amounted to pushing anti-union propaganda through official channels, trying frantically to have the union election postponed or canceled, and -- now that graduate students elected to unionize -- refusing to accept the legality of our union.
This is not a democratic president. This is not a president committed to letting arguments speak for themselves, and respecting the outcome of that free flow of argumentation. As is the case in many institutions of higher learning, free speech hysteria is a shibboleth meant to occlude real political problems within academia -- adjunct labor, a bloated administration, sexual harassment, a toxic fraternity culture, rising costs of living, the isolation of the university from its environs, and the exploitation of low-wage workers -- security guards, cooks, janitors.
A university president with the name would take these issues seriously and respect the democratic desire of students to have a say in their working conditions. Zimmer is not
12
If the function of free speech is to "free men from irrational fears", then it has failed miserably as over 60 million people voted for Donald Trump and all he did was appeal to our irrational fears.
5
Zimmer sounds amazing. I fully back the idea of allowing anybody to say anything. I also full back the idea of blowing them off if I don't like what they say. I cannot agree with anyone who wants to silence anyone else. Let it all out there, and then allow anyone to respond in kind. Silence and silencing is the mantra of repression. Open it all up. Put it all out there. Then make an informed choice to accept what is being said, or to reject those words. However, to silence someone is to surrender to fear.
5
It isn't just free speech, it is saying something about the hypersensitive generation of students who seem to treat a campus as a large therapy group. U of Chicago has been largely countercultural and challenging to prevailing intellectual trends, especially in the humanities. Leo Strauss, who questioned many post-enlightenment assumptions by reviving critical study of the classics, had an honored place there; so did his student, Allan Bloom, one of the first publicly to ridicule campus group think; Milton Freedman offered an alternative to strict Keynesian thought; Bernie Sanders '64 held fast to his socialism; Saul Bellow was there despite some opinionated musings from himself and his literary creations; the first nuclear chain reaction was in a U of C squash court. I contribute to Chicago even though I have no degree from it and have spent merely 20 minutes on its beautiful campus -- it indirectly educated me and it is a national asset.
12
Mr. Stevens makes the argument that the unversity system in the U.S. is going backwards in terms of open speech? I challenge that proposition if that is what the premise of this column is. No *serious* university would suppress free speech, particularly in the classroom. If such is going on, it is an exception and not a rule. In either case, Mr. Stevens offers no evidence of speech suppression as policy.
Speech suppression may go on in religious institutions such as Liberty Univeristy or Bob Jones but I, for one, hardly attribute such schools as serious educational centers.
In a general sense free speech is alive and well in America. But if you are a college administrator there is a corresponding duty to protect the institution from rabble rousers and speakers otherwise advocating an unlawful action.
Our best public universities are still marketplaces of ideas, thank you very much.
3
Either this is meant as satire or you have being paying no attention to what is happening in public education.
5
I do think we should be beyond the discussion of free speech. Isn't the real next step a discussion of abusive speech? how to point out intentionally divisive speech? how to address bigotry cloaked as free speech?
2
I admire Zimmer, but it's easier to take such stands at a private school. My vote for best university president is David Boren. A quarter century into his tenure, he has elevated the academic stature of every discipline at the University of Oklahoma, a remarkable achievement given how many collect administrators have turned their backs on the humanities and social sciences during the current STEM fetish. More importantly, through sustained pursuit of gifts and endowments, Boren has made OU more resilient in the face of Oklahoma legislators who are as backward and small minded as any group of statehouse politicians in the country.
3
So Mr Stephens, where's the column defending the free speech of scientists and others who work for government to use terms like "climate change" and "global warming"? States like Florida and Wisconsin (I believe) are prohibiting state employees from using such terms, there are also campaigns against them in some Federal agencies. And re freedom of opinion at Univ of Chicago, just how many Marxists, or more tepidly -- exponents of Marxist style analysis -- are there in its economics, political science and sociology departments?
1
Good column. Many years ago, I attended a private high school in the northern suburbs of Detroit. The student body was a mix of ethnicities and races. One of the faculty members invited the Grand Dragon of the Michigan Klu Klux Klan to "speak." That seemed odd to me and but for accidentally running into that teacher immediately before this event, I would have never given any thought to attending - he said, "You really should listen to this guy - it will be a real eye-opener." And so it was. I recall the turnout as very small, perhaps 20 students, including Blacks, Jews, and other people of color. While I don't remember specifics, I do recall being profoundly uncomfortable and wanting to leave shortly after this guy began to "speak" - a rambling discourse of what struck me as idiotic and offensive nonsense. I can only imagine what my Black and Jewish friends were thinking. But we stayed and listened. There were no protests or outbursts, just stunned silence.
Am I better off for having heard all that? Probably, as awful an experience as it proved to be, because it pointed out to me that there really are folks out there who hold ideas that strike me as fundamentally wrong and dangerous, and that can't be ignored. And it made me aware at an early age that while this is a nation that properly holds dear free speech, we all have a duty to be aware of the range of those ideas and decide for ourselves where we stand. That sort of evil doesn't simply go away if ignored.
7
I'm solidly behind Zimmer. But Bret, really: "...no student need ever be insulted, and no administrator need ever take a stand..." -- who actually made that argument, when and where?
2
Free speech is what our democracy is about and civil discourse in this country is too often neglected. We just don’t like to feel uncomfortable in this society. Just look at the rampant consumerism and addiction here.
Universities are a good place for free speech and conversation. Hate radio however is not and can destroy a society. I love this wonderful country and don’t want to see it go the way of Rwanda or Myanmar or others.
1
Apparently, Richard Spencer, sometime white supremacist, received an MA in the Humantities from the University of Chicago in 2003. So the University of Chicago is an equal opportunity degree granting institution, as they should be.
But what is the benefit of, say, white supremacists airing their ideology on campus when history has discredited the intellectual validity of such movements in the American Civil War and in World War II, at a stunning cost in human lives. Shouting fire in a movie theater is not protected free speech.
2
I'm a professor at the University of Florida and I want to be clear about why our "governor...declare[d] a countywide state of emergency so that white supremacist Richard Spencer" could speak here this week. Local officials (including but not limited to law enforcement) requested that declaration because Spencer's followers have a track record of bringing weapons to events like this, and because the chatter on alt-right websites suggested that they were interested in staging a "battle of Gainesville." Are there hotheads on the other side of the battle? Sure, that's a problem, and the emergency declaration would also make it easier to deal with them. However, those folks don't usually have guns and that is, I think, an important material difference.
So feel free to stretch this and imply that the emergency declaration was necessary to protect Spencer's speech from a cacophonous, violent, and intolerant leftwing mob. Such mobs exist-- and that's a problem. But we can't solve it-- or any of the other problems related to polarizing identity politics--until these kind of broad brush characterizations of the dynamics of left and right end, and we all reacquaint ourselves with empirical reality.
1
Freedom of speech in democracy and academic freedom at a university are frequently confused, but they are not the same. Academic freedom is freer and more demanding, but it serves another purpose: that of advancing understanding and truth. This means that new ideas need to be fostered, contested, and struggled with. But it also means that they need to be nurtured against suppression.
Free speech in a democracy has more to do with the oppression of people, and its repression typically begins with attacks on journalists and media.
Universities are composed of people, who can be oppressed along with their ideas. This makes the presentation of controversial ideas an ongoing struggle, which far too many participants misrepresent for their own purposes.
This is to say that the free production and exchange of ideas on university campuses is absolutely necessary but not always better, either for the people or the ideas.
But isn't the purpose of education to present differing facts and interpretations, to investigate the merits of them, and find a philosophy that embraces the truest? Otherwise it is "indoctrination", not education.
I work at a large public university. Recently in a college meeting, I raised the question of a need for discussing how much financial assistance we should give to international students when we are facing a student loan crisis among our domestic students. I stated that in real terms, every dollar we give to an international student means that a domestic student must take out a larger student loan. I was sharply rebuked and called before the dean to explain myself and my offensive question. Evidently I was perceived as being against international students. I thought I was just asking a very reasonable question.
11
I support what the University of Chicago has done and is doing, but your characterization of the response on the left is less than accurate. Not all on the political left espouse or support the sage space/trigger warning politically correct culture currently plaguing higher ed in America. Bill Maher, for example, is of the liberal end of the spectrum and has suffered at the hands of those who only want to hear people who confirm their notions of the world.
I am an Independent Progressive and actively support the ACLU and other civil liberties groups. I expect to hear opposing viewpoints and give them careful consideration when they are well formed, backed up by honest data and presented in context. I make it a point to read, listen and watch presentations that challenge my political beliefs as long as they are serious. I seriously doubt I am alone.
During my College days I became good friends with some profoundly conservative people who also made it a point to be well read and informed. We spent plenty of time discussing and debating the policies of the day and the merits and record of the philosophy that undergird them.
7
The country has plenty of "free speech" in the myriad news outlets, blogs, talk shows, advertising forums, internet sites, publications, town halls, pulpits, etc. What is not so plentiful is critical thinking - the ability to distinguish fact from fiction, to confront complex realities that elude easy answers, to spot who is telling the truth and who isn't, Universities need more courses that enable students to develop news literacy, to study the historical uses of propaganda and demagoguery, to recognize and evaluate the "hidden persuaders" in advertising, both commercial and political, to understand the consequences of "free speech."
13
Making the fine distinctions that the easily offended demand is like knowing when sand amounts to a pile.
Hold your nose, stop your ears and let them rant.
It is a harsh real world.
5
1-The usual suspects - SJWs - push their mistaken causes in these posts.
2-Stephens is right on the money, despite the truly teensy cavils of the SJWs.
3-Cheers to Zimmer and U. of Chicago! They should serve as an example to the cowardly deans that are corrupting academia by caving to the SJWs.
7
Since Chicago is also at the center of the Great Books movement, it is clearly where Dead White Males still rule. Therefore the University needs to be taken over, broken up, and given to those who know how to ruin, sorry I mean "run", education.
1
The article fails to deal with a key determinant of the success of the University of Chicago: strong academics. In a strong academic environment stupid ignorant comments are silenced in a hurry. There is a structure to the debate and a glorification of intellectual analysis based on scientific facts That is a high bar for most hatred groups.
18
Zimmer is a fool. After Spencer's speech at University of Florida, three of his supporters were arrested for firing a shots into a crowd of protesters.
That is why goody-tushu [derived from Goody Two Shoes, a nursery rhyme] rhetoric is just empty talk and haughty arrogance when the issue at stake is the protection of fundamental human rights and civil liberties.
Life and Liberty in the Constitution come up much earlier than "freedom of speech." The discussion on what the limits of free speech are is the core of what free speech is. Zimmer's approach is to NOT enter the meta-discussion and simply to wash his hands of the responsibility to engage in the debate. He is an ideologue pure and simple, from the same mold of second amendment extremists whose goal is to shut up any opposing view by clocking (and hiding) themselves in the mantle of literalist righteousness.
8
The 'trigger' stuff is soft terrorism, a bullying tactic by a mono-culture of ideological compliance. 'Full' replaces 'obese'; 'lipid' replaces 'fat," etc. I just heard a recording of an ad for a breast-cancer foundation: "One out of 9 women will get breast[--] before the age of 60." The c-word is a trigger. For the rest, don't confuse 'free speech' with 'academic freedom'. Academic freedom is about untainted, unbiased, and uncompromised enquiry, not mindless blah-blah. Both student and professor must enjoy academic freedom. Beware, though, of the "freedom" groups now springing up on campuses. They are rightwing fronts, not advocates for academic rigor; they front for the extreme right, are well-funded, and are a throwback to the 1950s. In other words, the mirror image of the Progressive Tyranny.
4
Freedom of Speech is not an Absolute Right. It depends on the situation, topic and people involved.
A true university of higher learning, such as University of Chicago, is an elite institution. There's nothing wrong with elites in any society. The cream will always float to the top. Universities are enclosed environment with selected intelligentsia where competing ideas push against each other out in the open, with tacit rule of etiquette and cordiality to ban personal attacks and to minimize animosity. Not surprisingly, the idiots denounce 'elitism' in political gatherings.
On the internet and social networks, participants, often under the cover of anonymity, accompanied by counter measure of doxing, quickly descend into spewing ignorant exchanges, racist rants, group-think, cliques, name-calling, threats and terrorism. The kind of Freedom of Speech on the internet is what cause Political Correctness to espouse 'trigger warning' & 'intellectual safe place' on campuses to protect snowflakes that do not belong.
Zimmer noted Chinese academics have made strides in 'inject more argumentation and challenges into their education', yet at the same time Chinese government tighten up control and surveillance on the internet. It shows that Chinese leaders know the distinction: allow elite academics more freedom of speech, but do not allow the uneducated run amuck and stir up trouble. Well done.
6
Free speech, what is free, what perhaps should be, is a thorny issue but protecting college students from ideas which might "threaten" them is not thorny at all. It is ridiculous. Let's look around for a moment and see what this nonsense has wrought. As John Kelly reminded us yesterday, only 1% of the American public is involved with the military actively. Easy to understand--young people who have been sheltered and protected from ideas all their lives might find real bullets a wee bit scary. Large numbers of young people live comfortably in their parents' basements. Gee, ideas like paying rent, buying and preparing their own food? Really scary! I see dozens of "hiring" signs everywhere every day. Why aren't young people applying for these jobs? Whoops? They might have to work beside people of different backgrounds? Races? Religions? Sexual orientations? No "safe places" at a real job? No "trigger warnings" before they might be fired? Let's get over this nonsense and let young people grow up. It's just too bad every one of them could not attend the University of Chicago and learn to think.
5
I work with parents of 34 year-olds who are working their FIRST job! I got my first job, when I was 14.
3
The right-wingers who want to speak at colleges are provocateurs trying to make themselves look like victims of the left. Denying them the opportunity to speak or creating violent protests plays right into their hands.
Let them speak, to an empty hall.
6
For a university so devoted to "discourse" the administration sure didn't like when graduate students recently voted to unionize in order to have their concerns and voices heard more clearly.
11
As so often, Brett leaves out the basic definitions that would clarify his thought. Here he fails to distinguish between free speech and simple rabble rousing in rallies.
4
Why not me? It's an outrage! No university has invited me to speak! How close minded! This is what's wrong with America. I should be able to go to any university I want and say what I want, and get a platform, security and an audience. So what if my speech isn't supported with data. It's my opinion. And my opinion is just as valid as any university professors. Dean Zimmer, I'm waiting for your call.
6
I once had a professor from the University of Chicago. He was trained as an economist, a game theoretician technically, but later went on to become an archaeologist. You'd be surprised how well the two things compliment each other. Anyway, here's what he told me about his time at the University of Chicago.
He said there are a lot of relatively smart people trying to look a lot smarter than they are. The loudest most frequent speakers are usually the worst offenders. He found the trick was to stay quiet and act dumb. That way, people left him alone long enough to accomplish something truly intelligent.
In the context of this opinion, I suppose the lesson here is that the published paper is more powerful than the podium when you're a true academic. If Zimmer wants to allow frauds on campus so the masses can fight over their ideas, fine. Just remind professors to avoid the quad that day. There are more important things to do than getting bent out of shape over media stunts.
In fact, I'd argue the disruption is counter productive to the academic purpose. Would you rather assign students another chapter of Foucault or have them spend an evening making protest signs? Which do you think is more valuable in the long run? I'd just as soon keep needless controversy off campus.
6
Yes, rabble rousing is intended to replace thought with emotion, and has nothing to do with free speech.
Either the headline writer or Stephens needs to do a little thinking: has he surveyed and studied every single university president in the U.S. to determine the best, and it that "best" in all conceivable criteria? Now Chicago is a fine university and its policies noted in the column are consistent with what I think is proper, but best in the entirety of this huge country? Doubtful.
2
“With cheering from the right and caviling on the left...” No, I don’t think so. I am left, a liberal, a progressive, and you heard no caviling from me. I support listening to all. I do not support protecting young ears from opinions they don’t support. Why do I watch Fox News occasionally? So, I know what is being said and can formulate my counter argument. Listening to an opposing view is like exercising to strengthen your muscles. Seeking shelter from an opposing view only weakens us.
There was no caviling from this 72 year old grandmother.
8
Dear Grandmother, I appreciate that you will watch Fox news to "formulate (your) counter argument". However, Isnt the point of hearing opposing viewpoints to possibly reformulate one's own opinion? It's the very definition of being a critical thinker. Your way of taking in different ideas is disingenuous. That is the problem with politics and college discourse today, everyone is busy formulating counter arguments before they objectively listen. If a "progressive" grandmother can't truly hear the other side, no wonder college kids are rioting when controversial speakers come to campus.
