We have been discussing how faculty around the country are supporting the abandonment of free speech principles to bar speakers and speech with which they disagree. The most extreme form of this rejection of classical liberal values is the antifa movement. We have seen faculty physically attack speakers or destroy messages that they oppose. We have also seen faculty physically attacked and intimidated. In some of these incidents, other faculty have supported students in shutting down speakers or fellow academics (here and here). The latest example of faculty opposing free speech is a letter of over 200 University of California, Berkeley professors and faculty are calling for the shutdown of classes and activities during “free speech week.” To the dismay of these professors, free speech week will include speakers with whom they disagree. Thus, they have posted a letter that not only seeks a boycott of free speech but have proclaimed that certain speech (in this case speech they do not like) is unworthy of free speech protection. Note the faculty and Ph.D students are calling for a boycott of classes and all campus activities, not just the speeches themselves. Turning off the lights and fleeing the campus at the approach of opposing views hardly fits with the school’s motto of “Fiat Lux” (Let There Be Light).
Category: Free Speech
Berkeley geared up for the arrival of a conservative speaker, Ben Shapiro, on campus yesterday with a huge police presence, closed buildings, and . . . counseling. The counseling is for students and employees whose “sense of safety and belonging” becomes compromised by having a conservative speaker like Shapiro speaking somewhere on campus.
A couple of faculty members at the Elliott School of International Affairs sent me an email yesterday from their dean, former Ambassador Reuben E. Brigety, II that they found unsettling and unwise. The school has adopted a policy that all panels in the future at the school cannot be composed of a single gender and that “Non-adherence to this policy could result in cancellation of the event.” The policy raises serious questions of academic freedom and the subordination of intellectual content in favor of the diversity policies. No one has suggested that Dean Brigety is likely to impose mandatory quotas and disciplinary actions. He is an experienced diplomat at a nationally respected graduate school, though he has had controversial moments during this tenure as dean. However, there has been no real discussion of the implications of these policies and how they impact the academic mission of universities like George Washington.
Continue reading “GW International School Announces Policy Of Gender Diversity Of Panels”
There is a new free speech controversy on a university campus this week. Robbie Travers, a 21-year-old third-year law student at the University of Edinburgh, is under investigation for a “hate crime” after mocking ISIS fighters targeted in a massive air strike by the United States. Esme Allman, a second-year history student, accused Travers of “blatant Islamophobia” and creating an unsafe environment for students through his mocking of the terrorists being helped to paradise.
Michigan State University is being sued after it refused to rent space on campus for white nationalist Richard Spencer to speak later this month. The rental was requested by Georgia State University student Cameron Padgett for an event on-campus at the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center.
We have been discussing the disciplining of professors for their statements on social media and the erosion of free speech protections for teachers outside of their schools. As many of you know, I take a robust view of free speech rights and have been critical of the monitoring and punishment of teachers for expressing their political and social views outside of campus. The latest such controversy comes the University of Tampa where visiting assistant professor Kenneth Storey was sacked for tweeting, “I dont believe in instant karma but this kinda feels like it for Texas. Hopefully this will help them realize the GOP doesnt care about them.” Few would defend Storey’s comments which were insensitive and unthinking, but that does not alter the question of where the line is drawn for teachers in speaking publicly about politics or society. (He later apologized.)Continue reading “University of Tampa Fires Professor For Using Hurricane Harvey To Attack GOP”
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the Antifa movement and its implications for free speech on our college and university campuses. Yesterday, I shared a videotape from one such protest at GW near the law school a few months ago. My concern is with those faculty members who legitimize the anti-speech foundation for this movement. Yet, the violence at Berkeley has exposed this movement for what it is. This week Nancy Pelosi did criticize Antifa but then later qualified that criticism. She said:
“Look, people are out there heiling Hitler and then you have a group that is antifa — anti-fascist; they’ve been there forever — some people may have infiltrated them. We’ll see. But that is not an equivalence, in my view.”
I fail to see why there is a need to draw distinctions. Antifa is premised on the view that some speech is unworthy to be protected and that preventing people from hearing unworthy views is an act of “community self-defense.” As the column discusses, the distinction between Antifa and its opposing fascists is rather difficult to discern in terms of the effort to intimidate or assault those with opposing views. The threat of Antifa is summed up by the description of one of its most influential academic voices. Dartmouth Professor Mark Bray says that the movement has no interest in co-existence with opposing views and seeks not simply to oppose them but to “end their politics.”
