YouTube: Fresno State Professor Randa Jarrar Advocating Grenading Homes, Hijacking Planes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHbrQtjscFY
28
When did we decide that calling someone a war criminal is worse than being a war criminal? When did we determine that calling someone a racist is worse than being a racist? I have no idea why this is considered an issue of free speech or academic freedom. For me, this is about the fact that our country suffers from terrible amnesia. George Bush lied us into a war that has killed millions of people and destabilized the Middle East. Barbara Bush thought that refugees from Katrina were living in luxury in the Astrodome. Why does the Bush family deserve our respect? Why are the endless lying and nostalgia about Barbara Bush more acceptable than the plain and simple truth? Times readers call Jarrar's comments vile and obscene. Her words cannot rival George W. Bush's obscene and vile actions.
84
insensitive and politically incorrect?
insensitivity implies accidental and perhaps aimlessness.
Try vulgar and malicious.
50
I'm a democrat. I didn't vote for either Bush. Or Trump. I find Ms. Jarrar to be a vile, despicable person - a dollar store Ann Coulter for progressives.
She personifies the reason I abandoned the left,
55
The overly fawning and flowery odes to BB is starting to wither on the vine. She was far from all of the charming accolades bestowed upon her. Televising her funeral is over the top really. Will she be buried in her pearl necklaces? Mrs. Bush's WASP entitlement will not be missed by some of us. The entire Bush clan are all silver spooners.
33
I'm sorry, but did you just argue for MORE offensive remarks from the "the left"? There's too much from the right, the left, and the middle already. No one has forgotten their "right to offend." How clueless.
40
What is missing from this article is that Ms. Jarrar egged on her readers to contact her and intentionally posted the phone number of an Arizona crisis hotline, thus jamming up the lines for those with critical mental health needs. This infantile and dangerous act is enough to fire her in my opinion. Although she has the free speech right to post her 8th grade level rants on twitter, endangering the lives of others should not be protected with her tenure status.
69
Excellent article today about Randa Jarrar. But I think you missed the most amazing and troubling quote from Fresno State President Castro --- he said: "This was beyond free speech. This was disrespectful"
While Professor Jarrar should certainly not be fired for her comments, I almost wish the University President could be fired for admitting his astonishingly limited knowledge about the meaning of Free Speech!! My gosh, if Free Speech did not protect a "disrespectful" comment, then it really wouldn't protect anything at all!!
32
"Besides, while some white men may feel culturally beleaguered, they can often get away with saying things that women and people of color cannot.'
In 2018, that is exactly the opposite of the truth.
50
It's not politically incorrect; it is incorrect since a human point of view.
3
Remember what Barbara bush said about the people in the Superdome in New Orleans after Katrina?
16
Ms. Goldberg’s second example of how Barbara Bush behaved like “Marie Antoinette” (body bags) was intellectually dishonest - reading the source linked document didn’t support this negative characterization. I doubt there is any public figure who hasn’t said something that could be used to creative a disparaging narrative. That Ms. Goldberg felt the need to construct this gratuitous characterization of Bush to launch into her argument is disappointing.
25
The problem with defending Randa Jarrar and people like Steven Salaita under the guise of "academic freedom" is that people who expressed that kind of malice towards the lefts favored groups would not have passed the hiring process to begin with. If Jarrar had that attitude towards Michelle Obama and Salaita made those remarks about blacks they would have been unable to teach due to harassment from activists. Notice people like Charles Murray, James Watson, Pamela Geller, Richard Spencer and Ann Coulter would never been offered jobs in academia. None of them are any more offensive or bigoted than many in academia, they are just bigoted against the wrong people and in favor of the wrong people. I should add that while people like Spencer, Geller, and Coulter are intellectual light weights the same can be said of Jarra, Joy Karega, Salatia, Brittney Cooper and many more employed in academia who obviously were not hired based on intellect.
33
Rhanda Jarrar embodies American academia - ground-zero for leftist political group think with very little tolerance for dissenting views, conservative, libertarian, whatever. What a tragedy that hateful rhetoric has become a viable substitute for actual thoughtful analysis.
29
Ms Jarrar can say what she wants. What is left out in the article is this:
She posted a suicide hot line number for her contact number.
42
Thank you, Ms. Goldberg!
3
If we can get rid of the 2nd, we can get rid of the 1st.
6
Please. Be tasteless and boorish. It makes it easier to know that I should avoid you. Jarrar was merely a nobody until today. She just fast tracked her way to pariah. Thanks, Randa!
29
While I certainly agree with the conclusion of this article, I can't help but notice the overall hypocrisy of the article itself--the author warns of the dangers of escalating "whataboutism" after having engaged in exactly that for the previous 5 paragraphs. Indeed, this opinion piece is really just one "whataboutism" dressed up in the disguise of a banal morale.
27
New draft statement for the president of Cal State Fresno: "'Professor Jarrar's insensitive and vulgar opinions are protected by the First Amendment, as are the opinions of all, like myself, who will view her with scorn and contempt until she apologizes and atones for her verbal cruelty."
13
I guess the law states that she can say whatever she wants, regardless of how deeply offensive she is.
The thing to keep in mind is that when you insult the dead, you are not offending them, but their friends and family, most of whom probably do not deserve the insult.
Also, if you decide to use social media to be deeply offensive against many moderate people in this country, you shouldn't be surprised that social media is then turned against you in such a way that it will be very difficult for you to access it for a long long time.
I predict Jarrar will be chased off social media for a long time to come.
8
Actually, the 1st amendment is not sacrosanct in public education. Read Pickering vs. The Board of Education, the 1968 ruling that acts as benchmark case law for issues such as this. The upshot is, that employee speech that erodes trust or is disruptive to education is not protected.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/391/563/case.html
15
Randa Jarrar is someone whose first, award-winning story I taught to my students over a decade ago. I loved her first novel and enjoyed going to her readings and talks at the PEN World Voices Festival. Personally, I liked her and she was quite nice to me.
Her tweet (and replies to those who responded) is a cautionary tale, and for me, it is justification for my getting off Twitter and Facebook years ago. I do not trust myself to "publish" to the world statements I write in momentary anger or rage or thoughtlessness.
I feel comfortable commenting only on places like this one, where I know there are gatekeepers/moderators -- in effect, editors -- to use their judgment in "publishing" my comment to the world.
But there's a larger issue. I am old enough so that when I was a young published writer I would get my words out to the public only through my books, published articles (which had to go through gatekeeper editors), and newspaper and magazines stories journalists wrote about me (and I was always quoted accurately).
Now, as someone approaching old age, I realize that the world does not need to hear my comment on every news item or every trend or event.
Randa Jarrar showed terrible judgment. She is lucky to be tenured. The adjunct/part-time/non-tenured vast majority of college professors would not be rehired after they did what she did.
Randa Jarrar spoke foolishly because she is privileged.
33
Freedom of speech is not an excuse for racism, the evidence for which the writer conveniently ignores. Professors also carry extra weight as role models. Universities have a right and responsibility to pay attention to racism on campus.
12
Ms. Jarrar is not racist. We are all multi-facted. Barbara Bush had her good and bad sides. That she raised a war criminal is incontrovertible, although she can't be blamed for her son's slaughter of 100,000 Iraqi civilians. If there is no excuse for racism, the entire GOP should be silenced. And yes, I am an old white guy.
8
Let's separate the issues.
Randa Jarrar shouldn't be fired because of her
comments about the late Barbara Bush. Fresno State is a public university and the First Amendment protects her speech against governmental sanctions.
It's alleged, however, that she also provided a spoofed phone number online. She allegedly claimed the number was hers, but reportedly it was that of an Arizona mental health crisis line, which was flooded with angry calls, which in turn could have tied up the line and caused someone to commit suicide who wouldn't have otherwise.
This wouldn't be speech, but misconduct, and the First Amendment wouldn't protect it. Arguably, Fresno State could fire her for misconduct if the facts are established.
Re other punishment, doing quick research, I couldn't find a federal statute that the alleged conduct would violate. California Penal Code section 528.5 provides:
". . . any person who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another . . . person . . . by . . . electronic means for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person is guilty of a public offense . . . ."
It would be up to the police to try to learn if she intended to harm or defraud someone. If so, and if the statute applies to an out-of-state phone number, she might be making an appearance in state criminal court.
Thanks to the Internet, we can all be comforted that she'll not be received in polite company anytime soon, or perhaps ever again.
20
"On Tuesday, around the same time that Jarrar posted her ill-advised tweets, Trump confidant Roger Stone took to Instagram to call Barbara Bush a 'nasty drunk'... Stone is, by any measure, a more powerful figure than Jarrar, but she caused by far the bigger backlash."
Roger Stone is not a public employee, nor did he taunt critics as Jarrar did by bragging that she earned over $100K and could not be fired due to tenure rules.
14
I was a student of Randa’s for three years at Fresno State. She is a phenomenal instructor. Extremely disappointed at the way the university has reacted to this.
11
they say dont speak ill of the dead but if not then when. i read harrar's remarks and to me they appeared factually correct. no need for her or any one else to appologize for them
10
This person gives a bad name to all professors, and actions like hers are likely to cause a demise of tenure in general. This is not what scholarship and professorship is all about. The fact that she gave falsely the phone number of a suicide hot line as hers should be punishable by law. If anybody committed a suicide or suffered mental anguish while being blocked from the line because of her illegal and irresponsible action, she should go to prison. Based on this alone, she should be fired.
15
Disrespecting free speech in order to defend and agenda fails all over the board. It's not right, it's unconstitutional, but most of all it encourages dishonesty. Two people may share a rotten thought about a person or thing, but being willing to go public with it speak to the strength of the held idea in that person who so chooses to do so. If you want to truthfully know people, let them speak!
3
By the same measure, death should not erase all the slights and bad judgements of a person. But be advised, we all have them and our turn is coming . . .
3
""Besides, while some white men may feel culturally beleaguered, they can often get away with saying things that women and people of color cannot."
Hogwash.
If on a ML King day, I tweet that he was a debaucher and philanderer (well established facts), I'll lose my job before the next working day.
In today's America White (the precise term is Caucasian) men are the beleaguered class.
Were Trump Black, he would have been forgiven all his tweets and credited with trust, as Obama was with the never deserved Nobel.
21
It's funny, when protestors demanded that Brenden Eich resign from Mozilla because he had donated money to a pro-marriage proposition in CA, you agreed with running him out of the market place.
Eich neither tweeted or spoke harshly or treated people poorly. Rather, his crime was to participate in the democratic process and then be punished for holding on to an idea some found disagreeable.
What is the difference now other than the fact that your preferred group is facing a backlash? Where is the logical consistency?
https://www.thenation.com/article/mozillagate-brendan-eich-and-right-win...
21
There's nothing to discuss. Freedom of speech protects outrageous, unpopular speech. Popular speech needs no defense.
5
So, do we or don’t we have the right to offend? If we do, can I please see a NYTimes article defending the Syracuse fraternity?
11
Lost in all of this is her decision to tweet out "her" phone number which, it turns out, was the number to a mental health crisis hotline. That kind of despicable behavior certainly merits punishment, even if you think her ghoulish musings about the Bush family do not.
20
Michelle Goldman is right. Free speech applies. And applies across the political board. However, what is missed in her discussion is the issue of civil discourse. Discourse can be vigorous, but especially on campus it should also be civil. Calling for the death of someone with whom you disagree isn't civil. A civil person should raise the question of whether someone should be tried for a crime, not serve as jury, judge and promoter of an execution. A civil person can ask and debate with murder is ever justified. But inciting violence and practicing violence as an intellectual has always struck me as compellingly anti-intelligent and deliberately immoral, especially in a campus setting, but pretty much anywhere.
3
This is not leftish speech, it's hate speech. Make your criticisms long before or after one dies, not when people are mourning. And keep it civil.
5
Jarrar’s speech was coarse, impolite and dim-witted. When people aspired to be polite, calling someone on their lack of decency used to matter - and be enough punishment for mean-spirited speech. Today, however, vileness is often the goal, not the side-effect of free speech. When the loudest, crassest voice is the voice that captures the headlines and wins the day, how is one effectively reprimanded for violating social norms? A simple rebuke becomes a kind of prize. Perhaps Jarrar should not be fired, but don’t kid yourself into thinking that chastising her will be any sort of effective, or appropriate penalty for her nasty, adolescent cheap-shots.
9
To all the commenters who think this is part of free speech, please explain libel and slander laws, laws against incitement. Even if this is protected political speech, an employer is not obligated to tolerate it.
6
Gee, where to start? Of course conservatives are hypocritical with respect to "free speech." Now that that's out of the way, let's unpack a couple of Ms. Goldberg's misconceptions. First, the First Amendment doesn't prescribe what she, or her expert source, believes it does. What it does state is, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Whether we agree, or not, that Ms. Jarrarr should lose her job over her rant, this is not an issue of Congress prohibiting speech: Ms. Jarrarr is perfectly within legality when she degrades public discourse, but there may be some repercussions if she creates an environment that is shown to manifestly conflict with the mission of her employer. Second, Ms. Goldberg's comparison of Roger Stone and Ms. Jarrarr is an incredibly selective demonstration of gender inequities. Why not compare Sean Hannity and Judge Janine Pirro, both Fox personalities who spew venum and hate with equal immunity?
4
I agree with Jarrar about George W Bush being a war criminal, but I saw no reason for her cruel tweet about Barbara Bush. Aren't we all taught that if you have nothing nice to say about a person who has died, then stay quiet?
What she should be disciplined for, is using the number of a suicide hotline to goad people upset with her tweet. That was a stunt I would expect from a juvenile, not a college professor. For that, she needs to some form of punishment short of termination.
9
When you do a job interview you are asked various questions. Some relate to professional qualifications knowledge etc. Others are probing more into your type of personality & world views. I never interviewed for a position of professor but I believe in this case the personality and world views are quite relevant. So my point is respecting the first amendment is very important but I ask if anyone would hire the learned professor AFTER knowing about her tweets. If they would not hire her maybe the tenure she got is the only thing basically protecting her from being fired. Which is fine with me, but things should be clear.
2
Gobsmacked to discover that this is the same Randa Jarrar who wrote A MAP OF HOME, which is an outstanding book. A must-read.
I live in a neighborhood well-populated by Fresno State professors, most of whom are liberal. This article frames the ensuing outrage in left vs. right cultural war terms, but it should be said that Randa Jarrar is a well known figure on campus, with a long history of outrageous statements, and is universally disliked.
It is unfortunate that a disrespectful tweet blew up into the kind of national news story that it did. Here in Fresno, a lot of us were troubled by her posting of a suicide hotline for opponents to air their grievances. To think an emergency hotline was flooded with calls for this reason perhaps goes beyond the appropriate bounds of free speech.
19
The First Amendment allows us to say and publish whatever we will, with limited restrictions. It doesn't guarantee that we can do so without consequence. If someone in authority, and a professor is most definitely in a position of authority over students, engages in hate speech in a way which suggests that their world-view is intimately bound up in hating others, a university should decide to what extent it can allow such a person to pollute the minds of their students. If a professor can actually say anything and be prevented from sustaining any job consequences as a result of outrageous statements, then that professor can say things like "I'll give you an A if you'll sleep with me", "I don't want any minority students in my class -- register at your own risk, you won't pass," and "Burn down the ad bldg., but do it when the Pres is inside!" They can't. The first amendment isn't absolute and academic freedom for tenured professors doesn't protect against outrages such as these.
4
The First Amendment protects all speech, except for falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater. We can all say whet we want, but saying it, or tweeting it has consequences. She should be locked up, but fired.
1
Though appalled by latter-day hostility to free speech and other Enlightenment values among the loony left, I nevertheless appreciate Ms. Goldberg's informative column. I didn't realize so many leftist professors are being fired or sanctioned for outrageous but First Amendment–protected speech. Thank you.
3
Completely disagree with this article.. constitution protects people from going to jail for things they say.. not from facing consequences at their employement.. there is a difference
8
There are limits to free speech, especially when your speech reflects on others in your organization and reveals poor judgement. If I had said what Jarrar said, and dragged my employer's name into it, it is very likely I would have been terminated.
3
I couldn't agree more with Ms. Goldberg's assertion that Professor Jarrar has every right to express her opinion about Barbara Bush, or anything else for that matter. While I found her comments-especially the timing of them-to be distasteful, I would never complain about her right to make them. I have a right to disagree with and ignore them, or to argue with her on Twitter. No big deal.
However, what I found intolerable (and also not mentioned in this piece) was Ms. Jarrar's posting of a suicide hotline number as her own contact info. Does she think a suicide hotline is funny? Expendable? Appropriate cover for her to hide from the consequences of her tweets? A childish and detestable move on her part. I believe this, and not her expressed opinion, is what should threaten her position at Fresno State. Wouldn't NYT consider firing a reporter who did the same in the middle of a Twitter war?
Instead of arguing the fine points of Ms. Jarrar's opinion and her right to state it, we should be looking at this incident in its entirety. Actions really do speak louder than words.
14
Apart from the issue of the free speech, there is an issue of using insulting and pejorative language, that even the leftist radical Democratic professors and professorasters should know to avoid.
People who enter the academia for protection of their political views, a license to spread them, and/or their use of boorish language should be driven out, without a right of reentry.
3
Ms. Jarrar's speech may be constitutionally protected, but it is despicable nonetheless -- and this is coming from a free-speech fanatic. The bottom line is that someone's mother died, and a family is in mourning. As Mr. Heaton notably said during the Republican convention of 1868: "When God puts his hand on a man, I take mine off." There are times when filtering one's visceral impulses is the appropriate course of action, and Ms. Jarrar would have comported herself with far more dignity had she refrained from commenting so soon after Mrs. Bush's passing.
4
A good example of why tenure is a bad idea.
4
Once again Ms Goldberg enlightens. What a great voice she has added to this section of the NYTs
1
The First Amendment protects objectionable, and especially political speech, from punishment by the government. Fresno State is a government actor and should not be able to penalize Ms. Jarrar.
If a private university doesn't want to hire her in the future, that is its right, and one with which I would wholeheartedly agree.
3
Setting partisanship aside for a moment- difficult for all at times- when will both liberals and conservatives learn what constitutionally protected free speech and what it is not? As far as I can see, Congress has passed no law prohibiting Ms. Jarrar from posting insensitive remarks, nor has that same body prohibited those on the left or right from doing the same. Since we still do as yet have such freedom, such remarks can be made- and both liberals and conservatives often shame themselves by doing so. However, the lack of governmental restriction on such remarks does not mean that society will not seek to restrict them by punishing those who go to far. This may include employers who seek to address employees who invite ridicule on their employer through their incendiary words (note Ms. Jarrar bragged that she could not be fired due to her tenured position, so by default brought her employer into the fray). Perhaps this form of societal enforcement of civility and civil free speech is not a bad thing. Imagine a society where that was not the case and anyone could say anything to anyone at anytime without consequence. Then again, it may not require imagination. By conflating legally protected free speech with the desire of so many on both sides to behave as rudely as they like to those with whom they disagree, we may already be there.
6
Thanks, Michelle, for exposing another media false narrative that colleges are places where conservatives have no impact and liberals get to do and say anything they want.
And let us also remember the false media narrative that plays right into right wing propaganda that liberals on campus want to suppress speech when what they want to suppress is access to their campus. Ann Coulter or Charles Murray or Milo Y are free to speak else where.
Too often the media wants to take the short cut to the easy paradox that colleges, places of thought, ideas and learning are not interested in hearing the thoughts and ideas of those they disagree with. The research you have done here is an important learning tool for the media to insure it reports both sides of a story fairly and does not slant its reporting to avoid the false charge by the right of so called liberal media bias.
8
Paul, I think you live in a different reality - one you want to believe in. Yes, conservative speakers and faculty are censured and ostracized In many universities. It's not paranoia, but reality.
6
Why are Ann Coulter or Charles Murray or Milo Y free to speak else where but not on your liberal campuses? What gives liberals the right to bar access to the womb of the Free Speech Movement? Why can't liberals tolerate some one else's viewpoint? What are you afraid of?
2
But to listen to the MSM tell it, it only happens to conservatives, reflecting the big lie of right wing media.
Michelle goldberg here blows a huge hole in that theory that only one side does it.
Social media has made the population get more of a tl;dr attitude, and that attitude in turn has made venues like blogs where detailed arguments can be given, a lot less popular compared to venues where you can only express raw emotions in a few words.
The controversy people generate by not carefully expressing themselves by choosing to use twitter, adds to twitter's popularity. The media will report on the latest outrageous comment published on twitter, rather than a more reasoned argument on some blog.
The discussions in the media about the fallout from Jarrar's tweets is a welcome distraction from the other major news headline about Robert Mueller's probe on Russian intervention in the US elections. But, of course, Russia's ability to intervene in the US elections is a direct consequence of the prominent role of social media in our society.
3
I am a conservative and I agree with the Ms. Goldberg's
general premise that the tasteless and nasty tweets of Professor Jarrar should receive free speech rights and she should receive the same protection that conservative Professors should receive.
There are no shortages of left or very far left professors on university campuses, so I do not see a purge of liberal professors for even outrageous statements, occurring.
What should be clear by now is that we have reached a state of ideology first, followed closely by hypocrisy, when analyzing speech of others we disagree with.
It would be very refreshing if conservatives would stop demanding that every professor who makes ridiculous and highly offensive comments against conservative ideas and values should be fired from their teaching position.
Reciprocity from liberals should also be expected.
Perhaps we all should decide that along with the right to freedom of speech, there is a individual duty to listen and respond with reason and sound arguments.
The problem for Professor Jarrar is that if she has the right to speak to her students in class like she does in her tweets, the students should also have the right to express in equally graphic language their opinions about her.
That is not an English class I would like to be in trying to learn English and one can fairly question her skills as a Professor.
10
Her students do have that ability. Students can anonymously vilify and slander and lie about their teachers on RateMyProfessor without consequences
4
it is not her ideas; it is the way and moment that she says this. Jeb Bush married a not white Mexican and Mrs. Bush never mistreated this part of her family.
1
The professor certainly has her right of free speech, but one has to wonder how she conducts her classroom. I'm guessing it is very ideologically-driven, where she doesn't hold back from expressing her political views.
15
One doesn't have to ponder too deeply how she grades, either.
3
One would hope so, if that is what she wishes. That is why you give professorships, so that the teacher can profess, not just reiterate commonly agreed upon facts.
Please.... Roger Stone is a political assassin, amoral, double-dealing and all the rest, but he he didn't say what the Fresno State lady said. She was openly rooting for the death of a whole family. If Stone had said that it would have caused an uproar - nothing to do with maleness, or whiteness or whatever. More precision would be appreiciated
12
I root for that too!
2
Goodness gracious, people are thin-skinned nowadays. Sticks and stones, anyone?
This lady seems like a generally gross and repellent person, and I have no idea if what she said is true or not. But who cares?
Anyway, hecklers against the powerful are a sign of healthy democratic values.
8
Can't say anything bad about dead people, you know. It's tradition . . .
1
HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! So left-wing professors are the persecuted ones in academia now? That's rich. Because everyone knows that conservative voices are so welcomed and well represented in universities and colleges. Right.
29
So you are justifying that hate speech is protected under the First Amendment? Honestly, I see no place for hate. Period.
10
Who should decide what constitutes hate? It is a subjective determination.