1
Students who engage in violent protest or intimidation are missing a valuable opportunity.
By listening to the ideas of others - even those which are abhorrent - we learn. We learn how the other side thinks, we learn how to argue against, speak out against and defend right against wrong.
We learn how to be effective citizens.
Don't shut down the repugnant ones with violence - shut them down with your own free and informed - speech.
8
It could be added that a block on truly free speech, including the most repulsive of beliefs, leads to an intellectual laziness that was demonstrated in the last presidential election. To cite just one example, it wasn't enough for Hillary Clinton and other Democrats to decry Trump's words about Mexicans. Those arguments only spoke to the choir. What they could have done is taken the time to discover how an influx of immigrants often helps to revitalize dying communities, as Iraqis are doing in Worcester, Mass., and how a rigid anti-immigration stance leads to a community's own demise - witness parts of Maine where the only population left are the elderly and dying. With no one to replenish, poverty and decay set in. This is just one way in which taking the time to educate while inspiring (testimonials, etc.) could have led voters to a higher place.
3
The author allows that "in the case of private universities, the First Amendment generally doesn’t apply." He and Zimmer need to recognize that there are in fact many legal and practical limits to Free Speech that apply on campuses and everywhere else. From Justice Holmes' example of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater where there's no fire to telling that rude guy in the bar "I'm gonna knock your head off!" (legally assault) to incitement to riot (Richard Spencer). Free speech does not mean you can lie to the police or to Congress, or that Russians can buy fake ads on Facebook (libel).
If we use the Brandeis ideal of freeing men from irrational fears, we need to explain how irrational speech and deliberate lies in the public forum advance that goal. In my work in science I dealt with referees who limited and influenced the editors' publication of authored papers. The idea was not to limit free speech, but to be sure the data and interpretations were as correct as possible BEFORE publication. Science journals recognize that publishing articles that are later proven wrong hurts the journal as well as the authors, and makes science less credible.
Colleges need active, open, truthful discussion. Verbal abuse, racism, sexism, and hate speech are not that. Students have many courses, and it is hard to solve calculus problems when you're angry about the last class. Professors can discuss whether religion is irrational, but don't yell it during a church service.
3
There are limits to the First Amendment, but racism, sexism and hate speech have never been among them. The problem is that many will conflate open, truthful discussion as “hate speech” because it makes them angry. They will use their own biases and political assumptions to define as hate speech anything they find offensive of upsetting. And it is telling that leftists now favor speech limitations where they sense they have the political upper hand.
1
Your definition of the kinds of ideas that constitute sexism and racism are subjective. Labeling things hate speech so as not to anger a student before calculus is the point of this article. Critical thinking is impossible if you censor viewpoints. In today's college discourse, missing is the voice of common sense. A speaker talking about the virtues of traditional western European values, will be shouted down. Whereas one extolling the virtues of gender fluidity for example, will be celebrated. As you pointed out, "data and interpretations " should be proven correct BEFORE dissemination. Quieting the thinking that has gotten western culture to this point will prove disastrous.
2
Scientists who fake data, people who are caught lying about their credentials or plagiarizing are silenced all the time on the college circuit. Academic rigour sounds better than censorship.
1
The greatest challenge to academic discourse today is the censorship and destruction of climate change data by zealots in government.
3
I don't think we can long survive as a free society if freedom of speech is under attack by BOTH the right and left. To some extent that is now happening.
As elements of both the left and right are emphasizing ethnic and racial identity, those are the topics most forbidded. And while the ability of quasi-nazis to speak is in the news, the most suppressed speech is often that which disagrees with both extremes.
I am somewhat optimistic however, as the defense of free speech is also coming from both the left and right. To some extent this is the sane center pushing back against extremists. But to be fair, many extremely ideological people are also pushing back against restrictions on expressing ideas.
1
This column ought to be part of every incoming college freshman’s orientation kit! Bravo, Mr Stephens.
3
The notion of 'free speech' in academia is not quite the same as in public life and also is no longer the same in public life as it was when the first amendment was written. If I can speak freely, that is nice, and I wish that people of different and opposing opinions have the same right and we can collectively arrive at some sort of agreement. But if someone with a different opinion refuses to engage in argument and instead pays millions of dollars to drown out all opposing positions, no matter how truthfully argued, that certainly cannot be what the framers of the constitution had in mind. In the Enlightenment, 'free speech' meant 'free debate'. The artificial curtailing of discussion is a constricted and misleading reading of the notion of 'free speech' (as the Nazis knew well). Academia is constructed in such a way that it makes it harder for members to simply not listen, but it encourages its members forcefully to take into account what others have had to say on the topic and to engage in debate. It is thus quite possible to exclude certain speakers from academic discourse as they have not demonstrated their willingness to not only speak, but also to listen. If and when debate is guaranteed, no one should be barred from speaking at a university, but this is not the same as providing someone with a platform to scream louder to stop debate.
25
keko: "The notion of 'free speech' in academia is not quite the same as in public life and also is no longer the same in public life as it was when the first amendment was written."
The First Amendment uses the phrase "freedom of speech":
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript#toc-ame...
And the First Amendment protects people from *government* restrictions on speech. Quoting Stephens:
"... in the case of private universities, the First Amendment generally doesn’t apply."
keko: "But if someone with a different opinion refuses to engage in argument and instead pays millions of dollars to drown out all opposing positions, ..."
You are conflating two unrelated subjects. There is no right "to engage in argument". And your "drowning" metaphor is nonsense. With the internet and social media, anyone can express their views. Further, the U of C Maroon student newspaper has an extensive Viewpoints section:
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/viewpoints/
First: the framers of the constitution only had the rights of educated propertied white men in mind, and they were mostly fighting about relatively small differences, because they were all expected to have the same basic "rationality" (that of educated propertied white maleness). Ever wonder why
Second: you don't debate with Nazis and white supremacists, because they won't compromise and neither should you. You make them go away.
1
Great to read. The fascism underlying the desire to stop speakers, even ones I don't, is the worst thing to happen to our country since 9/11. In fact, although the death toll in 9/11 was horrific, the acceptance of violence by the left and its media as a way of stopping others from communicating is probably worse in the long run as it is fundamentally changing our culture. I have been waiting to hear of administrations which stand up to it and it is refreshing. I hope it is a sign of better times.
2
Since I've never attended U of Chicago I have no personal experience regarding the veracity of this piece. I know that as an older liberal I find the reactionary impulse over speakers like Richard Spencer troubling at best. People like Spencer thrive on provoking and distracting from their message to the opposition making this about free speech instead of the raciest content of that message. Safe spaces, trigger warnings and censorship won't make these challenges go away. If we truly want educated citizens able to confront the complexity of the world then creating conflict free collages won't help. We live in troubling times and hiding from them is a most troubling form of denial.
5
The notion that the philosophy of the University of Chicago isn't shared by most liberals is erroneous. Free spaces, trigger warnings, and all of those types of restrictions on academic freedoms are supported by only a small minority on campuses.
7
There must always be limits on what can be said. No "fire" in a crowded theater for instance. Also, no speeches advocating genocide of populations, wouldn't you think? So then, there must be gatekeepers. Mr. Zimmer pretends that none are needed, and that a free exchange is the desired norm. Never shall that be the case anywhere. Think about it.
Wait a minute, how can this be without elite sports programs and top 20 rankings in either football or basketball?
2
Stephens says:
'Not that it [free speech] is necessary for democracy (strictly speaking, it isn’t)'.
Stephens needs to read what he's writing, and pay attention to the people he's quoting. Democracy absolutely depends on free speech. Democracy without free speech will soon become undemocratic, as we can often foresee these days. How will we know that an idea is wrong if we are forbidden to examine it in debate and in public?
And, by the way, certainly let's stop condoning violence against ideas.
1
The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals just deprived my client, Professor Bhattacharya, of his First Amendment right to academic freedom, when he opposed some students efforts to cheat in his Finance course. The same Court, in Fratello v. Archdiocese, recently deprived a lay Catholic school principal of her civil rights, by claiming "ministerial immunity," thereby making it more difficult for children's educators in Church-affiliated schools to exercise academic freedom and properly instruct students on secular subjects.
Our federal courts are obliged to be the protectors of Americans' civil liberties, including academic freedom (if the institution is public). Judges should consider U. of Chicago Pres. Zimmer's views, in cases such as the two I mention above.
To the extent that children and young adults are not taught how to think for themselves, democracy itself is harmed, as democracy requires critical thinking and dialogue. Judges have just as much a duty to protect our democracy and freedom as do the political branches of government.
1
Free speech is an oxymoron. There is nothing free about speech. The platforms on which people speak are not level. Of concern to me is the giving by people like the Koch brothers, whose platform is one of the highest, of money to universities with ideological strings attached. Thanks to one right wing donor, my undergraduate college has a department of free enterprise and capitalism in which the glories of unfettered capitalism are taught. Free speech would be idyllic if everyone was on a level playing field, but they are not.
1
My first instinct is to agree with Zimmer. I have little patience for political correctness, and refuse to alter my use of the English language from the rules taught to me in school (I'm 52, if that tells you anything). That's not to say I don't find it amusing, much like listening in on a meeting of the People's Front of Judea (Solidarity, siblings!). And it's not that I necessarily disagree with the motives of those who want us to contort our language into a system of Byzantine complexity in order to avoid inadvertently giving offense. I just don't put a lot of stock in symbolic battles, whether they are about flags, statues, T-shirts, etc. I've got more important things to worry about.
Now my second instinct is to remember that this university is the same one that spawned Milton Friedman's economic libertarian babbling. And I have a sneaking suspicion Zimmer's toleration of free speech might be tempered if that speech were in any way threatening to how his business is run (administrators' salaries vs. cafeteria workers' pay?), or if it starts in any way to gain traction for anything that might be construed as anti-capitalist.
2
The whole purpose of higher education is to open minds, encourage debate and respect others opinions, even when you do not agree with them. And what is missing right now in our country is lack of respect for others opinions. Any college or university that uninvited controversial speakers, after they were invited to address the student body proves by their actions, that they forgot their mission.
Stephens channels my inner libertarian here, and I agree with him.
However, to me, the 'arena' matters much. Censorship need not be offered toward those ideologically offended, but ought to be considered for the benefit of those long steamrolled -- the shy, the emerging, the ever downtrodden or never enfranchised -- those whose voices in the arena are by deep nature hesitant and newly liberated.
The collegiate arena needs conversations more than scrums if all are to participate, and if conversation is to be modeled as superior to scrum in human concourse.
1
I would like to see President Zimmer comment publically on current attempts by Texas, Kansas, and other states to make personal boycotts of Israel a crime. (https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.818378). If one's constitutional right to free speech does not extend to criticism of other nations' action and boycotts, then the 1st Amendment is meaningless.
2
Please do not assume that all people on the left oppose Zimmer's comments about inclusion and free speech. Some of us wish our own university presidents were that clear about the importance of open debate. I would go further and say that skepticism is necessary for the advancement of knowledge. Sadly there are a few colleges and a small number of faculty who are the victims of this trend to repress certain perspectives. Like many of my colleagues in academia, i go to work and teach daily with little fear of taking controversial views though i am painfully remembering of the days when people on the left were fired and saw their careers ended.
1
Is there no way for us to hear a Charles Murray (Middlebury College) or Richard Spencer (Florida) in a setting where at least two analysts are present who can discuss specific elements of the speech in a protected setting so that something resembling reasoned analysis is possible?
I find such models in discussions carried out on BBC World Radio, most notably in Hard Talk but even last night at 03:00 CET at Heart and Soul. I would have liked to have heard Charles Murray in a radio-TV studio somewhere in Vermont, perhaps with geneticist and Vermonter Richard Lewontin as one of the analysts.
Why must these talks take place on a university campus even if the university is a sponsor? Is it impossible to find protected locations from which a talk and discussion could be streamed? If it is truly impossible to provide this in the USA then perhaps we are beyond saving.
In my first submission sent at 9 PM last night EDT (03:00 h CET here in SE) I named a topic needing such discussion but getting none. I do not name that topic here in order to avoid algorithm gating.
Will I get an answer here from one or more comment writers telling me that if the University of Chicago were to sponsor such a discussion in a protected place, perhaps at an extreme at Guantanamo Bay, would fascists and/or anti-fascists wreak havoc on Robert Zimmer's campus?
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
Finally an op that's not about Trump. An intelligent and worth reading opinion from an exceptional journalist (ex WSJ). The NYT at his best. I almost cancelled my NYT subscription because of the continuing bashing and ridiculous amount of space dedicated to the Trump presidency.
2
Mr. Stephens,
An entire column without attacking Donald Trump?
Are you feeling OK?
What will your paymasters at the New York Times say? Will you be out for not toeing the Party line??
Or is this just a clever plot to restore your credibility with conservatives so you can bash the President in the future?
This would have been a better article if it had acknowledged the fact that it's not just people on the left seeking freedom from disturbing speech. The occupants of the White House have repeatedly illustrated their discomfort with free speech- not only the content but also the source. Two days ago at his press conference, (Ret.) General Kelly explicitly permitted questions only from people with military connections. Yesterday, Sanders told us that it was "inappropriate" to argue with a 4-star general. Never mind Trump's incessant threats against the free press, and the enthusiastic stoking of rage against "fake news" as defined by Breitbart, Drudge, Trump etc- which seems to be no different from unpleasant truth.
104
To paraphrase Churchill Democracy is still the best of all the bad options and it follows that free speech is better than the fettered or censored version so I'm grateful to the Founding Fathers who legalized it and for Mr. Zimmer's advocacy. One can always challenge the speaker with a well argued rebuttal separating fact from fiction which is what students are in school to learn.
ZIMMER is correct in defending free speech is essential. However, the culture has shifted radically since the advent of the Internet and social media. People are able, in the blink of an eye, to isolate themselves among those who hold similar opinions. It is far easier than in the pre-Internet universe, to live in parallel universes that are the foundation upon which cyberspace is constructed. Worldwide culture has become balkanized, split, shattered and pulverized due to the polarizing influence of the Internet. You can elect to join chat groups, blogs and electronic bulletin boards (I guess I'm dating myself) where most people agree. It's a small leap to see how such restructuring of social intercourse has had a profound impact upon education and public discourse. As a Jewish Boomer, I am aware of traditional training in Yeshivot, where men are taught to engage in pilpul: to debate opposite positions in interpretations of passages from the Jewish Scriptures. The Talmud, the codified commentary, is a collection of unending rabbinical debate where all opinions are recorded without final resolution What is missing from the mix in our time is the systematic recording and exploration of opposing points of view without resolution. Imposing resolution on open debate weakens innovation and originality, while shutting down the process of creativity. After what is creativity is not putting ideas and things together in new ways? UNLIMITED FORMAL DEBATE is the answer!
As a UC Berkeley, Ph.D, I wish our flagship campus would learn that to let someone speak on campus (not even if but ESPECIALLY if we disagree with him or her), and to listen to their ideas without histrionics or the threat of violence, is the essence of a great University. I am so saddened by the decline of Berkeley from a great University into an indoctrination machine of "political correctness." Go Chicago Go!
2
As long of those ideas that offend others do not step on civil rights and bigotry. This is not the wild, wild west anymore and the invisible hand functions only with regulations that protect the public.
Said this, I agree.
But what if the individuals expressing offensive ideas are not coming from a place of logic and will not be swayed by reasonble argument? Do you still allow them to speak knowing their viewpoint will never change? On the other hand by promoting unrestricted "free speech" you are giving legitimacy to viewpoints that many people find abhorrent. Is there no rule of law in this case? Does individual freedom always win over the rights of society?
Does "freedom of speech" mean anybody can say anything in any situation and not suffer consequences? Rights always have responsibilities. Freedom without rules and limits is not freedom but rather license. Freedom and the rule of law go hand in hand.
Doesn't the government have the right to enforce reasonable rules of behavior or must the government allow anything to be said so that speech is totally free and unrestricted?
1
In the same paper where I read Bret Stephens screed about free speech I also find myself reading an article about how conservatives in New Mexico tried to take out mention of evolution and global warming in the High School science curriculum. I also think of all the gag rules that conservatives try and impose on doctors in speaking to women about contraception and birth control. It seems that free speech only becomes an issue when conservatives think they're being victimized. However, the debate has never been about free speech since women like Ann Coulter are free to say anything they like. It's about University sponsorship for speakers whose right to speak does not rest on their academic qualifications but on their notoriety. I'm sure Ann Coulter and many like her could stand on a soap box in the middle of the quad and spout their ideas all day. Nobody is trying to stop her speech. It's just a matter of is it worth the University's time to pay for this kind of speech? That's the question.
