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free speech

SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
6/2/2022

Do Heterodox Academy Surveys Tell Us Anything Useful About the Campus Speech Climate?

Experts debate whether polls showing students perceive stifled speech on controversial subjects are reflecting or driving reality, and if they are being used in a conservative attack on higher education.

SOURCE: PEN America
5/4/2022

Virtual Event: Scholars Discuss Free Speech at American Writers Museum May 18

This event looks at historical moments where strident expressions of political thought, widely perceived to be anti-democratic in their own place and time, provoked new strictures.

SOURCE: The Atlantic
4/25/2022

Trying to Change Twitter's Content Moderation is Going to Disappoint Elon Musk

by Evelyn Douek

Musk is delusional if he thinks that Twitter can function without moderation. The problem this highlights is the ability of a small number of billionaires to make the decisions that shape the contemporary public sphere.

SOURCE: Commentary
4/16/2022

Dan Patrick's Illiberal Attack on Higher Ed

by Jonathan Marks

There are good conservative arguments for abolishing faculty tenure; Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick isn't advancing one of them as he seeks to punish political opponents for their ideas.

SOURCE: Slate
4/16/2022

Longtime Professor: Campus Free Speech Problem Isn't What You Think

by Lucas Mann

The campus free speech debate is framed by a fishbowl of the most selective campuses serving a tiny fraction of the student population.

SOURCE: ArcDigital
3/27/2022

Scholar Nicholas Grossman: What, Exactly is America's Free Speech Problem?

"When identifying a national problem, presumably in pursuit of national solutions, the details matter a lot."

SOURCE: The Week
3/21/2022

The Thrill of Teaching Mill

by Samuel Goldman

Mill was prescient in focusing attention not only on the restriction of speech by the state, but on the cultural and social obstacles to dissenting opinion.

SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
3/17/2022

Russian Academics See "No Future" at Home

While many Western academics have focused on the danger faced by Ukrainian scholars, it is clear that the domestic politics of Russia are increasingly dangerous for academic freedom as well.

SOURCE: Substack
3/8/2022

Is Emma Camp Correct That College Students Silence Themselves?

by Claire Potter

Do the writings of an intellectually self-assured college senior actually reflect a crisis of self-censorship, or a long tradition of finding and campaigning against alleged "conformism"?

SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
2/24/2022

Lessons From the Struggle Against the Old McCarthyism

by Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin

For a Texas professor, the Lieutenant Governor's push to abolish tenure and punish faculty for teaching certain ideas calls to mind the experiences of his grandparents in the heyday of McCarthy and HUAC.

SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
2/23/2022

The Increasingly Authoritarian War on Tenure

by Jennifer Ruth

"Democratic societies build in protections for university faculty so that we are not at the whims of whichever party is currently in power. When Patrick threatens tenure, he threatens those protections," and threatens the partisan control of knowledge in society.

SOURCE: New York Daily News
2/24/2022

Weaponizing Accusations of Racism to Squash Political Criticism of China

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Two recent incidents show the dangers of allowing a foreign government to leverage college speech and bias codes to squelch criticism, and the need for administrators to understand the difference.

SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer
2/9/2022

What Happened When I Went on Joe Rogan's Podcast

by Jonathan Zimmerman

There are many reasons to lament the misinformation spread by Joe Rogan, but shunning him won't help him use his massive platform more wisely.

SOURCE: Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
1/25/2022

Collin College Settles With History Professor Fired Over Tweets

“We should all be protective of the rights granted by the Constitution — and stand up to defend them when they’re violated.” – Dr. Lora Burnett

SOURCE: Slate
11/7/2021

Inside the 1980s Phenomenon of "Truly Tasteless Jokes" and What it Says about a Cultural Shift around Offensiveness

The wildly successful series of paperbacks heralded a moment when the embrace of offensiveness as a political weapon was shifting from the left to the right (audio contains the contents of some Truly Tasteless Jokes).

SOURCE: The Atlantic
10/27/2021

There's Little Doubt: The Second Amendment Threatens the First

by Diana Palmer and Timothy Zick

"In short, the visible presence of firearms increases the risk of violence and death when exercising one’s First Amendment rights."

SOURCE: New York Times
11/2/2021

In China, Illegal to Mock National Heroes

Since March, a new law has been used at least 15 times to prosecute Chinese who "slander" heroes of the Communist Party's official historical narrative. Experts attribute the crackdown to the fact that slowed economic growth no longer guarantees the party's widespread legitimacy.

8/22/2021

Rule 50 and Racial Justice: The Long History of the IOC War on Athletes' Free Expression

by Debbie Sharnak and Yannick Kluch

"The recent rise of athlete activism brings the IOC’s claim that sports are a neutral space into direct conflict with athletes’ increasingly vocal demands for freedom of expression and the right to use their platform to advance human rights and social justice issues."

SOURCE: The Hill
8/3/2021

A Wakeup for the Left on Free Speech?

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Liberals who seek to restrict hurtful speech shouldn't be surprised when conservative lawmakers apply that principle to regulate what can be taught in history classrooms.

SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
7/22/2021

How Professor Van Winkle Woke Up to Viewpoint Diversity

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Could one of today's professors wake up from a twenty-year nap to a climate of productive and open classroom discussion?