3
The First Amendment absolutely protects hate speech. It's one of the things that makes the U.S. a truly exceptional country. People uncomfortable with a broad free speech guarantee can immigrate to Canada, where the government can lock you up for saying nasty things about people—especially people who have the government's ear. Between the two countries, the U.S. has much the better state of affairs.
2
Whether you think she should be fired or not, you cannot deny this is a mean-spirited and hurtful message. That was her only intent. Her message was helpful to nobody.
Why would a prospective student sign up for her class knowing how much vitriol she has for a student she disagrees with? Obviously a student wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt will "earn" a better grade than a student wearing a MAGA hat. Clearly this mentally unhinged professor, who blames any voter who disagrees with her for the high death count in Iraq, will take out her political vengeance in her grading policy.
16
Well - she thinks there will always be people who want to hear what she has to say.....or so she says. For all we know her classes are required. She should be able to say what she wants but there is no reason such a repellant person needs to be employed. I am sure this is not her only ugly comment or action.
2
Interesting that Ms Goldberg does not render an opinion about the elephant-in-the-room part of Jarrar's comment:
“Barbara Bush ..., along with her husband, raised a war criminal”
At this point, most Americans understand that Barbara Bush did exactly what Jarrar opines.
15
No more true than the parents of, at the very least, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, G. H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
1
Do most Americans also believe that Barbara Bush was a witch? If so, do most Americans believe we should have a witch hunt whenever we see her kind?
I'm not an attorney, but my understanding is that the 1st Amendment protects your right to not be jailed by the government for your speech. It does not protect you from losing your job -- or being criticized -- for saying something immensely stupid and juvenile.
72
True, but her contract likely protects her from losing her job. Unfortunately most Americans don't have that protection, so we suppress ourselves in order to not anger our employers. Not sure what kind of freedom that is.
8
Except that she's hired by a STATE university.
3
Fresno State is a public university. Ergo, First Amendment protections.
5
There are hundreds of thousands of people dead today because of the actions of members of the Bush family. (Actions in which the Times has been complicit.) But because Barbara Bush was a high-society socialite, Times journalists clamor to pay their respects.
For elites, elite status speaks for itself. Whether or not one is a member of the elite is the sole factor in whether or not they're worthy of recognition and respect. Forget murder, you can get literally away with war and still be feted by the paper of record.
14
I look at Jarrar the same as I do the marchers at Charlottesville-- they all express how disgusting and simple-minded an American can be, and get away with it to a degree. Both are politically incorrect, just so we all know it goes both ways.
Conservatives should be appalled at the alt-right. And lefties like me should be appalled at a bloviating propagandist like Jarrar.
21
The difference is the alt-righters in Charlottesville would never get appointed to a teaching position. Or is there views became known they'd be dismissed.
3
So may comments profess to support free speech and the first Amendment but they slide back and say that its ok to have someone suffer for their use of that right.
To suffer from the exercise is to have no right in the first place.
At the same time as this was taking place students were engaged in using black face and the school insisted that it was racist but protected.
This spotty enforcement of 1st amendment protections are the real injury.
Also dont be fooled into thinking that only the left has safe spaces or calls for chilling speech.
How many alums threaten to withhold funds because of a class offering or professor's views.
This is also a restriction of free speech. If all these wealthy benefactors really cared for free speech and the exchange of ideas they would send in their cash and keep quite and let the university do what it was meant to do. but no they threaten.
Also try to talk against the military or weaponds business in a class taught in the Ivies by members of those establishments. See if your career goes any where.
And please spare me the public vs private university, I am an attorney and i am fully aware of the legal rational but to me regardless you are either truly for free speech or not.
Hiding behind the public./private flower is just allowing money to dictate who and what is acceptable.
I for one am all for all speech money be dammed
1
Free speech is not an absolute right. As an attorney, I'm sure you know that. Slander and libel have made many an attorney wealthy. Think of the defamation law suits file today the DNC and McCabe...Even my comment will be "moderated for civility" by The Times. Free speech may turn out to be very costly.
3
Jarrar sounds like a curmudgeon who exercises her free speech rights by making knowingly provocative and offensive comments. Like a kid looking for a reaction. She obviously knows her remarks will not influence or persuade others to her view. But her type of immaturity in speech is something quite common on the left and right. Perhaps the goal is to shock and awe? Frankly, I chalked it up to another low class attention seeker with a big mouth.
17
Who is educating impressionable college students. She can say what she wants - I think the issue is whether or not she deserves to be provided with a platform that lends credibility to her hateful words.
7
For near two years I've been asking that very question about "trump", who now has the mantel of the presidency of the US to "lend credibility" to his "hateful words".
Anyone familiar with Fresno State's well deserved reputation as a breeding nest of all things near and dear to the Far Left was not surprised by Jarrar's statement. She is the perfect representative of the institution.
6
I am a tenured professor, and even if I may share Jarrar's opinion of the Bushes, I would never use a "digital bullhorn" in such a manner. Not because it could be perceived as inappropriate, but because it is public and professional suicide. Farrar used (misguidedly) the privilege of tenure to voice abrasive opinions, when she very well knows that left-leaning professors have not only witnessed the erosion of freedom of speech on campuses, but also the erosion of the possibility for tenure itself, as well as intensified scrutiny over such privilege. In other words, she acted selfishly and mindlessly and further imperiled the professorate.
13
Really?
1
I hate when Trump says vile things. I hate when Jarrar says vile things. We can disagree, but we should also show compassion to one another. Jarrar exhibited her own human imperfections with her tweets and does not advance the cause of tolerance or love.
7
Jarrar's tweets about Barbara Bush & family were every bit as hate-filled and loathsome as some of Donald Trump's tweets (on other subjects). Neither of these dogmatic flame warriors deserve to be on a public payroll. Fortunately, his tenure is more limited than hers.
7
Once again, a free speech advocate doesn't understand that the right to free speech doesn't mean "without consequences".
Jarrar's remarks, much as she may try to hide behind this excuse, are not simply her own opinion. She is a college professor, and as such, her rude language drags Fresno State's reputation into this. Further, when pushed on it, she openly flaunted the fact that she's a tenured professor "making over $100k" per year and "cannot be fired".
In other words, when she has tenure and is making lots of money, she works for Fresno State and has to be protected by them. But when she shoots off her mouth and embarrasses her employer, now she is suddenly "only speaking for herself".
Rubbish.
Beyond that, she slandered Barbara Bush with unsubstantiated accusations of being racist, and accused Barbara Bush of crimes that can only be blamed on her son. Neither Barbara nor her husband GW Bush Senior, can be blamed for what George W. Bush did. That's like tracking down a guy who stole a car at age 45 and then blaming his parents for the theft.
Jarrar's claims were faulty, her language rude and unprofessional, her behavior embarrassing to her employer. On all these counts, she is wrong, and because of these actions, she should be fired. And none of this has anything to do with the First Amendment. The First Amendment doesn't say you can be a sloppy jerk and not expect consequences.
18
It is technically correct that the 1st Amendment has no special clause for grotesque, or tasteless, or crude. That is as it should be.
The issue is not Randa Jarrar's right to say whatever stupid idea comes into her mind. Rather it's the idiocy of UC Fresno for having hired her in the first place. Now stuck with a rude and uncharitable and noisy polemicist on their faculty, maybe future administrators will think twice before making another such terrible - and binding - tenured appointment.
12
Wishing for a whole family's demise is a bit much. I am sure that there is a good Bush out there somewhere. The rest of what she said in pretty much the unvarnished truth. Barbara Bush's patrician attitude was unbearable (witch is an overstatement). Her son started an unnecessary war that killed between 500,000 to a million Iraqis. That makes him in war criminal by definition, and I didn't even have to mention the torture! The truth is brutal and Barbara Bush is a public figure (dead or alive), so let the full truth about her be told without the even and moderated voice of the historian or the reverential tone of the eulogist.
10
Her son, not her.
1
It is true that "free speech" is under attack. Yes, there is deplorable intolerance on the collegiate left for any ideas that counter current leftist dogma. so, kudos to Ms. Goldberg for recognizing the attempts by left wing colleges to stifle conservative voices.
One inaccurate statement in Ms. Goldberg's commentary about the university not being able to discipline Ms. Jarrar due to first amendment concerns. The first amendment is meant to protect citizens from government prosecution and punishment over free speech. Private entities (including public colleges...) can impose speech restrictions on their employees, particularly if they are acting in their roles as a representative of the organization (remember the Google engineer getting fired for his statement about women).
The reason Ms Jarrar is getting such flak is that the right sees her as all that is wrong with the leftist on college campuses. She is a reinforcing poster child to the right of the looniness of college liberalism run amok and indoctrinating our children in this nonsense. Add to this her obviously free-spirited fashion sense and, voila, a new foil for the rights assertions of liberal bias in higher education.
Personally, I respect her right to her opinion so long as she respects my right to be disgusted by it.
9
Free speech cuts both ways. While I found Jarrar's comments uncomfortable, I support her right to say it.
And furthermore, Colleges are supposed to be about free speech and also to open the minds of students to critical thinking. They are letting their students down both on the right and the left.
5
As an excellent example of why speech outside of work is not always protected, even when a government employer is involved:
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/nyregion/28float.html
Ms. Jarrar's initial case doesn't seem to go nearly that far, so it is questionable whether the University will have grounds to fire her. Maybe her redirection to the mental health ward, maybe her personally bringing in the president of the university...
None of that is my point.
In this discussion on free speech, the right's of government entities as employers needs to be remembered. Government attorneys, state college professors, police officers, teachers... Their employer is the government, true. That does not mean they get a free pass under the 1st Amendment to say anything and everything they want. Employers - including the government - have recourse over employees who cause harm to their business.
Food for thought...
And sorry, elected officials are not employees; doesn't apply that way, even if I wish it did...
5
I would like to see articles like this take a moment to explain the difference between public condemnation of speech and a government body punishing a citizen for their speech (a constitutional violation). Too often they are discussed without distinction. A state college’s reaction to offensive speech is viewed through a different lens than, say, its students’ reactions. No one (right or left) has a constitutional right to being well-received. Sean Hannity and Bill Maher can insult and mock people all they like. It’s not a constitutional issue if the people they insult take it personally or if they are fired because of a toxic reputation. On the other hand, if a president tried to have a person punished for not standing during the national anthem, it might be a different case.
13
Thank you. Those are my thoughts exactly. There is no constitutional right for free speech among the public. It was written so the government couldn't shut people down. That does not mean that private citizens can't object nor does it mean that voicing one's opinion cannot have consequences.
As long as the government isn't interfering with what she says, then it is not a free speech issue. Your example with the president is what government interference could look like.
3
While the details certainly differ, a considerable volume of American early nineteenth -century published rhetoric was at least as vile as anything Jarrar said. (if it is actually true she deliberately caused the spamming of the ArizonaState University's mental health hotline, that is much more problematic than her tweet about Barbara Bush.)
4
Wow, is this the same Michelle Goldberg whose columns I've admired in the past? Any civil libertarian will defend free speech but not absolve the speaker of all consequences of the content of that speech.
13
This woman is the personification of why I walked away from the 'progressive' left.
- ardent centrist.
(seeking no home with the backward right either; both, just two sides of the same hate coin)
11
@PulSamsara, you made a big, big mistake. She is far from typical of the true progressive left.
2
While I agree that freedom of speech is critical to a free society, it does not protect anyone from discipline, leading up to termination, when it affects the ability of an institution to continue to provide a place to learn. A major part of providing that is based on two things...Donor support, and state funding in the form of FTE (full term enrollment). Both of those things are jeopardized by the actions of this professor. Individuals have been terminated for much less, in regards to what content may be found on their social media accounts.
Posting the University emergency hotline phone number on her Twitter, claiming that it was her own number while encouraging people to call it could very well be against the law, and is no longer protected by her freedom of speech. At the very minimum, it is a gross misuse of University resources.
I see no scenario where she continues to hold a job with Fresno State. Due to her numerous comments about race (let's be honest, her discontent resides with one specific race), coupled with her numerous, less than professional pictures in the press (some of which are of her giving the finger to the photographer), it is highly unlikely that any other educational institution will entertain offers of employment either. But in this day and age, anything is possible.
5
Being well versed in the criminality of the Bush Administrations, I don't find anything incorrect about Prof. Jarrar's statements. I am surprised this is news, or that anyone is making the proverbial mount out of this molehill. Seems like another reactionary grab by some on the right side of the media wars when this is not something that should have ever been given notice.
38
Thank you, Timothy. My sentiment exactly.
6
"I don't find anything incorrect about Prof. Jarrar's statements"
Ok, let's put the same shoe on a different foot.
ML King was a documented debaucher and philanderer. Would you advocate for a university professor (white, old, good looking) to keep his job, if he tweeted these true facts on a MLK day?
I'm all for free speech (hate speech included) as long as we don't play favorites.
5
The moment she invoked her employer and interfered with a mental health help line, any "Free speech" defense went out the window. She engaged in harrassment, arguably terrorism (I didn't write the law, I'm just reading it), and tried for official connection. She should be fired and criminally charged.
11
So many of the comments here suggest widespread ignorance of the First Amendment and how courts have treated it. I found Jarrar's comments brutish and reprehensible, but they are clearly protected speech. Under both the First Amendment and the California Constitution, her employer, a public university, cannot sanction her for these utterances. No court would sustain them if they tried. I wouldn't waste my time taking a class from Ms. Jarrar, but I will defend her right to say awful things. Michelle Goldberg is right -- if we allow erosion of free speech on campus, it is the least powerful who will lose the most. In truth, we will all lose.
13
Jarrar's 1st amendment-protected tweets have damaged much of the tenants she apparently supports as a socially-mindful, white-privilege aware progressive individual:
1. In a country experiencing a murky and scary wave of resurgent racism, islamophobia, antisemitism and xenophobia, going after a historically minor figure, now deceased, like the late Mrs Bush, who was better known for her chocolate-chip cookies recipe and her faux pearls than her racism, seems besides the point and trivializes the rifts in the American society.
2. Jarrar's bragging about her tenure-protected status and her 6 figure salary in a country where most people are employed at the whims of their employers for salaries much smaller than hers are arrogant and by association reflects badly on her colleagues (me included). We take our tenure as a privilege we have to deserve and work for before and after we achieve it. At best, her remarks do a great disservice to university scholars, scientists and teachers who cherish this constantly attacked privilege.
3. The posting of a suicide hotline of another university (Arizona State University - why ASU?) endangered students at ASU facing the stressful end of their spring semester. This by itself deserves a sanction (community service to man the equivalent service at Fresno?).
Still, there are more important, more harmful and even less appealing tweets we have to deal with than Jarrar's.
12
You're not fairly contextualizing Barbara Bush's comments on "body bags and deaths." She begins by stating that she regards media reports as unreliable "suppositions." The implication, though not clearly expressed, is that she does not trust the media to report accurately on such things as body counts. "Beautiful mind" might also be ironic, given her deprecatory wit. Is this just one, uncharacteristic, infelicitous expression or can you point to other examples of extreme callousness on her part?
6
'The Fresno Bee quoted the school’s president, Joseph Castro: “A professor with tenure does not have blanket protection to say and do what they wish.”'
Actually, that was the entire point of academic tenure -- to protect the rights of academics to hold and espouse whatever views they wished.
11
I imagine that many other mothers died the same day that Barbara Bush did. Perhaps some of them had their detractors, whom I sincerely hope had the good sense to keep their opinions to themselves while the moms' families mourned their loss. Geez, Michelle, how would you like to read something like Jarrar wrote about your mom the day after she died? Freedom of speech is one thing, but tone deaf, insensitive, cruel speech is another. A tenured position at a state university carries with it more than the protections of tenure; it also implies the civic responsibilities of the platform professors enjoy. If I were a colleague of Ms Jarrar's at Fresno State, I would be ashamed of her.
10
The left, as Goldberg recognizes, is weak; then, when it manifests, needs not criticism, but reason and analysis of cause--the weak needs defense--for instance, laws were created to defend the weak.
Question: Goldberg, is proposing History to lie, or to disguise the truth? That's not convenient.
My opinion: Goldberg is wrong; the Bush have done much damage to Humanity; they haven't changed-yet; I support Professor Jarrar.
6
The First Amendment was enacted precisely to protect unpopular speech, as popular speech is unlikely to be censored.
5
MLP: Thank you. That is exactly why we have the First Amendment. I hope other commenters who are (foolishly, in my opinion) outraged by an excessive (in my opinion) but not unjustified (in my opinion) denunciation of Barbara Bush will realize why we have free speech protections.
1
The recent disasterous grand sweep of world history, which the Bushes played a large part in, and the micro sweep of privileged genteal east coast wasp society in the US over about 200 years make strange bedfellows; and yet when one looks at all the decisions of the best and the brightest drawn from those ranks that have kept us in almost nonstop war since Korea as we attempt to police the planet, one has to wonder, what is the celebration and respect of the Bushes really all about? Behind all the current praise for the families’ honesty and forthrightness perhaps lies a collosal and desperate self-deceit we just can’t bear to admit to. Especially in the age of Trump.
7
Free speech is not about the right to offend. It is about the right to smash received wisdom into a million pieces if you are able.
1
While I agree with Michelle's position that her stances, no matter how egregious, should be protected by free speech, she happens to leave out the MOST important tweet from Jarrar. Jarrar goads conservatives into calling her, and then lists the Fresno State Suicide Hotline number.
Angry conservatives start to flood this line, as to be expected, which over inundates a limited staff and potentially prevents them from serving people who actually need those services.
I don't have to go into her arrogance of tenure or the insidious nature of her tweets, but her actions are the equivalent of falsely calling in a bomb threat, and are grounds for termination should Fresno State decide to do so. It is also what the majority of conservatives have been angry about.
Michelle's defense of Jarrar is thus flawed and fails to paint the entire picture of what is generating the outrage machine.
91
If TheLink is accurate, I would consider the firing of Jarrar justified. This is an action, not at all related to free speech. And it's not a trivial action - I have served on hotlines.
To be sure, there are members of George W Bush's campaign staff and administration who have done much much worse in a similar vein and who should have been sent to jail for some serious time, at least in my opinion.
11
I'm trying to think of a single professor of mine, whether university or at law school, who would put out such juvenile statements of opinion and throw out a crisis hotline number pretending to be their own (as a joke? Some sort of acerbic commentary?). Honestly, I can't think of any professor who would even consider it, regardless of what they may/may not have thought. For a professor, this seems beneath a baseline of dignity, analysis, and goal of educating and opening people's eyes to difficult, complex topics and realities.
95
Point taken: both the right and the left transgress against free speech but we must be careful about whataboutism.
But what about the question whether conservative students at Fresno State can disrupt her classes going forward on the grounds she engaged in speech they consider hateful? People need to rediscover there are legal and cultural restrictions on the time, place, and manner of communicating. The restrictions must be reasonable, not block effective communication, and be applied fairly and uniformly. College classrooms and public meetings are for spirited debate. Shouting down or assault crosses a line.
While we’re communicating, we ought to take care with how we twist around language to further our purposes, especially if we’re college professors or people who work in media, politics, or law.
For example, many local law enforcement officials don’t want to be perceived as enforcing federal immigration laws because they think that creates parts of town where the rule of law is unreliable. That idea gets lost when those towns are called “sanctuary cities.”
Another example is speaking about privilege when “discrimination” is more precise and suffices. I know black people face discrimination I do not, it is wrong, and the consequences are powerful and consequential. I also know the white working class is fortunate to live in a wealthy society without facing that kind of discrimination but “privileged” does not describe their experience.
8
Free speech should be conducted with self-restraint. Any point or point of view can be made with civility and factual content. I'd much rather read a logical argument based on facts than an pronouncement based on emotion.
The words 'civil discourse' used to be a meaningful concept.
So did the word 'civilization'.
In losing one, I fear we are losing the other.
7
I fail to see how this is a matter concerning the restriction of free speech or not. In each case the individuals have spoken freely. What is done cannot be undone. Who's trying to undo it?
It seems to me more about what is appropriate reaction to speech regarded generally as offensive. I am happy to submit the opinion that none of the highlighted speakers should have been sacked for making their comments. However I am also happy to accede to the suggestion that it would have been fair enough for all of them to have been encouraged to apologise for them. I imagine most if not all of them would soon come around to the view that they should withdraw and apologise for them themselves.
Call it self-denial of one's right to free speech after the fact if it pleases you. However I prefer to think of it as a mark of humility and civility; as evidence of awareness that we are all essentially fallible creatures subject to momentary emotions and rashness after all.
I think this article is much less about the denial of free speech rights than the dangers of us "speaking" freely and carelessly in this age of instant self-publication. Does Michelle wish to suggest that if we each had a guardian angel who piped up to say "Do you really want to "say" that "live" on radio/television/Twitter/Facebook (or whatever)?", before we "said" something offensive, and we reconsidered and didn't "say" it, that that would be a bad thing?
And it's been said we Australians are "a weird mob".
5
Goldberg makes an important point, that progressive scholars can't have it both ways. But this discussion needs to take into account the way the concept of "safe space" moved from being primarily physical in nature--the protection from physical harm--to something psychological or ideological--the protection from emotional harm. There is a greater demand on campuses today for students to be shielded from ideas that are deemed noxious, since emotional well being is now regarded as an important component of intellectual well being. Campus politics are alive with committees and groups that want to ensure "disempowered groups" are not exposed to emotional harms (microaggressions) that could impair their education; accordingly, these groups--abetted by a minority of vocal faculty--have appointed themselves as the arbiters of "acceptable" ideas. These changes follow the introduction of "speech codes" on campuses in the late 1980s and 1990s aimed at challenging racism and promoting diversity. We do well to keep in mind that the generation of students who are policing ideas on campuses have spent their entire academic lives with "hate speech" rules, and therefore takes it for granted that "bad" speech should be regulated.
6
Ms. Goldberg would do well to consider that even the First Amendment right of free speech has limits. Academic freedom has even stricter limits. She could look it up before the next time she bloviates.
15
On a wild guess, I’d speculate that Prof. Jarrar is a hyper-liberal Democrat, and a non-white racist.
Her tweets were patently injudicious and deeply offensive to the vast majority of Americans who revered Barbara Bush and the half of America that voted twice (as I did) for Dubya AND his father. She put her school in a dreadful position, absolutely requiring the response given by the school’s provost.
Her convictions are more appropriately offered in op-eds or, better yet, in speeches, where she makes clear that those views are not necessarily those of her school. She might also have FAR more intelligently sought to define “racism”’s various characteristics, then simply suggested people at the end who appeared to her to possess them.
But Prof. Jarrar is hardly a moderate and in the past has written incendiary articles that appear quite racist. She has opinions that are not only NOT shared by millions of America, but which are deeply offensive to them. However, she has the right to be as racist as David Duke, only targeted AT whites and not in their favor. But the California State University at Fresno certainly is under no obligation to be tarred by them, and Americans are under no obligation to respect them.
16
You lose me when you say threats to free speech on campus are very real. Ms. Jarrar made her comments via Twitter, a very public outlet, not in a lecture environment. While I agree that she has the right to say what she wants in public, she does not enjoy the protection of her tenure in doing so, because this tweet had nothing to do with her profession.