141
"It is also the function of free speech to allow people to say foolish things so that, through a process of questioning, challenge and revision, they may in time come to say smarter things." Can this work for Trump?
1
Freedom of speech with civility, yes, without civility freedom of speech is offensive, hurtful, and has a potential for danger. Read Braving the Wilderness to understand freedom of speech with civility.
I could not agree more. As a two-time alumnus and active in U of C events, Dr. Zimmer is remarkable. Chicago also enjoyed another president a generation ago who was the class of her era, Dr. Hanna H. Gray. The Ivys may bet more attention, but Chicago gets it done.
4
The University of Chicago is a great university. It's fine to brag about the number of Nobel Prize winners who have been affiliated with the school, but it should be mentioned that this ranks fifth place among universities. President Zimmer is not a slouch. However, I suspect that Bret Stephens did not look at other great university presidents (some of which I would praise highly) when he wrote this. After all, not only did he go to college there, he has recounted how he fell in love with U of C when in high school.
I hasten to state that I would not have raised this issue had I not been familiar with the work of Stephens. He does not hesitate in his other columns to write
about historical subjects in ways that show that he never researched the matter. For example, he calls Jimmy Carter a do-nothing President. Carter did a lot, from returning the Canal Zone to Panama to SALT II to a stronger response to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan than Trump or Obama would have made to laying keels for more tonnage of Warships than Reagan did to the Camp David accords. You may not like everything he did, but he was not a do-nothing.
2
Having known Bob Zimmer for a long time, I am not surprised. More power to him!
The article fails to mention something important about ZImmer: he is a world-class research mathematician, with many beautiful theorems about the dynamics of Lie group actions on Riemannian manifolds to his credit. I don't know another example of a mathematician who has been so successful as university administrator.
3
Free speech on college campuses (and in the 'option-setting' major media) is a nice thought --- but serious examination, discussion, and even debate about our country having devolved into the world's first; 'effectively-Disguised', 'truly-Global', and crony 'Capitalist-fueled' Empire is still taboo in the real world today.
2
I've been an academic at a liberal arts college for 40 years. You know things are seriously wrong when a conservative columnist like Brent Stephens gets everything right. I would not say that there is a crisis in American academia, but there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed by straight-thinking and courageous leaders like President Zimmer (and I can tell you that straight-thinking and courage are not in the job description for College administrators). If you look at FIRE's list (click on bunk in this article) of the 10 worst colleges, you will see how widespread this problem is. It is not limited to elite colleges in the northeast - it is nationwide and throughout academia.
2
Dear Bret,
I love your erudite, cogent and well thought out essays. My 16 yrs as a student on the campus of 4 private universities have formed and challenged me. And never more so than when professors, students and speakers passionately presented ideas foreign to me. As a left leaning moderate, I love your addition to the NYT pool of thinkers. And please stay open to realizing how an urgent the crisis of ecocide is to the welfare of our children and grandchildren.
2
Er, rather simplistic.
If there were a continuum, and U of C represented one end, then I work at a college that represents a cluster (and a rather large one) at the other end. Zimmer, god bless him, has an audience of highly intelligent people in his faculty, and student body. The variance in IQ (however it is measured) is very narrow. He can do what he is doing, and his VPs can send brave letters. Good for them; I want my children to attend U of C, if they can get in. There, notions of diversity, tolerance, eclecticism etc., are relatively less polluted.
But 80% of the 1400 4-year colleges are clustered at the bottom of the continuum (never mind those that are driven by this religious dogma or that). Everything important on campus trends toward its perverse definition. Massive variance exists among faculty (40-50-60% of classes taught by people without terminal degrees), curriculum (mostly feel good, almost entirely descriptive, designed to be intuitively appealing to students - not analytical), classroom discourse (war stories and trauma sharing), students (a brilliant student here and there, but trending to below average). Classes are "fun," students discuss "feelings." Leaders are laughably inept; campus conversations are led by a mix of axe-to-grind post modernists, language and lit Ph.D.s, and everyone lives in "let's not rock the boat, I need tenure."
Zimmer could not run any of these institutions; the mediocrity will neutralize his force and intelligence.
5
As a devoted UChicago alum, I could not disagree more completely with Bret Stephens. I can list at least twelve reasons why Zimmer is NOT America’s best University president, but rather the world’s best president!
1
We have to ask to whom President Zimmer was speaking and what were his motives when extolling the values of open expression. His job, in large part, is to attract large donations from wealthy people. If he fails to do that, his institution will replace him. Expressing those sentiments may not be very brave if the donors respond more generously because they want to support and be seen supporting such an institution. Imagine the president of the University of [name your conservative institution here] making the same kind of statement in defense of the freedom of expression on the left.
Yes, we need academic leaders to make such statements, but we don’t have to take them at face value. Everyone’s motives need to be questioned.
1
Stephens correctly points out a problem but misses the fact that it is a problem for conservatives as much if not more so than for liberals. There are hundreds of religiously affiliated colleges and universities around the country that in admissions, education, and campus culture are closed to debate. This is true not just for issues relating directly to whatever religious creed the institution follows but also includes all aspects of secular politics. At these institutions, there is only one acceptable political viewpoint and it skews hard right. This is because conservatives have decided to mix politics and religion throughout our public life and their own private lives. But this problem cannot be spoken of because, you know, there is freedom of religion. Which in this case means freedom to indoctrinate young adults into all manner of dangerous and false assumptions about reality, from the creationist denial of evolution to the evangelical faith that President Trump can be trusted with our nuclear arsenal. So here is a question for Mr. Stephens; how many Nobel Prizes have been won at Liberty University?
110
Victor James,
Excellent comment. Thank you for speaking out.
1
I don't know much about trigger warnings and safe spaces, but they sound like student attempts at taking action to challenge the status quo in some way. Not every attempt to change things ultimately works, but isn't that part of a good education also? Maybe this is a missed opportunity for these schools.
3
Freedom for anything, including speech, is obviously frustrated when practiced without limits. There is a social obligation for freedom that may seem "inconsistent" ... but not to a "make-or-break" extent for the mature and reasonable, who realize the limits of argument for truth and the legitimate vastness of living experience.
I agree with the importance of unfettered free speech but question whether being given a microphone in a time limited, controlled format is actually an expression of free speech. New meaningful insights in my experience come from free ranging give and take between friends and adversaries. Microphones are effective devices for one way conveyance of information and entertainment, may be shared for sequential one way conveyance for those allowed access to the microphone, do not promote free give and take or broad based interaction. A university would be a wonderful laboratory for free speech but that would require finding new kinds of forums that free free speech from microphone fixation.
1
Surely we can't imagine anything more discouraging to stupid speech than to give it a microphone to address a small audience of fools.
Colleges and universities should be places where political, religious, social, etc ideas should be openly discussed without worrying that the discussion could be upsetting to some. But even though political rallies are and absolutely should be protected free speech, colleges and universities have no mandate to provide forums for them regardless of whether the sponsor is promoting mainstream or extreme positions. Distinguishing between an academic discussion and a political rally is a judgment call, but one that academic institutions are entitled to make.
3
Zimmer's position on a University's role in promoting intellectual rigor is refreshing. Taking a position of not deferring to social trends to water down the environment nor letting ideologues either within or without the University control what happens should be a part of a University President's job description. Actually this is also the hallmark of good journalism in print, network or cable.
4
Graduate students at the University of Chicago recently voted to unionize. In the months leading up to the union vote the Zimmer administration aggressively labored to stifle, distort, and dismiss arguments from pro-union graduate students and the faculty who support them, including refusing repeated requests to include statistical information on its "just the facts" website that contradicted the administration's anti-union stance. They also refused to let a vote go forward in the spring, after a robust period of campaigning for it by graduate students. It now appears that the Zimmer administration stalled that vote to give President Trump time to nominate William Emanuel to the National Labor Relations Board, and will be using the opportunity of this new NLRB board member in a bid to have the results of the vote overturned. Don't be fooled: under President Zimmer the University of Chicago's administration uses any means available to keep the institution from becoming a space of democratic discussion, especially when its singular power to determine the life of the university is challenged by students and faculty who think otherwise.
17
This is an important addition to the discussion of the column and the U of Chicago's purported commitment to free speech!
I've seen much the same at other universities. Faculty and administrators talking a good game, indeed, doing good, rich intellectual history and analysis of large-scale political forces. But, when push cones to shove, and it's their own workplace, and the rights of students, suddenly their professed commitments and values fly out the door -- and the students and democratic principles are shown the door!
2
I am an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago. Mr. Stephens seems to have ignored the main complaint that the student body has with Dr. Zimmer’s position on free speech.
It is this: at the University of Chicago, we deal in facts. This is the nature of a university. While two people may reasonably disagree on politics or policy, there is only one set of objective facts.
Someone who cannot be bothered to use those facts—say, Richard Spencer—has all the right to speak at the University as does a flat-earth theorist, and should be treated as such. No one would dare tell me that I need to weigh the ideas of a flat-earth theorist with reasonable credence and debate.
Dr. Zimmer has conflated the need for exposure to and discourse on different viewpoints with the need to tolerate different facts. The former is one of the reasons we go to universities; the latter is offensive to the intellectual dignity of the University of Chicago.
On something of an aside—I will believe this commitment to free expression when the University puts its money where its mouth is, and supports the Graduate Student Union.
12
Does the Internet and other forms of modern mass communication render the Founder's conception of free speech outdated?
Ann Coulter, makes a very good living presumably from her books and appearances, and her opinions are readily available to anyone with an Internet connection or a bookstore or library. Are her rights really being unfairly compromised if some University does not want to pay a half million dollars for security?
As someone below remarked, students themselves are free to express whatever opinion they want in the classroom or outside it, and they may form clubs with left or right wing orientations, and they may associate themselves as they please with like minded individuals. They can publish a magazine if they have the money and they can leaflet the Quad. They may feel put upon as a minority, but oh well. Deal with it.
That's what free speech was in the Founders' day too.
What we have today is completely different. Same as with guns.
Do the taxpayers of Florida care enough about Spencer's free speech rights to top up the university budget for what it cost? Actually, he didn't even get to speak, so what was the point? Oh, it was to cause a scene and whine about how put upon he is. And that's the same with Milo and Ann. Conservatives have bought their radio and TV outlets and think tanks, and now they are going after universities too. Because what they want is to turn lies into truth. And when they get that power.... free speech? Ha.
148
Free speech is not just for speakers, but also for those who want to hear ideas from beyond their usual circle. So inviting the likes of Coulter is not for the her, but for the audience even if, and perhaps especially if, many abhor Coulter’s ideas.
There was turmoil when the leading American Neo-Nazi Lincoln Rockwell was invited to speak at Hofstra University in NY many years ago. Some politicians and students demanded he be blocked. With the support of a Holocaust survivor professor, the school administration held firm. Rockwell spoke, students listened politely, then began laughing at the absurdity of racial purity. The Nazi, frustrated, left the stage. Perfect.
Anne Coulter is not inciting violence In any way SHape or form-she is simply offensive and fatuous- there should be no a priori restrictions on her ability to speak on campus.
Are you equally opposed to the attempted intimidation of professors by right wing media and trolls, or do you regard death threats, which some have received, as merely the exercise of free speech?
6
Yes, that IS the exercise of free speech. Death threats fall under a different category of the law and can be dealt with there.
I'm a leftist-leaning liberal who is embarrassed by nonsense like "safe places" and the hyper-sensitivity of those who cannot bear to hear uncomfortable words. Right now the Antifa groups are proving the neo-nazis right and giving them cover under their fradulant pose of standing for freedom-of-speech. The way to deal with the Richard Spencers of the world is to confront their absurd arguments with fact and forceful, rational rhetoric. Or ignore them. Or laugh at them. Anything but turn them into celebrities.
16
Perhaps the best way to deal with the Richard Spencers of this world is, as you suggest, to ignore them. People are entitled to speak but we are note obliged to listen.
1
There are too many liberals who do not understand the basis for their supposed beliefs. They believe what they believe because they heard it on SNL or Jimmy Kinnell. They are afraid they might have to defend their beliefs and they don't know how to do that.
Zimmer and Stephens are grandstanding.
No one would disagree with the obvious. The first amendment matters, with important, equally obvious, qualifications: endangering or slandering innocent people.
So let the Nazi speak wherever, but also let the protesters protest. They are not obligated to sit on their hands listening to violent rhetoric from the right wing, as if something rational is being proposed.
As long as the context is peaceful.
9
It is wonderful that the University of Chicago is so welcoming of free speech and open dialog, along with a very impressive level of success. So, let me offer one more reason you did not mention that we might attribute to this deeply important achievement. The University of Chicago is far above the national average in hiring full time faculty as opposed to the use of part-time, adjunct faculty. Therefore, the professors are more secure in their jobs, are paid a living wage and can therefore support the students of all beliefs without fear. The below quote is taken from https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-chicago/academic-l...
"At University of Chicago, only 16.0% of the teaching staff are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is far below the national average of 50.8%, which could be indicative of University of Chicago's commitment to building a strong, long-term instructional team."
21
Excellent point, also one often ignored.
When Spencer come accompanied by a gang of gun toting neo-nazis, does their brandishing fire arms also constitute an important accentuation of tree speech rights or it a public safety risk?
4
The Univ. of Chicago is our national treasure, and I very much agree with the sentiments expressed by President Zimmer and by Mr. Stephens. But I must ask: do we face a crisis of censorship or lack of civility? The NYT is a defender of free speech, but censors comments that don't comport with the NYT's idea of civility. I agree with the NYT. David Brooks has expressed the view that we face crisis of civility. Does Brooks approve of the NYT's censorship? I suspect he does. And I suspect Stephens does too. Indeed, if truth be known, I suspect that the Univ. of Chicago demands civility and enforces it with the threat of censorship. So how can one agree with both the view expressed in this essay by Stephens and censorship to enforce civility?
5
It sounds like you have successfully pointed out an important distinction here.
Free Speech has to do with the right to express ideas more than anything else. The tone in which those ideas are conveyed is different. And yes, if the tone is hateful, we have legal recourse to address that.
It is not censorship to restrain trolls commenting on pieces in the NYT. The ideas expressed are not the criteria for comment removal or rejection only how they are written. I find many extremist and generally offensive comments from all over the political & social spectrum in the comment sections. The difference is between ideas that I & others may find offensive (which is not a legitimate reason for "censorship") and just offensive rhetoric designed to provoke. This is an adult forum, the children can go post on 4chan et:al if being civil is problematic.
Freedom to use fire is universal, but malevolent use of it is called ARSON! So, too, is--or should be--our right to free speech when it incites mob violence as in Charlottesville or at the University of Florida.
85
So you would squelch antifa in Charlottesville?
Height of Hypocrisy! Mr. Zimmer or for that matter any other University President is always cognizant of the feelings of its donors! Any scholarship on a particular idea or national policy that offends its donor class is immediately suppressed! Just ask the faculty in political science, religious studies, public health or any hot button issues relating to its donor class.
7
The problem with the idea of free speech in research universities is that it’s phony. See how fast you get your PhD if you deviate from your tenured advisors’ ideas. Oh, and for a real eye-opener (but mouth closer), try being a non academic staff member.,
6
As a retired academic who supervised many graduate students, I can testify that this assertion is factually wrong. There are some advisers who do expect students to adhere to their opinions, but this is FAR from universal.
1
That is the point. That's why free speech must be defended.
Sounds more like a personal axe you’re grinding there.
Bret,
As an alumnus of the University of Chicago, I can also tell you that the school simply does not go out of its way to offend the sensibilities of people by inviting speakers simply to make a point about free speech. In following this very simple philosophy, the school simply avoids placing itself at the center of socially divisive issues.
The Universities tolerance of opinions, as outlined by Bob Zimmer, is in relation to academia and promotion of academic freedom, not some form of speech as practiced by rabblerousers.
Most of you white supremacist sympathizers need to get a grip on yourself.
138
Isn't it tragic that U. of C.'s light burns so brightly only in comparison to the timidity and mediocrity surrounding it?
As a Times reader, I once thought that a newspaper's obligation is to publish "challenging" photos and detailed stories on items such as the "Danish anti-Muhammad" satirical cartoons and Charlie Hebdo satires, which roiled the Muslim world, without fear or efforts at self-censorship out of a faux concern for "sensibilities,": another "safe space."
