Departments

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free speech

  • 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.