11
I'm fairly liberal, but I remember the good ol' college day of the 80's when my creative and general writing teachers taught ... writing. I remember having to re-write a paper seven times, not because of any political stance, but because my grammar and structure were insufficient. I remember my Anthropology teacher teaching his course and encouraging us to read various books on the subject, noting that all of the books can be found across the street for free in the university library. I remember my history teacher (a Mormon) as the finest instructor there was on campus, one who understood ever side, nuance, and dynamic of American and World history. Yes, I received a great liberal arts education (at a small state school), where something like Twitter wasn't even thought of, and neither was ripping on a recently deceased first lady just because you didn't like her politics. I remember civility, and mostly I remember outstanding teaching, not bombastic statements (which were poorly written, by the way). I agree with freedom of speech, no matter how innane it is. I mostly agree with professors using their title to -- yes, there it is again -- teach. Today's professoriate is so pop culture oriented and weak intellectually.
10
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I've made the same following argument in these comments sections in response to outrageous racist, sexist comments from conservatives that have cost them jobs, advertisers, and commercial proceeds:
The First Amendment protects your right to free speech. It does not protect you from the consequences of that speech.
While I agree with some of the sentiment of Jarrar's issues with Mrs. Bush's stances, I draw the line at blatant character assasination that not only invites but revels in outrage and fury, especially on the day of the death of the person being attacked.
While democracy can benefit from the fringe wings that draw attention to overlooked issues and groups, it can not withstand this escalating verbal civil war that utterly dehumanizes opponents. I'm sick of it coming from the right and I'm especially sick that it is now coming from the left.
As the ex-partner of a professor and a sort-of lifelong perpetual university student myself, this style of attack over Twitter by a professor of Creative Writing, of all disciplines, does absolutely nothing to foster dialogue and engender understanding. It's academic malpractice, frankly. I can't imagine what her response would be in the classroom if a conservative student voiced sentiment for Mrs. Bush. And what really angers me is that she's now given potent ammunition to Fox News commentators who have been howling for days now.
12
It's not character assassination if it's true; when it's true it's observation and her comments about that old trout were on the money.
1
She as any US Citizen can express herself non violently to her heart's content. ABSOLUTELY.
However, her employers can remove her if her actions prove hazardous to their image at anytime.
Tenure doesn't equal untouchable and one's actions nearly always have consequences.
Interestingly enough, a friend of mine is a professor at Fresno St. and the rumour mill says Professor Jarrar and the school will "amicably" part ways this summer. Her tenure got clipped I guess.
Maybe I should be the one writing an OpEd not you. #indecentComposure
14
The Christakises, Murray, countless professors across the US campuses have been mercilessly hounded as "fascists" and persecuted by the "progressive left" without anybody stopping for a second to consider their right to free speech. These very same people have now morphed into the champions of the constitution. Hopefully they will be able to extend the right to free speech to those wanting to choose their Halloween costumes.
16
This is one of those pieces that misses the forest for the trees. Walk around pretty much any college campus and you will see that only certain kinds of speech are deemed acceptable, and those are almost always, if not exclusively, viewpoints of the left. Almost all other speech is being driven underground because of the sometimes violent response. While Goldberg is right that this professor has a right to her insensitive and despicable views, so does everyone else....especially those that have been told for years their viewpoints are "racist" "fascist" or any other non-factual adjective you care to insert.
13
Typical opinion piece that once again links a persons constitutional right to say whatever they want with no repercussion or responsibility. I fully support the First Amendment and Jarrar to say whatever she wants, but she does not get special dispensation that no one else enjoys of not being held accountable to her choice of words. Michelle, let me ask you this. If you had tweeted the same thing as Jarrar, do you think you would still be writing this piece?
12
just wondering, Jeff: what DO you think about Roger Stone's aspersions, that Michelle writes about? or is this just an 'attack the left and avoid the argument' opinion?
1
Hopefully she will be the recipient of some well deserved street justice. A thoroughly despicable excuse for a human being. But a perfect fit for Fresno State, a thoroughly despicable excuse for a university.
6
Bingo.
1
A little tastelessness is often necessary.
1
As long as it's backed up with facts, yes.
But Jarrar backed up nothing. She let fly with an Ann Coulter style incindiary insult bomb. How utterly shameful and ignorant for a college professor.
She accuses Barbara Bush of being racist, but does not present one incident or bit of proof to that effect. She accuses Barbara and her husband of being guilty of George W. Bush's war crimes solely because "they raised him". That is, to use a very specific and, I believe, appropriately tasteless word, "stupid". No reasonable adult levies the guilt for the crimes of a 70 year old man on his parents.
2
Free speech is fine, but a lot of the comments by left-wing professors seem to also contribute to the current type of violent and unbalanced rhetoric that Trump and company like to engage in.
46
Left wing professors are not the President of the United States. Look up "false equivalence" in the dictionary. The president has an obligation, a sworn duty to serve ALL AMERICANS. Not just the Americans that he likes. Professors have no such obligation, if anything their position requires them to be controversial and to spark debate.
3
"Professors have no such obligation, if anything their position requires them to be controversial and to spark debate."
True, Typical, but incomplete. Universities have an obligation to ensure that the debate is well balanced and goes both ways: as far right as left.
So, it should allow Jaffar's rant be balanced by, say, Duke's rant. Or, alternatively, neither should be allowed.
Are we clear now?
I don't see any reference in this piece to Professor Jarrar giving out the crisis line number at Arizona State as her own contact number. That was not politically incorrect; it was irresponsible, and I believe it was that action, and not the original comments, which prompted the investigation at Fresno State. Ms. Farrar is a Creative Writing Professor - what do these comments have to do her ability to set the curriculum in her classes? I don't think the criticism is just of people on "the left;" we've seen people be disciplined, or even lose their jobs, for non-work activities like marching with neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, saying terrible things about Michelle Obama, for example, on social media, and look what happened to Kathy Griffin after the Donald Trump severed head stunt. I think that people want more civility in this country, and professors should have to meet the same standards as your local Starbucks employee, tenured or not.
21
Shorter Michelle Goldberg: [I’m not going to defend Jarrar’s tweets] but here is my defense.
As a conservative I am here to advocate for the largest possible public platform for Ms. Jarrar to share unique analysis of politics, public policy and current events. If we can also get a few more 2nd Amendment think pieces from Justice Stevens and Brett Stephens as well as extend Jim Comey's book tour through November that would be great as well.
7
Nothing riles up white people more than being called on their privilege, racism, and active discrimination of people of color. Most white people want to be able to discriminate, and be racist with impunity: the "good ole days" Donald Trump promised them that, and couched it in "Making America Great Again." The blatantly racist, white supremacist, Donald Trump got 63% white male and 53% of the white female vote. Palpable hypocrisy.
4
Although I thought Jarrar was completely out of line, and I am definately not a fan of the Bush dynasty, especially W. and the mess he got us into, her comments do nothing to bridge the already widening gap between the academe and the public. Conservative pundits use these instances to denigrate colleges and universities, and their ire becomes policy in the form of budget cuts, and lack of support for higher education. Did Jarrar really think that she could get away with this?
8
"Did Jarrar really think...?"
She doesn't have to. She's got a tenure.
2
"Besides, while some white men may feel culturally beleaguered, they can often get away with saying things that women and people of color cannot."
That is quite possibly the most objectively false statement I've ever heard. Women and people of color can get away with saying/doing the most insensitive and racist things, either against white people or against anyone else. Just last week in this newspaper, there was an article titled "Should I Give Up On White People?" and back in November there was another called "Can My Children Be Friends With White People?" Here are some other ones from various sources:
"White men must be stopped: The very future of mankind depends on it" - Salon
"White guys are killing us: Toxic, cowardly masculinity, our unhealable national illness." - Salon
"Yes, Diversity Is About Getting Rid Of White People (And That's A Good Thing)" - Thought Catalog, now deleted
"29 Things White People Ruined." - Buzzfeed
"37 Things White People Need To Stop Ruining In 2018" - Buzzfeed
There are many more. White people have to walk on eggshells, while everyone else can say whatever hateful nonsense they want then claim they're just being "truthful" and it's sensitive whites who can't handle it.
29
Wow. Right. Having worked hard to shut down free speech on campus, the Left suddenly takes issue with censorship in once instance? Advocates of 'free speech' now are they?
So the Left, having shouted down, slandered, physically attacked, and 'de-platformed' the most innocuous, middle-of-the-road speech on campus, (for example physically shutting down the talks of speakers who happen to reflect the scientific consensus that there are neurological differences between men and women, to cite just an average example) suddenly grows a conscience!
The left naturally hates censorship - but only in that now very rare and brief moment when somebody on the left is censored.
My, a what hateful, ignorant, delusional and intolerant mess the left has become. How strangely familiar.
In reading the extremist discourse of the Left, one gets the impression that they differ with the extreme Right largely in WHO they want to deport or stuff into camps - The Left don't seem to mind the camps per se. (Ever read any 'Black Lives Matter' literature? Give it a try!)
Good luck with your polarization.
20
The idea of a "left leaning" media should have been debunked a long time ago; it is a corporate media and it will do what it can to protect the corporate stranglehold on our Nation.
Leftist trouble makers are so much easier to scapegoat that righties, primarily because it has been easier to call someone "oversensitive" when they are offended by cruelty to a minority person or cause than when offended by, say, false patriots or white privilege.
Every once in a while Barbara Bush let fly with a comment that showed how she really felt about poor people and racial minorities. Immediately after she died, some in the press were referring to her as "universally admired," and today her husband is quoted as calling her "the most beloved woman in the world." Well, not quite. Ms. Jarrar was entirely within her rights in expressing a different view (which hardly amounts to "oppression" of anyone, and it certainly does not "erase" any of Bush's good deeds), and kudos to Michelle Goldberg for bringing it to your readers' attention. And anyone who professes to be shocked -- shocked! -- by Ms. Farrar's comments should listen to the soundtrack of one of the most admired musicals of our time, in which the Yorkshire minors in "Billy Elliott" sing a Christmas greeting to Maggie Thatcher, telling her that they are celebrating Christmas because "it's one day closer to her death."
4
The first amendment is very important. But it’s not open ended, you cannot yell flood in a crowded tunnel, you cannot slander, defame or libel. What’s wrong with holding people accountable for what they say? But at the end of the day, it’s this person’s lack of civility that offends decent people.
4
Hold it, aren't the people calling for her head the same people who bemoan political correctness, and argue that people shouldn't be punished for saying racist things in public in the first place?
5
I'm a generally liberal academic, and certainly agree that no one should be punished or threatened for having an opinion, however much that opinion might offend people. My ire in this case is more a lament that the professoriate is increasingly populated by people who possess the reprehensibly dogmatic mindset of Jarrar. Among other things, the long and serious study of complex subjects should instill a certain intellectual generosity--the sort of thing that militates against simple-minded, doctrinaire bellowing such as what Jarrar has produced here. A doctorate and a tenured position should not be a mere tool for legitimizing one's opinions. Nevertheless, even crass opinions cannot be punished.
24
She certainly is entitled to free speech. Free speech, must like freedom in general, is never free. When her free speech negatively impacts an institution or company she works for, she is subject to disciplinary action that falls within the scope of the laws that govern her employment in California and the United States. If her speech drives away donors who support the school, I would certainly terminate her employment. If she was truly concerned about her job she would be a little more level-headed and a little less brash. Regardless of which side of the political spectrum we fall, the fact is that freedom of speech can land you in serious financial straits. Ask Colin Kaepernick how that works out.
4
I am free to walk into the boss's office and before other employees tell the boss in a polite manner that he is a greedy plutocrat who cheats on his wife and hits on female office workers, that he is a political fascist a liar and is a cheat and worst of all a republican which encompasses the other things.
Yes, would be protected by the 1st amendment. The law allows you to render your opinion, at least until security arrives. But unless your final words are "I quit and I will not ever again work for some one like you," if you think you will not be fired and perhaps sued for slander, you are in la la land.
If you are not ready to except the real world results of what you say like adults of normal intelligence do, you are stupid, stupid, stupid. As a lawyer one question I always asked clients when they explained what they wanted me to do was: "Okay; but what happens next?" Clearly our professor relying on the 1st amendment did not ask the question. Now she is learning the answer to the question of what happens next..
55
Wrong...she did not attack anyone verbally at work. She went after a public figure in a public forum. It is not the same thing.
4
Free speech can always benefit from civility. The professor could have made her points by asking for a balanced dialog on Mrs. Bush's legacy. Pointing out examples of where there was the positive and the negative. As a creative writer, she pretty much failed. For that, I'd be hesitant to take a class from her.
8
While Professor Jarrar may have been constitutionally protected in her first statement (evidence of Bush's racism and wide consensus of W's war crimes), her second statement about wishing for their demise does not fall under constitutionally protected speech for a public employee. While the First Amendment does not protect employees of private firms from being fired for what they say, it has been found to protect public employees under conditions where their speech is defined as a "public concern". Based on what the Supreme Court has defined as a public concern, Professor Jarrar's speech would not fall under this category. Therefore, CSU Fresno would be well within their rights to discharge her.
Further, this kind of speech does not advance any useful dialog or evoke any thinking beyond anger. University professors should be promoting intelligent debate, not using their status to wish harm on others. She and others cited in the article, while entitled to their opinion, are not good stewards of liberal thought.
19
Clearly, free speech should not be the issue. The Supreme Court has ruled on what she can, and cannot, say.
Nonetheless, if I were the Provost at Fresno State, I'd be troubled by the vacuousness and intellectual validity of a creative writing prof demonstrating so little in the way of creative writing.
12
You write, "Besides, while some white men may feel culturally beleaguered, they can often get away with saying things that women and people of color cannot." Well, yes and no. It depends on the individual's social status and cultural reach. This is one of the reductive tendencies of identity politics, with gender and race viewed as stable identity categories trumping all other identity markers, while not taking into account socio-economic status, education, and political power.
21
Whether you're opinion is right or wrong, before you express it, stop and think: What outcome do I expect will result from my having expressed this thought? How will it help the world that I expressed it? Is it possible that it will hurt more than it will help? Do I have to express every thought I have, and, if not, is this one of the ones I simply must express?
In Jarrar's case, maybe she went through some exercise like this and concluded that hers was a thought that simply had to be shared with the world. If so, then fair enough - and bring on the consequences.
But it would be an improvement everyone was a little circumspect before expressing everything they think.
10
Totally agree. Free speech is not an excuse to not deal with consequences, such as casting a bad light on your employer.
2
I think wishing death on someone is more than failing to be politically correct. But what about her move create havoc by posting ASU crisis line as her personal number? Childish? Sociopathic? Sophomoric?
17
It seems to be ok for Trump to tweet whatever he wants, and to say grotesque things about others whenever he feels like it, but it's not ok for a tenured professor to do the same thing without risking being fired. Hmmm.
60
The bill of rights, including the first amendment, has always had varying degrees of enforcement and license depending upon who the person is who is choosing to exercise his or her rights.
So it's no surprise that what is seen as acceptable for a white man is deemed unacceptable for an Arab-American woman.
10
What Jarra had to say was certainly tasteless. So calls for her firing should apply top Trump as well, correct?
4
I am no Trump fan, but tell me where he directly and specifically wished someone dead?
4
I am curious about how Ms. Jarrar’s tweets and other comments affect the ability of the students in her classroom to speak openly about their own ideas and freely express their own opinions. She has made it clear which positions she finds acceptable and which she doesn’t. Given that she holds ultimate power over the students she teaches through the grades she will choose to give them, how easily could a student disagree with her openly and not receive a lower grade in her course? As an individual, she, of course, has the right to say whatever she wishes and cannot be criminally charged or censured. But by choosing to become a professor, she cannot, with any honor, use her speech to become the very oppressor she rails against.
22
Do not speak ill of the dead. Whether you're a boor from Fresno or a dirty trickster from the Nixon era, you're a slob.
8
I am no fan of the Bushes but Jarrar's comments are helping no one and nothing. Thanks Randa for giving the far right lots of ammo.
19
"These stories don’t, in general, receive as much coverage as incidents where conservative speakers are censored or harassed. "
Could the fact the they occur much, much less frequently contribute to this in any way?
Why no coverage in the NYT about this? Contrary to the narrative? Fake news?
Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law, was invited last month by CUNY Law’s Federalist Society chapter to give a lecture on “The Importance of Free Speech on Campus.” He was heckled and shouted down during the speech by students who opposed his conservative views.
Shouted down for wanting to speak about free speech at a law school whose students, presumably, have heard of the First Amendment! Perhaps not newsworthy to the NYT, but nevertheless, germane to this column.
13
He wasn't advocating for 'free speech', but 'hate speech' - a subset of the 1st amendment. The extremist right loves 'free speech' until its applied to them.
1
Wait, someone was fired for sassing Tucker Carlson?
3
She was a nasty, arrogant, racist woman who deserved Ms. Jarrar's comments.
8
Racist too?! Well...of course.
1
And she faces no criminal charges. Her employer however can fire her. That's the law if you don't like it maybe you and your family should move elsewhere Jim.
1
I’m not sure your point but she was a First Lady not a government official.
And in fact I live mostly in France. Maybe you think the president is terrific.
"It’s true that, as people celebrate Bush’s extraordinary life, her Marie Antoinette side has gotten lost. (Shortly before her son ordered the invasion of Iraq, she said she didn’t want to waste her “beautiful mind” worrying about “body bags and deaths.”) But it’s indecent to let politics erase everything admirable about a person, especially at the moment of her death."
The author couldn't resist her own little dig. Like the professor, she has little common decency. This is the author's grab at relevance.
5
Good try, Ms. Goldberg.
While there may be an anti-free speech outrage machine on the right - or rather, conservatives who've unwisely chosen to try to beat left wing bullies at their own game - the parity ends there.
Compare the viciousness and ugliness of the leftists' comments illustrated in your column, with the temperate and serious expressions of such academics as Christina Hoff Sommers, Charles Murray and countless others who have been viciously and hysterically denounced as "fascists," had their events completely disrupted, and have even been subjected to violence. This authoritarian rot posing as "progressivism" is so deep that brave professors, mostly liberals, have created organizations like Heterodox Academy and FIRE in an attempt to counter it.
As for the wretched comments of Professor Jarrar, let it be known that the National Review and libertarian Reason websites have both strongly supported her right to speech without being punished by Cal State Fresno. It is sad, but not surprising, to see the college decide to apparently take a different tack in response to a person who made these comments independent of her employment.
(Also, it is completely unclear what the comparative "power" of Roger Stone and Jarrar has to do with the issue.)
4
How about this women spamming the Arizona suicide center ?
Totally ok I guess because she ticks many minority boxes on the job app
Send her packing -nobody should be on the tenure gravy train anymore
15
Yes. In 2018, only WHITE MALES are at fault. Everyone else gets a free pass with a Gloria Allred monogram.
1
I don't think there is anything wrong with her tweet, except for the timing.
2
Racism........I need to know......why the most cruel accusation made to a "minority" person, to accuse them of "acting white"? First off....define "acting white". Is this really a bad thing? Anybody, regardless of skin color, religion, national origin, sex is capable of "acting white". It simply means "be a american citizen".......E Pluribus UNUM.....it is not E Pluribus MANY.
There's your racism.
Brazil....which has many black, white, indin, and otherwise.....but they all simply call themselves brasilieros/brasilieras. The same phenomenon exists through-out the new world....Mexico. Cuba, Canada, everywhere........the racism is still there....it will always be there.....But the LAW is designed to prevent discrimination in jobs, housing, education, opportunities.....what more does anyone want?
2
Here's what I don't understand: Why do people feel compelled to express their every opinion? It's a national epidemic, and it's tearing the country apart.
The answer, obviously, is that they can, thanks to social media. Who goes around in the offline, real world spouting unsolicited opinions? But it's done all the time online, and what good comes of it?
And it's not just public social media. Think back to the engineer at Google who posted a manifesto about women in science. It was posted on one of the many forums the company created to encourage employees to express their ideas. Don't companies usually want their employees to keep their mouths shut? And for good reason. Like every other company in the Silicon Valley, Google never considered that its plans could have negative consequences, ones that it would be hard to qualify as unforeseen.
I guess, then, that it shouldn't have been too hard to foresee that America would elect a president who is nothing more than a mass of opinions, all based on nothing more than prejudice and ignorance.
10
Infantile behavior and victim mentality, what a bunch of thin skinned babies, with the POTUS the biggest infant of all, his MO IS "poor me. A rich privileged rage-aholic, always picked on, poor little Baby Donnie.
What happened to "sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me!"?
Used to be Americans were "rugged individualists". Now--identity in a tribe sissies.
1
Ye gods! The sanctions described here violate both academic freedom and freedom of speech--which we all share. Universities don't need to take positions on political or social issues. Besides, a lot of the comments quoted are pretty stupid.
2
Guess what, kids ??? You really don't have to share, or tweet, every thought that pops into your head. It's called common sense.
8
The first and other amendments are viciously attacked by the left when they do not serve its ideological goals.
But when one of theirs abuses the First, as this joke of a tenured radical did, the bloggers jump to herhisits defense.
Teach much?
4
I thought the right liked it when people - especially the guy in the white house - are politically incorrect.
Jarrar's comments are meant as a form of protest. Sometimes protest is offensive and not timed well on purpose for it aims to point attention at injustice. Jarrar has a right to do this. It's ok to be offensive in the name of justice. Sometimes it's needed. She may lose her job, she may suffer the consequences, but she is following her heart -- her rage -- at what she saw in the Iraq war, and those she deems complicit. The real offense is not Jarrar's tweets. The real offense is the innocent lives lost in that illegal war. Let's put things in perspective.
2
Ted Nugent says ugly things and gets invited to the White House for dinner!
1
It’s funny how the left cares about freedom of speech when it is one of their own spewing hate.
10
Unfortunately what we have are hypocrites and pains on both sides and no Hippocrates and Paynes.
Fox manufacturers the outrage, NYT takes the bait. Shame on all of us.
4
Charlotte Whitney was convicted under the 1919 California Criminal Syndicalism Act for allegedly helping to establish the Communist Labor Party of America, a group charged by the state with teaching the violent overthrow of government. In 1927 SCOTUS unanimously upheld the conviction, rejecting her claim that it violated both the 1st and 14th amendments, a decision rescinded by the Court in 1969. Though he voted for the 1927 decision based on 14th amendment considerations, Justice Louis Brandeis (joined by Justice Holmes) wrote a concurring opinion in defense of the 1st amendment: "To courageous, self -reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom. Such, in my opinion, is the command of the Constitution. It is therefore always open to Americans to challenge a law abridging free speech and assembly by showing that there was no emergency justifying it.” In short, the remedy for speech you don't like is more speech.
2
Jarrar is free to tweet whatever she wants. but given her position as a professor at a university she has a higher burden as to her choice of words. Twitter is not the place to make bar-stool utterances. Just because Trump can get away with it, doesn't mean we all should. Fire her!
3
Yes, freedom of speech should always be protected, regardless of the message or messenger. However, it is a regrettable side effect that rude, insensitive and speech that is petulant and adolescent is also protected. Just because you can do something does not mean you should. In many cases it may even be self-defeating. Whatever happened to the ideal of being a lady or a gentleman? Or even just an adult?
I know, hopelessly old fashioned.
4
This article contains an odd combination of excellent and shaky points. The conclusion is terrific. We do need to rediscover the right to offend, just as we need to rediscover the fortitude and largeness of spirit not to take offense at the slightest provocation.