Perhaps the Times editorial Board should take a class on journalistic integrity, honesty, and vibrancy, also traits once found in a thriving democracy, at the U. of C.
As a subscriber, you can increase my digital fees to cover the costs.
6
Nice idea, but as UChicago grad -- university doesn't enforce it, particularly at the hospital & medical center. No academic or intellectual freedom exists. there, with docs goose stepping like North Korean Army. UChicago has decent medical school, lousy hospital -- so lousy it is not ranked among the top twenty national institutions by US World & News Report, but ranked #8 in Illinois, two positions down from a hospital in PEORIA! Remember, there are lots of things that you can get at UChicago, but it ain't health care. Buckmaum Family gave generous bequest for institution to shift to "patient-centered care," but Buckbaum's, imo, got played. Chicago will NEVER be a "patient-centered care" institution. It is mediocre at best, and hide their mistakes in their Risk Management Committee. A friend's disabled son died under their care. I AM THE DOCTOR, is their imperious, controlling attitude about YOUR body! Shame on CMO Stephen Weber, MD, CMO. When will Zimmer get around to dealing with the backwater that is UCMC? Never.
2
Kind of ironic that the Times publishes this article about the U of C as a bastion of free speech, not quite two years after they published a front page article about the university’s crack down on activists protesting.
You will recall that Tyler Kissinger, student body president and honors student, led a protest aimed at pressuring the university to pay its workers a living wage. As a result, two weeks before graduation, the university moved to prevent him from graduating.
Only the Times article, along with local and national outcry, forced the university to back down.
10
While I would not usually be on the same page with President Zimmer and the U of Chicago, I applaud the stance taken by him and the University. Free speech implies the debate and is essential to come to a clear understanding of any issue much less a complicated one that is emotionally charged. The University's policy is one that should be adopted by all places of learning. Safe spaces are irrelevant to a free exchange of ideas. Being challenged to listen to others may expose the fallacy of their thinking or present a point of view never before considered. There is no better way to un earth truth and rational ways of thinking. College campuses should extolling these principles not denying them to assuage students' demands.
3
A colleague has a student whose brother recently hung himself. She found his corpse. In his neural anatomy class he discusses the effects of lack of blood flow to the brain, second by second. He knows the student’s situation. Am I to suppose that UC’s no trigger policy would prohibit the professor from advising this student that the professor was about to force her to relive the horrific death of her brother? That the student would be derided as a wimp and anti-intellectual if she fainted or began screaming during class?
Any policy, even tough minded ones supported by the guardians of heartlessness in our midst, can be taken too far.
2
What Collins and Zimmer alike seem not to understand or acknowledge is that lumping trigger warnings in with limiting speeches is to say that being given the option of not taking something in is the same as not letting someone speak. Trigger warnings don't end free speech--they allow healthy hearing. Perhaps neither writer nor university president has taken time to learn about the psychology of trauma and perhaps neither know that there are physical effects involved in sudden exposure. When I alert my Tufts students that there may be content that would be triggering to, say, a survivor of rape or a victim of gun violence, it does not compromise my free speech. It simply allows them to navigate the situation. It is facile to argue that showing awareness of potential PTSD equals the suppression of anything; a number of Iraq war vets I know routinely turn down invitations to crowded, loud venues like sports arenas or concert stadiums, because they already know the debilitating effect that such exposure might have on them. When invited, these vets may choose to attend or stay home, and either the way, music and games go on just fine. Yes, trigger warnings could be used in ways that reveal the intellectual shortcomings of the speaker, but so can a New York Times column and a university president's bully pulpit.
69
Best and most compelling description of a good use of trigger warnings I've come across. Much time has been spent on the idea that objection to content - for personal reasons - means that a professor is at risk for simply discussing subject matter.
Wouldn't a syllabus be sufficient? If history or current events arise in class, how do you alert students? How do you keep the "trigger warning" idea from becoming the subject matter?
You are mixing apples and oranges. A trigger warning that we going to be discussing rape in a class on criminal procedure should not be expected. Law orifessors delight in making their students squirm in having to cross examine a mock witness on whether there was penetration.
In other settings a warning might be appropriate.
Medical students are not entitled to a trigger warning that they might see blood
English and philosophy students are not entitled to a trigger warning that they might be discussing The Rape of Lucrece. (Shakespeare's work for all of you too afraid to read it).
I just looked up Bret Stephen's biography, and he's a graduate of the college at UChicago, where I attended graduate school. I remember the college students there wearing T-shirts that read, "If I wanted A's, I would have gone to Harvard," as if to suggest they had gotten into both schools and despite their desperate need for validation had chosen the off-brand version. I mean, even their mascot, the Maroons, is imitative. Given the lack of a news peg to justify this op-ed, I can only interpret it as another pitiful plea for recognition of prestige by a UChicago college student.
5
The problem is Conservative Free Speech. Once a certain level of power is attained, if you follow the party line, often irrational drivel designed to harm our country, you are assured a job for life by industry, think tanks, ect. In short, in the conservative free speech zone there is direct incentive for the expression of dumb ideas.
2
But expression of those dumb ideas is protected, yes?
You picked the worst university to hype up! It is an open secret that the University of Chicago is one of the most hostile universities in the country if you aren't White, male or wealthy. These rumors come from academic colleagues as well as their sons and daughters attending the university. Their retention rate is awful, especially for minorities and women. If this is the president's stance, it makes sense why U of C is considered one of the worst universities in the country.
1
"The letter attracted national attention, with cheering from the right and caviling on the left."
A lazy over-simplification. The left is divided on the matter of intellectual ‘safe spaces’, where the opinion that they should constrain intellectual discourse remains a small minority view.
4
I am a student at the University of Chicago. The repeated laudations of Mr. Zimmer’s free speech stunts by conservative writers are something of a nuisance, and fail to take into account the primary complaint that the student body has with such.
Namely: the fact that someone has the legal right to speak does not mean that the University of Chicago is obligated to sully itself by giving them a platform.
Richard Spencer, a noted Neo-Nazi whom Mr. Zimmer has stated that he would not prevent from speaking on campus, is an excellent example. Mr. Spencer has every right to spew his vitriolic nonsense from a soapbox on a street corner somewhere. But at the University of Chicago, we deal in facts. Richard Spencer does not.
It is entirely reasonable to ask us, the student body, to consider opposing ideas. I would argue that this is the purpose of the University. It is unreasonable, however, to demand that we should respect opposing facts that do not conform with reality. That is a frank insult to the University and the intelligence of the student body, and is patronizing to boot. We are scientists. It is demeaning to ask us to pander to people who cannot be bothered to base an argument on truth.
Two people can reasonably disagree on politics or policy based on available evidence. To tell me that I should be expected to respect the viewpoint of people without any valid evidence at all is offensive. I somewhat resent the apparent inability of op-ed writers to make that distinction.
628
Where did Mr. Zimmer or Bret Stephens say that you had to respect ideas that you find to be bogus? I thought he was saying that, by allowing debate between those expressing bogus ideas and those with valid evidence to the contrary, there is the possiblilty for the validity of all ideas expressed to be considered, with people hearing them free to decide which ideas seem to them to be "true".
Well put. I can't agree more.
2
All very good points, but an extension of this discussion might ask - what if an idiotic speaker like Richard Spencer does make his way onto campus? Is there an appropriate response?
As we widened the population of people who go to college, we have included persons who have no interest in critical thinking, the free expression of ideas, or of intellectual discourse. The population of people going to college now includes the type of people who 40 years ago would have gone to a trade school for nine to 18 months and been perfectly happy. These are people who don't read books, who don't think, and who don't value the intellect. They just want a piece of paper to get a job and now these pieces of paper take 4 years to obtain. Why would you be surprised that we have this rabble on campus inciting mobs and riots? You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear, as they used to say.
5
As usual, Brett Stevens makes some good points and then ruins his own argument by equating Nazis propganda with free speech.
I'm a professor Mr Stevens and I'm not living in fear of offending my students. I do fear they will wind up as challenged as you appear to be in distinguishing good ideas from bad ones.
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“Free speech.” ”Academic freedom.” Combined letters which dimensionalize. Words.Concepts.Values.Beliefs.Norms.Laws.Processes.Outcomes.And much more.The issues raised, given these difficult times of semantic-fed-divisive
ness,in our daily, word-and-deed,violating WE-THEY culture and country, merit ongoing consideration.The article,perhaps inadvertently,also misleads. It doesn’t help us to consider the semantic’s dimensions.Anyone can express anything? Any time? Anywhere?Whatever its known,not yet known or even unknown implications and consequences? With no personal responsibility? No limitations? And if formal and/or informal consensualized ones exist, and operate, set by whom? Based on what? What can, does,doesn’t “Free speech,” and the “Freedom of expression” mean in an overlooked daily reality of ever present uncertainties. Unpredictabilities. Randomness. No total control, no matter the types, levels and qualities of one’s efforts, of unexpected and unplanned outcomes.No matter their valence.The article’s style “suggests” unidimensional, linear relationships between “free speech,” the good which comes from its enablement, and unwanted, negatives which it purports to minimize and prevent.An oversimplification to our daily, complex, dynamic,nonlinear, multidimensional lives. Lots of words! What are the critical, necessary, interacting conditions of, and for, ranges of expression, which can result (cause, associated with, just happen) in targeted, desired, outcomes?
University of Chicago best university in U.S. for free speech?
Free speech in the U.S. seems to me a hopeless cause. Blocked now this way and now that by all political parties. And probably U.S. democracy is in evident crisis. Take this rather obvious idea which however will be shouted down by all sides politically: A democracy especially as it increases in numbers of people requires by all available art and science the location of the most exceptional people as early as possible (in childhood) to place them in position in society to coordinate the whole, otherwise democracy collapses to control by lesser members of society to obviously increased detriment to all. The deliberate elevation of exceptional people is like construction of neuron architecture in brain to integrate, coordinate entire system of reason and motor success. To not do so, system fails.
Now why this idea would be so loathsome to all today, blocked as free speech not to mention blocked in operation, is that probably the application of all artistic and scientific methodology to locate the most exceptional people will result in increased government of nation, will cut into right wing religion, concentration of wealth and nepotism, and will seriously offend the left because breakdown of high human capacity will probably cut into notions of equality between races, ethnic groups and the sexes. Therefore I predict continued failure of free speech and continued corruption of American democracy. Finis.
Still I hold that unfettered free speech is not being allowed and should not be allowed. Can I teach a course entitled: "Women: Just a little bit inferior or majorly so?" at the University of Chicago? Are you desperate to allow me to do so are you? I sincerely doubt it. Similarly I think allowing a "white supremicist" to speak at a university is unnecessary and perverse. Sure there can be debate about what is acceptable. Mistakes can be made. For instance I am a firm supporter of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's right to say what she likes about Islam on campuses. However I think her critics incorrectly and illegitimately represent her as vilifying all Muslims and all practice of Islam. That I would not allow if it were true.
The risk of over-valuing the good of free speech is under-appreciating the bad of epistemological relativism. And where is said to be now a "post-truth world"? That's right - that would be the United States. Consider too the harm done to the Anglosphere and Humanity, by allowing on principle representatives of his opinions to state again and again through his publications, Rupert Murdoch's lies about anthropogenic global warming. It's not small beer. There's no high ideals on a dead planet.
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If it is not obvious that I was merely representing a reprehensible opinion for purposes of argument, I want to point out that I neither believe that women are "a little bit inferior or majorly so". I should have written "Can someone teach a course ....." to make this clear.
I also want to reiterate that I believe Mr Stephens and other supporters of absolutely unfettered free speech underestimate the power and the danger of a lie often told - particularly through powerful media companies and on more susceptible individuals.
Lee Bollinger, Pres. of Columbia Univ., is a renowned expert on the First Amendment and free speech: see recent article by him in Columbia Journalism Review Special Report: https://www.cjr.org/special_report/can-the-first-amendment-save-us.php There are ways to both safeguard the protections afforded to us by the First Amendment and preserve the right to freedom of speech, *and* exercise care with regard to the feelings and views of all members of the diverse, pluralistic social fabric of this country.
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President Leon Botstein of Bard College has addressed the free speech question often.. and recently, and long before Robert Zimmer assumed his position at my university.
Before the age of 30, Chancellor Robert Maynard Hutchins booted Big Ten football and he the moved the Rockefellers from dominance at The University of Chicago. UC’s leadership came from Hutchins and Ed Levy, to name two.
President Robert Zimmer has raised more money than an university in recent times. He is a mathematician with a gift for fundraising.
It’s terrific that he speaks for free speech. Shocking is the fact that so few others have done so.
President Botstein assumed the presidency of Bard College in his late twenties. He is 71 today. He has led his campus in civil liberties and free speech.
President Zimmer is not alone.
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Stephens states:"That is the real crux of Zimmer’s case for free speech: Not that it’s necessary for democracy (strictly speaking, it isn’t), but because it’s our salvation from intellectual mediocrity and social ossification".
I disagree. Allowing Richard Spenser to speak without interference, and allowing Neo-Nazis to (peacefully) march down the streets of Skokie, Il. is absolutely NECESSARY (odious as they are) PRECISELY because it is the greatest safeguard to the preservation of our democratic system.
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I am 79 and thus grew up in the 40's and went to college in the 50's. Now I hate to use terms like liberal & conservative or right and left since they mean different things to different people, but in a small space like this, I am afraid they are unavoidable.
In my lifetime I have seen much more censorship in the US by those on the right than those on the left. In addition, this was official actions with serious consequences, not demonstrations by some college students.
Here is an example. A relative of mine was in college during the 1930's. He had a girlfriend who wanted to go to a guitar concert. The organization sponsoring the concert was doing it to gain more members. The deal was that if you joined, the cost of the ticket plus dues was less than the cost of the ticket for non-members. So he joined.
Many years later, after WWII, he was working at the Naval Arsenal at Lakewood, NJ when the HUAC came to town. It turned out that the organization he had joined was what they considered to be a "communist front" organization. He was fired, could not get another job, grew despondent, and in a year he was dead.
Just yesterday Gen Kelly would only take questions from reporters who knew families of dead service members thus censoring all the other reporters. He works for a man who refused to serve and who has cast doubt on all press rights in the US.
And who talks about Second Amendment solutions?
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It is ironic that Mr. Stephens cites Brandeis's important opinion in Whitney v. California. Mrs. Whitney was imprisoned for joining a communist-affiliated group in California in the 1920s.
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“the aim of education is to make people think, not spare them from discomfort.“
The objectives of universities have become unclear and lack focus. A university should not shield its students from forms of speech it deems controversial, inflammatory, etc. As Brandeis said, sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Exposing speech and ideas can be messy but if our students never see hateful, awful and racist speech in school how will they identify it when it arrives in a different form. Say a narcissistic, maniacal and untrustworthy leader who lies with impunity and through his teeth about everything?
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This so basic that it defies belief that we have to have this conversation in the first place. The comments here, ostensibly by the "smart set," badly need a class in how enlightened systems work. Google "rights-utility synthesis" for details.
I am having a tough time with the term "free speech."
Is it speech without consequences? Is is the idea that if I speak, you have to listen? Is it the idea of false equivalency, that if we express one idea, then the opposite must have the same weight? Is it the idea that we must give a platform for abhorrent ideas without protest? Is it an abuse of free speech to not want the toxic Richard Spencer on campus, or not want your general fees paying for the risible Ann Coulter Show? Was it fair for Notre Dame students to protest President Obama speaking because of differences in opinion over abortion?
Universities should encourage "debate." They should encourage a forum in which political correctness can be pulled apart, and seek discovery for the useful limits - where the concept of correctness morphs into suppression of ideas. Good educators should be able to teach people how to see the spectrum of ideas - and where each ideology fails and succeeds. Those classes, by the way, Republicans, are in the School of Liberal Arts - that part of the university y'all keep trying to defund and shut down.
But free speech? People are free to speak, and we are all free to not listen. We are free to shout them down. We are free to argue. I would rather have Ann Coulter (not Richard Spencer, thanks, I draw the line at Nazis) speak, but have a series of seminars prior to her visit, in which students argue her ideas, and prepare themselves to hurl some hard questions at her.
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You don't get it at all. You are not free to shout them down.
Walk away, debate them, ignore them, peacefully protest, sign petitions, vote,
lobby etc.
Shout them down and you become the problem.
Much more effective than rioting to prevent a speech is to have the speaker speak to an empty chamber. If the speaker is an inciter to hate and violence students should organize a boycott. If there are still many willing to attend such a speech students should demand time for a rebuttal speaker to follow it. What they should not too is demand cancellation of the speech or riot to impede the speech.
