It's good they're talking about this. But I'm surprised there's no mention of the "more speech" quote, how old this issue is, and how clearly the solution has been declared by the supreme court over the years (discussion not silence).<p>"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." -- Justice Brandeis, 1927.<p>I'd never read the whole opinion until just now. It's great and the paragraph that quote comes from is stirring.
<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/357#pg_377" rel="nofollow">https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/357#pg_377</a><p>edit\addendum:
ACLU has a FAQ on this issue that directly addresses the universities: <a href="https://www.aclu.org/other/hate-speech-campus" rel="nofollow">https://www.aclu.org/other/hate-speech-campus</a>
"The first step is to remind our students and colleagues that those who hold views contrary to one’s own are rarely evil or stupid, and may know or understand things that we do not."<p>In a single word: empathize<p>This is a growing problem in far places more than just universities. It's amplified by the filter bubbles in which most of us participate, whether we realize it or not, thanks to social media and targeted advertising.
No matter how much a university in 2017 might laud free speech, that university is not going to invite a speaker who openly advocates for genocide.<p>When you accept this, you accept that "censorship" is unavoidable. Some ideas will not be given a platform because of that platform's perceived (correctly or not) distance from the mainstream. There is no society that has ever existed where this is not the case.<p>So the question is: which views should be denied a platform?<p>Obviously there's no perfect way to answer this question, but it seems to me that the solution to this problem isn't as difficult as this essay claims. I think that, quite clearly, the criteria that define acceptable speech on a college campus need to change. Specifically, those criteria must expand. Dissenting views need to be given a platform, even if they make some students uncomfortable.
While I don't disagree with the substance of this essay -- I think this point needs to be made, and this discussion needs to be had -- it's very difficult to offer "open forums for contentious debate" when certain speakers have built showmanship out of their propensity to offend. This fits most definitions of deliberate trolling, and isn't a productive recipe for reasoned debate, protests and boycotts by the populace drive home the point that the speaker's views are already well-known, and not welcome at all.<p>Similarly, some brave institutions may decide to host speakers that are near-universally condemned for views that society has decided to be abhorrent. By giving such speakers a forum, they're endorsing that such views are worthy of being heard or debated, whether they are enthused by those ramifications or not. Such behavior requires calculated risk, risk that may pay off if attitudes change in the future.
A couple of days ago, I was reading a status update from my Chinese friend (who is quite intelligent) about Chinese students protesting Dalai Lama's graduation speech at UC San Diego [1] <i>under the name of inclusion and diversity.</i> For anyone who isn't familiar with the affairs, Dalai Lama is exiled from Tibet which is considered part of China in many Chinese people's point of view.<p>One of his arguments was that people have blocked anti-LGBT rights and anti-BLM people because it hurts the feelings of the students in respective groups. Then, why is it not reasonable to block the Dalai Lama because it hurts the feelings of many Chinese students on campus?<p>After reading that, I sighed really loudly and went on with my day.<p>1: <a href="https://qz.com/908922/chinese-students-at-ucsd-are-evoking-diversity-to-justify-their-opposition-to-the-dalai-lamas-graduation-speech/" rel="nofollow">https://qz.com/908922/chinese-students-at-ucsd-are-evoking-d...</a>
I mostly buy this and see the problem. I wonder though if the "marketplace of ideas" will become a naive notion. If the memetic success of an idea becomes totally uncoupled from its truth or virtue, then evolution will not select memes that benefit us. We are exposed to way more high fitness memes than ever before, and I'm not sure we are capable of effectively resisting them. We are becoming unwitting hosts.<p>In a world of weaponized memes, the battlegrounds may be entirely in controlling their exposure and thus their R0.
This took real guts. Remarkable.<p>In "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" one of the most important habits (my opinion) is:<p>"Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood"<p>This is incredibly important and it can only be achieved through dialogue. Regrettably our universities have become some of the most intolerant and bigoted mono-culture environments around. What kids are exposed to is nothing less than indoctrination with caustic effects. These kids don't arrive at university with such ideologies but the ideas are pounded into their heads by often-militant professors who, due to their twisted, intolerant and one-sided ideology should, in reality, be kept as far away from kids as humanly possible.<p>Yet, as the article states, universities have, over time, become echo chambers for a single world view that is violently intolerant of anything that does not align with their ideology. This is wrong and it will eventually have consequences, again, as explained in the article.<p>Bravo.
I think it's rather odd to take a stand for "everyone's right to speak" when many speakers openly hate liberal institutions and really don't seem to have any regard for facts or knowledge. Platforms to speech is what gives these people power, and if teachers and students say they don't want to condone those views, tied with racism and sexism, I think that should be respected. What happens when we give these people (alt right, bigots, etc) platforms is they get followers.<p>Look at the British National Party, they were piratically nothing until the BBC decided to massively increase their coverage. Was the BBC's coverage fair and impartial? Probably, but just giving them the attention causes people to look into their platform and realize blaming everyone else is a pretty comforting thing to do rather than take responsibility.<p>The deep question is who should be the gatekeepers, and I guess John Etchemendy is saying it shouldn't be universities. Perhaps he's right in a way, the board shouldn't be making those decisions. I do think the faculty and students do have a right and duty to though as giving platforms for hate speech empowers it.
Let's not forget Erika Christakis who was bullied into not teaching at Yale after she suggested that colleges be about free speech and debate rather than censorship.<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new-intolerance-of-student-activism-at-yale/414810/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new...</a><p>There's tons of stories like this one.<p>What John misses is that this isn't a university problem. It's a society problem.