I'm just not as clear-cut on how free speech plays into a public employment context specifically, and I believe Ms. Goldberg should at least acknowledge that adds a wrinkle to the situation. I suspect that if Ted Cruz's receptionist refers to him as an "eely, weak-chinned, ideologically blinkered pantywaist", that receptionist can be fired, free speech considerations notwithstanding.
4
If Ted Cruz's receptionist did that (outside the office) a) she would be fired and b) she shouldn't be. It is too bad that the First Amendment protects only the publicly employed.
So Randa Jarrar is a creative writing professor? I wonder if a student included a drawing of Mohammed in a assignment about the ridiculousness of a religion (say Islam), would she be so keen about the First Amendment?
10
I strongly agree with the sentiment that the right response to offensive speech is more speech. Also, as we've heard so many times since childhood, the old cliche' rings true - it's not just what you say, it's how you say it. Angry and hurtful speech right after someone's death is not usually appropiate, when the family is freshly grieving. On the other hand, in this much less public forum of the Times' comment section, I can admit that I felt a similar rush of anger over the fond responses to the passing of the Bush matriarch. She and her family has paid such a little price for it's hubris and abuse of power and privilege. We Americans, and millions of people in the Middle East and the world, will be paying a tragic and heavy price for the wreckless and duplicitous actions of Barbara's errant son - for a very, very long time. May her soul rest.
2
Could be she had some wine and was reacting and tweeting...(it was a tweet right?) Personally I thought the coverage of the matriarchs achievements was overblown. She was a conservative and backed things I don't like...plus the Iraq war...hope she doesn't get fired...
What's the deal between Michelle Goldberg and the NYT? Is she intended to be the token " woke ", vacuous Millienial?
5
“Barbara Bush was a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal,”
Seriously - you want this person - totally lacking in emotional intelligence - teach your kids? This is less about free speech than about the (in)ability of Fresno State to hire competent educators.
13
What part of that section you quoted is incorrect?
Well maybe you should never teach at an institution either.
A teacher of creative writing chooses to express herself on an interesting subject in a rude tweet instead of an op ed. Sign of the times...
3
Hope this column did not fuel another thought police lynch mob.
You seem to misunderstand the basics of freedom of speech. It's not freedom from consequences for vile, inflammatory, hyperbolic speech. Your employer does not owe you the same constitutional rights as the government. Please indicate where the government violated her First Amendment rights.
10
Ms. Goldberg, I just hope you voice your concern for the 1st Amendment the next time the attack comes from your side. You risk revealing yourself as the worst kind of hypocrite if you do not.
5
Michelle, I was with you until the last paragraph. There are plenty of people on the left (and the right) who are only too happy to spew venom. What we need is for people to make their points in a way that is passionate, biting yet civil. It is so much easier to tear things down, societies included, than to build them back up.
3
Ms. Goldberg cites the bi-partisan outpouring for Barbara Bush upon her passing. Quoting George Carlin, "Bi-partisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out." I remember well the Willie Horton campaign of her husband. The anti-abortion stances of her husband and son. And the wars. What did Barbara Bush say about these? But these are not "free speech" issues. The Bush family isn't exactly a family to be admired, and therein lies the truth of George Carlin's observation. And just to be honest, not bi-partisan, neither were the Kennedy's (patriarch Joe was a rum-runner, after all, and that doesn't even get to the "womanizing" as it was once called) nor the Clinton's (slick Willie, indeed, complete with a spouse who stood by her man).
The issue is not whether Ms. Jarrar's remarks were insensitive, but rather, are they true?
I had two responses to Ms. Goldberg’s article. The first is that, since Ms. Jarrar’s tweets were obviously meant to be deliberately provocative, that their intention was to incite debate over our tendency to want to say nice things about the life of an historical person at the time of their passing without mention of their (potentially significant) shortcomings. The manner in which she did this is completely in line with the kind of thing Breitbart is known for, and so is not out of place (unfortunately) in modern political discourse. But Breitbart is a business, a going concern, whereas Ms. Jarrar is an academic. I would have hoped for a more thoughtful discourse from her.
Which leads me to my second thought. We are, for better or worse (okay, for worse), partaking in a culture of brevity. It is impossible to engage in the kind of conversations we need to have in 280 character pieces. Even this article wasn’t long enough to shed light on the discussion, but only to report on the back and forth volleys of insult and invective. The exchange of ideas, the ability to hear each other, to understand, to clarify while disagreeing, requires more than the tit for tat of a tennis match.
4
Free speech and accountability. Say what you want and let those associated to you react the way they want within the law. Those in the private sector stay away from publicity as for much than what this professor wrote a dismissal is a sure thing.
Professor Jarrar was out spoken not well spoken but that's the beauty of free speech. The ability to speak our minds freely without fear of persecution is something that has always been defended by our country. Our ability to have spirited debate about the issues that matter to us must continue to be protected. If we start allowing people to be punished for their speech we open the door for all of us to be censored and if that happens we lose the freedom we so cherish.
2
AMI: Well, if it's o.k. to trash former First Lady in the name of free speech, why is it not o.k. to raise the question of whether or not Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and that he is a Muslim not a Christian? Six in one and half dozen in the other!All is covered by the free speech amendment of the Bill of Rights. Alexander Harrison does not care one way or the other. I just would have liked to see 0 learn Swahili, derived from Arabic and Arabic language itself, and to give speeches in both idioms. MG is very selective in her defense of those who push free speech to the limits. She countenances the vulgarity of Professor Jarrar. yet when Ayaan Hsiri Ali sought to give a speech at Brandeis Univ.on a truly cruel practice approved by Islam, fgm, Ms. Goldberg was silent: She said nothing in Ms. Ali's defense, like other feminists moreover, including NOW!Understand how touchy EB is when it comes to criticism of its columnists--submitted 3 critiques of her article the other day, all of which were informative and which and mind broadening but went unnoticed--- but in the name of intellectual honesty, believe that at least this intervention deserves publication.Would also appreciate seeing more derring do, courage and willingness to go where others might fear to tread with a pad and pencil and tape recorder and tell us something we don't know!Journos almost twice her age show that kind of creativity. Why not Ms. Goldberg?
There are many, many things I think but do not say outright, and when I do express these opinions, I consider my manner of expression. It's called using some judgment. These people, Right and Left, should not be forced to pay for their lack of judgment with their jobs, but, especially in today's climate where such reactions are predictable, they should seriously consider thinking before giving voice to their more extreme views.
4
Could not agree more. What do people think is going to happen?
1
Right on, Michelle. On target as usual. The left is crazy not to defend free speech, no matter how much it "hurts." The AAUP, with its commitment to upholding tenure and freedom of speech, was originally set up by progressives determined to protect people like them from their enemies on the right. Leftists are simply naive if they think their own attacks on politically incorrect free speech won't backfire on them from the much more numerous opponents of free speech that "offends" those on the right.
4
The professor has the right to say whatever she wishes, no matter how offensive, unless it causes harm or danger to others. I'm thinking of the "you can't yell fire in a crowded theatre" argument. However, purposely give out the phone number for a crisis center and representing it as your own number crosses the line. It is obvious she intended for people to call the number in mass. In doing so, she put real people in danger. If the line is constantly busy, people who need this crisis line can't get through.
This is the offense that must be addressed. This is the offense that must be used to determine an appropriate punishment for.
10
No matter what anyone says, in any forum, on any topic, death threats are a stunningly inappropriate response.
Death threats seem to be pretty common nowadays. People who take controversial stands or do controversial things often receive them.
Threatening to kill someone you dislike or disagree with isn't a great way to assert your moral superiority. You make anonymous threats against people who are not anonymous. That doesn't make you morally superior. It makes you a coward, and a menace to society.
4
Agreed. Who made the death threat? Again, I agree, but don't see the relevance...
1
I’m sorry but can we take this outrage and focus it on a certain person who equally offends but on a daily if not hourly basis and also sits in the Oval Office? Thanks.
4
The notion that someone could be so offended by a *tweet*, that they would call for a real life consequence, is absurd. People, as a generality, do not, and should not look to that most toxic of social sites, Twitter, for moral righteousness.
Also, if we did enough searching, who among us couldn’t be fired for saying privately or casually, something our employer might claim was a ‘regrettably, a termination worthy offense’.
Who are, and where do these morally virtuous cultural and PC police operate? No where, they are not real people. The “outraged” and offended as a troll, they are right’s version of crisis actors, designed to activate the lefts self destruct mechanism. Don’t fall for it.
Why is hate from the left better than hate from the right? You might want to gain some knowledge of the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the People's Republic of China, Albania under Hoxha, Cambodia under Pol Pot, etc., etc. to see where that hatred stuff goes. And yes, hatred does get in the way of thinking. Ms. Jarrar provided no thinking behind her tweets. Which is pretty typical of tweets.
9
the author must be joking when she states that the left may be more at danger of 1st amendment infringements at univiersities. A couple of incidents of people being combative of points they don't like...really? compared to the outright abolishment of any conservative or "right wing" political thought across most universities....please.
9
Death has its own protocol.
1
Let’s see what happens when one of her students shows up to class wearing a MAGA hat.
7
This all shows how far we have fallen from good manners, critical and responsible thought and kindness. Our whole society is now built on sensationalism from top to bottom. Why do we publicize Roger Stone’s comments? Who cares what such a disgusting person thinks or writes. People who speak and write with such rancor just want attention, why do we give it to them?
3
Obviously, the person who spoke this is not a very nice person and I certainly want someone who is possessed of so much hate teaching my kids. Free speech is vital, so, I can defend her right to speaking her opinions. I also defend the right of students to not attend her classes, which, decent minded students should do.
5
If she is fired, it will be from involving the university.
While she was opining as a citizen, she would AND maybe should have been protected.
By dragging FSU into the fray, she may have shot herself in the foot.
3
She has the right to make controversial statements as part of teaching a class, or as part of research that she is conducting. She has no more right that any other employee to make outrageous statements that cast her employer in a negative light. When she accepted the position of professor, she became part of the public face of the university. The university has the right to demand that its representatives do not cast the institution in a negative light through their actions and words. They can fire her for this just as they could fire her for committing a crime. The statement was indefensibly rude; she cannot hide behind the shield of "political speech", as the same political sentiment could have been expressed in other language that would not have dragged the university's name through the mud.
6
I hear what you're saying and largely agree with your call for decorum. I also agree that a faculty's words do act, for better or worse, as a representation of the academic institution.
But here's the rub: Barabara Bush was by some accounts an atrocious person. Some do view her past influence as overt political menace.
Professor Jarrar is a self-identified Muslim American and to her Barbara Bush (and apparently the entire Bush clan) is an existential threat.
So for Professor Jarrar to express such indecorous vitriol as exemplified in her recent Twitter posts is in line with both her academic and personal identity and, by extension, in in line with the academic and intellectual mission of Fresno State University.
Because FSU is a public institution and because Professor Jarrar's words are in line with her role as an academic, her job should not be jeopardized because of those words. I believe there should be exceptions to such protections including incitements to violence and the emergence of imminent threat. Expressions of hate against protected classes (race, religion, sexual orientation) also should not be protected. Everything else, including personal and political enmity should be protected.
Professor Farrar's words are not words I would choose to use on the occasion of someone's death. But her job should not be at risk for her words precisely because those words align with her political and intellectual identity and the mission of FSU as a public university.
It is remarkable the blindness of the left wing comment machine on this article. What people on the right, and, yes white men, are often lashing out about is the hypocrisy of these situations. For example, to be called racist for criticizing a black only Memorial Day event is the definition of irony. The test for me in the situations is to just switch the race or gender and see if it would be considered racist or sexist. Can you imagine the apoplectic rage of the left if there was a white only Memorial Day event? Or if a media figure or professor suggested it was ok to kill black people...because they were black.
On top of it, the assumptions in this article defy belief. In fact, how can you even discuss them because they aren't grounded in reason. For example, one doesn't really know why Roger Stone's comments didn't generate an uproar - one certainly can't prove it's because he's a white male. Far more likely it's because he is someone on the right criticizing someone on the right.
I guess the one thing I agree with Goldberg on is the importance of freedom of speech. I am nearly an absolutist on the issue...and that includes freedom from getting fired for what one says and especially freedom from violence for what one says. Speech you disagree with should be fought with your mind through more speech.
4
Being exposed to different views does not mean I want to waste my time listening to someone who believes the earth is flat.
And that is really not much different than listening to evangelicals tell me the earth was created 6,000 years ago.
It is not much different than listening to racists.
By the way, what do those creationists say when the Exxon engineers say they just drilled through a million years of the earth's crust to get oil for their SUVs?
Randa Jarrar and Roger Stone should get married and start a blog. They are made for each other, especially with their charming remarks about the late Barbara Bush. They remind me of the Westboro Baptist church.
You know, the ones who have demonstrations at soldiers' burial sites because they claim our soldiers die because America now supports LGBT rights.
Jarrar and Roger Stone are in the same category as Westboro Baptist. They are free to spew outrage, and we are free to call them out and shun them.
2
Republicans can dish it out but cant take it.
1
As abhorrent as Ms.Jarrar’s statement is( not to mention the bad Karma that wishing someone’s death may induce), she is protected under the first amendment which allows a free nation to protect free speech.
Without that we are not a democracy.
As I understand, professor Jarrar was foolish enough to give out the phone number of another university's crisis hot line as her personal phone number. Her hubris, followed by that public action, has opened her to potential termination based not, overtly, on her comment but, instead, on her conduct.
And more's the pity.
3
Shouldn't a professor be a role model to her students? Any critical comments that Randa Jarrar wished to make about Mrs. Bush could have been offered in a civil manner.
4
There is a saying not often uttered these days. “Silence is golden.” We have become for lots of reasons-pent up anger, frustration, following “the leader” and a growing sense of personal entitlement-extremely uncivil in our words and conduct. Road rage, yelling obscenities and giving the middle finger all too freely. A civil society requires civilized behavior. Forbearance and forgiveness go by the boards and erode our community bonds and political amity. We all must learn to “bite our tongues.”
“My belief in free speech is so profound that I am seldom tempted to deny it to the other fellow. Nor do I make any effort to differentiate between the other fellow right and that other fellow wrong, for I am convinced that free speech is worth nothing unless it includes a full franchise to be foolish and even ... malicious.”
― H.L. Mencken
2
Ms. Jarrar's hateful comments reflect the uncontrolled animus and rage of a very frustrated, disturbed person. That she is employed as a teacher, potentially influencing her students with her abominable biases is distressing, as is the fact of her tenured position. Nevertheless, a university must accept and protect her right to express herself, no matter how others may object to her prejudices.
3
My theory why we don't hear as much about suppression on the left as we do about suppression on the right is that the right is much better at theater politics.
It is the same reason we got 8 Benghazi hearings that resulted in nothing.
It is the same reason that everyone knows about 33,000 missing Clinton e-mails but nobody knows about the private W Bush White House e-mail server, gwb43.org, and 22 million missing e-mails.
It is why Republicans are saying the Mueller investigation has gone on long enough after 11 months when the Whitewater investigation went on for 4 years and $70 million.
And when Mueller or the New York investigation finds wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering, Fox News will complain that was not the original intent of the investigation even though Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about Monica Lewinsky and nothing to do with Whitewater.
Republicans are much better at theater politics.
3
Goldberg laments the fact that a Texas A&M professor "needed a police escort" after he talked about the "morality of killing white people". Imagine if a white professor talked about the "morality" of - say, the police - killing black people. That professor would be crucified by the NY Times with inevitable accompanying Op-Eds arguing that his (or her) hate speech is not permissible free speech because it hurts the feelings of "marginalized" communities. What breathtaking - and dangerous - hypocrisy.
7
The paradox of the matter is that either you have free speech or you don't. If you can censor some, you will eventually censor all. Professor Jarrar's comments, while repugnant (at least to me), are hers to make as a citizen. So long s she doesn't advocate violence against an individual or claim to speak on behalf of her employer, she has the right to speak as she chooses. The same goes for the obnoxious parties on the right.
33
So basically, you want to defend the right to be obnoxious and graceless, while denying people the right not to associate with the obnoxious?
This is not about Freedom of Speech. Neither Jarrar, Stone, or Ingraham were denied the right to freely speak. They either felt the consequences of people not wanting to associate with them (or in Stones case, being irrelevant enough that no one cared) in the public sphere. I think people are sick and tired of the obnoxious shtick, heck even Howard Stern seems to have toned it down.
If Jarrar, Stone and Ingraham want to tweet, instagram, etc, feel free. But listeners, advertisers, and owners should have the right to express their distain by being allowed to distance themselves from what they consider beyond the social norms.
54
This whole free speech debate, particular from the right, is so absurd, and what's truly depressing is the number of supposedly "liberal" intellectuals, like Mark Lilla and most recently Eric Bennett who've jumped on the rightist bandwagon to blame the election of Trump and the resurgence of white identity politics and ressentiment on left-leaning humanities faculty and progressive millennial students. This professor has every right to express her views on Barbara Bush, who no one is under any compulsion to love or admire. We do not live in a totalitarian state, last time I looked, and as she pointed out, alongside positive things to consider about Barbara Bush's past, there are a number of intemperate statements (about women, poor and Black people, the Iraqis whose country was devastated by a war based on lies) to criticize. I would not have stated things like Professor Jarrar, but also let's not forget that the current President of the United States, unlike any of his predecessors, posts horrible things, including attacks on and slurs against various groups of people, figures and institutions, against on a regular basis, and not only do the mainstream media repeat a lot of this mess verbatim, but also, far too many just shrug it off or act as if has no effect. But it does, far, far more than anything Professor Jarrar or any liberal professor is posting.
3
Excellent. You will find that most of the so called problems stem from teachers who are teaching in the Liberal Arts curriculum. Any one who is educated rather than vocated understands that what has carried Humanity forward and upward out of the absurdity of "some people are more free than others and deserve to be wealthy have medical care... are those in our history who have had the vision of freedom and the courage to write poetry, make movies, write books and be journalists, artists, ectcetra and teach those messages to our people live in the jeopardy of these kinds of assaults. That's the thing about Truth. Only those courageous enough tot say it, say it.
Being politically incorrect is what it means to think, let alone have the courage to live it.
4
When I first read headlines about what Professor Jarrar said, I felt myself ready to condemn her too. Then she reminded me of two public statements that Barbara Bush made (public mind you). One was during the aftermath of Katrina, and her sons poor response to those trapped in the hell hole of the Superdome. I’m paraphrasing, but she opined that the mostly black suffering survivors in the Dome were better off there than in their homes, because they were “ underprivledged”. Sounds like a pretty racist statement to me. That’s in addition to the indecent remarks Mrs Bush made about the thousands of civilians bombed into oblivion in Iraq. As for Ms. Jarrar wishing for anyone’s hasty demise, I don’t think it’s advisable. We will all meet the same end soon enough.
36
If Dr Jarrar had spoken seriously, in professional language, about Mrs Bush's transgressions against modern orthodoxy, there would not be such a fuss. It was the highly intemperate language she chose that makes the comments not a legitimate difference of opinion but rather a foul-mouthed, immature rant. She is a college professor speaking publicly, but she used language that wouldn't be acceptable in this very comment section.
In any case, Dr Jarrar has a right to say whatever she likes as a private citizen, but not to say it as a representative of her employer. When you identify yourself by your job title, your employer has a right to consider that your remarks reflect on them.
11
Jarrar has a right to say what she thinks, horrific as it may be. What she did not have the right to do was post a suicide hot line number as her own, and endanger lives. That is what she should be fired for. Funny that Goldberg doesn’t mention that.
12
Without wading too deep into the swamp of the legal issues, it seems to me that as long as Ms. Jarrar was making her comments as a citizen, and not as part of her work teaching creative writing, I believe she is protected by the Constitution, and if she is not, she should be. I am a 70 year old white male, was a medic in Viet Nam, and in all candor was nauseated by the genuflection of the press to her when she died. The Bush presidents, and their cronys, were enablers of the degradation of the Republican Party into its current fascist state. I suspect Ms. Jarrar is all too aware of the murderousness of the US in countries around the world. I respect her willingness to remind us that Mrs. Bush did not see,or understand, many terribly destructive things her husband, and her sons, did, or made happen. Her (Mrs. Bush) aggressiveness in defending their actions was, I believe, too often arrogant and uninformed. It is wise to praise her strengths. It is dangerous to try to silence those who would remind us that she had flaws, like all of us. May she rest in peace. We can learn from her remarkable life, from both her strengths and her weaknesses. Genuflection to power and privilege, no matter how graciously it is wielded, is unwise, and should be called out.
9
At last, someone to reflect the views of the rest of us! Thanks, Michelle. I too have been wondering about the Barbara Bush encomiums, knowing what an upper-class monster she was.
3
Would it be OK if students or just people in general went to her classes and discussions and shouted her down? Is that acceptable free speech?
1
No. Taking such action would deprive students of their right to an education. If the professor says such things in class, then offended students can complain to administration. If people offended by the professor's tweets wish to denounce them/her, they should do so via Twitter or Facebook.
1
This column makes one wonder what the reaction would be if an African American president said the same things that Mr.Trump does.Were that the case there would be huge outrage.There is a double standard when it comes to offensive speech.We were fortunate to have a considerate and elegant Mr.Obama.On the other hand Mr.Trump defies every sensibility and gets away with verbal abuse, intimidation and bullying.Not everyone is offended - they should be.
7
He or she would be crucified. Remember, President Obama was attacked nonstop for several days for *wearing a tan suit*. In the summer. A. Tan. Suit. He also was attacked for saying that if he had a son he might look like Trayvon Martin (a true statement), for calling out the cop who wrongly arrested Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (who was entering his *own* home), and on and on.
4
When people use their academic positions to lend an aura of high seriousness to what is essentially low-life screaming, it is merely an attempt to have it both ways. The notion of academic protection enshrined in "tenure" is aimed at protecting serious, if impolitic and unfashionable, research activities. To use one's PRIVILEGED academic position, in effect, to stand on a soap box and scream obscenities at others is just false.
Several commentators, as well as Ms. Goldberg, fail to distinguish between hired guns, such as Coulter and the Fox contingent, who have to support themselves by finding people willing to pay for them, and those with academic positions, who presumably have some form of expertise, who are paid by institutions, often taxpayer funded, on the basis of such expertise, and who use these positions as cover for irrational and abusive language designed to promote themselves and their personal, non-academic agendas.
Free speech is as phony as free lunch (or free trade) because nothing is free and everything has a cost. Who was it who said something about "extremism in defense of liberty." My, oh my, was he pilloried by the Left! Let's be honest, no one stops one from freely expressing views, but one also should be aware that talk, as well as actions, have consequences.
Words wound, as do violent acts. That's why there are "fighting words." Shooting off one's mouth, as with shooting off one's gun, well ... draw your own conclusions.
3
You have quoted Barry Goldwater, but you make a false analogy when saying he was pilloried. Times have changed, and the concept of "PC" did not exist 1964.
I say it is a false analogy because while the left very, very strongly disagreed with his statement, and argued passionately against it, I don't remember anyone claiming he should be punished for MAKING the statement.
That is the critical difference that is being lost in our current culture. Instead of attacking a point of view, we attack the person - simply for voicing that point of view.