I lost all respect for American institutions of higher learning ages ago. Charging extortionate tuition rates to transform millions of America's young adults into indentured servants and pathetic adultlescents, just to fill the coffers of a small apex of kleptocratic administrators. Just another institution fallen to the wayside of respectability, like most political parties and churches, too.
Why have so many winners of the Nobel Prize come from the University of Chicago? Because the University of Chicago, founded by John D. Rockefeller, has perfected a culture of telling the rich exactly what they want to hear and presenting it as science.
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This statement has almost no basis. U of C has been most reluctant to kiss up. Wealth has not managed its way on that campus. At least, not when I was there. Hutchins offended wealth.
Chicago was my home from 1950 to 1964. It was cold in winter and hot in summer. The steel mills in Indiana generated fine dust. The slums encroached, crime threatened, violence was common, poverty surrounded. It was no fun.
Intelligent intellectuals ran that campus.
The best did not come to Hyde Park to fool around. The social life was not Harvard. Chicago was a place for the most intelligent and creative.
Hard for a proud knee-jerk liberal to admit it, but my conservative brother has changed my mind from time to time with his well argued points of view (he is, I must add, a trial lawyer.). We have the best time sparing over affirmative action, women’s lib, the deficit, gay adoption, and God knows what else. As abhorrent as I believe his views often are, I can’t fault his right to hold and argue them. In some cases, as I mentioned, he actually makes sense.
The secret to our success in remaining close and devoted siblings, is that the tussles never become emotional and personal. We respect and value each other. I never call him “nuts”, we don’t use profanity and at the end of a long fight (we once spent most of a night arguing whether or not “women’s history” was a legitimate discipline) we smile, take a deep breath and part buddies. It is exhilarating. Liberal friends, try it sometime.
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As I observe these activists on college campuses who shout down and drown out speech they dislike, or retreat to their "safe spaces" or request "trigger warnings" to avoid speech they might find uncomfortable, or scrutinize and police others' precise word choice and grammar for potential "microaggressions" I wonder: How are they going to deal with the real world outside of the bubble of academia when (or if) they get a job? If a co-worker or colleague comes up with an idea in a staff meeting they disagree with, are they going to shout them down? If they face challenges or difficulities working on a project, are they going to request a "safe space" to run away to? If a demanding colleague sends a harshly worded email are they going to request a "trigger warning" next time or accuse them of "microaggressions"?
Here's a thought: if you disagree with an idea, engage with it, learn about it, then develop a stronger counter-idea and present it, rationally.
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“The letter attracted national attention, with cheering from the right and caviling on the left.”
I think Mr. Stephens underestimated the cheering on the left. Or maybe we just need to be louder. Because I’ve come across so many liberals who are just as upset as (if not more than) Republicans, many of whom, let’s be honest, don’t care about free speech as much as the spectacle of the left devouring its children.
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Because of what, maybe six or seven episodes in the past three or four years, where students, and others, hooted, jeered, yelled at, or walked out on (and in one case physically pushed) racist and/or other "merely" conservative speakers all colleges are now painted with a "liberal don't like free speech brush?. Come'on Mr. Stephens-fetch it! I thought you were better than that. As someone who works on one of your tarred and feathered liberal campuses, I can assure you, vigorous debate is still alive on campus and, perhaps more importantly (though unstated by you on behalf of your financial masters) wealthy, conservative, white male, elitists are quite feeling comfortably at home.
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As the parent of a high school senior, I'm sad to report that we've seen the impact of "safe ones" and restricted speech as we've visited campuses over the past 18 months. Suppressing speech leads to an inferior education; it also creates an environment of anxiety and stress among the student body. Bravo to University of Chicago for seeing this and offering its students so much more.
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Once again, Mr. Stephens selects facts to support an implicit bias.
Faculty at the University of Chicago have won a lot of Nobel Prizes, but many are the ersatz prize in economic science. None of those winners are among the three or four most distinguished American economists of the 20th century: Thorstein Veblen, Irving Fisher, Paul Samuelson, and Kenneth Arrow.
The faculty included one truly great physicist, Enrico Fermi, but he won his prize in 1938 before he emigrated to Chicago and America. Other great American physicists--Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Arthur Wightman--studied and taught at other universities.
James Watson was an undergraduate at Chicago, but didn't focus on genetics and microbiology until he came under the tutelage of Salvador Luria at the University of Indiana.
Chicago is a great university, but not because it defends free speech more vigorously than other places of learning. If anyone were foolish enough to invite Richard Spencer to speak, the city of Chicago would have to send in hundreds of police. Chicago has a lot of Jewish students, and they in particular wouldn't stand for it. Not after the Holocaust.
Mr. Stephens cites Louis Brandeis's landmark opinion in Whitney v. California, but fails to mention Justice Holmes's more famous opinion, in which he says that free speech does not give you the right to cry "fire" in a crowded theater.
Free speech should have limits in our current tinderbox.
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"Free speech should have limits in our current tinderbox."
And who should determine and impose those limits? The college administrators in response to threats of violence from opponents of the speech? If so, it is threatening activists opponents who determine and impose limits to free speech.
Thank you Diogenes for laying some facts onto this subject. It is worth noting that Brandeis's comment on yelling fire in a crowded theater was not about theaters where there would be danger if there were a panicky stampede. It was about political speech less dangerous than that of the alt-rightl today.
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So the Nobel Laureates at the University of Chicago aren’t really the very good or successful ones, so the author’s arguments in support of free speech are invalid. Um, what??? Yes, it’s true... There are indeed two other universities in the world (UC Berkeley, and MIT) that have more Nobel Laureates, so, um, this university president’s arguments do not carry weight? Sir, what you argue is that some of the Nobel prize winners at other universities have better name recognition to the general public, and therefore the premise that free speech supports a more robust intellectual atmosphere is invalid. Respectfully, I must suggest that had you attended the University of Chicago or another university which emphasized critical thought and discourse, you would have learned to make more reasoned arguments.
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As an adjunct professor (in engineering) over the last 11 yrs, and a graduate (thank goodness!) of a completely different university education system (the USSR), I am 100% in agreement with Al from PA. The universities are NOT about education any longer in this country. The professors are NOT about educating students: they are about research, grants, graduating MS and PhD students on-time, etc, etc. An old Russian joke goes like this: : What is an American University? - It is when a Russian professor teaches Chinese student math in English". My 11 yrs of teaching in this country support this notion fully. The world will wake up to the fact that the American university students ain't worth their starting salary soon enough, and will move away. All my graduate students (no exception) are Asian; that has been the case for over 7 years now. The students will stay stranded with hundreds of $K in student debt. What a racket!
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Freedom of speech in universities is accompanied by something you failed to mention: Academic integrity. Professors are granted extreme freedom for their ideas but only because (and if) they speak from a lifetime of serious, frequently peer-reviewed study.
People spouting whatever nonsense they believe without a shred of evidence or knowledge have no place in a university. And btw, if the people spouting nonsense are powerful - like University Presidents - they absolutely do not have 'freedom of speech' to say whatever dumb thing they want. They get fired. Like Larry Summers. Freedom of speech comes with obligations of knowledge and integrity in universities. Thank heavens.
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If ideas are nonsense, they should be refuted, not suppressed. If you want people fired for expressing an opinion, that means you lack the counter argument. You are right, free speech comes with a responsibility, the responsibility to be able to hear things you disagree with.
Dr. Zimmer's point is well-taken, but so should be Nancy's. Why should a deliberate purporter of clearly false ideas be tolerated? Right across Chicago, at Northwestern, there's a tenured professor in the McCormick School of Engineering who can't be fired despite openly being a Holocaust denier. Students who aren't White and Christian are carefully guided away from his classes. Does academic freedom demand we allow teachers who want their students deported or murdered for not being the right color or religion?
And why do we have to tolerate blatantly lying "pundits" like Ann Coulter, Denesh D'Souza, and RIchard Spencer who know very well they are fact-bending and cherry-picking, while paint a pseudo-veneer of academic work. That's how they work. Lots of innocuous references to legit sources, but the key ones are either false or deliberately twisted, creating propaganda.
A scholar can legitimately be simply wrong. Fred Hoyle, who cuttingly coined the term "Big Bang", later admitted the Steady State Universe was wrong. That's what universities should encourage--trying and failing.
But no university tolerates, nor should it, scholars who cheat in their research and publications. I think that's what Dr. Zimmer misses, albeit innocently.
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It is worth noting that the U Chicago statements are invariably couched in terms of “academic freedom” rather than “free speech.” The distinction is not inconsequential: faculty and administrators regulate what falls under the rubric of academic freedom, and speech on the U of C campus, particularly when student initiated, is constrained by a separate set of rules.
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Thanks Bret for bringing this to light. President ZImmer is spot on. Resilience is still underappreciated as a quality to cultivate in our students of today, as it was yesterday - as John Adams wrote to Abigail, 'character is forged in fire'. Sure, let's put a warning label on higher education - "you may have your previous opinions offended and possibly reversed" lol. I have always felt the most eloquent way to address the controversial speakers on campus is to show up, and then remain silent. No booing, no clapping, no sound whatsoever. The only sound these blowhards would hear is the occasional pin drop. Can you imagine how a Richard Spencer or someone of that ilk would respond to 5000 attentive but unmoved faces showing, saying, and doing nothing? It also demonstrates maturity and dignity - well above anything these emotional bomb-throwers folks could ever muster. I always tell Uni students to challenge anything, anytime, but do it respectfully.
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Large state universities have far different problems than elite, pick- of- the- litter private schools. Whatever their president does to promote the free exchange of ideas--as laudable as his actions might be-- has absolutely no bearing on the hodge-podge of passion, self-interest, and (hopefully) intellect that transpires in a public space.
While inspirational in a water-cooler -philosophical sense, the article basically remains on the level of a 'Pismo Beach Disaster--utterly clueless with regard to contextual meaning.
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Mostly well argued and well said except that this non American cannot reconcile it with what he sees and came to know
I find it impossible to believe that this is a all America tradition and historical legacy withThe major speaking platforms, TV and Major opinion forming media being privately owned , with no Le Monde or Guardian anywhere to be seen or listened toIt is unthinkable that the owners of these media will rioritize free speech over their financial interestsWhat all this comes down to is the glorification, nay thr Deification, of capitalism and it's free markets
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As an undergrad alumna and current UChicago PhD candidate, I'd take Zimmer's commitment to free speech a lot more seriously if he would stand up and accept the results of this week's election by grad student workers to unionize. Instead, by persisting in legal challenges to the election and its results, he and his administration persist in obstructing the democratic process and robust debate that led to these overwhelming results. I'm very grateful for all I've learned from UChicago's wonderful faculty and my fellow students. But I won't believe Zimmer and the admin's bluster about "rigorous discourse" until the University stops using highly paid union-busting lawyers to shut up its own students.
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Bret writes as though free speech rights are absolute in the US. Of course, this is not the case. The situation is usual summed by Justice Holmes' statement in Schenck v. United State. “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
One should note that this is sufficient, but not necessary. For example, I doubt if many people would believe that a person should be allowed to shout fire in a crowded theatre if he discovered a small fire in a waste basket. We have a court system to determine whether various statements are permissible.
The question today is whether speech that incites violence is permissible. It seems clear to me that if the statements are based on lies, they are not. For example, the statement that Jews are murderers because they must use the blood of Christian children in the making of Matzos for Passover and thus should be locked up or killed should not be allowed. But is it permissible to incite violence to prevent such statements?
My point is that like a lot of basic questions, this one is complicated and often depends on the particular situation. Articles such as this one do not aid in the discussion.
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Like all complex questions, we rest on a balancing beam, rocking back and forth. It's not that there are no easy answers but that there are truely no answers. We are left to argue and think our way through issues that have no end. That is why arguments for moderation do not make arguments for extreme openness irrelevant. A friend used to tell me his basic philosophy, "Moderation in all things. Including moderation." Of course he was referring to drugs, but I think it applies here.
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Thank you, Len, a really thoughtful comment.
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Thank you. So far none of Bret Stephens articles aid in discussion, but what Libertarian does? Everything they stand for leads eventually to their holy grail: tax cuts, privatization and de-regulation.
Free speech is a wonderful thing, but it is better when it applies to all members of an organization. For example, at universities, it would ne nice if graduate students did not trash their futures by disagreeing with their advisers. Likewise, it would be especially progressive if staff members did no risk their future employment by speaking in opposition to those favored by the aadministration.
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As a University of Chicago Ph.D. and a college professor it drives me up a wall how much conservative pandits and op-ed writers are obsessed with the supposed hobbling of the American mind that is happening due to liberal professors calling for safe spaces. The people who write about this are in a bubble and seldom spend time at universities IN classrooms to see what's going on there. This writer has taken a controversial letter that was virtually unanimously derided by professors and students alike and somehow taken it to prove that free speech is still alive on UChicago's campus - as if it didn't exist apart from conservative voices on campus.
Professors at University of Chicago - liberal and conservative alike - have always promoted critical thinking. Conservatives do NOT have a monopoly on this. In fact, if anything it's the other way around - I remember during the Bush years when the government wanted a language scholarship (FLAS) to be chosen by a committee of generals and politicians rather than professors because they preferred for us to work for the CIA, and there were protests about this. Mr. Stephens, if you want to pretend critical thinking at Chicago comes just from conservatives, why don't you attend some classes there and see for yourself?
And about Richard Spencer: if you think that advocating for ethnic cleansing isn't hate speech and that he is promoting critical thought and discussion, I've got some used cars I can sell you...
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The University of Chicago is indeed a great university, and one that since the era of Robert Maynard Hutchins has encouraged tough-minded, gloves-off debate – perhaps more than any other university in the country. And Robert Zimmer is to be applauded for his stance on free speech issues. But what are we to make of the claim that, on this basis alone, he is America's best university president? This claim reminds me of all those many restaurants who state that they serve the best food in their city, if not the world. Is the protection of free speech the only relevant criterion? Who’s the best general manager of a baseball team? The Yankee general manager who routinely fields a team that competes for the World Series, or Theo Epstein, who has taken two teams that hadn’t attained that status in forever, and delivered championships to the Red Sox and Cubs? A case can be made that the best manager is the one whose team has moved up from a forelorn history to eventual glory. By that token, Zimmer has taken what has long been a great university and maintained its excellence. He’s the Yankee manager of American universities. By the way, Mr. Stephens, shouldn’t you have disclosed that you’re a University of Chicago alumnus?
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Along with the article, there were 26 different comments listed and as identified by the writers, some were “leftist” and others were on the right, all reading the same article but each drawing a different conclusion (and here’s the head fake,) but not straight along party lines. It was a beautiful sight to behold...again and again, the writers drew on their experience, mixed in their intellect and in at least one case, their humor to draw conclusions. I learned from it all. Class continues to be in session, and ain’t that the point UC is trying to make?
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Bravo. Certainly a singular purpose of the university should be to train its students how to think and formulate ideas, and as rightly noted this process cannot take place when expression is stultified by faux outrage. The very process whereby one declares themselves "offended" is totally subjective, and thus fundamentally irrational. Individuals who cannot tolerate discourse without resorting to complaints of "aggression" can never be prepared to consider all sides of an argument.
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As Provost at Brown University, Zimmer opposed graduate teaching assistants' move to unionize. GTAs at Chicago have just voted to unionize, despite heavy opposition from the anti-union university administration.
I would gladly contribute to building a statue celebrating Zimmer, because of his conclusions about free speech and despite the apparent weakness or incompleteness of his thinking.
Zimmer is reported to have responded to questions about the inclusion of minority ideas and people into our majority culture and polity: “Inclusion into what?” “A world in which … feelings take precedence over other matters that need to be confronted?” Thus, Zimmer fails to take account of the postulational nature of “feelings" in any scheme for valuing intellectual proposals.
To add some clarity, President Trump feels that life is a struggle to become a winner at the expense of all the losers, and he will not live if he must be a chump chimp. Contrast this with the feeling advocated by most religions — love thy neighbor as thyself. And, by the way, who is ones neighbor is also a matter of feeling.
I was raised to believe that both are essential. That is, I was taught to feel that a good society is a society which is not stagnant and in which most of its members believe they are receiving a fair shake. Given my feelings and noting, that even Trump cries out to be loved and admired, our essential task is to find a durable balance between our inclination to be selfish and our inclination to share.
It should go without saying that free speech is fundamental to the functioning of a free and democratic society. Who can refute Mr. Stephens' basic point?