While this letter appears to be sincere, it is willfully ignorant of the decades long shift of some academic departments from a stance of "ivory tower" objectivity to the deliberate choice to use their prestige and power as political activists. It isn't like they are hypocritically pretending to be objective, they actively sneer at people who make the attempt.
"But we all need worthy opponents to challenge us in our search for truth."<p>That's the problem, where's the worthy opponent? I'm sure they exist, but I rarely see or hear of them. I see a lot of demagogues, and those are not worthy by definition and should not be brought into the conversation especially in a University.<p>Bring us worthy opponents and I'm sure there won't be protests from students.
PC culture has been in the headlines a lot recently, so instead of addressing the progressive thought police, I was hoping that the author might say something about the other ways in which the universities are eating themselves alive.<p>What of the transition from full-time tenured faculty to adjuncts with little income, less job security, and who are terrified of students' reviews? Should universities continue to shift away from employing instructors and researchers, and towards supporting increasingly byzantine hierarchies of administrators?<p>What of the publish-or-perish imperative that emphasizes quantity over quality, and shiny new results over testing results obtained elsewhere?<p>What of dramatic inflation in tuition costs and resulting student debt?<p>It seems to me that these factors are all slowly undoing the universities. It'd be really interesting to hear a high-ranking administrator discuss these issues seriously instead of carefully confessing his preference for free speech over highly charged identity politics (which is a totally safe and uncontroversial thing to do).
He's right that ad hominem is intellectually lazy. People should be ashamed of themselves, especially if they consider themselves to be academics, if that's the only argument they want to use in a debate.
There are a few diamonds in the rough of academia who are still promoting free speech. Look to recipients of the Alexander Meiklejohn Award for Academic Freedom for examples:<p><a href="https://www.aaup.org/about/awards/alexander-meiklejohn-award-academic-freedom" rel="nofollow">https://www.aaup.org/about/awards/alexander-meiklejohn-award...</a><p>Alexander Meiklejohn was a former president of Amherst College and a staunch defender of the First Amendment and the ALCU.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Meiklejohn" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Meiklejohn</a>
I think this is phenomenon is itself a byproduct of the education system, more specifically that liberal values and ideals are seen as more intellectually correct. In fact I think liberals are as guilty of this occurring as the conservatives. Part of the solution should be in consciously emphasizing the need for empathetic listening and respect (though not necessarily agreement) for the opinions of others even if they conflict with our own "intellectually superior" liberal values. Once that becomes embedded in the educational culture we can begin to see a turnaround.
I agree with this article 100%. If universities are worried about "ignorant" people spreading misinformation (if they give a podium to people who they think are un-intellectual), what the university could do is have a framework on how such ideas or all ideas are communicated. With some rules and fact checking guidelines in place, it is possible to hear the opposing (or what is viewed as un-intellectual view point ) with proper analysis.
I agree with most of the article about academic environments being open to vigorous debate among opposing ideas. But I find this phrase: "diversity of thought" problematic.<p>Not because I don't actually value diversity in philosophies or modes of thinking, but because the phrase itself has been used recently as a weasel phrase by reactionary forces acting to scale back decades of work to improve actual diversity of backgrounds including race, national origin, genders, sexualities etc. in the workplace and positions of power. I'm not accusing him of using it deliberately in that sense but I think it's important to keep that connotation of this phrase in mind while discussing his talk.
We need a system that encourages students to discuss topics based on "facts", no who screams or bullies that other party.
Certainly there are subjects which are indeed subjective. But there are many that are not. And in the process of uncovering these facts as the basis for an argument, one may learn...
Wow!!!!!<p>Stanford is the last place on earth that I'd expect to actually confront university PC culture.<p>What an exciting discussion that will follow this!
No mention of the ridiculous amount of wealth a university education costs, the lack of economic education in the formal track and how the academic class (of which the author is a member) is rendered mostly immune from forces most of their students will have to face (investment for retirement, time value of money, etc). But yeah, free speech to yell at homosexuals and feminists and minorities and all that. Most important thing in my fucking life.
I think the growing threat from within has much more to do with the ballooning costs of higher education, and the way that higher education no longer means a better life, and sometimes a worse one, with crushing student loan debt ruining credit ratings.
Selective outrage over free speech is biased. If you take a stand for free speech you do it both inside and outside the institution. Where is his outrage over lies and hate speech from the President? Words can be weapons and quelling one side only is arming the other.
I disagree with almost everything Etchemendy states here. Having been a student at a private institution, public university and community college, his (rather liberal) arguments simply aren't grounded in reality.<p>Perhaps he should go and live in the dorms, where scam after scam after scam is apparent. From dining/meal plans to textbooks and all of the additional fees we're charged, while the college builds millions of dollars of new buildings, facilities and infrastructure.<p>Education is no longer about education (not that it ever was, but in a time long past---perhaps when he was getting _his_ education---it was a closer ratio), it's about money. And all I feel I'm going to get from them for my money in the end is a piece of paper. Everything I learn while I'm there is on me.<p>In short, I think we should tax the hell out of them if it's for the benefit of the American taxpayers.<p>When Universities, creditors and banks see numbers double [1], all they do is build twice as fast, hire twice as many adjuncts and raise tuition.<p>Sources:<p>[1] <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/times-up-student-loan-interest-rates-set-to-double/" rel="nofollow">http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/times-up-student-loan-in...</a>