1
First Amendment issues and other legalities, and the propriety of diverging from the Barbara Bush hagiography aside, am I the only one who sees a double standard here? Liberals who cross the imaginary line of political correctness always seem to be punished, while right wing provocateurs tell the most outrageous lies and hurl a steady stream of vile insults at those they disagree with, yet they stay on the radio, keep their TV gigs or speaking contracts, or stay in political office, and are defended as paragons of free speech.
8
An excellent column, that winds up addressing the (growing) intolerance of progressively-minded people toward free speech in a way that really hits home. A critical concern for all decent people in this country, particularly those on the left, is how the indecency (not to say depravity) of Trump and his supporters is eroding mainstream liberal values and justifying an in-kind response.
2
If repugnant speech isn't protected by the First Amendment, the amendment doesn't mean a thing.
6
If the First Amendment protects Jarrar saying what she thinks and that she is glad for Bush's death, then it certainly protects the university president saying he would like to see her fired or disciplined. It may not protect his right to actually fire her, but surely he's entitled to say he would *like* to see her fired. What happened to Free Speech???
5
We have to differentiate the diff between being nasty, being seditious and exercising your rights. Barbara
Bush, like all of was an imperfect person.
I just do not understand why people feel empowered to publish hurtful things about someone who has just passed?
First amendment rights aside, what ever happened to human decency?
To paraphrase: I defend you RIGHT to say these things, but have you no human decency?
4
Whether it is free speech or polite speech or just humane speech, the bottom line is that this was a disgusting reaction and then a continued aggressive rant from someone designated to teach our kids. Do I want my children exposed to different views? Yes, but this full throttled aggressive crudity is not discussing different views in any sort of constructive way. She was being deliberately provocative and dragged the university into it. She made herself a representative of the university and continued to taunt and egg on people who were offended. I would be interested to see how she speaks and what sort of role model she is in class. I find it hard to imagine that she is teaching polite disagreement and civilized discussion. Yes there are times when standing up for your rights firmly is appropriate. This tweet storm about someone's death was not one of those times.
3
I have long argued (in my fantasy columns!) that we live with political correctness from the right and have lived with it for so long that we don’t even recognize it for what it is. An administrator at a university is going to be in just as much trouble if he claims that religious Christians are mentally inferior as he will if he says that about a marginalized minority group. But there is a threat here that Goldberg is falling in the parity trap. When someone disparages Barbara Bush, it may be unseemly, but they are disparaging an aristocrat; disparage Christianity, and it may be unpalatable to our general traditions, but Christians are not a marginalized group. When a liberal gets politically correct they are criticizing disparagement of marginalized groups, such as minorities and women, groups that have been trod under for centuries, even thousands of years, by our traditional points of view, and to disparage them is to not only continue the marginalization but to champion it. So I think there is a difference, not parity. No PC parity.
2
Is there a difference between free speech protections and tenured professor protections? Is free speech about your job or is about political speech? Is a professor meant to be protected for intellectual exploration or for absolutely all discourse?
1
The idea that someone should be free from criticism in the wake of their death is absurd. If someone has done awful things that hurt people, it isn't politics to call them out on it.
3
We have the freedom to say what we will. We also have to deal with the consequences.
2
Many make the argument that you are free to say whatever you want, but your employer is also free to fire you if what you say embarrasses your employer. If this is true, the only people who really enjoy true freedom of speech are the unemployed and the self-employed. Is that really a good outcome?
I seem to remember reading many years ago something to the effect that the only truly free people are the very rich and the very poor. Maybe there is truth to this (and maybe someone with a better memory than mine can remind me who wrote this).
1
Ms. Goldberg muddles her thinking by conflating Roger Stone with Professor Jarrar...one is a political operative who represents only himself, while the professor represents her university and, as such, should display a higher degree of professionalism. Additionally, Ms. Jarrar’s crude tweets demonstrate that she lacks fundamental decency and can’t be trusted to uphold the higher ideals of her institution. The fact that she hasn’t expressed any contrition over her behavior is also concerning. Fresno State deserves better.
5
She put out a phone number she presented as hers but went to an after-hours crisis and suicide help line at Arizona State University. This tied up the line, cruelly put people at risk, and might have led to deaths. Could she be charged with attempted manslaughter or other crime for this?
7
Politically incorrect is a phrase usually reserved for conservatives who don’t abide by the progressive agenda. So your basic premise is mis-leading. The professor has a right to say whatever she wants, however crude and insensitive. She does not have a guarantee of employment if her comments are not contributing to civil discourse. It would be so refreshing if the left would call out its own on occasion when the term racist is applied to almost everyone who is either republican or conservative. Calling people names and accusing them of racism should be taken seriously. Instead the term is thrown around as an ad hominem attack and a way to avoid actual discussion of issues that face us. That would be the key difference between what the left currently engages in comparison to the right. I see issues discussed on the right, not name calling and character assassination I see on the left. And is the left is trying to bring awareness of race issues to conservatives, perhaps not calling conservative racist from the get go might help.
2
You are certainly right about some of this, but who on the right is discussing issues these days? Even a basic acknowledgement of reality would be refreshing.
Earlier this week in response to people trying to reach her by phone, Ms. Jarrar posted the Arizona State University mental health crisis line number, saying that it was her personal phone line. The crisis center was then flooded with up to 70 calls / hour (their usual volume is 5 calls per week). What mentally stable person would do such a thing?
79
I’m going to say it: she should not be fired. She didn’t say she represented the entire university when she made these comments. She didn’t instruct her students that her comments were facts and not opinion. She didn’t make threats against anyone. She was expressing her opinion as a free American citizen; a gross, poorly timed and despicable opinion, but we’re allowed to do that in this country. Comedians and late night talk show hosts make a career out of it.
And let’s face it: if the President is allowed to say all that he says and has said, and he gets to keep his job, the highest office in the land, it’s really tough to argue that a teacher at Fresno state shouldn’t keep hers.
68
I would agree IF she had not dragged CSUF into the situation. As a private citizen, she definitely has the right to say whatever she wishes. There are codes of conduct to which many organizations require their employees to adhere, as a condition of employment. It would not be considered free speech to publish trade secrets, for example. The staff at CSFU signed such agreements upon employment. If she violated her agreement, she should experience consequences, up to, and including termination.
12
Of course, Ms. Jarrar has the right to say whatever she wants as a private citizen, as we all do, no matter how rude, insensitive, or abhorrent it might be (subject of course, to the "can't yell 'fire' in a theater type limits). Freedom of Speech must be an absolute right, or it is no right at all.
Similarly, even were she to teach this point of view at Fresno State as part of her curriculum.... Fresno should allow her to do so, as long as this teaching was intended to spark rational and open dialogue. Jonathan Haidt speaks eloquently of the dangers of squelching unpopular opinions, especially on university campuses.
That said, I think a case can be made for Fresno State firing Ms. Jarrar, and I'm leaning toward thinking they should. NOT for what she said about Mrs. Bush, but for intentional "trolling" in such a way that she had to know would disrupt the University, causing it unnecessary controversy and wasting its resources dealing with that controversy.
Make her statement without mentioning tenure or involving Fresno State in any way, fine. Make her statement while acting as a teacher in a campus setting, fine. The first is Free Speech, the second is teaching critical thinking.
But, speaking as a private citizen, in such a way as to consciously cause disruption and harm to her place of employment? Not fine, as far as the employer/employee relationship is concerned.
5
As the icing on the cake, in terms of protecting individual rights, back in 1937 the California Legislature enacted Labor Code Sections 1101-1105 to protect employees' rights to engage in political activity and to speak freely about political issues
"1101 No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy:
(a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics or from becoming candidates for public office
(b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees.
1102 No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.
1103 An employer or any other person or entity that violates this chapter is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable, in the case of an individual, by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year or a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000) or both that fine and imprisonment, or, in the case of a corporation, by a fine not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000)."
California appellate courts have expressly stated that political speech is protected by that law.
While pundits may demand that Jarrar be fired or disciplined for her words, her college's officials doing so would be both unlawful and a crime.
6
Thank you for posting the relevant texts from the California Labor Code. Too many people look for an excuse to persecute people with whom they disagree. Kudos to Michelle Goldberg for another fine article!
Big Al....I agree, she should not be fired over her statements. Although posting the number of a crisis hotline and saying it's her own? That one may be a little more damaging and could hold more severe consequences. Saying she is tenured and her boss has her back....that one could be argued under the premise she is now speaking on behalf of the University and their policies. Hopefully, the free market will determine the end result. People can choose where to send their kids to school and if they believe Fresno is not a good choice then they won't. Evergreen College is experiencing an almost 20% drop in enrollment that was arguably caused by the actions or inactions of the adminstration. Let's see what happens at Fresno. I obviously do not agree with Jarrar in the slightest and I was quite offended and disgusted but that's what free speech promotes......debate, reflection and the open exchange of ideas. Even if it's from such a despicable person it promotes what is great about our country.
1
I agree with Michelle for the most part, except when she mentions the First Amendment. As I understand it, the First Amendment protects free speech from congress making any laws to limit said speech. There is nothing that protects a person from being fired or disciplined by their employer.
5
FREE SPEECH is very important and we should always err on the side of Free Speech. But I also agree with employer rights, especially if the employer has published employee policies and regulations, or provide clauses within employee contracts that address employee conduct and employee professional behavior expectations. Even more so if those rules are accepted or not disputed during collective bargaining agreements. If there is no consistency in policy or precedence then it may make its way through grievances and the courts.
ACLU and others are claiming this is a Free Speech issue. What does the following have to do with a University reprimanding an employee for speech that negatively impacts the university?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petitition the Government for a redress of grievances."
2
Oh so, if the public, whipped up by political know-nothings, reacts negatively to a political opinion, the person who advocated such opinion should be fired? Hmm, how did I miss that point in the constitution?!
Of course her first amendment rights must be protected, however an organization should be under no obligation to employ someone who's speech they find offensive. Firing her will not prevent her from speaking out. This is not a free speech issue.
5
Did she say this as part of her job? Do you think employers should be able to fire anyone based on their legal activities and speech outside of the workplace?
8
I would argue absolutely, especially if the speech brings a reputational threat to the employer. I can think of countless scenarios in which a private institution would want to end their free association with an individual employee without contesting that individual's right to free speech. And, ultimately, no one has a positive right to their job - as long as it is not discriminatory, your employer can terminate your employment for virtually any reason. Ultimately I would argue this is a good thing: our right to free speech protects us from government censorship, not from being held professionally and socially responsible for the ideas we choose to advocate for.
Well, I remember a hospital fired a nurse a couple of years ago because she had a very sexy website.
The standard response from the left when one of their supporters is censured for "politically incorrect" speech or action is to claim first amendment freedom of speech protection. Ironically, they are usually the first to demand punishment when they are offended or suffer micro aggressions. The only protection we have is freedom from criminal prosecution. There is no constitutional protection from the anger of those who might be offended. You have the right to say anything you want, but you are not protected from the consequences.
7
This statement is mostly hyperbole. There is no "standard" response from "the left" or from "the right" for thst matter. There are individual people's responses that we may or may not agree with. None of these individuals speak for everyone who may happen to be on either side of the political spectrum.
I agree with your comment in general. Maybe standard was poor choice of words. But you have to admit that this is a common response except when it comes from the other side.
Randa Jarrar and every other American is entitled to the right of free speech. But that doesn’t mean we are entitled to keep our job when we exercise our free speech rights. That depends upon the details of our employment contract, state employment laws and the effect our speech might have on our employer’s brand.
That’s why sports figures and news commentators get suspended or fired when they make racist comments.
I think Goldberg is confusing this speech/employment conundrum with a student mob refusing to let an outsider speak on campus. That involves a prior restraint on speech and has nothing to do with the speaker’s employment at a university- they’re different free speech issues. And yes, this anti- free speech action is nearly always engineered by the regressive Left.
10
Barbara Bush has been prematurely canonized in the national media, and some historical accuracy and fairness is always good. The best memory I have of her was when she was disturbed by Dubya's use of "nucyouler" for nuclear.
10
Seriously? You deign to write a piece about restrictions on free speech on college campuses and the ONLY examples you cite are cases of liberals being silenced?
Does this mean:
A) You think only liberals are being silenced?
B) You know that conservatives are being silenced but think it's so obvious that it doesn't need to be stated?
If A...you're crazy.
If B...then you should have acknowledged that. Otherwise this comes off as the intellectual equivalent to Fox news' reporting breathlessly on cases of men being sexually harassed by women.
12
While Ms. Goldberg doesn't give the the opposing side equal space (and generally speaking, most op-ed pieces don't do so) she does acknowledge that such censorship happens on both sides. For example:
"These stories don’t, in general, receive as much coverage as incidents where conservative speakers are censored or harassed. Perhaps that’s because some of the figures targeted by left-wing students — like Christina Hoff Sommers, a critic of contemporary feminism — are mainstream by non-campus standards."
4
There used to be a time when people, college professors, talking heads on TV "news" panels, politicians, listened to their brains before they spewed out whatever idiocy their political affiliation and craven quests for notoriety had been incubating. There was a standard of civil discourse. There were people on the right who could construct a well- reasoned paragraph, not just ugliness and mean spirited personal attacks by tweet. There were those on the left who considered the consequences of their speech before putting out snappy shocking and ugly comments about every aspect of the social fabric. It is obvious that this America, which has been "Made Great" by the Russian-GOP coup, has a lot wrong with it. Calling a dead woman nasty names corrects nothing. Calling the KKK and Nazis "fine people" does not fix anything. Those who want to make public comment need to think before they speak, and not just bellow shocking nonsense to the merriment of their "base." Yes, people have the right to say horrible, fire-breathing, obnoxious things, but they ought not cry about it when they are called out for their incivility. There was a reason for "PC" speech; it made everybody speak respectfully towards everybody else. I saw from my kids that demanding an outward standard of behavior became a habit, and so their grandparents' racism was not accepted as the norm for their lives. Now the occupier of the Oval Office tweets incoherent ugly trash, so it's all a sewer.
15
Just because Trump does and keeps on doing unseemly things does not mean that tenured and well-paid "scholars" must or even should do the same.
3
This article is dishonest. It’s not her principles that are under fire, it’s her approach.
Right-wing silencing is different because it’s usually centered on the ideas themselves (i.e. the Middlebury college incident), and not the word choices. Likewise, I don’t think anyone objects to people making the argument that Barbara Bush was a bad person, just don’t start seething at your keyboard and going full psycho.
10
Ms. Jarred has basically the same status as a guy in a bar ranting. She was not teaching a class. She was not speaking in her field of expertise. She was not claiming authority derived from her professorship or academic training. And similar to the guy on the stool she doesn't back up her claims, though I suppose she could cherry pick some quotes and facts. The fact that she is a professor at Fresno seems irrelevant.
5
Ouch, the truth hurts. But it's our only salvation. BB was nasty and did raise a war monger who looked the other way at war crimes. Time to replay the shoes hurled at him. There is no reason to look through Rose tinted glasses just because they are freshly dead. Keep speaking Ms Jarrar.
5
Goldberg is hypocritical.
If tenured professor called Obama a racist war monger who should die along with all of his family to improve the world, Goldberg would not be defending those hateful remarks.A university that gives tenure to hate mongers is destroying its own reputation and deserves to lose public support.
15
Among the first people Trump invited to dinner at the White House was a singer who has called for all sorts of nasty things to be done to the Obama family. He and Sarah Palin and the other right wing performer who were at the same dinner and took pictures of themselves making nasty gestures in front of a picture of President Obama. All with the approval of Trump.
Jarrar's words are hardly a caricature seen through a right wing prism.
2
What strikes me first is simply the lack of propriety and self-awareness demonstrated by some of these Tweeters™. My own private conversations following the death of Barbara Bush included recollections of her comments at the AstroDome and her proximity to power used unwisely. My comments were nuanced with the expressions and cadences of a face-to-face conversation and were placed in a context. My co-conversant could hear the guilt, sadness, and conflict in my voice and she didn't record our conversation and post it on social media. Mrs. Bush is somebody's mother after all, even if that somebody is the guy who screwed up so royally he'll be the subject for a tragedy by the second coming of Shakespeare. Those people who are so driven to be heard that they post half-baked sentences on Twitter™ or bloviate on cable news may not deserve to lose their adjunct instructor gigs, in much the same way that a 3-year-old doesn't deserve to burn his hand touching the stove. But it happens. And most 3-year-olds learn a valuable lesson.
3
While looking at the "left-wing" statements that caused "right-wing" attacks, I noticed that you did not really differentiate between criticism, even nasty criticism, and incitement to murder - hang the president, kill white people, and so on.
7
Hogwash. The Randa Jarrar case has exactly nothing to do with free speech. Jarrar can say anything she wants. No one is stopping her. Those contracting for her services also have rights, as do students and parents considering that school.
Be honest. Jarrar, a mediocre writer with a minor publishing history, was hired for her ethnicity and her leftist views. That is SOP on American college campuses today. Such hiring practices lower the quality of education. Parents and young people have a right not to choose teachers hired for political reasons rather than pedagogic ones.
12
It is the most difficult and most important task to defend the speech which is most repugnant. The ACLU took great heat when it defended Nazi marchers in Skokie, Illinois. It took the Supreme Court to defend flag burners in the streets.
A 1906 biographer of Voltaire summarized his thoughts on free speech with an apt quote now incorrectly attributed to him: "I don’t agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Amen.
6
Americans will never win an award for political politeness but they must be credited for their viscerally robust unfettered political debate. It has been this way since the beginning of their Union. It is an American passion and right that has transformed them into the most powerful country in the world. Free speech is their nation's life blood and may that never change.
4
As Ecclesiastes says, To everything there is a season.
After the death of another man, woman, or child on Earth, I believe it is thoughtless to speak ill of the dead.
Acting in a thoughtless manner has consequences, and schools are institutions meant to teach thinking skills.
The professor would have served herself better by either moderating her words or waiting to criticize a woman who has not yet been interred.
If we were more mindful of others, we'd be more persuasive in the long run.
Do we all wish to become compulsive commentators on recent news stories and emulate the current President?
Sometimes our rush to defend the First Amendment in the press appears a bit self serving, especially when the press is highly critical of those in thrall to the Second Amendment. Needless to say, I am more appalled by violations of unreasonable searches, habeas corpus violations, and equal protections than any absolute right free speech advocates claim.
2
I find it amazing how well-indoctrinated people, such as young impressionable Michelle Goldberg, here, honestly believe they are the "opposition" to "politically correct" right-wing Overlords of the Status Quo.....when the reality seem to resemble an old time New Deal Era "progressive" Status Quo.....agressively identifying "enemies of the state" and driving them away......
4
"her Marie Antoinette side". That says a lot and providing it as a link is a demonstration of a powerful critique without being crass. Michelle Goldberg is a gem.
10
Barbara Bush raised a war criminal. Which part of this simple statement of fact escapes the reader? Perhaps the real issue has nothing whatsoever to do with Barbara Bush's parenting skills and more to do with America's failure (as evidenced by the complicity and silence of members of both the Republican AND Democrat parties) to admit that America's invasion of Iraq was illegal. Once you admit the glaringly obvious--"Yes, our invasion of Iraq was illegal"--then it follows inexorably that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, et. al. are ALL war criminals. Alas, most Americans, unburdened as they are by the weight of facts, simply cannot handle the truth. What to do? How do I rid myself of this inconvenient truth? That question answers itself: Kill the messenger. Barbara Bush raised a war criminal.
12
You forgot HRC, who voted for the war resolution.
2
Lars Maischak comment about hanging Trump isn't shocking to those who remember or who studied Watergate and recall Ehrlichman’s advice to Dean about L. Patrick Gray III: “Well, I think we ought to let him hang there,” Ehrlichman told Dean. “Let him twist slowly, twist slowly in the wind.” Had Maischak been alluding to that shameful scandal that is on everyone's mind when reading about Trump's Russian coverup to Watergate? Also, it was deliciously naughty of you to reprint Jarrar's Tweets and I'm grateful! Thanks!
3
She could have helped her cause by having something worthwhile to say and by having the courage and concern to say it in a way that could touch minds and lives meaningfully. It's cowardly to attack the dead the day after their death. To do it like an adolescent twerp (similar to the occupant of the White House) is demeaning to education, students, and the whole civilizing notion of civility, which underpins free speech. But she has the right of academic freedom.
4
The professors words were not academic freedom. Freedom of speech does not protect slander; and "tenure" does not protect a professor nor give them right to do or say whatever they want. She has a responsibilitiy, and she failed. She should immediately be fired.
Jarrar tweeted the phone number of a suicide crisis hotline, pretending that it was her contact information. That's what will get her fired.
17
HOW TO SPEAK? I think that there is a time and place for respect and also for protest. The national mood was generally sympathetic for Barbara Bush. I find it interesting that Dubya said that he talked with his mother, who said that she was not afraid of death and that people should take the Bush family off their worry list. She's entitled to that. I did choose to say that I'd remember her for her inhumane words describing survivors of Katrina who were forced to live in the Dallas Superdome. So, I condemned her by quoting her. Meaning that I focused the attention of the readers on Barbara's behavior and public pronouncements rather than on my name-calling. I didn't get any pushback, mainly because there's slim basis for that, since I quoted her directly. I happen to dislike name-calling because it's intellectually lazy and emotionally infantile. We've had decades of the GOPpers who govern through name-calling. Look where they've taken us! Just recently, the GOPpers pushed through the largest transfer from the 99% into the pockets of the 1% Walmart, owned by the Waltons, pay so poorly that its employees constitute the largest single group in costs who receive welfare, food stamps and medicaid. Paid for by the taxpayers, to give a free ride to the 1%. No name calling here. Just a description of behaviors and facts. Jarrar's mistake is that she's living and teaching in a silo. She needs to come up and look around to write more effectively.
6
Although free speach is protected she should be rebuked by the school and by society for having very bad manners. If you can't say something nice about a deseased person before she's even buried don't say anything at all. A college instructor should be capable of self censoring and common sense.
5
Maybe professors from left & right should understand that their professional free speech should be...I suppose...professional? Hate & violent filled tirades force even weak kneed college administrators to react.
4
Randa Jarrar speaks up for some of us going, "what?" Barbara Bush was a public figure and we aren't obliged to speak up on her behalf and appreciate her "good" side. "Publicly," I am hearing too many " progressives" ooze their respect for her. Ugh!
5
So, according to Ms. Goldberg, calls for censoring the speech of faculty members outside the classroom are still the fault of the "left" -- apparently because a few late adolescents make a fuss on some college campuses over some right-wing speakers performing for fees. (And never mind that "the left" has no voice in American mass-media, including this op-ed page -- thanks to commercial censorship.)
If the mature liberal ears at the Times are so very sensitive -- who knew Barbara Bush was a saint, earning reverence? -- how reproach college students for their occasional excesses?
No wonder liberals periodically lose everything in American politics. Standing for nothing but nice manners doesn't win many elections.
3
It’s the same old story: one can hate what is said or done, e.g., burning the American flag, but defend the right to say or do it. To do less is to denigrate the Firsy Amendment.
When we live in a time when the President suggests jailing journalists, anything less feeds that autocratic predeliction and undercuts our freedom.
Ms. Goldberg, you conveniently leave out the fact that Jarrar gave out the phone number for a suicide hotline, claiming that it was her own. Even where the first amendment is concerned, we don't allow people to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Nor do we allow them to make nuisance calls to 911, or to tie up suicide hotlines.