And yet, I can only use the word "stunned" to describe my reaction to the timing of his piece. Maybe "cruelly ironic" would be better. But, as I read his words, the day after the titular head of Mr. Stephens' party, through his official spokesperson, declares that it is "inappropriate" for anyone to challenge the opinion of the President's chief of staff, I can only wonder.
By his silence regarding Mr. Kelly and his selective criticism in this piece, I can only conclude that he is very supportive of Mr. Spencer's right to free speech, but, critics of John Kelly? Not so much.
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I went to Connecticut College (B.A. '76). In the Spring of '76, the woman, who would marry me later in the year, and I took an elective course offered on a one-time basis in the Philosophy Department. The teacher, Dr. Lester Reiss, was a wonderful man of Jewish background, with a deep, resonant voice, that must have come from his chain-smoking Lark cigarettes. Dr. Reiss was an atheist; possibly he might have called himself agnostic, because he was curious and open. The course was called "The Writings of C.S. Lewis." Six years later, married with four kids, I began studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Day one of the course with Dr. Reiss I would have called myself an atheist. "Listening" to people "speak" different thoughts than one has yet entertained is a wonderful thing. I call C.S. Lewis the best friend I even had who I have not... yet... met.
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Most universities have long ago given up on education---their aim now is entertainment, credentialing, and acquiring grants from the Koch Brothers. The Presidents of these institutions are CEO's, not academics, who run their institutions like a upscale big box store. The big losers in these commodity driven mega-fun palaces are parents who are bankrupting themselves over the mythical promise of jobs and prestige. I do applaud the University of Chicago, where today, Saturday, you will actually find students in the library---
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Kudos to the University of Chicago for inviting Naomi Kleiin to speak at a memorial for Milton Friedman. What person and what institution should get the most credit for the Western World's current perilous state of economic inequality? Can free speech exist when money is power?
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"As universities go, so ultimately go the fate of nations."
Very few people in the US actually believe, or even understand, the magnitude of this statement. Empires rise and fall.
I agree with President Zimmer, freedom of thought is connected to freedom of speech. Great new ideas come from many critically argued questionable ideas. Universities should be the colesiums of the battle of all ideas.
I'm all for the free expression of ideas and for open debate about any issue. But to take the side of the hamantash against Zimmer's latke, there are times when speech isn't about ideas at all. Harvey Weinstein spoke very freely to a lot of actresses. He expressed a number of ideas—but the purpose of his speech wasn't to elucidate his unique points of view, but to coerce women into having sex with him against their will. As a graduate of the University of Chicago myself, I was proud to read Zimmer's letter. But I also didn't forget the Wittgenstein and Austin I read as a student. Speech is an act as much as it is declaration of ideas—and a speech act can be a hostile one intended to intimidate, exclude, and even silence. Universities should promote an open environment where all ideas can be expressed. But when speech itself is used to silence other speech, limiting some speech is the only way to free up more speech. So while I admire Zimmer's defense of freedom of expression, let's also hope the Grey City never becomes too black and white on this or any other issue. The Latke-Hamantash Debate is never settled . . . and never should be.
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I never heard of Mr. Zimmer prior to this article. I am curious as to when the last time he actually taught a class full of average students.
Not one of those cozy groups of graduate students, but a section of something for the average undergrad in a lecture hall.
He may be good at administration and fundraising, but he'd get a lot more respect from me if he actually was daring enough to keep his feet on real academic ground.
1
Being 56 years old, I grew up being told sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. I never realized that it was an argument for speech until this wave of campus, let's call it political correctness grabbed universities by the throat.
That being said, why does the University Florida sanction a speech by Richard Spencer? Mr. Spencer certainly has the right to express his views but it doesn't mean a university has to give him a forum. While it is tricky business to decide which speakers, regardless of how controversial, can contribute to a debate about where we are where we are going, other speakers are just beyond the pale. The only reason I could see inviting him to speak is if the event was sponsored by the School of Anthropology.
2
Of course Zimmer is right and so is Stephens. What's so depressing are the comments here are these comments making excuses for, or minimizing, speech restrictions on campus. I work for a university and the current situation has been created by ideologues in the faculty and student party. They're not giving up their speech restrictions without a fight.
Judging from the ill-informed, low information, debate over the NFL players kneeling, most people don't know much about the First Amendment anyway.
226
Re not knowing much about the First Amendment and the NFL, the issue is using your workplace and employer's position to protest. NFL players are entertainers. They do not produce any widgets. It is clear that by using the position accorded by employment in televised entertainment events, they are irritating their customers. No owner said "you are not allowed to protest at any time", they said, or some did, "not on the field after you punched the time clock and are in the entertainment and leisure business you have chosen to be in."
1
"Judging from the ill-informed, low information, debate over the NFL players kneeling, most people don't know much about the First Amendment anyway."
You appear to be one of them. NFL players are employees, and they are in uniform when they are "kneeling". The First Amendment doesn't protect employees while they are representing their employer. The First Amendment only protects people from *government* restrictions on speech. Quoting Stephens:
"... in the case of private universities, the First Amendment generally doesn’t apply."
See this case for a recent example:
Google Fires Engineer Who Wrote Memo Questioning Women in Tech
By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI
AUG. 7, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/business/google-women-engineer-fired-...
See, also:
Where Faith Abides, Employees Have Few Rights
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
OCT. 9, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/business/09religious.html
Marginalized groups wanting to close down speech that makes them uncomfortable as a way of gaining power. When it is their right to speak that enables them to say this....
Demanding that the very avenue they are using be closed to others...
Conservatives becoming the voice of free speech...
It's as if Orwell and Vonnegut got together and dreamed something up no one would have believed possible.
2
People should read this letter from UC Berkeley economist Brad DeLong re free speech on campus, "Any Community... Flourishes only When Our Members Feel Welcome and Safe..." - http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/any-community-flourishes-only-whe...
4
With freedom comes responsibility. Inviting speakers who challenge intellectually, not merely viscerally, is part of a liberal arts education. I miss the days when education was about expanding the mind, not triggering defenses. What used to pass for common sense--being considerate to not offend-- has been hijacked. EIther people seek to offend, because they have the freedom to do so, or the conversations become monologues to our own identities. I am all for calling out assumptions that were previously not considered offensive, as we evolve by seeing our assumptions and biases. But there are ways to challenge intellectually without triggering visceral reactions. I mean, you, Mr. Stephens, have shown that you can have a broad audience who respects you and engages in a civil manner, even if there are differing starting points. Thank you for educating and for inspiring thoughtful discourse. Surely universities could do the same.
16
These principles may work at institutions like the U of C, but "free speech" in that context is not the same as in the public sphere. There are too many quality and editorial concerns. That culture committed to "discourse, argument, and lack of deference" should perhaps be prefaced by an adjective: thoughtful. We have all three of the former in our public sphere--via Twitter and other "social" spaces. But we do not have the atmosphere to foster the more prolonged, considerate discussions that still (in spite of many criticisms) take place on our best university campuses--and even in a few living rooms.
We have become a culture addicted to impulsive discourse, argument and lack of deference.
14
Bravo to you both Mr. Stephens.
I do find it sad that Stephens argues Zimmer is the "best president" for reasons of culture wars, rather than looking at Zimmer's accomplishments, both as an academic and administrator.
Zimmer has made real contributions to mathematics; this work is very creditable. As a university administrator he is much harder to judge; like many heads of universities the conditions they inherit set the university's course for a long time, in turn their decisions are often a very long time in coming to fruit. In any event Stephens does not even attempt to make an argument on real merits.
The University of Chicago is very deeply in debt, worst of any major University, poorest credit rating. It has long had a reputation for buying names; doing that with more debt is hardly an impressive strategy.
Zimmer will be judged for whether that works out -- just like any baseball manager who pursues the same strategy. Wait and see.
12
very fair comment (presuming the factual claims are true), but Stephens' point can be perfectly valid even if yours are as well. Given the collapse of our most elite schools, all of which are financially flourishing, perhaps there is still room for major contributions to the purpose of universities, even if the financial background is regrettable.
The university of Chicago has made a grave error over the years in its representations of the university and what it does. By common accord now in the US a university is primarily a delivery system for semi-professional football. Additionally, it has the role of certifying that certain of its students (the ones that graduates) can manage to get out of bed on time and get to classes on time. This is a valuable service to provide for prospective employers who want to know if the people they are hiring will actually show up for work. Finally, the university serves as a valuable infrastructure of support for fraternities, which facilitate the overconsumption of alcohol by underage drinkers.
21
The U of C fields a Division 3 football team, last I heard, not Division 1. There are no fake students on that campus. Get your facts straight before you post.
1
I am a proud graduate of U of C, where students were challenged by the free exchange of ideas from the day of arrival.
The University of Chicago embodied this liberal ideal, long before liberalism was hijacked by identity politics and conservative politics lost its integrity.
Long may liberal education and open discourse continue to thrive in Hyde Park!
112
It is all well and good to argue for academic openness, but the problem is equating crudeness with substantive arguments.
The University of Chicago has now lumped together, and trivialized, all forms of offensiveness, although there is a large spectrum. On one end are the frivolities like being cautious with a Halloween costume. But featured guests are another category.
This column mentions Richard Spencer's college address this week. Mr. Spencer is nothing more than an embodiment of hate. He has no intellectual arguments. He is not provocative, he is toxic. And while he does have the protected right of free speech, no one has a right to be a guest speaker. That is an invitation - an opportunity to offer a perspective, not a platform for hate speech. Universities should designate their featured speakers thoughtfully.
23
I'm surprised he sees China as a good example of freedom of speech and exchange of ideas. Really? Not really, right?
We're so wasted on cheap goods and labor from other countries we continue the abandonment. And now, we're talking tough about bringing those low-wage jobs 'back' home. Well, good luck.
Chicago University is probably better than most, I'll concede that point. But our overall morality record is quite dismal. Who speaks for the tens of millions in poverty with no escape (think Chicago)? Who really works towards an equality of condition, necessary for an equality of democratic participation? Nowhere to be found. Our compassion is nowhere. Not even in a university in Chicago.
The wealthy are thankful they have what they have, and, they'd like even more. This desire is never really satiated. And these are our 'leaders'?
No, until some form of real and loving democratic-socialism emerges, we'll continue down the dark path on inequity: luxury and want, decadence and desperation. Our Cain and Able. Our bad.
31
I rarely agree with conservatives but in this particular case Brett Stephens is absolutely right. There has been a most unhealthy trend in universities concerning invited speakers whose known positions offend the sensibilities of some students. Both the speaker and the students have a right to express their opinions. The right way to confront a speaker who they find offensive is to follow up with a rebuttal speech. Then perhaps both the speaker and the students will learn something.
43
Right-wing organizations provide funding to consertave campus groups in order that they may invite retrograde incendiary bigots to speak, and can cry foul and weep over the 1st ammendment when the violence of their words - yes, violence, it's an established thing - causes people to protest. My man Stephens: these people ARE engaging with the "ideas" of these hateful people in the way they deserve, by shutting them down so they can get back to their real educations. To my mind, the only good that comes of these unfortunate provocations is that students get the opportunity to exercise THEIR 1st ammendment rights and gather to show solidarity against hatred, ignorance and racism, funded by a morally bankrupt and rottenly hipocritical conservative "movement". There is your true threat to American democracy.
Not permitting them to speak plays into a right wing trap. The deplorable speakers get a bigger platform by denouncing the attack on free speech and painting colleges as hypocritical centers of intolerance. Better to let them speak and then either ignore them or ask for the right of a follow up rebuttal.
2
Mr. Stephens, you and Mr. Zimmer have missed the more important issue in the universities' role in our society regarding the term "free speech."
FREE speech yes -- but our universities have become centers of PURCHASED speech (and teaching). This more important issue is addressed by a better (former) university president. Read a little from Derek Bok.
In pursuit of funds, professors devote themselves to pleasing oligarchs and other rich folks, and from them win funds for "research," which shapes what is taught. Leaving its teaching to underpaid "adjunct professors" and graduate students.
Molded by oligarch-funded PURCHASED research and speech, our universities have become, along with our tax system, principal engines for increasing our economic inequality, moving us toward what Putin wants us to become, another oligarchy like his. A modern equivalent of a medieval world of Barons idling in the Castles whilst The People slave in the fields like Serfs.
24
A little discussed problem in the academy is the dark side of "academic discipline."
An academic discipline allows research that fits into its own "box."
An academic discipline will "discipline" any of its members for stepping outside the scholarly boundaries of the discipline, which are policed by tenured faculty and deans.
If you are an untenured assistant professor of "public administration," for example, and you want to publish research in a top-tier peer-reviewed psychology journal, forget about getting tenure.
I was such an assistant professor of public administration for seven years at the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington DC.
The dean of the School of Public Affairs wrote me a letter demanding that I "jettison" my research because it "belonged" to the "department of psychology."
I will never forget this word "jettison."
Instead, I decided to jettison the School of Public Affairs at American University, and have lived happily ever after.
13
Very few professors do not live in fear of accidentally offending their students. Many more live in fear that their students will be sexually harassed by other professors and that university administrators will do nothing about it. Probably more live in fear that they will become the target of internet trolls. And certainly more live in fear that their students, and perhaps even their children, will be stopped at gunpoint by campus police. Today they also have to live in fear that their campus will be transformed into the next "Charlottesville," which was hardly about what any professor had said in the classroom.
5
I am a professor who lives in fear of being untruthfully accused of sexual harassment and that university administrators will believe the lying student. That's why I've adopted the practice of never meeting with a student with my office door closed.
3
Sure. Free speech is important but only because honest speech is so important. And the only way we know to assure honest speech is...you guessed it, free speech. That is why our founders took the radical step of making free speech the first amendment despite its potential for mischief.
There is now a fly in the free speech ointment. When 40% of the country is besotted, free speech is no longer the radical antidote to lies that it is intended to be.
For Trump supporters, free speech has none of the intended antiseptic properties. Rather, it becomes a tool in the hands of propagandists and a license to lie, defame and inflame without fear of legal reprisal.
That is where we now stand in October of 2017. Our most cherished freedom neutered by stupidity.
49
Great comment! Besotted is the perfect word. Drunk on hate and the lust for power.
1
Please be careful not to paint nearly all of academia with the one brush. I have been educating since 1989 and I have never observed any of the problems you describe. Those things do happen, and those silly trends should be reversed, but what happens at the U of Chicago is not entirely unique. I fear that it will become possible to destroy respect for institutions of higher education by beating that drum too often, and then it's easy to rip them down. They do need renewal, but not destruction.
8
I completely agree with this comment. I retired two years ago after 40 years teaching and conducting research at major research universities. I and most of my tenured colleagues taught our classes with care, and enjoyed the interaction with our students. We did not pawn these classes off onto graduate students. Most of us carried on active research programs, engaging graduate and undergraduate students in all aspects of the research activity, without being pressured from on high regarding what aspect of research we pursued. Of course we were expected to pursue research questions in the general field into which we were hired, and we benefitted from picking research topics that were likely to be funded. But the topics that were competitive were not what followed the party line. Rather, they were the topics that were most likely to challenge old theories and truly advance our understanding of how things really work. I was most fortunate to have been able to pursue a career in such an enlightened environment.
4
Agreed. I think the ultra-liberal trigger warning university is a straw man.
1
I am obviously viewing this from afar (from the UK), but I get the feeling that this panic over ‘free speech’ is largely a canard. I have given minor trigger warnings in lecture for years before I ever heard the term. It is simply polite to let students know that you’re about to show graphic images from Nanking 1937 or whatever.
As for ‘free speech’ with regards to outside speakers I don’t see why universities should have to lay out hundreds of thousands of dollars/pounds for security for a speaker the students (not the university or faculty) invited. How many institutions have a budget that can handle that even once, let alone on any sort of regular basis? Are they really looking for ‘debate’ anyway?
I do agree that some intellectual stifling does go on (I feel it, as a brazen, ‘fast and loose’ style teacher and tutor). I often feel I have restrain certain off-colour jokes (usually about historical massacres and disasters, etc.) and have often felt unfairly prejudiced as a historian of war (especially in hiring). There are those who want ideological/cultural uniformity, which is not healthy.
All that said, and perhaps we’re merely lucky here in Blighty, but I’ve never had a student revolt or students get genuinely upset and want to start protesting me and I teach and research war, violence, and colonialism....pretty rough stuff.
If there is a problem in the US the cultural roots seem deeper than just being a ‘university’ thing. Of course, I could be entirely wrong.
27
No, you are entirely right. In America we have some who have become too easily affronted and others who have become too willing to affront. A lot of speech in American has little to do with expression, but everything to do with the ongoing cultural war that wracks America. Donald Trump's twitter feed is now a good example of what "free speech" has become in America.
