Departments

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free speech

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    2/19/2021

    Rush Limbaugh and the Nineties Roots of “Cancel Culture”

    by Alex Pareene

    Rush Limbaugh's career ended in a siloed media environment where the right occupied its own channels. But it began in a mainstream media that was eager to profit by marketing his brand of down-punching reactionary grievance. 

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    1/11/2021

    A Fraught Balancing Act

    Questions of free speech and incitement, plus the demonstrable falsity of many claims made by pro-Trump student activist groups, makes for complicated choices for university administrators who may decide on disciplinary actions against students believed to incite violence. 

  • 1/12/2021

    Public Speech and Democracy

    by Sandra Peart

    American leaders have failed to support public speech that sustains disagreement without violence. That culture of speech must be rebuilt for democracy to survive.

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    10/26/2020

    A Teacher, His Killer and the Failure of French Integration

    The murder of a French social studies teacher who showed his multiethnic class images offensive to Islam illustrates the dilemma of the French policy of secularism, which is beset on one side by complaints that immigrants do not assimilate and on the other by rising xenophobia and racism.

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    10/19/2020

    Educating the Powerful

    by Matt Reed

    In the wake of a political movement consciously designed to denigrate any expertise outside of making money, calming anxious trustees an uphill battle. But it’s necessary. Anyone with a grasp of history knows that there’s no appeasing a purity movement; one kill simply whets its appetite for the next one.

  • SOURCE: Foreign Policy
    8/31/2020

    Voltaire Spread Darkness, Not Enlightenment. France Should Stop Worshipping Him.

    by Nabila Ramdani

    Nabila Ramdani argues that the French Enlightenment thinker's abstract defenses of free speech and inquiry should not overshadow the concrete content of what he said and wrote, which included historically influential racist and antisemitic bigotry cloaked in the language of reason and science.

  • SOURCE: Chattanooga Times-Free Press
    9/2/2020

    Dalton State Professor Takes Heat for Tweets; College Doesn't Plan Discipline

    A Dalton State (GA) history professor regrets his word choice in a series of tweets that was publicized by an anonymous user who sought disciplinary action by the college. Seth Weitz insists that he teaches history in the classroom, which involves challenging beliefs held by many of his students. 

  • 8/2/2020

    Free Speech and Civic Virtue between "Fake News" and "Wokeness"

    by Campbell F. Scribner

    Left critics of the recent "Harper's Magazine" open letter on free speech and open debate make some claims that are narrowly meritorious. But they don't address the value of speech as a way of building the collective citizenship necessary for democracy. In this respect, the signers are correct.

  • 4/5/2020

    US v. Sineneng-Smith Echoes the Fugitive Slave Act

    by Alan J. Singer

    A Supreme Court decision in United States v. Sineneng-Smith that broadens the authority of the federal government to suppress the rights of advocates for undocumented immigrants could divide the nation irreparably.

  • SOURCE: CNN
    8/28/19

    Bret Stephens launches a foolish Twitter war

    by David M. Perry

    Being called a bedbug just isn't a big deal. Writing to a provost about the actions of an academic on Twitter, which Stephens said he did because "managers should be aware" how "their people...interact in the world," is the big deal. 

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    5/24/19

    A Donor's Demands, a Revoked Chair

    A religion professor at the American University in Cairo says the university had no right to revoke his chair title after he resisted a donor's demands that he teach Islam in a preferential manner.

  • 5/26/19

    Yes, you should have free speech on Facebook.

    by Andrew Joseph Pegoda

    When blocking content or banning users, Facebook uses its ubiquitousness, power, wealth, and monopoly—made possible by neoliberal transferences of power from “real” governments to private businesses which function as unelected and unaccountable de facto governments—to silence.