The problem was not that her tweets were politically incorrect, but that they were reckless and unbecoming of a professor. Her statements were also made not in the setting of a classroom (where conservative viewpoints are most definitely silenced by instructors who give out grades) but in a more public venue that is outside the scope of her responsibilities as a professor. Yet, she advertises herself as a representative of Fresno State while making such comments. Shame on you for defending this.
6
Remember when you spoke out about Al Franken, and he resigned?
Hypocrite.
3
As Joe Strummer put it: "You have the right to free speech, as long as you're not dumb enough to try it."
We live in an overly sensitive time.
1
It would be nice if conservatives had the same rights
1
The 1st Amendment prohibits government from restricting free speech. It does not restrict employers from imposing limits on what their employees say.
In this case, Fresno State needs to determine the corporate and reputational damage it's suffered as a result of Jarrar's vile rant against Mrs. Bush.
Hopefully, she will be terminated post haste which is what 99% of employers (and 100% of responsible employers) would have already done.
4
Sorry, these stories don't fit the media narrative about left-wing political correctness. They must be fake news.
The American people have much more urgent issues to deal with than sitting around arguing about provocative comments from academics.
Jarrar's opinions plays into George Orwell's quip of "Certain Ideas are so Stupid, Only an Intellectual would Agree with Them."
4
I believe Roger Stone and will defend his right to say it. His Instagram statements give new meaning to the CBS News headline: “Barbara Bush said to be in "great spirits" in final days.” The article continues: “In fact, as of Monday night she was alert and having conversations over a bourbon, a source close to the Bush family told CBS News.”
I'm a university professor with tenure. I don't know Mrs. Bush and don't know much about her. On the other hand, it's true that she raised a man who would be, were he not a former President of the US, a war criminal. And if your quote about her "beautiful mind" is accurate, then the woman said some pretty repulsive things. If Randa Jarrar wants to point that out, more power to her. She has the right to offend; I find the unnecessary deaths of more than a million Iraqis due to an illegal American invasion and occupation infinitely more offensive than a few nasty comments about a highly privileged dead woman. When Americans discover the real obscenity and offensiveness of their own actions, then talk about Randa Jarrar. Until then, they may want to decide if their professed "values" actually matter. As for the President of Fresno - get a spine. You're an embarrassment to your university.
3
RIGHTS
Its humorist to see the leftist always claiming their constitutional rights, but are the first to go after other forms of speech they don’t agree with and try to silent them. Or if they disagree with another constitutional right they want it removed.
You have a right to free speech; you do NOT have a right to no consequences to your hate speech.
Those who cannot do, teach.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom from prosecution for offensive speech. It does not guarantee a salary. Ms. Jarrar is free to say whatever she likes on her own nickel.
The only remaining issue is whether or not she can be fired from CSU Fresno. She is a tenured professor, and as such she enjoys wide latitude in expressing her views.
I'm guessing that if Ms. Jarrar is terminated, it will be because she redirected phone calls intended for her to the campus crisis hotline. That hotline exists to provide for people in crisis. Tying it up means that someone in crisis may not have been able to get through. For that, Ms. Jarrar needs to beg for her supper from now on.
1
While I would agree that some of Ms. Jarrar’s comments were insensitive and ill-timed. She raises very valid criticism of this country’s lionization of people based more on their position of power, class, wealth and celebrity than what they actually contributed, the nobility of their life’s work, and the values they exemplified.
There is not enough space in this forum to justify my position, and I recognize this is an issue on which many would disagree. But I am greatly disheartened by the media’s unexamined lionizing of people whose lives (taking into account that everyone has flaws) fall well short of what we as a society should truly value.
5
As one who is sympathetic to the thesis of this column, I read it with increasing embarrassment for the writer. Is it really so hard to put together a powerful litany of examples?
I haven’t kept close track of the speakers being silenced from the left on America’s campuses, but my impression is that many of them are people who subscribe to objectionable theories. It wouldn’t be necessary to pad a list of them with people who assert their “right to offend” for its own sake.
In contrast, most of the examples (not all) of suppressed leftist speech presented in this column fall under the heading of verbal assault or even hate speech.
Exercising the right to offend is for people who can’t otherwise find a wall to run up against. There must be more than a couple of liberals who have been put down for trying conscientiously to discuss controversial ideas?
5
College administrators who penalize faculty for public statements deemed by them or by others to be rude, crass, or insensitive are not acting to promote civil discourse. They are acting out of fear, hoping to protect their budgets from an aggressive right-wing populism that already takes a hostile view of colleges and universities. And so the very places that ought to serve as sanctuaries for the freedom of expression engage in self-censorship. This has nothing whatsoever to do with a principled consideration of the limits of free speech. It is moral cowardice. We cannot blame this failure of nerve on the Trump era. Sadly, it is nothing new.
1
Randa Jarrar’s tweets about the passing of Barbara Bush were reprehensible, and I was equally disgusted that she flaunted her status as a tenured professor, who makes (her words) over $100,000 a year. So she is bolstering her crude comments with an assertion of class privilege? That’s the very opposite of the progressivism that I support.
That said, after I watched the video of an administrator at Fresno State declare, in a news conference, that Barbara Bush was our “beloved” First Lady, I was also appalled. That administrator should have had the wisdom to express the university’s critique of Prof. Jarrar’s crude remarks, without fallling over herself to declare, on behalf of every student, faculty member, and staff member of Fresno State, that Mrs. Bush deserves not merely to be remembered, but also to be loved.
6
Your in an opinion column and you have your right to your opinion. I do have one counter point to your statements. I agree it is in bad form for someone to talk ill about the dead, especially in the near term after the passing. It has become a way for people obsessed with their profiles on social media to get clicks and undeserved attention on both sides of the political spectrum. But in a society that allows free speech, it is a person's right to say those type of comments. However, where we disagree is that the freedom of speech does not guarantee the freedom from consequences regarding the freedom of speech. In a free society, your actions, including those espoused verbally have consequences. The Dixie Chicks had the right to bash the President at a concern on foreign soil. Buyer of their records also exercised their freedom of speech by not buying their records anymore and making them irrelevant. Ms. Jarrar has gotten her 15 minutes of fame for her tweets, now she has to face the consequences (good and bad) of her decision not to use discretion in her words.
Let's put it a different way - I can come to work and call my boss fat and ugly. I have the freedom of speech right to be insensitive and politically incorrect. She also has the right to fire me for being so. Freedom of speech allows us to say what we want, it does not allow us protection from the consequences of our actions.
5
Freedom of speech allows us to say what we want, it does not allow us protection from the consequences of our actions."
No. If the speaker is not protected than there will be no freedom of speech.
The speaker is protected to say what she wants but that does not guarantee her the right to no consequences. I think you are mixing freedom and privilege.
I have the right to own a gun, if I shoot the gun at someone, there are consequences. She has the right to say what she wants (even if it was in poor taste). She does not have the right to not have consequences if what she says is against the rule of her workplace or if the school suffers as a result.
She was hired to teach students - she was not hired to give her opinions. If her speech impacts the donor base and funding of the school where she teaches, the school has the right to take action because she got out of her lane. I am not saying she isn't "brave" or she does not have the right to say what she said, but I am saying that she has to realize with this "freedom" comes responsibility and responsibility means understanding there are consequences for your actions.
I could not agree more. Thank you for standing up for this most profound and important freedom, a freedom that has been under attack by both the left and the right in this country, coinciding with our decades long slide into illiberalism.
If there is any one principle that should unite all Americans, regardless of background or political belief, it is staunch support for protecting our right to freedom of speech.
Right wing pretense at supporting free speech and expression is shown to be a sham every day as their political movement indoctrinates its followers with lies and propaganda, Orwellian doublespeak and fake news. Free speech is only for the purveyors of right-wing memes; those who offer other views are not just vilified personally, they are forced into silence. Freedom of thought is not their purpose - unquestioning adherence to their dogma is.
On the left, ideological purity, once the province of right wing autocratic, lockstep thinking, has been creeping, ever less stealthily, into left wing discourse. After being vilified and demonized for decades by the right, people on the left have begun to respond in kind, caring less about freedom of expression and more about silencing speech that presents opinions that question their commonly held beliefs.
We Americans, who care about rights, not just for ourselves, but for all, who cherish freedom, must stand up and champion free speech for everyone.
If we don't, we betray the best in our country, and harm ourselves.
2
Am I completely jaded to assume that when someone - left or right- says something they know will create a furious reaction, they are doing it precisely to get that reaction?
Prof. Jarrar is in the news! Internationally! People who had never heard of her now know her name! She is lionized or demonized (doesn't matter- she's famous!)
This type of opinion shared on social media is nothing more than self-promotion.
5
Hear, hear, hear! Thank you for standing up for the First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and freedom of (and from) religion.
Lest we forget ...
4
"The uproar around Jarrar shows how easily arguments for speech restrictions can be turned against progressives." That puts it rather delicately. I'd prefer "hoisted on their own petard." I fear we won't be rid of the Demagogue or his foul fellow travelers so long as the so-called cultural left refuses to acknowledge the role their academic ideologues played in his rise. The only hope for the republic is to drag as many people as possible on the left and the right back toward the center.
2
If she had stopped at her personal opinion and not made the absolutely ridiculous statements about her job security (and to include Castro on these tweets as well), then she was speaking as a private citizen. The minute that she started identifying with her institution, then she brought them into it and different standards apply to conduct. Not to mention, why on Earth would she give out a crisis hotline number for people to call. I would certainly hope that she is held accountable for that, because that more than anything says what kind of person she is.
7
The response to what she said was wrong; however, what ms. Jarrar said, was wrong.
Free speech and academic tenure protects the lowest, tasteless political commentary or they protect nothing. The grubby stifling grasp of state censorship has the far worse effect of chilling the discussion of far less controversial ideas when it arbitrarily or with pointed political focus silences only those on the left. Randa Jarrar will no doubt unfurl the long list of equally questionable academic assertions leveled at Barack and Michelle Obama and rightfully ask where were academics when Professor Cornel West called Barack Obama a "war criminal" or Professor Michelle Herrin called Michelle Obama "monkey face" and kept their academic jobs. State censorship appears to be a one-way street where only ideas of a single, left political persuasion are inexpressible.
3
I have not idea what "politically correct" means anymore as it is all in the eye of the beholder. So can we just do away with using the term. The speech used here for the focus of this article was free speech but it was also mean and insulting and lacked basic respect and decency. I am not sure exactly what politics or liberal or conservative really have to do with it beyond that the speaker and person referenced have different political views. A classic example is Fox News always whining about people not saying "Merry Christmas" because of political correctness and choosing something like "Happy Holidays" when it is Fox news which wants us to use their (politically correct term). So again stick to free speech and its possible limits regarding incitements to violence. Given free speech those on left or right have the right to be mean and disrespectful in their speech and yes even racist. Their institutions have the right to disavow what they say and show their disagreement as so we all at least in our democracy.
1
I'd be interested in knowing the terms of Jarrar's tenure agreement and which provisions subject her to losing tenure status. If there are such provisions, are they constitutional, given that FS is a government institution?
Her criticism could have been expressed so much more eloquently and decently and therefore taken so much more seriously. If this is the level of professionalism and professorship that impresses FS, I question its administrative competence.
In any event, she shouldn't be fired for her statement but who's the fool that hired her?
That person could be fired.
2
“What job allows for obnoxious behavior to run rampant?” Is this a real question? Our current president attacks people on Twitter and has bragged about groping women, among other things. We have elected officials who have assaulted reporters, taken pictures of the woman they were having an affair with and threatened to release if she talked about it, etc. At this point these people seem fairly secure in their employment. Anything goes.
1
I see no reason to threaten Ms. Jarrar's free speech and her opinions on anything. But now, she has received her 15 minutes of fame.
Let's not praise or condemn her for having an opinion, just move on.
2
Isn't "inciting violence" an exception to free speech? That's the excuse I hear every time activists try to shut down campus speakers. If explicitly calling for the death of an entire family isn't inciting violence, I don't know what is.
4
Well said and could not be more timely. I hope politically correct liberals take in your point that it is the powerless and the relatively powerless who most need the protection of a strong first amendment. This is not rocket science but much of the progressive left is too weak kneed to contest the first amendment bashing of their deluded brothers and sisters. I hope your column helps move the needle back to defense of the first amendment.
The custodians of the institution are rightly concerned about public image. The institution depends on the good will of the public for its existence. As a member of that institution, tenured or not, the faculty member bears responsibility for the health of the institution, and she has caused harm to that public image. The tone of her remarks was vulgar and tasteless. So now the know-nothing right has another anecdote to add to their lore about pointy-headed professors who don't love America.
1
Ms. Goldberg does not seem to understand the difference between hate speech and political speech.
Conservatives on campus are attacked for their political speech, such as being outspoken supporters of gun rights, or outspoken opponents of racial quotas.
Jarrar seems to have launched a hate speech rant under color of Fresno State as one of its tenured professors. She can be fired for that.
1
I admire the way Michelle Goldberg is taking on the hot button issues of free speech, with this column and the one on National Review Magazine’s Kevin Williamson. On the free-speech issue, and lots of other issues, too, she has brought freshness and verve to the op-ed page of The Times.
Whenever “free speech” is mentioned, I often think of former Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas, a fierce advocate of free speech, in all its forms. Congress shall make no laws...”
Here’s what Douglas said about free speech in one of his opinions. I agree with him one-hundred percent.
“A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purposes when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea.” Writing for the court, Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949)
1
The professor's word were vulgar but the sentiment was perfectly valid. One can recognize the humanity of someone while criticizing them, and wishing for the death of an entire family is over the top and mean-spirited: as mean-spirited as the Bush family has been, over the years. As with Tweeter in chief's critics, one has to guard against emulating the very things one criticizes.
2
Ms. Golderberg,
"Indignation" in the form of written criticism is not the kind of "threat to free speech" that conservative professors are subjected to. That genteel treatment is reserved for "progressives." What conservatives get is being shouted down and physically harassed. Can't you see the difference?
What about the truth? Does it have any role to play? We have a problem when false statements are treated the same as true statements. When someone says women are intellectually inferior to men that is false and such statements need negative reaction. When someone says W. waged an aggressive war, in violation of international law as held at the Nuremberg trial, that is true and should be praised. Truth does have a roll, false and true are not equivalent.
1
The last 4 words in this op-ed: "the right to offend" sums up the malaise of the First Amendment.
Verbal attacks and abuses are treated as guaranteed rights. Fake news, bald-faced lie and dangerous rumors become acceptable. Anger, ill-will and hatred find fertile ground to fester. A house divided is inevitable. Throw in the guns.
4
I always admired Barbara Bush for her motherly behavior and understood why she defended her sons. I guess I didn't understand her to be a racist, but Jarrar is correct, she definitely did raise a war criminal, and there were many body bags she chose to ignore.
2
Ms. Goldberg might want to take a Con Law class to learn how the First Amendment is interpreted by the Supreme Court. She clearly only knows what the media portrays as free speech issues, not what happens in the real world. Why didn’t all of your “free speech” examples win damages for violations of their Constitutional rights? You didn’t explain. Trust me, I’ve practiced law for 25 years, you can win damages for violations of your constitutional rights.
5
I'm finding the left vs. right to be exhausting (basically since 2003-ish). However, generalizing left views from right views doesn't just dumb down the American people, it also proves that we define "freedom" individually. It was the Greeks who knew, and said over and over again that man is self-interested. This article is a perfect example. We fire people, ruin careers, ostracize, bully (cyber), threaten and want to essentially cripple the lives of those we don’t agree with whilst living in the "land of the free". Let’s not forget advertisers are at the helm of this (don’t get me started on that). What I’m trying to say is that I’m disgusted with most of my fellow citizens, left, right, middle, nothing, you name it. We have abused our freedoms and are dumb and ignorant to what it actually means to not live in a free country. I’m wondering when the American people are going to grow up (including myself). #OverIt
3
Free speech must be protected! It is always easy to condemn speech that is not the prevalent opinion. That's why it is protected.
It is the right that is constantly putting Free speech in jeopardy. The right has constantly criticized the Civil Liberty Union, which has protected free speech since it's inception.
I believe the energy we put into the world through words and deeds have consequences. They shape us, the spaces around us, and the faraway spaces they reach. So I was unhappy to see Jarrar, a brilliant and beloved teacher, share something so venemous.
Yet the actions and deeds of Bush's family, and their horrible consequences on millions of people in the US and around the world are, or should be, well known. Barbara Bush may have been a charming matriatch. But she was the matriarch of a family directly responsible for vile, awful deeds resulting in death and misery for millions of people. That point is not debatable. It is a fact. The bodies have been counted.
Like almost all humans, Barbara Bush had lovable and redeemable personal characteristics. So did her husband and sons. But their deeds - from illegal wars to drug smuggling, from oppression to disenfranchisement, from coups to support for murderous dictatorships and right-wing death squads - are very real, as are their human consequences. And Barbara never challenged any of it. She had that choice, and she picked her side.
Do we have room for that context? And when we consider that context, can we understand the angry and pained reaction from a woman, a teacher, who has felt and seen the impact of those deeds in ways many of us have not?
However she said it, I support Professor Jarrar and her right to say what she did. I only wish more of us would pause and try to understand why she said what she did.
5
There is too much noise made about statements from both the left and the right. It would seem best to ignore many and, in other cases, refute them with facts if possible.
1
This raises the question on the selection criteria for professors at Cal State Fresno, and probably many other institutions. since these positions involve leading our young, it seems reasonable that character, compassion and judgement should be also evaluated when hiring for these positions along with academic credentials. Certainly is this case, this did not happen. The question of how someone who is this disrespectful, elitist, and of poor judgement got into a tenured position is a good one to ask.
8
It's rude to say something negative about a person at her death, but Barbara Bush is not just a private citizen but a public figure. The praise for her now isn't just a personal tribute, it's also a way of affirming the positive nature of her public role. For those who don't see this role as positive, expressing a contrary opinion is legitimate—and maybe valuable to the extent it shakes us from our preconceptions about what is good and bad about our society. That said, Jarrar would have been more productive if she made her case with greater sensitivity. Ultimately, though, her speech does no actual harm to the Bushes and therefore should not in any way be banned or limited.
9
Many years ago, in my second year as a public school teacher, I confronted my principal about untrue and damaging remarks he made in a faculty meeting about a teacher who was not present. I told him calmly that his remarks were untrue and damaging. BUT I waited until everyone else was gone. He listened to my complaint, said nothing, and left the room.
He did not fire me, though I worried about that till the end of the school year.
If I'd had tenure, would I have confronted him openly? Who knows, but I hope I would have.
5
One point lost in these campus speech fights is that modern communication and the ubiquitous access to authors writings via the internet and social media makes these no longer arguments about silencing the speakers or keeping shocking ideas from the marketplace of ideas. By the time these people are booked onto campuses, their views are well-known and the full presentations of their views are available, often in video too. So the arrival on campus these days does represent, to some degree, at least financial support for sub-par characters like Ann Coulter or her Fox tribe. Shunning them is not cutting them off from the marketplace of ideas, it is an affirmative decision not to help support their well-known and largely reviled point of view. Having standards of who deserves the decency and open, probative discussions on a college campus is not stifling the fringe any more.
6
If there is a price to be paid for your speech then there is no free speech. When a corporation, whether public or private, can exact a price for your speech then we are slaves to such. This actually involves two rights, the right to speech and the right to be secure in their persons.
6
Basic First Amendment law appears to be lacking so I will provide some. While Cal State Fresno is a state institution and the First Amendment applies, Jarrar's speech is not under threat only the question of whether it brought disrepute and/or violated Jarrar's contract to uphold the standards of the profession. In other words, she has the right to speak, but not to public employment. There are limits. As for whether free speech rights of people on the left are under "assault" from on-line and telephone and snail mail harassers, that is a complete misreading of what free speech rights give you. Others can express their free speech rights in disagreement too so long as community standards are not violated. This stands in marked contrast to the left wing protesters who try and often succeed in shutting down speakers with whom they disagree on college campuses in the US, Canada, and Britain. Ms. Goldberg is a partisan and this piece should be viewed as the propaganda it is.
29
UM but doesn't the same arguments apply that you made for the right wing, you have the right to speak but people have the right to disagree. You have the right to speak but not the right to be a paid speaker? Your first points are good. Your unwillingness to apply them to people you disagree with bad.
1
Many readers seem to believe the First Amendment should protect "speech" from any consequences. What is actually does is prevent GOVERNMENT consequences.
It does not protect speakers from repercussions in the private arena from their words. Employers are free to fire an employee who makes an obscene gesture at the President or to severe ties with a radio talk show which slanders the survivors of a school massacre.
Prof. Jarrar will not be arrested or otherwise sanctioned by any government agency, but the First Amendment does not prohibit action by the university which she embarrassed.
42
The question becomes, “ Does her employer receive Federal funds and has it agreed to abide by Federal rules and policies? If so, her speech is more protected, without severe consequences. However, completely independent entities, not using government money, have more latitude to take actions against what they disapprove.
2
What you say is technically correct, but it’s the widely-held idea of free speech in ordinary life that gives the First Amendment its moral force.
1
I'm currently reading the excellent book "Mere Civility" by Teresa Bejan, tracing the more unconstrained, freedom to offend version of freedom of expression in contemporary thought (what she calls parrhesia) to evangelical figures like Roger Williams, a founder of Rhode Island who was committed to tolerating, engaging, and proselytizing to people he found deplorable. Two points:
First, calls to civility as politeness are often used to silence voices. There's something to be said for politeness on the path to finding common ground. What this professor did may be unwise and tribal but shock has value too. It makes people listen and think about perspectives that are ignored or not well represented. Second, there isn't as much of a difference between a fighting political creed and exercising religious conscience as we would tend to think (see for example "The Firebrand" William Lyon Mackenzie the first mayor of Toronto who railed against the "family compact"). There are positions that were at one time offensive to common sensibility that we take for granted today. To rule out friction and conflict is to favor prejudices in the status quo. Tact is a virtue but it's also over rated in the context of change in attitudes over time.
Roger Williams was fanatical not unlike some activists today. I think they have an important role to play.
There is a lot of nuance that I'm mangling into my own muddled thinking so I encourage readers to check out Professor Bejans lectures on youtube.
2
Excellent article on the First Amendment for both the Right and the Left to read. Really. The comments are just as thought-provoking, and it’s time this subject entered into the public discourse in an open-minded, respectful manner.
2
Right wing caricature? They don't have to be caricatured, the left are doing it themselves. There is no way what all these anti white statements could have equivalents when applied to blacks.
Do you see whites being thrown out of Starbucks for not buying anything? Thought not, and there is no media coverage.
Do you see and hear whites saying boo hoo about blacks not being admitted anywhere? Of course not.
This employee, key word here, jeopardized her employers reputation.
The proper action is to fire her. She can then spew her venom.
1
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
- Theodore Roosevelt
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
- George Washington
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
-Harry Truman
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”
- Benjamin Franklin
“If you're not going to use your free speech to criticize your own government, then what the hell is the point of having it?”
- Michelle Templet
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
- S.G. Tallentyre
“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
“The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty."
- William Douglas
The 1st Amendment is holy.