“Concerns about civility and mutual respect ... can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community.”
OK, first, I'd like to see the context for this quote. Second, the problem isn't that disagreeable ideas are being presented--its that they are being presented by disagreeable people in disagreeable ways. A student in my university classes can say what sh/e likes, as long as it is rationally grounded and presented fairly. That's not what happens when Coulter or Milos come to town. It's not the idea that is being protested--its the demagogue.
So, yes, we need to make space for all kinds of ideas. We DON'T need to make space for people who fundamentally aren't interested in the exchange of ideas.
18
Perhaps they are "demagogues", but who's the judge of who's a demagogue not worthy of a forum to speak, and who's not a demagogue but just an individual with a set of ideas which makes some people feel uncomfortable?
So let students protest peacefully people like Coulter and Milos, but not get violent with the aim of seeking enough power through violence to create an environment where they "win" and the speaker cannot present their ideas. Peaceful protest presents a great learning opportunity; students think, learn and take action. They might learn even more if they listened and heard the ideas that would lead to a protest rather that learning on social media that speakers are "demagogues" and should therefore not be allowed a forum. I was exposed to so many new ideas during my college days that allowed me to think and rethink about previously held assumptions about the world. My intellectual growth would have been stunted if I went to school in a protective bubble... I could have stayed home for that. Kudos to Mr. Zimmer and the University of Chicago.
1
Are you kidding? I teach in a British university in China. Debate or disagreement in China? Not a chance. I can't even talk frankly to my students - any criticism of China is taboo and causes awkwardness among students, so is criticism of the government - in fact most people stay from even criticizing specific government policies. Debate or disagreement Western style or even in other democracies will be hard here, the Party is even tightening control over universities.
11
so often, the distinction between free speech and hate speech is lost. We must make this distinction more clear for all. Much hate speech is condoned in the name of free speech. Conversely the idea of "safe space" is utilized to protect against any uncomfortable opinions.
10
So eloquently written and truthfully spoken. I am forwarding this to all my friends who are university-bound or who have children at universities.
8
The challenge here is that there is an arbitrary line between protected and unprotected speech. We can't threaten the President's life and claim free speech, so not all speech is protected. The question then becomes should hate speech be protected or not? I think that hate speech is as bad as threatening a person's life and therefore should not be considered protected speech.
13
So let's see--$3.2 million per year salary for the U of C President--rather handsome. Then he has a campus home rent free, use of a university limo, and probably most of his meals provided by campus staff. I have no idea if he needs pocket change. Does he also have a clothing allowance?
President Zimmer has built a most impressive school with many new fancy buildings and exciting new academic programs. But he has presided over a huge increase in university debt such that the U of C has the highest debt per student in the country. While others state that "deficits do not matter", I think U of C business folks might wish to challenge this short term thinking. And about that president's compensation-----I got lost on that one.
8
The University of Chicago has Nobel laureates for the simple reason that they were and are willing, and able, to offer generous salaries and other resources to faculty who have established their reputation elsewhere.
Like the Justices said in the Citizens United case, money talks -- that's the 'free speech' operative here. I'm not impressed with the genius of this president, or especially his safe, cynical criticism of 'trigger warnings.'
It does not take a very brave man to be 'politically incorrect,' when the donors and full-tuition families were always going to cheer him on.
14
"The University of Chicago has Nobel laureates for the simple reason that they were and are willing, and able, to offer generous salaries and other resources to faculty who have established their reputation elsewhere." You mean, unlike the other great universities of the United States? Sorry, that's a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. And in any case, it's not correct. Let me cite two examples. Subrahmanian Chandrasekhar came to Chicago in 1937 from Cambridge. Yoichiro Nambu arrived not long after the Second World War had devastated his university in Tokyo. Both geniuses were not that well known when they joined the faculty, and stayed here, in both cases, for the next sixty years. Both won the Physics Nobel, in no small part for work they did as much younger men, and in Nambu's case, for work entirely done at Chicago. Enrico Fermi originally left Fascist Italy for Columbia University, but during the war he came to Chicago, and never left. Why? It wasn't just money; Columbia had more. Chicago is a different place, suitable for those who think differently. And where everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks very much. I can't stand Milton Friedman's ideas about economics, but there are few places he would have been made as welcome as he was here.
1
I believe in free speech.
But I spend a lot of time debunking the misinformation that comes from the right, creationism, tax cuts for the job creators, trickle-down, white superiority, global warming is not real and with human cause, the difference between the deficit and the debt, etc.
I would rather be spending that time working together to fix real problems.
11
There is no single, best university and no best university president, but the University of Chicago is excellent and exceptional, as is its president. Very nice essay. Mr. Stephens is a welcome addition to this newspaper, though he has left a void at the WSJ, which remains the better newspaper.
5
"There is no single, best university and no best university president, but the University of Chicago is excellent and exceptional, as is its president."
Assentior
AM '08
1
This article is an gives an excellent explanation of why free speech is essential for human discovery, innovation and knowledge, and why university speech codes intended to protect some "sensitivities" threaten our society. But in his tenth paragraph, the author says that free speech is not, strictly speaking, essential for democracy. Whaaaaaaaat? How could that possibly be? Because right now, the US has the most sensitive president ever, i.e., when it comes to his sensitivities, and (among other things) has proposed pulling the "license" of a network he fakely calls a fake news outlet. Even a nation with no universities, no high schools, no elementary schools needs free speech to be democratic.
6
We need a brilliant advocate of free speech and the truth in our presidency today. Robert Zimmer could, would, should be the president we hve been yearning and waiting for since Donald Trump rode his money and colossal ignorance into town.
1
I couldn't agree more. Heresy elucidates orthodoxy.
1
Alongside free speech you need to champion respect and courtesy alongside evidence and a search for truth and a philosophy of "first do no harm".
4
If only Trump would take such advice rather than automatically denouncing any one who disagrees with him as a liar, enemy of the people, etc. Ironically, the White House is currently the ultimate "safe space."
4
Some people don't seem to understand that the First Amendment only protects freedom of speech from unreasonable restrictions by government. Court cases have also held that the First Amendment must be adhered to by groups who receive funding from government as well. This is why the heinous Robert Spencer can force his way into a speaking engagement at the University of Florida.
Zimmer is right, but for another reason as well: The absolute worst thing one can do with venomous trolls like Spencer is to draw more attention to him by banning his speech. He loves protest and wants violence because it beings him and his misguided cause more notoriety. I say let him speak like anyone else, but stop showering him with 24 hour media coverage and attention-seeking protests, which are also drawing wall to wall coverage. That is what he wants--a media megaphone and free publicity to get his views out. Stop giving it to him.
6
It's a lot easier to come off as a great president when you lead a balanced, scientifically focused faculty. Larry Summers, a leftist by the conservative standards of Chicago's legendary economics department, didn't fair so well when he made similar speeches as Harvard's president.
I'm more than willing to concede too many liberals are timid in the defense of free speech. Is Stephens willing to concede that since the Second Gulf War conservatives of various stripes (alt and otherwise) have, with nation-building and nativism irreparably damaged the stature and the influence of the U.S.A. across the globe, exacerbated racism, slaughtered millions and squandered hundreds of billions of dollars?
I am not be lying with the lambs but I ain't wallowing with the pigs and goats either.
3
The President of Harvard, Drew Faust, said the same thing at this year's commencement. Free speech, women's rights, truth, top American universities, and most professors have a liberal bias. Our country is a liberal democracy and our universities study Liberal Arts..
Freedom to question and criticize are synonymous with freedom of expression, and when we have Trump advisor Stephen Miller telling us that “the president will not be questioned,” and presidential spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders warning a member of the press that it is “highly inappropriate to debate” with General Kelly, we’d better hope that our institutes of higher learning can remain a bastion against the kind of totalitarian thinking which continues to spew forth from this misbegotten presidency.
8
Academia is all about teaching and learning. There are academic and research standards that must be met and the faculty is hired based upon the needs of the university and the research and published material of the applicants. So when a university allows someone to speak, there should also be some standard applied as to the credibility of the material presented and the credentials of the person speaking. In addition there should be a requirement that opposing viewpoints be presented by equally qualified persons. This should be set up so there isn't a large time gap between speakers. That way the two arguments or positions will be fresh in the minds of the audience helping them evaluate they topic and formulate their position. Allowing speakers to present their viewpoints more to recruit than inform should not be allowed. Because someone has solidly formed a viewpoint in their own mind does not make them experts to inform others. The person needs to prove their expertise via demonstrated study, research, or experience to demonstrate that expertise. Lastly, when controversial speakers are allowed (who does the asking here to speak: the speaker or the university?) who is paying for the security? Do public university budgets have a line item for controversial speakers' security? If not, what other line item is used instead? Tuition and state funds should not be diverted for that. Unless appropriated by the legislature.
4
The defense of free speech begins in university departments, with a concern that a certain orthodoxy does not gain control and hog the tenure track jobs for worthy followers of that orthodoxy, thereby shutting out worthy followers of other orthodoxies or iconoclasts who draw from several orthodoxies or who doubt all orthodoxies. Some disciplines have orthodoxies that do not recognize other orthodoxies as valid participants in the discipline.
In any discipline, this is unfortunate. But some disciplines have intimate connections to political and social issues, and if these disciplines are captured by a particular orthodoxy, students who do not accept that orthodoxy will have problems. Political science, economics, medicine, psychology, history, and philosoply are among the disciplines that can be dominated by intolerant orthodoxies in which questioning the conceptual frameworks of the mainstream status quo will be censored by making it impossible, since the questioning must use the frameworks it is trying to bring into question.
Schools of economics that deny that major depressions are possible or have actually happened exist. Some schools of political science have no room in their schemes for movements that are outside the mainstream, viewing them as pathologies rather than phenomena from which something might be learned about the mainstream.
5
David, you are making statements that are too general . What you say may be true in SOME departments, but certainly not all. For example, Modern Monetary Theory is a school of economics that is considered heterodox in economics today. But recently Stephanie Kelton, perhaps the most well known practitioner, has been appointed as a full professor at Stony Brook. And surely the econ departments at MIT and Harvard are full of people from widely different schools.
1
In cities like Chicago and Houston some of us transform those chips on our shoulders into group accomplishments. Achieving excellence in a group effort involves figuring stuff out, which in turn requires people to challenge assumptions, educate each other, avoid groupthink, and develop and execute workable strategies.
Also, there were times and places in which white supremacy was enforced in part by a form of political correctness. Challenging that made some uncomfortable.
During the process of removing artificial barriers to women participating in the workforce, I remember a consciousness-raising "riddle" during the 1970s about a son who is injured in a car crash that kills his father. The ER physician exclaims "I can't operate on him; he's my son." Made you think and feel.
Many people argued against having provocative speakers like Condoleezza Rice, Camille Paglia, and Bill Maher on campus. This effort to stifle debate has not been limited to speech by the likes of Richard Spencer.
I imagine people who believe our common humanity, rather than race, gender, class, or religion, should be at the center of our moral reasoning will need to persistently battle divisive philosophies and strategies without resorting to divisiveness ourselves. That may not be easy. We may need to learn things like how to distinguish a humane immigration policy designed to help the country prosper from a policy designed to undercut fair wages for profit.
13
The antidote to speech you hate is speech you love. I'd amend that by requiring both speakers to appear at the same time in front of the same audience. That theoretically assures that listeners hear the speeches at the same time.
In the Trump era we're living in now, that may prove inadequate inasmuch as the far-right wants to control the dialogue.
5
It's looking an awfully lot like the far left wants to control the dialogue. Look at how Antifa is trying to prevent white supremists from speaking, or anyone else that doesn't jib with their agenda. Let these peoplespeak without a rebuttal speaker. A student can choose not to attend, to attand and ask salient questions, or simply use another peaceful venue for disagreement. The violence we've seen at Berkeley and other schools is proving that the left is trying to subvert free speech, and I'm a liberal.
2
Antifa has zero political power. It is not trying to stifle white racist speech so much as offering anti-racist speech. Racism will be the death of this country along with Trump's desire to unleash nuclear weapons somewhere.
3
Well, Gloria, I know this it is not considered PC to raise the specter of Hitler, but do you think the world might have been better off if he had been prevented from speaking?
Free speech includes not only the right to make assertions, but to evaluate them, and to prefer some over others.
Consensus-building for the sake of agreement is dangerous since it deprives us of nuance and options. Consensus-building for the sake of understanding is healthy because it saves energy compared with futile disputation and allows us to move in directions that are beneficial for the society as a whole.
6
Funny. Since the 1960s, I always thought that it was the function of the pill to free men from the bondage of not-so-irrational fears. It’s not as stirring as Brandeis’s conviction, but I’m sure mine gets more nods out there.
I strongly support Bret’s naming of Robert Zimmer as America’s best university president, and for the reasons he gives. There can be no more worthy purpose of higher education than to challenge preconceptions and actively encourage intellectual exploration.
20
It's not often that I agree with you, Richard - well, almost never - but speaking as a (retired) academic, I think you're right on the button with this one.
p.
4
Yes, there is a more worthy purpose of higher education. It’s called the transmission and preservation of knowledge—in one word, scholarship, which only sometimes involves challenging preconceptions and what you call “intellectual exploration.” Universities have unfortunately laid claim to the intellectual function, but fact is it can be found in every walk of life and in every nook and corner, sometimes to good effect, sometimes not. As to the latter, it sometimes finds it’s way into NYTimes commentary that way.
Fabulous segue, Richard!
And so very apt to my experience. I went on the pill and to university in the same year. The former indeed freed me from the bondage of not-so-irrational-fears and opened up a world of enticing possibilities. In my naivety, I had thought that would have been offered by the latter. It was not.
After three years in that institution, spearing sharp pencils into my thigh as antidote to overwhelming narcolepsy, the possibilities offered looked as dead and yellowed as the professors and their lecture notes. I left it for the open road, a year's supply of pills tucked into my backpack. Best decision I ever made.
3
Shouting down a controversial speaker or unpopular professor may not promote free speech, but my experience and reading tells me that academia is not a true bastion of free speech anyway. The problem with academia is that free speech is abused department by department. Many departments have an orientation within their field, and senior professors enforce those orientations to protect their standing (e.g., the Chicago school of economics). Much of this problem is structural, and much dates back to McCarthyism, the influence of which survived in full force until the winners of that battle started retiring in the last two decades or so. So I understand why students misbehave: they have poor role models to follow.
16
You know, I just had a terrible (and wonderful) thought. There's one person whose free speech should be fettered, tramelled, what have you. A number of vulgar expressions come to mind, but please use your imagination.
If Trump were to shut his mouth (and his twitter account), what a wonderful world this would be!
I'll leave it to others to stay on topic and indulge myself in the fantasy of a silent Trump. What a peaceful thought!
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I am a "liberal" grad of the of the University of Chicago who was very proud when I read the president's letter saying there would be no trigger warnings or safe spaces at the university. This is conservative? I don't see it that way. Yes,ideas can be offensive. But the benefits of free discussion more than compensate. And fearless, rigorous intellectual discourse, not to mention an open mind and a sense of humor, will enrich your life and make you stronger.
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An honest intellectual position has to acknowledge both aspirational goals such as those that liberalism or progressivism customarily espouses and pragmatic goals such as those that conservatism is customarily loyal to. When choosing to vote for a candidate who is affiliating with a party thought liberal or conservative, the thinking that they offer need not be one-sided. The one-sidedness reflects the influence of pressure groups, not the sincere beliefs of our elected representatives.
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As a fellow liberal, I completely agree with your comments. I abhor both "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" and do applaud what the University of Chicago is doing. When I was in college and graduate school, I constantly came across fellow students, speakers, and professors whose view did not dovetail with my own. Did it harm me? No. These interactions only served to broaden my thinking, especially when I was an undergraduate because there were times I would see the weakness in some of my own positions.
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If only Zimmer would be the president of the U.S! That would truly help make it great.
Free speech is a powerful tool, and, like many tools, can be used as a weapon. In that guise, there is no possibility of dialogue, for the point is not to communicate, but rather to harm others; not to debate ideas, but rather to engage in character assassination. What limits should we put on weapons? If we look to the example of the NRA, the resounding answer is none. Does that make the US safer? Not in comparison with other western countries that have managed to maintain civil liberties while also restricting access to guns. Perhaps there is an analogous middle ground in which weaponized speech would not be protected. Sadly, I'm afraid the more likely path is that speech as weapon will become ever more prevalent.
