Free Speech and Academic Freedom

Some thoughts before the spring semester starts!

The University of Chicago Welcomes the Class of 2020

And does so gloriously. Would you like to read more about the University's robust commitment to free inquiry and expression?  Of course you do!

Granted, it's kind of sad that it even has to declare something that should be obvious at a university, but in this day and age ... 

Oh, and here's a bit from the letter to incoming freshmen (or do I now have to say "freshpeople"?):

"Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own."

Free Speech on Campus: A Depressing Update

UGH.  

Thank goodness for FIRE and sensible campus defenders of free speech like Chicago.  Remember, kids: speech codes are unconstitutional!  I should report, too, that not every campus is a basket case: the student government at UC Santa Barbara just voted in favor of free speech ... though I have to shake my head that this is even an issue at all.

Campus Culture: a lecture by Professor Gad Saad

I had not previously encountered evolutionary psychologist Gad Saad of Concordia University  (his faculty website is here), but I found this recent lecture of his to be fascinating indeed.

Nerd News: Campus Protests and Free Speech

Worth a read.

Nerd Journal: As the Spring Semester Ends, One Last Lesson

Class is in session one last time.  Repeat after me: You do not give up your civil liberties and individual rights when you set foot on campus.

Got that?  No?  Write it out 100 times by hand then.

As a fellow teacher and I were just saying, thank goodness for FIRE.  Keep fighting the good fight, my friends.  Support and defend academic freedom, uphold the civil liberties of students (and faculty!), and abolish all campus speech codes!  (Why?  Because they are evil, muzzling, and blatantly unconstitutional, that's why, and because - to put it baldly - you do not have a right to never be offended.) 

The Closing of the Chinese Mind

Aka "groupthink makes you stupid."  The CCP is busying itself with "thought reform."  Note too a related academic angle:

... the customarily mild-mannered American Association of University Professors called on universities to cut ties with Confucius Institutes unless academic freedom prevails there. That’s not the case at present. Notes the AAUP, “Confucius Institutes function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore academic freedom.” Agreements establishing them make “unacceptable concessions to the political aims and practices of the government of China. Specifically, North American universities permit Confucius Institutes to advance a state agenda in the recruitment and control of academic staff, in the choice of curriculum, and in the restriction of debate.” These cuddly-seeming institutions, in other words, are CCP propaganda mills on American campuses.

Nerd News: Trigger Warnings, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom

Oh, for Pete's sake.  Read this and this, which also gives us the quote of the day:

"Trigger warnings are presented as a gesture of empathy, but the irony is they lead only to more solipsism, an over-preoccupation with one’s own feelings—much to the detriment of society as a whole. Structuring public life around the most fragile personal sensitivities will only restrict all of our horizons. Engaging with ideas involves risk, and slapping warnings on them only undermines the principle of intellectual exploration. We cannot anticipate every potential trigger—the world, like the Internet, is too large and unwieldy. But even if we could, why would we want to? Bending the world to accommodate our personal frailties does not help us overcome them."

Speaking of triggers, how many warnings do you think this bit of classic Weird Al hilarity would now require? 

Trigger Happy.

Auschwitz and Academic Freedom

Can you get in trouble for taking your students to Auschwitz to teach them about the Holocaust?  Apparently you can.  The situation seems very odd, though, and there might be legal action pending.

Nerd News: The Latest Academic Boycott of Israel ... and Its Opponents

So another academic organization wants to boycott Israeli institutions (hence the tag "Nerds Behaving Badly"), but this time the pushback has been gratifyingly robust. Law prof William Jacobson has been keeping track of this and of the increasing number of institutions that are voicing their opposition.  Here is a collection of official statements by various university presidents on the topic.

Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, has recently written an op-ed about this in the Los Angeles Times, and it is worth a read.  Here's a piece of it (and it's also the quote of the day):

Boycotts don't serve these debates; they seek to cut them off by declaring certain academic institutions and their faculty off-limits. This tactic, in the words of Richard Slotkin, an emeritus professor here at Wesleyan University, "is wrong in principle, politically impotent, intellectually dishonest and morally obtuse." 

As president of Wesleyan, and as a historian, I deplore this politically retrograde resolution of the American Studies Assn. Under the guise of phony progressivism, the group has initiated an irresponsible attack on academic freedom. Others in academia should reject this call for an academic boycott.

Academic boycotts are antithetical to the very idea of academic freedom.  Every responsible nerd should be voicing his/her opposition.  This is the real issue.  Israeli policy is not.  Remember, darlings, that the AAUP opposes all academic boycotts as a matter of principle.

RELATED POST: Here.

UPDATE: Even the Washington Post editorial weighs in: "terribly misguided" and "fundamentally wrong."

Nerd News/Rant Update: the AAAS and BDS

I had ranted previously here, and now Inside Higher Ed has an open letter to the AAAS from a polisci professor.  Here's a piece of it as he slams the AAAS resolution for passing with suspicious unanimity:

I cannot resist asking: Are you at all embarrassed? 

... Reasonable people disagree about the Middle East, about the advisability of academic boycotts, and about how the AAAS can best serve Asian Americans. 

But that is precisely what makes the complete absence of a public conversation about these matters among Asian Americanists, a conversation with at least two sides, so peculiar. How can a group purporting to stand for the “highest professional standard of excellence in teaching and research” permit itself to appear so close-minded?

I do note with some satisfaction that the American Association of University Professors has rejected the AAAS's move and that the AAUP on principle opposes all academic boycotts. (As it should.)

Nerd News + Rant: The Association for Asian American Studies Wants to Boycott Israel

At its most recent Nerdmoot, the AAAS passed a resolution to this effect and became the first American professional academic organization to support this.  I'm not a member of the AAAS, but that's not going to stop me from hating on the decision anyway.  Rant follows after the fold.

Great Moments in Research: Best Journal Article Title Ever?

Language warning, but well played, sir.  Hooray for some academic freedom!  I'm sure the title also reflects the amounts of frustration that go into every published article, not just those in linguistics!

Nerd News: Academic Conservatism by Liberal Instructors 1, Mushy Programs 0?

What do you think?

Nerd News: Dissent and Discontent at Hahvahd Law

Here, read this.

Press Freedom and Foreign Correspondents in China

A few thoughts (ultimate source here). It's a battle about controlling the public narrative.  Call it "media wars," and they're happening right now (here's one example). You'd have to be a fool to believe the stuff put out by Xinhua and outfits like that, but there are lots of fools.  On a related note, I've blogged before about academics trying to do research in China and being persecuted, bullied, and blacklisted. 

Nerd News: Drezner's Weekly Picks

They're all worth a look.

Nerd News: *Sigh*

Sure, that's academic freedom and room for debate - let's shut up everyone we don't like.  Let's just admit there are politically correct sacred cows about which we refuse to have an honest discussion. I do use "we" in a very loose sense of "self-identifying academics."  People like that make every denizen of Nerdworld look bad.  More here.

Thoughts on Academic Freedom and the Right to Speak Your Mind on Campus

See this and this and this.  Note the disgusting, depressing spectacle of students trying to deal with professors they don't like by disrupting their classes and trying to shut them up.  Read some Voltaire, you little twits.  Free speech isn't just for people you like or agree with.  Pathetic.

SOPA Versus Scientific Publishing

Here's a possible unintended consequence of SOPA.  This thing (and PIPA) looks worse every time I look at it.  Kill this bill!