84
Much as I hate to acknowledge it, initially all of the rights in the Bill of Rights were directed at Government suppression. Most of the founders were men of independent means and felt that they could take care of themselves in the private sector. While I have no specific evidence, I can imagine they would be less tolerant regarding the speech of their own employees and servants, criticizing them. As a practical matter, totally free speech only exists for those who can afford it. Ask Colin Kaepernick.
11
What would you like to say, Hugh ??
What probably happened at Cal State was that once this issue it the digital sphere the politicians called the Chancellor, who called the president who apparently began some type of disciplinary proceeding against her. It's all about power and protection from the powerful is why we have a First Amendment.
Power imbalance is precisely why universities have tenure and why it has been steadily eroded over the last 25 years. Once you have a litmus test of whether those in power like what was said, then the First Amendment has disappeared.
As it is almost 75% of our university teachers are either adjuncts hired semester by semester or contract employees with two or three-year contracts. They have no real First Amendment protections and the free exchange of ideas in pursuit of knowledge is rapidly becoming a fantasy.
Regardless of what was said we must defend the rights of all persons to speak out without the risk of retaliation. Speech isn't unlimited, but that's why we have defamation laws.
7
Harsh criticism of Barbara Bush is absolutely called for, and should not be buried under a mass desire to feel good that a free-willed old lady could do no harm. Strong criticism is absolutely necessary in order to avoid ignoring past evils. Even Abraham Lincoln is not above such criticism, and I think he would so agree. Censoring unpopular opinions by universities would seem to me to be an oxymoron. Facing the truth can be painful at times, but it must be done.
124
Someone's Mom and Grandma just died. She may have been The Enforcer in her own family, but she held NO legally-cognizable power in government, ever. As people in our culture continue to find and decry every single "past evil", my fear is that we're ignoring the clear, present evil of lack of circumspection, lack of respect, lack of any boundaries of decency. I repeat, someone's Mom and Grandma just died. Have the same respect for her loved ones, please, as you would like others to have for yours as your passing.
17
Excuse me, but why exactly can't she be criticized? She didn't back the Iraq invasion?
Get real.
The First Amendment does not guarantee freedom of speech in all situations. It clearly targets government restrictions on liberty of expression, because the Founders believed that open debate would serve as a check on the tendency of elected officials to abuse their power.
In the minds of most Americans, nevertheless, the ideal of free speech transcends the limited protection provided by the Constitution. We demand the right to express ourselves outside the public square: in places of employment, in social media, in religious institutions, and on the printed page. This expansive concept of liberty encounters restraints in the form of the libel laws and the legal right of any publishing company to censor the content of anything it prints. The NYT will not approve any reader comments that violate its standards of appropriate debate.
Still, a free society benefits enormously from the ability of citizens to engage each other openly on issues unrelated to politics. This liberty will provoke conflict and discomfort, but its suppression merely causes discontent to fester in the shadows, unchallenged by reasoned debate.
Professor Jarrar's comments will not sully Mrs. Bush's reputation in the long run, but they might lead to a more nuanced discussion of the former First Lady's virtues and faults. Lies and distortions are the price we pay to ferret out the truth. Imperfect beings, in other words, must follow a crooked path to discover who we are.
11
I was wondering how long we should wait before reminding the public about Barbara Bush's darker side. Privately speaking, no time is too early. I've seen some Irish wakes that were one part mourning, one part celebration, one part comedic roast. The comedians were quite uncensored as well. I think the primary difference is the wakes were private and the insults were made, mostly, in good fun. Why else are you invited to the wake?
However, when does the time become appropriate for the public to criticize a public figure? I agree Ms. Jarrar's criticism were tasteless. She could have said much the same thing in a much more tactful way. I'd think a creative-writing professor would be a little more, well, creative when making comments publicly. Roger Stone on the other hand should never have made his thoughts public at all.
That said, I think we need to address the elephant in the room. Was Jarrar or any other professor acting in a professional capacity when making these comments or not? We wouldn't permit an elementary school teacher to swear in front of students under the protection of the First Amendment. Educators are constrained in their free speech. The question is where are the boundaries drawn and who gets to decide. That's the problem we're facing.
14
Actions have consequences. Freedom comes with responsibilities. All these examples of free speech are also examples of flame throwing and immature behavior. What job allows for obnoxious behavior to run rampant? Sometimes our constitutional rights bump up against one another. I don't get why people have such a hard time understanding nuance and complexity, much less being decent. One can be a critic without being a jerk.
96
Are you referring to a Professor at Fresno State or the President of the United States?
6
I was waiting for someone to catch that. BOTH!
I was waiting for someone to catch that! BOTH!
I don't have a problem with what she said about the Bushes--but I do have a problem with the manner in which she attacked them. She comes across as a petulant, immature brat, including bragging about her salary. The most irresponsible thing she did, however, was to publicize the phone number of a suicide-prevention hotline, which could very well have resulted in people in a genuine crisis having problems getting through to the hotline. __This__ could be construed as yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater--not what she said about the Bushes.
29
Sorry folks, the way this professor presented her views may have been 'over the top' for the occasion, but her perspective shines light on a valid, and poorly acknowledged fact. America's invasion of Iraq was responsible for the needless deaths of more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers (young boys just doing their honourable service) and civilians (including women and children) - not to mention making many many more homeless. And for what justification? I mean REALLY? I've never heard the Bush family apologise for this (nor has America, for the most part). The horror. Let's try to put ourselves in the shoes of the average Iraqi, having family members killed or maimed, and life's simple pleasures as they knew them utterly obliterated. I can forgive this teacher for saying what she did, in such an insensitive way, if she's had to bottle up these feelings for years. And I'm happy that she's a teacher. Students should be exposed to ALL sides of a story. I don't want them brainwashed that everything America has done is great and noble - in the same way I want them to know how many great and noble things America HAS done. Educate them. I hope more people listen to this woman. I want to say that I also hope she is feeling some regret, for the way she expressed herself. But if she hadn't been so extreme - no one would have noticed. This is a debate all Americans should be having. Finally, I also think Barbara Bush was commendable, at least in many other ways.
15
Of course Randa Jarrar's speech is protected. She shouldn't be fired for her tweets. That's ridiculous. But I would also say that her comments make her sound ridiculous, rude and unprofessional. If she wants to put herself out there in that way, more power to her. Let her students decide if she's a good role model and mentor.
45
That's right, cultural critics need to be "nice" to us.
The First Amendment is precious and should be cherished. It simply very quietly mandates that the rest of us actually "see" the strong, maybe outrageously, spoken views of others, respect the speakers and realize the need for all of us to work to change things in this country so as to help each of us in the "pursuit of happiness."
3
While Prof Jarrar has the same right to free speech as everyone else, she also has the responsibility to respect her tenured position and the organization that employs her. Ideally, students considering their upcoming courses will be intelligent enough to question whether or not they wish to study under a professor with such a lack of professionalism and decency.
11
Universities are not obligated to commit economic suicide in the name of protecting free speech. If Jarrar's comments harm the university and are inconsistent with its standards then she can and should be disciplined.
74
Ms. Goldberg, your admonition "people on the left need to rediscover the right to offend," applies more to people on the right than on the left.
Which side resorts to harassment and death threats against a person making a provocative or offensive statement? The left will call the right out, but the right threatens violence.
And by the way, isn't the right sick and tired of political correctness?? What happened to blunt talk?
As to Randa Jarrar's remarks about Barbara Bush, they may have struck a nerve on the right more because they have the pukka ring of truth rather than because they were impolitic.
Her sentiments about the Bush's also suggest she sees them in the larger context of senior and junior's violence upon the Middle East. H W and W both launched wars on false pretexts which resulted in the deaths of many innocent Arabs, led to further turmoil in the region, ultimately led to ISIS.
That one family could cause so much death and destruction in the world is abhorrent. Of course, we here in the US prefer not to openly acknowledge the responsibility of the Bush's for the pain inflicted on the Middle East and the Arab peoples. To do so is to admit our own complicity.
True, we usually give the recently deceased a pass on their flaws, so Ms. Jarrar's real faux pas was tasteless timing.
Even so, we should not veneer over major flaws in someone's character. I'm sure we will not choose to remember only good things about Kim Jong-un upon his passing.
10
Randa has every right to say whatever she wants. I have every right to find her words despicable. However, when she places her title next to her offensive garbage, she moves from identifying who she is to what she is and identifies her employer (for whom she does not speak).
To me, that crosses a line. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that she doesn't speak for, nor in any way, represent her employer. Doing the contrary leaves her vulnerable to disciplinary action, including termination.
154
"It’s true that, as people celebrate Bush’s extraordinary life, her Marie Antoinette side has gotten lost."
So true. It is not politically correct to speak ill, even mildly, soon after a person's death. But, the same folks who rail against political correctness all the time, want the world to be politically correct when some famous conservative - Barbara Bush in this case - dies.
Why the double standard? As Goldberg goes on to enunciate, there is no point in whataboutism. Let us all agree that free speech is just that, free speech, even if some of it is offensive.
12
Don't like to say bad things about anybody during a period of mourning. But then again there is no greater respect than to engage the actual life of someone. Particularly a public figure.
Or maybe it should go the other way. Nothing at all should be said. Every syrupy pronouncement about someone who was a part of multi-level assaults on oppressed people here, there and everywhere is a form of contempt for the suffering they helped inflict.
As for me I think it should all hang out there. And let the chips keep falling.
6
I would not have so bludgeoned Ms Bush’s memory, but agree with Ms Jarrar’s implication, which is that the media’s beatification of her was, at least, disingenuous. No family in our history has been so directly responsible for so much misery and death, though other, more highly regarded families, are not without blame for terrible suffering. Professor Jarrar’s anger is justified, though her rhetoric was injudicious, if only because it obscured the truth behind it. Write on, Ms Jarrar, and please, stay angry.
79
Barbara Bush was the wife of one president who went to war over oil
and the mother of another president
who went to war over oil.thousands
of lives,both military and civilian,
were lost for no reason and Isis was
born out of the ashes.she defended
both of them with her usual threatening
language. if one is going to discuss her
good qualities, one cannot ignore her
bad ones.
14
I grew up in this country, and free speech is my birthright. Ironically, it is to France that I must look for my inspiration.
Je suis Charlie.
8
Barbara Bush was a member in good standing of one of the dynastic families of the American plutocracy so all, however characteristic, demonstrations of her lack of humanity, charity and/or equanimity must henceforth be forgotten. It is how we do.
3
Randa Jarrar has the right to express herself even when she is rude and wrong.Barbara Bush was definitely not a racist.The countries where Ms Jarrar lived before coming to the US as a refugee people are put to jail for insulting the rulers.We would not be surprised to see a minister being fired for anti religious speech.In my mind I don't want my children be taught by a person who gushes out hate.She should be fired for behavior unbecoming a professor.
7
One reason for outrage when women and people of color say provocative, nasty things is that they aren't expected to think they are entitled to speak their truth. They are supposed to be quiet. White men, on the other hand, particularly those of the political Right, are give a pass because such speech behavior is expected of them. Sort of a "boys will be boys" attitude writ large. It extends as well to honorary white men such as Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham because they've proven they can be just as toxic and grotesque as Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, et al.
126
There its 'your truth'.
You don't get a truth. There is a truth, truth's aren't individual. You can have a perspective, but that doesn't make it truth.
Also, of those cited, can you give the 'old white cis male bla bla bla' that said 'we should kill black people, its good for us'
That's not to say that there aren't plenty of racist and dog whistles out there. But that's a different thing then a college professor saying we should kill white people to move forward.
I like the rationalizing that when it isn't a white man, you label them as such anyway, so it fits 'your truth'.
We got it, your the victim here
7
“Honorary white men.” So sad; so true.
13
This is not a 'free speech' issue; it's an issue related to the framing of views by an academic. All views are permitted; however, an academic, while being partisan, is required to be careful, reasoned, and scholarly (oh and not wish for the death of someone, unless they're an armed enemy of the country). Why? because her students are watching what she says, and emulate her; and because she represents scholarship, not tabloid journalism, FoxNews, or the Ranter-Net. These rules must be written into both the institution's regulations and the contractual agreement she has with her employer. What she can't do on the outside is bring her institution into disrepute, but that means scholarly disrepute.
9
The Bush family did not engage in "scholarly dispute" with the many thousands of people killed in their illegal wars of aggression.
Barabra Bush is dead and cannot hear what people say about her. The only people condolences are for are her despicable family.
I pass. My condolences go to their innumerable victims.
2
For what's its worth, I was never impressed with impressed with Barbara Bush. One only has to look at her sons to see that she was a failed parent.
9
While her comments violated social norms, I don't think they will make Yale any less accommodating an environment for the Bush family.
2
The author made a key error when xe compared the, what xe calls politically incorrect speech, on the right and on the left. For example, to put Jarrar's, who is Arab-American, statement about Barbara Bush into context, the Bush's, including Barbara and Laura, were advocates of invading Iraq, and used rhetoric about "saving" Muslim women from the oppressive culture of the Middle East to help their husbands achieve their political agenda. Compare that to a white male professor who belongs to a white nationalist group that promotes biological racism. These are not the same things, and do not deserve the same level of tolerance.
First, Jarrar's statement is true, whereas a statement that whites are inherently smarter is not true. Second, the professors are attacking people with different amounts of power. Granted Barbara Bush is a women, so is likely somewhat oppressed, but white people generally have more power than People of Color. So, statements about the desert white people and non-white people have to remain living in a white supremacists society, and the effect of their continued role in either fighting or perpetuating this society, are not equal and should not be given the same treatment.
Even
2
There’s no way to defend Randa Jarrar’s comments about the newly departed Barbara Bush. The comments were callous, insensitive and mean-spirited as are the numerous tweets that emanate from the White House. Mrs. Bush is gone so let her rest in peace.
But the president made being politically incorrect acceptable throughout the country when he campaigned for the White House. His daily mockery of minorities, immigrants, Muslims and foreigners was welcomed by the GOP faithful as a breath of fresh air. He was applauded for telling it like it was and for publicly airing the long-held grievances of many Americans. He was deemed as honest and direct, qualities his base championed. “[Bleep] your feelings” tee shirts sprouted across the land and were prominent at his rallies. His meanness was interpreted as bold frankness and his many targets were dismissed as thin-skinned.
Ms. Jarrar may have been outraged by the Gulf War of 1992 but she was way off base with her comments about the former First Family. However, Roger Stone’s nasty words were dismissed because he’s part of the good ‘ol boy network. When it comes to free speech, the playing field is far from being even, especially on college campuses.
66
Barbara Bush will "rest in peace" no matter what anyone says about her.
Only her family will hear.
And they, every one of them, deserve every bit of scorn for the misery they have caused in the world.
I agree with every word Jarrar wrote.
9
Me too.
A right to free speech generally ends where your words reflect on your employer. A NYC police officer and two firefighters were terminated many years ago when they rode around in a float interpreted as racist on their day off. A Yale professor lost her job for not being more sensitive about Halloween costumes in a campus email. Here, Professor Jarrar’s nasty screed about a former first lady reflects poorly on Fresno State and sets a poor example for college students who are in desperate need of learning appropriate work-related behaviors. Yes, we have a right to free speech but we also have a right to consequences.
18
I am of the Left. The Free Speech Movement began at Berkeley by the Left and the Right; it died 30 years later at the same school, killed by the Left in the country's first of more than a few"speech code"s.
12
Barbara Bush must have said something that really hurt Roger Stone.
There is always something new to learn every day..
4
"If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear". George Orwell was spot on. "No law...abridging the freedom of speech", there is nothing in that clause that allows for the abridging of bad taste, insensitivity, or the grotesque. It's an absolute disgrace that a public university president, would try to restrict the concept of the University " as a free market place of ideas". Attempting to punish a tenured professor like Randa Jarrar, for speaking her mind, is a gross violation of academic freedom, and indelibly stains Joseph Castro and his university.
3
And why is serial groper, world-class philanderer and "grab-'em'-by-the-pudendum" Donald Trump still in office while comedian-Senator Al Franken was forced from office for a sophomoric photo and a few unwelcome pats on the derriere ?
It's just like federal deficits and pathological political lying.
It only matters when Democrats do it.
Join the Republican alternate universe:
"The other side is criminally guilty of all our sins: lock them up !"
Grand Old Projection 2018
85
Franken's out because Democrats actually care about morals, Donny's in because Republicans don't.
2
Good point. Bad examples. I think calling for the death of ANY President is criminal behavior. We have to be careful to point out “left wing” bigotry and speech suppression as close minded though more subtle and insidious. The right wing makes it so obvious, aggressive and arrogant which has to be exposed every time. Emulating it is so self defeating.
2
This professor does sound like a person I would not like to know, and would urge my kids to avoid taking any classes from her if they attended Fresno State. However, I defend free speech on all sides, and for a public university professor, she should not be disciplined for that. I think both the left and the right are incorrect when they call to fire professors for what they say.
I am much more shocked that she tweeted out a suicide prevention hotline number, pretending it was her own. This was a despicable thing to do, and shows that she has very little character or moral compass. I would think that the university could and should discipline her for this. I would also expect her to apologize for this and and make a very BIG donation to the ASU suicide prevention line right now as well to atone. Any credibility that she had (which might have been almost none), certainly went away with that mean-spirited prank.
8
I agree with the criticism of the Bush family. I would respect any family's privacy while they mourn the passing of their own flesh and blood. Barbara was no saint, but maybe Saint Theresa had her bad days, just like Barbara.
3
It's truly incredible how far we have fallen.
I can't help but notice that this all began at the same time as the advent of the internet. The level of anger, rudeness and opprobrium are simply not acceptable. We let the least thoughtful among us recreate our culture to their preferred specs. We all recklessly dove head first down that rabbit-hole only to discover, too late, that it's actually a rat-hole.
54
This is a great post, Laurence.
5
Speaking ill of the recently dead is still a serious taboo in our society.
Even if they were mother to an un-prosecuted war criminal and displayed the mental gymnastics necessary to still love their child under those circumstances.
Many of us feel that willful ignorance to others' evil is, itself, evil. What should we do when evil people die and are lauded? Keep silent out of respect? Really?
7
Congratulations! You've given Prof. Jarrar exactly what she wants - attention. Comments like hers are not meant to inform or to persuade. They are simply made to provoke and to draw attention to the speaker - who generally does not merit our attention for any other reason.
I guess Prof. Jarrar has the right to say what she said. Fortunately, I have the right to ignore her, and I intend to do just that.
14
We need to decide as a country whether we truly like the First Amendment or just when someone on our team needs it. Banning hate-speach as some European countries have done would codify restraint and punish ill-advised outbursts, such as Ms. Jarrar's. Personally, I prefer knowing what people are not too afraid to say. It lets us know who we really are.
8
The right of free speech cannot be absolute. Incitements to violence should not be tolerated. On the other hand demeaning and insulting remarks are protected by the first amendment. But so is speaking vigorously against such remarks which in the end diminish the speaker not the target. The best examples of speech that must be protected and yet condemned are the never-ending stream of Trumpian tweets. Expressing outrage is not only protected but necessary to counteract poisonous speech.
Protecting people from retribution at work when expressing controversial views is the very essence of the first amendment and that is particularly true for academics
who see their role as speakers of uncomfortable truths.
8
I read a great deal of hand-wringing about campuses being hostile to speech. I see very little in the way of base rate information to discuss how often these incidents happen. We don't have data about how regularly speakers are disinvited or "no-platformed," nor do we have any information about what happens in the aftermath of these high-profile cases.
Do these incidents lead universities to be more conservative about bringing in outside speakers? Do they lead to discussions that lead to a more open campus environment? We don't know these things. All we hear about is some high-profile incident at some wealthy campus somewhere, and the moment the news cycle moves on, it may as well have never happened.
Is this a real problem, or is this manufactured outrage that only serves to divide us further?
2
Her speech is actually not entirely protected. As a government employee working for a state university, the employer has a wide discretion given by the courts to control the speech of their employees.
This doesn't mean the school can shut that speech down universally. Over time, the U.S. Supreme Court developed a structured test to analyze the merits of a 1st Amendment claim made by a government employee (guaranteed by U.S.C.A Sec 1983). This test is the Pickering-Connick/Garcetti test, named after three decisions.
First, the courts ask if the employee was speaking pursuant to their official duties. If no, the test continues. If yes, they can face adverse employment action.
Second, was the employee speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern. Here, this is iffy for Professor Jarrar. If yes, the speech is protected and the test moves on.
Third, the test balances the interest the employee had in making the speech and the interest the employer has in a harmonious workplace, potential disruption to working relationships, and more. If the balance weighs in favor of the employee, she's all good. If not, she can be punished.
Finally, if she were punished and sued for relief, the speech must be the substantial or motivating factor in the employer's decision to take adverse action. That would be fairly apparent here.
To sum up, she could be punished legally. However, a court could analyze it a lot of ways. Hence the many SCOTUS cases.
18
Thanks for the concise legal review. At the end of the day, we are a county of laws, or so we believe.
"In comparing left-wing and right-wing transgressions against free speech, there’s a danger of getting into an escalating cycle of whataboutism, in which the silencing of one side becomes an excuse for silencing the other. This is a mistake."
You bet your life it is. Politically insulting speech demands a political, not a legal, response, which means condemnation not firing.
I thought Roger Stone's tweet about Barbara Bush over the top, but I'll defend to my death his right to say it.
And while we're talking about "whataboutism" we shouldn't be talking about which speech is more offensive or deserving of legal punishments as long as we have a man in the White House who leading the charge for anti-PC speech.
I find it ironic the more polarized we become the more we try legally enshrine our views based on what they are--the exact opposite of what this country stands for.
And particularly aggrieving the day after 'Patriots Day" when the revolutionary was sparked on the Lexington Green.
16
Christine, my heart agrees with you, but my head says the situation is more complicated. Remember that First Amendment rights are not absolute. It seems to me that usual quote is applicable:
"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic" Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
If people make statements that encourage other people to commit evil acts (Hitler comes to mind), should that speech be protected? And often it is nor easy to determine which speech falls into this category.
On the contrary, the Supreme Court has in past cases established a guideline.
That is, whether such speech will incite and lead to imminent action.
Simply expressing a wish for someone's demise is not punishable.
In the end, Jarrar was saying what a great many of us feel, but usually do not express openly.
1
I work at a university and have tenure, but I am very careful about what I say and to whom I say it to. This is not just because of the current political climate and the ease of spreading messages via social media, it's just common sense. Ms. Jarrar's comments may be free speech, but they were vile and unkind. She also, according to the Chronicle of Higher Ed, tweeted a phone number that was not her personal number, but was that of the Arizona State University suicide hotline, tying up the phone lines for hours. This is not cool, cute, or acceptable. I think Ms. Jarrar showed very poor judgment.
261
I was not familiar with the tweeting of the phone number. That could be just as dangerous as yelling fire in a movie theater when there is none and is, as most of us know, and exception to the First Amendment.
21
I had missed the phone number stupidity. I was an academic administrator, and that is an offense that is definitely punishable, including revoking tenure.
31
The Bush family doesn't deserve our kindness.
However, the phone number bit, if true, is disturbing.
21
Prof Hersis may be within her constitutional rights to speak as she chooses but her remarks are not necessarily protected as "academic freedom." No academic, tenured or not, can be dismissed for anything related to the guarantees of free inquiry. However, tenure does offer more protection against dismissal or refusal of promotion for reasons that may mask academic real differences.