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Which would you prefer--to face someone insulting you, or to face someone shooting a gun at you? Words may be harmful in the sense that they may hurt our feelings. But guns are harmful in the sense that they may end our lives. To suggest an equivalence between words and guns, censorship and gun control, is to confuse an analogy and an argument.
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Speech is not "weaponized." If you have ever faced a weapon, you would not make that statement. If you are capable of writing a letter to the NYT, you are perfectly capable of standing up to "weaponized " speech.
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To all my fellow lifelong leftists: If you can't understand why Mr. Zimmer is as valuable to our country as Bret Stephens proclaims, then you've failed freshman classes in Constitutional Law, American History, Political Theory and more.
Education isn't about memorizing facts, or creating bubbles where you feel safe, it's about learning how to think critically; to make judgements based on data not opinions, and to be willing to adjust your opinions when new facts become available.
My thanks to Robert Zimmer for his determined efforts to remember why education is important, and how to best insure it remains effective in our changing world.
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Education.
Education isn't about beliefs or feelings. It really isn't about you at all, it's about the pursuit of the true and the real and the possible.
Modern higher education is an imperfect device for achieving this worthy goal, but if we can keep the marketers and the business school grads at bay long enough, some of this will occur.
I've been teaching for 35 years in 7 countries, and I tell my students at the beginning of every year that education is fundamentally a process of change, it's about personal transformation, about becoming what you are not. And if students walk out the door in June the same way they walked in in August, I get an F.
If you're not confused, you don't understand the situation.
Find a way to see what is actually true, and then decide if you're willing to run uphill against your culture. That is freedom.
A mistake is a place where someone tried to do something. The only people who don't make mistakes . . . don't do anything.
Certainty is a disease for which there is no obvious cure.
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I just don't believe him.
It's sad that while lecturing at us about what he thinks "leftist" should understand, Gregory shows us that he has no idea that his admonition is as needed, and would be as valuable, if given on the right.
Agree. The University of Chicago is likely the best university in the country and Zimmer has been a great president. Very proud of the positions they have articulated on free speech at the university.
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You are equivocating free speech with rabble rousing and speech meant to create violent action by the speakers folowers.
I saw the beginning of the "Free Speech Movement," at Sather Gate at UC Berkeley. They were making reasonable complaints about he administration, they were calling for peaceful action. Sit ins and non violent occupation, and it was not racial, everyone was welcome. I saw the Black panthers doing the same. They were well dressed and well spoken while handing out their pamphlets. It was the Oakland police department that use force which brought about their militancy.
These white power pseudo Nazis are not interested in rational discourse, they are there to indue gullible neophytes into their cult. A cult of hate and violence. We see it at tRump rallies, and at other places. The speakers at Berkeley recently were the a security risk, they were not there to debate, but to spread their messages of divisiveness, not to create an intellectual atmosphere, but only to bring disorder and recruit disciples to their cause.
The Constitutional right to free speech only applies to government regulation of speech, not to other entities.
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You say that some speakers have no desire to exchange ideas, and are only interesting in stirring hate. That's certainly true, but who are you to judge what is or isn't acceptable speech? None of us can be trusted to make that call, and group decisions are even more dangerous. The only way to protect speech that is valuable -- the life blood of a free society -- is to also tolerate speech that is garbage.
Voltaire had it right: "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it.:
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I support Black Lives Matter. But couldn't a conservative very easily make an argument that its members are acting "not to debate, but to spread their messages of divisiveness, not to create an intellectual atmosphere, but only to bring disorder and recruit disciples to their cause"? Isn't the distinction between these categories largely determined by the political orientation of the beholder? And to what authority would we want to give the power to distinguish between legitimate protesting and "bringing disorder"?
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Free speech with conditions governed by who? Your dystopian definition of the 1st Amendment sends chills down my spine.
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A good number of US universities are no longer universities, in the strict sense, anymore. In my lifetime I've watched them morf into young adult resorts, replete with posh dorms, gourmet food, shopping malls, semiprofessional sports, expensive gyms and sports facilities, free cable tv and 24/7 entertainment, which teach classes on the side by largely contingent labor.
University Administrators are no longer highly accomplished academics with strong ideas about teaching, scholarship, and public service, but are instead seeking ways to increase the budgets. As such, anything that is going to offend or drive away the tuition dollars will be not tolerated, including free speech. Not to mention the silencing or purging of faculty who question administrators' decisions and practices.
If love of money is the root of all evil, them some serious soul searching is required at our nation's universities. Perhaps we need to return to what is the true mission of education. Perhaps our very democracy depends on it.
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As the parent of a current college student who goes to a well known liberal arts college, I strongly disagree with your assertions. Have you actually been on a college campus recently? My kid spends 16 of every 18 hours each day (she at least occasionally gets 6 hours of sleep) going to class, doing homework, doing research for her senior thesis, discussing her work with her professors, tutoring younger students and applying to graduate school. Her professors are dedicated to pushing their students to another level of intellectual analysis. They alternately encourage and challenge her to be a true scholar. She has learned that she is capable of so much more than she could have imagined when she entered college. The President of her college is an academic of the highest integrity. This idea that kids are at a country club with no responsibiliy is not consistent with anything I have seen on multiple college campuses. Don't fall into the trap of believing anecdote reveals broad truths.
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Well said! Most of the administrators who walk the halls of academe would be better suited for Wall Street or as venture capitalists in Silicon Valley or China.
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I am truly thrilled at the excellent experience your daughter has had at college. Smaller, liberal arts colleges are the best places for the engaged student. The problem at large state-system schools are 3-fold: 1) undergraduates get lost in classes if 600+; 2) the administrative levels and numbers are ever-expanding vs. real full-time faculty slots (whether tenure or alternative tracks focusing on teaching and the scholarship of teaching or clinical practice, where applicable); and 3) the role if the board of trustees (with its inclusion of political appointments) never seems to be identified as part of the problem.
I'm cheering- from the left.
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I wish Conservatives would shed their hair shirts of grievance and take the chips off their shoulders. The biggest trigger phrase right now is "Happy Holidays", and the trauma that it seems to induce is the fear that other traditions and celebrations would like to exercise their rights of free speech. Don't conservatives ever tire of their hypocrisy? Or have they become so amoral that they can't even see it?
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Let's not confuse content with style.
A student should learn the art of communication in tandem with learning research skills, fallacies of logic, logical reasoning, collective reasoning and concepts such as confirmation bias and idiomatic expression.
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Some years ago my community college in MA could not find a worthy employee to attend a conference at UC, and the buck was passed down to my humble level. So I flew to Chicago, endured the blather, and went to the closing dinner with a horrible cold and yen to tell these elites from the heartland the real truth, once and for all.
I started to go on about how "my people" knew what "it was all about" etc. The junior professor from the U.C. politely brought me back to earth. He asked if I would speculate about what percentage of his sophomores knew anything about "the Federalist Papers". I guessed like 90%. He replied, closer to 30%. Ever since, my politics are pragmatic and just beyond
10
Until I hear differently from Mr. Stephens, I will assume that his support of unfettered free speech would accommodate an address by Adolph Hitler, advocating the extermination of one or more ethnic groups.
As the child of a holocaust survivor, and the great grandson of a holocaust victim, I disagree with that view. If you can live with that kind of speech, then the would-be victims to have the right to take preemptive action to defend themselves and their families. I know I would. Uncivil society leaves us with few choices.
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I don't think you understand what free speech actually is.
Yes, I would support the right of Adolph Hitler (to use your example) to publicly advocate the extermination of the Jews. If we silence such voices how will we know who is dangerous?
Muting hate speech will never quiet the hatred behind the words, it will only encourage the spread of such fanaticism.
I want those people to speak out. I want to know the depth of their hatred and why they hold such beliefs.
We need to know who they are.
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Hate speech is dramatically transformed in a society with broad protection for the right to bear arms, and requires suitable time, place and manner restrictions. The Supreme Court permits laws prohibiting incitement to riot, or even shouting fire in a crowded theater. How is this (restrictions on certain campus speech) different? The nature of what one says, and where one says it, is clearly relevant in these cases.
Apparently, you don’t understand that if Hitler were not given a forum at the University of Chicago, he certainly would be able to find a forum elsewhere. The University is a perfect place for Hitler to spew his nonsense as it has all the right people to argue how morally bankrupt his philosophy is. On the other hand, if he can only spew his hate in beer halls full of drunk white supremicists, he may be able to start a totally messed up movement.
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"Those are fighting words at a time when professors live in fear of accidentally offending their own students and a governor needs to declare a countywide state of emergency so that white supremacist Richard Spencer can speak at the University of Florida."
Yes it's the professors living in fear, not the students of color who paid money to a school that is now using that money to invite literal white supremacists to campus to advocate for their intellectual inferiority. Yes it's the professors living in fear, not the Mexican-American students who are told at rallies ON THEIR CAMPUS in support of these white nationalist to go back to their country as though they were less American than any other former-immigrant group.
But no, it's the tenured white-male professors who can sexually assault their students and get nothing but a slap on the wrist and probation [1] who are afraid. Not their female students who can't even get a small "hey we're going to be talking about sexual assault" (ie. trigger warning) before a professor goes into graphic detail about something that the student but not the professor has ever experienced.
But yes. It's the poor professors. Someone give those snowflakes a hug.
[1] http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ucla-sexual-harass-20170109-...
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So, given your examples which are indeed serious, are you then saying that academic discourse needs to be governed primarily by how ideas and criticisms make the hearer feel? And if you suggest it is only the outrageous ideas, where would you draw that line?
And who can participate in the conversation? Are men who have serious commentary about sexual harassment of women immediately discounted because they are not women who have felt the same way? Are people who have not been in the military able to comment meaningfully about military issues and disarmament because they have not had the same experience and the same feelings? Do fathers of unborn fetuses have any part of a conversation regarding the abortion because it is not their body and so they cannot have the same feelings about the pregnancy?
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A good initial comment, and a good reply. Therefore, good argument. The real danger is over-simplification, and retreat into lazy partisan tropes. There are dangers to academic discourse from extremists on both sides of politics, from those who want to stifle political incorrectness, to those who want to expunge climate change from the record.
1
I agree with the gist of this article, especially about the importance of opposing ideas and contentious ideas being out in the open. But! But, but, but, I object to this being a "free speech" issue. For the love of all that is decent, please stop framing these issues as being about free speech as protected in the Bill of Rights. The first amendment protects speech from being restricted legally. If a school cancels a provocative speaker it's not a first amendment issue. The first word of the first amendment is "Congress." A university canceling a speaker is not a Congressional abridgement. Universities don't give equal time to flat earther arguments nor to junk science. Nor should they. In the marketplace of ideas, some are just better than others. Some (like racial supremacy and the good parts about slavery) are contrary to our socially accepted ethics and should not be propped up as if they are comparable to ideas with academic rigor. You won't be welcome to stand on my property and solicit followers to your faith group, nor to solicit members to your racial divide club. That's not a free speech issue, because I am not Congress.
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"Universities don't give equal time to flat earther arguments nor to junk science. Nor should they. In the marketplace of ideas, some are just better than others."
Bravo!
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Thankfully, you are misinformed about the legal framework. The First Amendment applies to the States via the 14th Amendment. So a state, or a state institution, as well as the Federal government may not violate the First Amendment prohibition against prohibiting free speech. You are correct that the University of Chicago, as a private institution, and individual citizens, are not regulated by either the 1st or 14th Amendment unless their actions are somehow, "state action."
Best comment today.
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It is our intellectuals who will save us from ourselves but only if they're allowed the freedom to discuss and debate. Safe spaces seem like a good idea but you can't change a persons mind or counter their arguments if you don't engage. Derek Black left behind the white nationalist belief system that he was raised with after going to college and befriending those he had been taught to hate. They challenged his false beliefs and opened his mind to the fact that they were wrong through open dialogue.
Throughout our history as a nation free speech has moved us forward. Civil Rights, womens rights, LGBT rights, and the end of McCarthyism were all accomplished thanks to passionate and often controversial debates that helped change public opinion. Safe spaces will stifle such discourse which will lead to a more closed, less tolerant society.
32
Unfortunately, thanks to lies and those who tell those lies, those hard won rights are under threat. We are headed all too quickly toward a less tolerant society.
I thought "safe spaces" were where people could protest against Neo-Nazis without being mowed down in the street by one of them in a car.
4
The bigot finds an open door,
The neo-nazi even more,
The right wing think-tanker
Hedge fund hanky panker
The climate-change-is-a-hoax bore.
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Free speech means nothing, does nothing, protects nothing, advances nothing when the speakers have lost all respect and connection to the truth. That is the problem in our universities and that is what the students are so upset about. What the right has done has been to use the cloak of free speech to advance a barrage of outright lies. These lies are not made to advance academic discourse, expand thought and argument. They are being made to advance a political agenda.
Having said that, there is nothing wrong with advancing any political agenda on a college campus. But again, that discussion must be based in truth and presentation of sound rational arguments. That's not what the right wants to do. That's not what right wing media darlings do. These people are not William Buckley.
So yes, let's have a real discussion. But that discussion has to earnestly based on reality and sound argument. I can think of quite a few columns published in this paper that do not meet that criteria.
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It's not up to undergraduates to determine which guest speakers tell the truth. Even a broken clock can be a guest speaker and impart some kind of metaphorical truth. In that case it's both art and speech.
2
One man's reality is another's fantasy. And a person's political view has no relevance to the soundness of their arguments. If you think someone's lecture is likely to be nonsense you are free to not attend, but if you think their argument is weak and dangerous, you have an obligation to attend and point out the weakness and danger.
1
Your ideas are truly anti-American and are really foundational ideas in totalitarian states. The notion that some authority gets to decide what is spoken or discussed based on whether the authority labels it "the truth" or not, belongs in Stalin's Soviet Union or Hitler's Germany. I'll defend your right to express this pernicious idea but forever fight anyone who tries to impose it here.
2
In my experience, Zimmer and his fellow administrators are the ones who demand and enforce "safe spaces." When I asked President Zimmer why the salaries and jobs of low-level administrators who had worked for the university for decades were being cut while his pay was at $3.3 million, his response was that these job cuts and raises in salary were unrelated issues. When I pressed him to say why he thought they were unrelated, he told me this wasn't a "Spanish Inquisition," moved on to the next student, and refused to acknowledge my presence for the rest of the meeting. President Zimmer might speak freely with donors at swanky parties, but he only meets with students on his terms, within strictly set time brackets, and with clear limits on what questions will be answered. When the University of Chicago allows a student or faculty member to have a seat at the table with the Board of Trustees, and when they replace (or complement) the rhetoric of dialogue with the practice of transparency, then I might start believing the really care about freedom of expression.
525
By my reckoning, you asked him a question and he answered it. You didn't like the answer and followed up with another question. He answered that one also, but since you also disagreed with that response, you wanted to continue with a two-person debate. However there were other people who has not had an opportunity, and he quite properly considered that you had had your say and it was time to give them a chance. I don't see the grievance.
69
ERP: "By my reckoning, you asked him a question and he answered it. You didn't like the answer and followed up with another question. He answered that one also..."
If the account is accurate, it appears that Mr. Zimmer avoided the first question by denying its premises. No reasoning offered, just an authoritative decree. When the original poster asked the logical follow-up question - what are your grounds for denying the premises of my question - Mr. Zimmer responded by flippantly refusing to answer.
In short, the first answer was not a real answer. The second did not even pretend to be an answer.
This matters because Mr. Stephens celebrates Mr. Zimmer for his "campus culture" of "discourse, argument and lack of deference" and frets that the Chinese will surpass us in "injecting more argumentation and challenge." Apparently the "challenge" only flows in one direction. The discourse descends from on high, and the students passively receive it.
It's a little much to scold your critics on free speech grounds when you pick the speakers, make the schedules, set the agenda, and then use all that to shut them up. But that's the profound reactionary administrative jui-jitsu that Mr. Zimmer has apparently perfected. Truly, the best at being a modern university president.
Mr. Zimmer holds a megaphone that others lack, as he strolls about the forum, instructing his unformed charges: "FREE SPEECH! EAT YOUR SPINACH! NO TRIGGER WARNINGS! NO SPANISH INQUISITIONS! DON'T BE SOFT!"
15
Robert Zimmer answered that the key was a campus culture committed to “discourse, argument and lack of deference.”
This is the same University that ran Robert M. Pirsig out of its PhD program and into a mental institution when he challenged the professors with superior rhetoric.
Then Pirsig turned his confrontation with Chicago into the best selling philosophy book of the last century, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."
Zimmer talks the talk, but it is an apparat nonetheless.
4