Here is the column: Continue reading ““End Their Politics”: Antifa and the Rejection of Liberal Democratic Values”
This week I wrote a column on how Antifa and related groups are destroying free speech at academic institutions across the country with the help of enabling, sympathetic faculty. I just saw this earlier video from a few months ago of an assault near the law school on our campus. Antifa activists harassed a conservative Rebel filmmaker, Jack Posobiec, and then a young man assaulted him. The man was later identified asSydney Ramsey-LaRee, 24. When GW police intervene, the attacker immediately claims to be the victim in the video below. I was unaware of this earlier assault and wanted to share the video. Fortunately, we have not seen the type of violence at other universities like Berkeley.
Continue reading “Antifa Comes To GW: Filmmaker Assaulted By Protester Near Law School [Updated]”
Below is my column in the Hill Newspaper on the call of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to cancel the permit of a conservative group seeking to hold a “Patriot Prayer” event in San Francisco. As discussed in the posting today on Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin’s call to end a Free Speech event, leaders are latching on to a new way to limit speech. While professing fealty to free speech, Pelosi, Arraguin, and others seek to deny it on the basis for how critics might react. The West has grown weary of Free Speech and these are the voices calling for greater restraints and regulation of speech. It is the new anti-speech pretext: leaders seek to protect the public from free speech in the name of public safety.
Here is the column:
Yesterday, I posted a column on the violence of Antifa protesters and their war on free speech. Judging from the actions of Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin they appear to be succeeding. After Antifa and counterprotesters chased and beat people trying to attend the event this week, Arreguin immediately came up with a solution to their denial of free speech: cancel the free speech event. That is like solving bank robbery by asking banks to empty their vaults.
I recently wrote about the dangerous calls to treat protesters as “domestic terrorists.” Most these calls focused on the neo-Nazis but the recent move by German authorities against Antifa shows that groups on the left can also be targeted by such actions. The Antifa website has been barred due to the violent role played by their members at the G20 summit in Hamburg. The Interior Ministry accused Antifa of seeking to “legitimize violence against police officers. which he described as an “expression of an attitude that tramples human dignity.”
Continue reading “Germany Bans Antifa Website As An Extremist Forum”
University of Iowa Assistant Professor Jodi Linley is under fire for an article in a “peer-reviewed academic journal” in which she pledged to expose her students to “their own white ignorance.” She says that she used her “identities as a queer, able-bodied, cisgender woman” to offer a “teaching paradigm” that strips away white privilege. She segregates by race and works toward “interrupting oppression” that occurs in classroom settings. Continue reading “Iowa Professor Under Fire Over Proposal For Exposing Her Students “White Ignorance””
We have been discussing the disciplining of professors for their statements on social media and the concern that there are different standards being applied in such cases. As many of you know, I take a robust view of free speech rights and have been critical of the monitoring and punishment of teachers for expressing their political and social views outside of campus. The latest such controversy comes from Clemson University where Assistant Professor Bart Knijnenburg went on Facebook to call Trump supporters and Republicans generally “racist scum.”
Continue reading “Clemson Professor Under Fire For Calling All Republicans “Racist Scum””
Below is my column in the Hill Newspaper on the call from both the right and the left for protesters to be declared domestic terrorists. With rising anger over protests and counter protests, politicians are rushing to join calls for the government to not simply investigate these groups for hate speech but actually terrorism.
Here is the column:
The NAACP’s interim president Derrick Johnson is requesting a formal meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to the failure of any team to pick up Colin Kaepernick and how the NFL will honor his “constitutional rights” and those of other NFL players. I have said previously that I strongly disagree with the decision of Kaepernick and others to refuse to stand during the national anthem. However, I fully accept the first amendment right to carry out such protests. However, the question is far more complex when moved into the realm of employment and demonstrations at work. The question becomes less a constitutional matter than an employment matter.
Continue reading “NAACP Calls On NFL To Protect Kaepernick’s Constitutional Right To Protest”