3
The first amendment protects speech from being limited by the government. There is nothing illegal or unconstitutional about a college or university limiting the speech of its employees. As institutions that should be devoted to the principal of free speech it is inconsistent to deny that right to their staff however when a professor makes statements that are hateful, racist, or incite violence against others I see no reason why they should not be fired. Who would want someone like that teaching their children?
20
When the university is a public university, First Amendment issues apply.
1
For a private institution, certainly, but in this case, Etrag, the college, Fresno State, *is* a branch of the California state government. So your first sentence applies.
2
Unless, the university is a state institution in which case it should not be in the game of limiting freedom of expression especially expression that has political content. As a parent with a son in college, I hope that he is exposed to stupid ideas and develops the skills needed to identify those ideas and the sense to reject them. What is troubling is that many universities have not developed programs that promote those skills.
1
I don't have a solution but to me the pendulum is swinging violently between worrying about injuring fragile people who cannot bear any dissent from their own entrenched views to a provocative anything-goes in-your-face explosion of comments intended to be hurtful. I generally believe that the answer to speech one doesn't like is more speech, but I am not sure that adolescents (college students included) have the neural mechanisms in place to find themselves amid the provocations. The intent to hurt usually succeeds. The intent to avoid hurt leads to restrictions that impair our democracy.
23
This is a great comment, Ellen. I think the problem we are grappling with is the recognition (going back to Wittgenstein and Austin) that speech is an act—and an act that can have real and very negative impact on individuals and groups of individuals. If our words were merely the expression of mental constructs detached from the real world we could say anything we want without harm. But if a "speech act" causes real emotional harm to an individual or creates doubt in others about the competence or abilities of a whole group of people it can have serious damaging consequences to the lives of real people. Being polite (or being politically correct—which in many ways is the same thing) is ultimately a way we exercise restraint when we know our words can cause harm. Restraint is an old-fashioned concept (and one I am not always good at myself), but if we were all more polite—and yes, politically correct—we could avoid the violent swings between provocation and suppression we are experiencing today.
4
The problem is that we do not lve in a polite world.
We live in a world in which political leaders can initiate aggressive wars that kill thousands of innocent people, without ever consulting those in whose name those wars are waged.
And yet we are admonished to be respectfully polite to those mass murderers and their families when one of them dies. I see no justice in that.
Jarrar expressed what many of us feel. More of us should be doing so.
1
Ms Jarrar has a right to say horrible things. She has a right to claim that her parents' immigration status and her job entitle her to say horrible things without repercussions.
She has a right to say the moon is made of green cheese.
I and many others have a right to find her comments repulsive.
98
No right, with the possible exception of freedom of the press, is as important as that of free speech. Thomas Paine and other revolutionary writers would attest to the thought. The inclusion of free speech in the very first of the amendments was not without significance. Publicly funded state institutions cannot be permitted to punish employees who exercise the right.
15
Only a baby gets everything it wants.
An adult is expected to respect boundaries. Any time an employee acts in such a way as to bring discredit on or threaten the income/safety of their employer they can be fired.
The President has exercised this option as have the NYTimes, CNN and Breitbart, just to name a few, regardless of the 1st Amendment or non-right to work employer.
This person is in serious need of a reality check. She is no baby.
1
So made vile and nasty comments. You would expect a little control upon the death of a first lady. By the way, are you one of those people that wants to change the 2nd Amendment? You know, it was written in the 18th century. Maybe you would consider that for the 1st Amendment.
This a thorny issue, indeed. Free Speech is a Constitutional right but as we argue all rights are not absolute, including gun rights. People have the right to say most anything but being tactful is most always the better route. That said no one should be fired for stating the obvious, no matter how rudely. Conservatives fight for the absoluteness of Amendment 2 but won’t apply that absoluteness to all of them. We continue to try and decide how absolute our Constitution is meant to be but one thing is sure we must apply the same amount to all of it, disregarding political affiliations. We cannot be lenient on some and only absolute on others.
12
Now we know that the "the politically incorrect" Donald Trump has sent both the right and the left into the swamp of indecency, inappropriateness,and insensitivity. There was a good reason to be P.C. and this article illustrates why and the dehumanizing legacy of the narcissist (formerly "megalomaniac") whose mental instability has infected our culture and coarsened our discourse to the detriment of civility and ability to hear legitimate arguments on both sides of the political spectrum.
22
When all else fails, throw out the Trump card.
This person has ever right to expose herself for what she is.
The uproar around Jarrar is completely justified.
The fact that Jarrar's speech is protected is undeniable.
The idea that condemning Jarrar's comments, which are completely unrelated to her profession somehow threatens free speech is absurd.
The reality that tenure allows otherwise irrelevant people to spew noxious comments in order to promote themselves is also undeniable.
The right wing in this country is undeniably repugnant and the mouthpieces deserve contempt.
So too do such people as Jarrar.
58
We have to examine any speech that calls out for violence against another person or group of people. In this new era of Facebook fatwas, such speech is truly dangerous or even deadly.
14
Disagree vehemently with what she said, but insist just as forcefully that she has the right to say it.
30
I guess her hateful statements might be protected under free speech, but... she also gave out the phone number for Arizona State's crisis hotline and said it was her personal number. The people who answer Arizona's number say they have been inundated with angry calls about Jarrar. So she has possibly prevented students who need help by effectively blocking their access to a crisis hotline. Is that enough for her to be fired, or does she have to kill someone more liberal than herself?
158
it should be enough to initiate a "moral turpitude" inquiry that can lead to the termination of a tenured professor.
10
@brian
I googled the phone number incident. It appears to be true. Randa needs to be bounced out.
3
I'm not a fan of the words 'politically correct'; I don't think they mean anything.
I do think saying hateful & violent threats are not acceptable, not in a community. Free speech has always been restricted, never totally 'free'. I think sometimes those that have been subjected to abuse, & call that out, use abusive language. So is abusive language okay if you're 'defending' yourself?
We talk too much about marginal things, which would be okay in a better world, but we live here.
Poverty. Inequality. Population. Ecological degradation. Moral & Spiritual Decay (most of these led by that most fake of all leaders, Trump, & his Republican henchmen).
Let's talk about the bigger things, like housing, health care, jobs & benefits, the environment, specie extinction, clean energy, pensions, billionaires buying elections, politicians as prostitutes for billionaires, etc.
Little things matter; but big things matter more. I'm sorry some are racist, but it's more important, first, to make sure everyone has a decent home & is safe & has access to food & community & etc. etc.
Human beings are complex & needy things. We all need alot. And, to build communities that realize this & help with this, is not easy. When we're selfish & angry, that noise just gets in the way. We need humanity & compassion & love for one another.
These people that say terribly mean & violent things are most times within their first amendment rights. But, why give them so much attention?
Bigger things call.
7
As a Democratic Socialist, I have no use for any of the Bush family. Nevertheless, the tweet was insensitive and not effective to carry its political message, especially under the circumstances. But that is Ms. Goldberg's point: the tweet was, however juvenile, a type of political speech and is protected. And, so is the rude, offensive political speech of extreme right wingers and even racists. People should not be fired for speech, especially by public universities.
11
You know, to me this entire controversy is more about courtesy than anything else. I was no fan of the former First Lady, and I find the public tributes vacuous. And yes, I think the former president is a war criminal. But common courtesy requires I keep my thoughts to myself. I view the defense of "my right" to be simply an expression of narcissism, a reflection of the fact that we've lost a sense of community in this country. Whatever happened to the common good? Sometimes you keep your mouth shut out of decency. That act of courtesy does not mean you don't loudly protest the political actions you find repugnant.
99
Free speech is one of the bedrock principles we cherish. Nonetheless, I had the same reaction in reading reports of Jarrar's response to Barbara Bush's death as I did to reading reports of Trump labeling James Comey a slimeball.
15
A particularly pernicious byproduct of this right and left wing censorship is the “siloing” of expression. Those who are gagged by pitchfork-wielding screamers with opposing views gravitate towards the welcoming slice of cable tv and/or internet they will inevitably find (or create). Eventually, we will all be listening to only those voices that agree with us.
When that happens, we as a society will stop evolving.
8
Does anyone really want this person in front of their children spouting such unbalanced venom? I earned tenure twice and I would expect to have been dismissed for any such outburst that would bring embarrassment to my institution. We represent our colleges and universities even as private citizens (or is that a quaint notion?) and bring honor or disgrace whether we like it or not. I would like to know if she used her university account for this screed; if so; game over, change the locks. Even so, sending people to a suicide hotline to respond reveals enough about her character for me to be comfortable with my decision that she be dismissed and a generous settlement be offered to send her on her way.
70
While I found Jarrar's quotes about Mrs. Bush to be at once offensive and accurate, I also find it absurd that she is under attack and may well lose her position while the Offender In Chief tweets away with impunity from the White House. THAT is the problem. We're all circling the toilet bowl now, and we're all going to end up in the sewer if we don't get our act together, and recover our national dignity.
28
As the daughter of Middle Eastern parents, Randa Jarrar speaks from a different place than those of us who can blithely pen a few words about the adorable "saltiness" and noblesse oblige of America's Grandmother. We're responding to an image carefully crafted by her publicists and the media as we gloss over the body bags remark and forget that her idea of a tax-deductible Katrina charity was donating to her son Neil's educational software program instead of, say, Habitat For Humanity.
What was really offensive was George W. Bush going on Fox Business News the morning after Mom died to tout his annual Leadership Conference for some of the world's richest and most powerful people - bankers, oil tycoons, and generals - to glorify the oligarchy and endless war. The world's richest man, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, was to give the closing speech to 2,000 paying guests about making the world a better place as he pays his employees so little that many of them have to go on food stamps and Medicaid. Then it will be on to Mom's funeral in a Christian church.
What an exceptional USA, where we're shamed for failing to honor the wealthy as they go about creating the worst inequality the world has ever known, when we're expected to care more about Twitter etiquette than we care about the First Amendment.
https://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/
236
Agreed. You know that when George W. Bush dies someday, he'll be saluted as a "great American hero", "the last cowboy", "the last gentleman", etc.
20
That is the best post on this thread.
Thank you.
27
Whenever Karen Garcia posts---it is always the best post on the thread. Any thread.
I encourage you to visit her blog. Regularly.
The first amendment starts "Cogress shall pass no law". It does not restrict the actions of a private employer. If a college finds the speech of one of its employees to be offensive and unprofessional, it has the legal right to fire its employee. The employee can claim academic freedom, but cannot seek redress under the First Amendment.
10
Please re-read first sentence of the article. She worked for California State University at Fresno.
Free speech is free speech. Alas. There are many things that I--at least--would prefer people not think, much less say. But free speech is protected in this country for a reason. Because the minute we legislate someone's right to speak, everyone's right to speak is endangered. And guess who will come under fire first: people of color, the economically disadvantaged, the gay community, immigrants, and, then as they will come for you. And then you--and we-- are no longer living in a free society. That's the price of freedom.
13
It seems like we're becoming a little too reliant on terms like "political correctness," and "problematic behavior," when perhaps the most appropriate way to describe this is simply, "unprofessional."
It's one thing for a university professor to indulge in a rant on a private social media account, like anyone with common sense might. If that were the case, and a third party with access made the contents public, I could understand viewing this as a debatable controversy. But if you're posting to a public account you've associated with your academic work – how could you possibly think this would be appropriate?
I went to a liberal arts college where the professors discussed and debated the material with their students in every class, with no lecturing. You might think that would foster a more informal dynamic, but I would be hard-pressed to guess the political affiliations of any of my professors, even those with whom I had a good rapport. I never would have wanted to know that kind of thing; it's not relevant, appropriate, or mindful of boundaries.
111
Research indicates that a major benefit of a college education is "critical thinking." That means taking a statement and analyzing it in the light of as much other relevant factual information as possible and basing one's personal conclusion on that analysis (rather than making an emotional or crowd-based or other non-logical conclusion). Professors demand that students explain their positions and analyze the positions of others based on facts, and those facts themselves have to be supported by real data.
Our country is awash in emotional responses that are dangerous to our democracy. Colleges use those to teach critical thinking. Let's protect free speech on campus especially, where critical thinking can be learned, practiced, and brought home for a renaissance of informed decision-making in our country.
10
There are a number of commenters here who are putting forward the proposition that free speech stops at the corporate door.
That makes me profoundly nervous; corporations and employers have far too much power already. I'm not comfortable thinking that one can be disciplined or fired for making statements not connected with the specificities of their job or workplace, but apparently our politics have moved to a place where this is acceptable to quite a large section of the population.
I remind people that while the First Amendment has limitations--one should not shout "fire" in a non-burning building, to cite one famous Supreme Court case--we should all be somewhat questioning of just what these limitations are.
And I would suggest that if one cannot express a non-work related opinion without workplace retaliation then the right of free speech there is essentially meaningless. Do we want to be in that place?
23
There is an issue of power that is neglected in this piece and discussions of the first amendment. I find Jarrar’s comments in bad taste but they do not put anyone in danger or incite violence. However, when the far right speaks at a college campus or when ICE speaks this can have direct ramifications on minority and otherwise marginalized students. I don’t know why this article has chosen the underlying assumption of moral equivalence of “offensive” speech. Do better.
11
The right-wing demagogues don't specifically incite imminent violence (and the threat has to be of imminent violence). That is, they don't say something like "go out and attack someone." The fact that what they say is provocative doesn't make it an incitement to imminent violence. That is the standard, not "direct ramifications."
1
I totally disagree. The feelings of the audience, minority or otherwise, have no bearings on the right to free speech. Minority students have the right not to listen to a lecture they find offensive (and even this is debatable as the purpose of higher education is to open your minds to ideas you may disagree with). But they have no right to shut up a speaker whom they deem “racist” precisely because in order to make such a determination, they have to listen first. In fact, there is no moral equivalence between shouting down somebody like Charles Murray, whose ideas, mistaken or not, are grounded in academic research, and denouncing the tasteless tweets about a dead woman. The tweets are morally reprehensible. The ideas are not.
2
While there may be no threat of imminent violence in the speeches of the Far Right, there is the implicit message of advocating the limiting of the constitutional rights of gays, blacks, and women.
Public institutions have an obligation to protect and defend the Constitution, and therefore in my opinion have no obligation to give a public platform to those who would tear it down.
This has nothing to do with the First Amendment. Jarrar has every right to say whatever she wants and she did say what she wanted to say. Likewise, the school has every right to discipline her if her speech is inconsistent with its standards.
124
Actually, that is exactly wrong since the university is a public university. If this was a private business you would be correct.
14
What S.Ct. case do you rely on for the proposition that a professor at a public university can say whatever they want without consequence and without regard to whether the speech harms the university?
Ms. Goldberg should have made a fundamental distinction. The First Amendment applies to public colleges. It does not apply to private schools. And a public college can impose limitations on speech as a condition of tenure. The debate over free speech on campuses is mostly about right and wrong rather than legal or illegal.
8
It is important to separate free speech from academic freedom.
Free speech is protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. It applies to everybody. However, it does not mean that there is not a price to pay for free speech. Say what you want, but there might be consequences.
Academic freedom allows faculty to engage in their research and teaching without interference (as long as the speech is not criminal). Tenure protects the exercise of academic freedom.
However, faculty members who express their opinions on matters not relevant to their teaching and research are like any other citizen and subject to responses by their place of employment. They do not have immunity automatically as faculty for whatever comes out of their mouths.
The comments re Mrs. Bush were not professional nor academic. Disciplining Randa Jarrar has nothing to do with academic freedom and for that matter freedom of speech. Nobody stopped her from saying or tweeting. If she had done so as employee of a law firm, accounting firm, museum, shopping center, or whatever, her employer would have taken action. In this case, the university is not different.
217
Her employer is the state of California. Her speech was political speech. It was speech about a First Lady and Presidents. and as such it is, therefore, on its face covered political speech which a state employer may not fire her over.
38
But the university isn't a private employer - it's a public university.
17
An excellent summary of the priveleges and responsibilities of academic tenure. Thank you.
12
The comments you cite are from people on the extremes of politics and culture. They don't represent the thoughts of most of us. I would put Donald Trump among those on the right who make extreme comments. In the end, they will not prevail.
6
"This case shows that threats to free speech on campus are very real. It also shows that, contrary to a great deal of hype, these threats don’t come only, or even primarily, from the left"
Sorry, one case does not show where threats "primarily" come from.
Unless Ms Goldberg is living in a statistics-challenged cave, University professors are primarily far-left, and right-leaning students don't feel safe. See some evidence here:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-gross-academia-conservatives-...
35
Right-leaning students don't feel safe? There is no evidence of that in the linked article; the closest relevant statistic is that 21% of Republican college students nation-wide say they are uncomfortable sharing their political opinions on campus. That means 79% of Republican students polled don't feel that way, which is a significant majority.
46
Furthermore, there is a big difference between a student not feeling comfortable sharing his opinion in class and an undocumented or transgender student who doesn't feel safe because Milo Y. is going to give a speech on her campus, in which he plans to disclose the names of undocumented students and transgender students (that's why students and the community protested his first planned speech at UCB). Or a Black student who doesn't feel safe because his professor is a white nationalist, who belongs to a group that supports ethnic cleansing.
3
Think the main point here was that this is a disproportionately left problem. We can use anecdotes all we want but there's a major difference between arguing against feminism and advocating for killing white people for the advancement of black people
What this author seems to miss is that the left has historically been the champion of free speech in our country. The jailing of Eugene Debs for speaking out against WWI was a major influence on this movement of the defense of the right to free speech.
The outrage we all feel at the effort by self-proclaimed liberals to thwart other's first amendment rights is due to their overt ignorance and repudiation of this liberal history; along with the mindless adoption of their "sensitivities" into the general culture with the political correctness movement.
The vilification of comedians( like Al Franken) for mining our glee at outrageousness is but one ill effect of this cultural meme.
To truly recognize the first amendment is to adopt the spirit of the old credo "I don't agree with what you are saying, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it".
31
The problem is the general level of crassness in society and the need to constantly express one's views. Tweeting is not writing a newspaper op-ed or giving a speech. Sometimes it's hard to believe some of these people are university professors. Why can't they express themselves any better? It may be their right but it contributes only to the cheapness and lowness of our current society.
194
What could be more crass than a public figure like, say, Barbara Bush, proclaim, “why should I waste my beautiful mind” hearing news of men and women killed in the Iraq war. This and many other callous statements should be remembered along with tales of her fundraising skills and devotion to her privileged family.
15
Thank you! I've been waiting to see this reality acknowledged in the New York Times. It is hard to take critics seriously when they paint campus progressives as intolerant of speech, but then remain silent about the many, many cases when powerful people (donors, legislators, administrators) punish "offensive" speech.
14
It's easy to defend speech that we agree with. The First Amendment was created to protect speech that we disagree with, or that we find distasteful. As long as the professor was speaking for herself and not for the university, she should enjoy the same free speech rights as anyone else. If people are to lose their jobs for freely expressing opinions that others construe as hateful, Trump would have been fired a long time ago.
63
I thought the 1st amendment only protected you from being prosecuted in the court of law. If so, the University has every right to try to terminate her, but they will almost certainly have to deal with Ms. Jarrar's union first.
2
The Randa Jarrars are trials
A touch of truth, so much that riles,
Yet our POTUS in tweeting
PC is defeating
And lie after lie daily piles.
The First Amendment has a need
A need that painfully we heed,
The sticks and stones bromide
Let's keep on our side,
And to First Amendment, Godspeed!
30
The biggest hypocrisy of all is to claim that honesty is a virtue. Imagine what would happen if for just one day everyone knew how we really felt about them. Civilization would collapse.
I’ve always had a generally positive view of Barbara Bush, but when I heard her crack about Katrina survivors huddled in the Superdome, Ms. Jarrar and I might have shared a brief moment. When her son was in power, I thought he was a grotesque warmongering fool and tool of the Antichrist Cheney. But I enjoy watching him on late-nite TV talk shows. People are complex.
The current president has elicited public comments from the likes of me as well as from sensible, thoughtful and informed pundits that would have gotten us thrown in jail a few decades ago. I thought I was as liberal as they come, but when I hear that college students today need trigger warnings and bunny-hugging time-outs to get through the day, they’d squeeze that blasted rabbit to death if they knew what I thought.
While I think liberalism can go too far, I also think that conservatives are born crazy and should be sent immediately to reeducation centers when they exhibit symptoms, such as listening to Rush Limbaugh non-ironically.
Free speech is a wonderful concept, except when it’s actually engaged in. But it’s also a safety valve that should not be plugged. Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out. You’ll feel better in the morning.
346
Even young children are taught that saying whatever you want has consequences. We learn to assess the risks and make judgments based on those assessments. Venting one's spleen may feel good in the moment but usually doesn't involve risk assessment. This form of free speech rarely ends up well whether you are an academician or a desk jockey.
33
That's all true, and a good thing, but it doesn't obviate the First Amendment.
The issue is not the First Amendment.
"Because of this requirement, it is impossible for private parties (citizens or corporations) to violate these amendments, and all lawsuits alleging constitutional violations of this type must show how the government (state or federal) was responsible for the violation of their rights. This is referred to as the state action requirement. "
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/state_action_requirement
Individuals can violate corporate policies and face consequences. In at will states, employees have no recourse. Public college campuses are in a bind with respect to safety and free speech.
Basically, being offensive can have consequences but if it's not government doling out the pain, then it's really not 1st amendment.
17
Am not a lawyer. Can a state college be considered an arm of 'the state'? Would a private college have more right to fire an employee for off-the-job opinions? Or a private college that receives any government funding at all?
3
While not a lawyer, I can tell you that state and local public schools are an arm of the state. Private colleges can pretty much do what they like, protected groups excepted. Even then, there are large religious carve-outs of employee rights in religious schools.
The government funding can come with strings attached - thinking of Title IX here.
"Title IX applies to all educational institutions, both public and private, that receive federal funds. Almost all private colleges and universities must abide by Title IX regulations because they receive federal funding through federal financial aid programs used by their students."
And we, as citizens, have a right to take employers to task when they punish their employees for speaking their minds. Personally, I can’t stand Bush or Jarrar.
8
The English language contains approximately 200,000 words at any given time. Thousands of new words are being added and deemed obsolete every year.
Having said that, whenever a controversial figure ( on either side of the political spectrum ) passes away, there is the assumption that all ( again either side ) will offer only positives ( or at least remain quiet ) of a life lived. ( again, no matter how controversial )
It is the same whenever there is a mass shooting, that somehow there is a recoil whenever someone might want to have a discussion about firearm safety or any type of controls. Somehow, whomever utters such a thought is using deaths ( even if it involves children - which more and more it does ) as some political prop for gain.
The problem it seems is that the professor chose quite blunt terms/words out of all of those 200,000 words , while this columnist chose more subtle ones ( with a link ) There are no charges for this columnist to be fired, are there ?
Somewhere along the way ( in our new 140 character world ) we have lost the fine art of diction and tact to prove points. I agree with all of what this columnist has said and at the same time, agree with the sentiment behind the professor's tweet(s).
The question is and will always be whether grave acts/positions ( real or perceived ) disqualify anyone from others saying kind words once they have left this life.
I think we can all find balance and offer a little more.
23