[CHE] A New Group Promises to Protect Campus Free Speech

UNC-Chapel Hill adopts UChicago's "Kalven Report" principles

https://leiterreports.typepad.com/b...dopts-uchicagos-kalven-report-principles.html

UNC-Chapel Hill adopts UChicago's "Kalven Report" principles

This is very good news for faculty there (especially given recent academic freedom violations), and I hope it signals broader adoptions of the Kalven Report.

Harry Kalven, the author of the report, was a preeminent First Amendment scholar, who had a deep understanding of academic freedom (see an earlier discussion at my law school blog). Twenty years ago, long before I was at Chicago or even knew of the Kalven Report, I recall writing to the chemist Larry Faulkner, then the President of the University of Texas at Austin, criticizing him for his public critique of a UT Austin professor's remarks about 9/11. President Faulkner responded courteously, although he disagreed. His political judgment may have been sound--in an ass-backwards state like Texas with an excellent university dependent on public support, the President may have needed to say something. But from an academic freedom standpoint, this was a failure: Presidents, Provosts, Deans, and Chairs are to be "seen and not heard," unless they are speaking about university business. I have written before about this at CHE, but the basic rule when complaints come in about "Professor X said Y" should be: "Individual faculty have the right to express their views on matters of public interest, and they speak for themselves not the institution." Period. That's it. No apologies or explanations.

Universities exist to produce and disseminate knowledge. Individual faculty, under existing academic freedom principles, may disseminate their knowledge, and may do so in terms that are offensive to the public at large. But the University, and all its constituent entities (colleges, departments etc.) should be silent. The Department of English, like the Department of Philosophy and the Business School and the Law School, are administrative entities that exist to support the research and teaching of scholars in their disciplines. They do not exist to take positions on the political issues du jour, whether it is abortion or Trump or systemic racism or the illegal war of aggression against Iraq.

The Kalven Report, in one way, preserves what is wonderful about the "Ivory Tower": we are here to develop and share knowledge about the physical and social world in accordance with the disciplinary techniques we have learned. The University does not exist as a pontificating entity alongside the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. Academic freedom protects the right of individual faculty to express their views on matters of public interest without sanction. That is a precious right, that universities should not take for granted.

The foundational principles of academic freedom, which are essentially Millian principles, are going to come under increasing pressure as the United States heads in the authoritarian, Hungarian direction. If universities are just political entities, then defending their autonomy will become harder than it already is.

Posted by Brian Leiter on August 04, 2022 at 06:39 AM
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discussing this piece: https://nsjonline.com/article/2022/...ass-free-speech-and-student-fees-resolutions/

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https://jonathanturley.org/2022/08/...slamic-scholars-support-of-the-rushdie-fatwa/

Oberlin Faces New Controversy over Islamic Scholar’s Support of the Rushdie Fatwa
by jonathanturley
August 15, 2022

It appears that Oberlin has another major controversy on its hand. For the last couple years, Oberlin has been embroiled in a fight with a small family-owned grocery that it defamed over a shoplifting case involving black students. Oberlin lost $25 million in a record verdict but Oberlin President Carmen Twillie Ambar continued to refuse to apologize. In the meantime, the school seems intent on running the 137-year-old grocery into insolvency as it delays paying on the judgment. Now the school is under fire over a faculty member, Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, who supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. The author of Satanic Verses is recovering from a savage knife attack. Hadi Matar, 24, is accused of carrying out the stabbing attack and has expressed support for Iran in the past. The campaign to have Mahallati fired could present some difficult free speech and academic freedom questions.

Mahallati is a professor of religion and Islamic Studies and once served as the Islamic Republic’s ambassador at the United Nations.

According to Fox News.com, Mahallati was asked in 1989 about the “right to put a bounty on someone’s head” and responded “I think all Islamic countries agree with Iran. All Islamic nations and countries agree with Iran that any blasphemous statement against sacred figures should be condemned.” He then added insult to injury:

“I think if Western countries really believe and respect freedom of speech, therefore they should also respect our freedom of speech. We certainly use that right in order to express ourselves, our religious belief, in the case of any blasphemous statement against sacred Islamic figures.”​

It was a familiar misrepresentation of free speech values. Islamic countries have long claimed that banning speech or killing those who engage in blasphemous speech is a form of free speech.

The Iranian view of free speech shows the extreme end of the slippery slope of relativism in free speech. We have been debating this increasingly common claim that shutting down speech is free speech. At the University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,” CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned after an inappropriate comment in a faculty meeting).

In this case, Iran issued a fatwa supporting the killing of Rushdie and offering a huge reward. Ultimately, two of his translators were knifed, one fatally. Supporting a fatwa is an exercise of free speech. Acting on a fatwa to harm someone is a crime.

Critics, however, insist that Mahallati was a high-ranking official supporting this state action. Nevertheless, I still believe that a professor has the right to voice unpopular and frankly shocking positions in such controversies. I have defended faculty who have made similarly disturbing comments “detonating white people,” denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements. I also defended the free speech rights of University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence.

A more serious allegation has surfaced over a 2018 Amnesty International report accusing Mahallati of carrying out “crimes against humanity” for covering up the massacre of at least 5,000 Iranian dissidents in 1988. That is conduct or action by Mahallati that would raise grounds over his fitness as a member of a faculty. Yet, he has denied that allegation and Oberlin said that it has investigated and rejected it.

If the school has previously investigated the matter, it should be treated as closed absent new evidence. We recently saw the reopening of an investigation at Princeton as a pretext to fire a controversial faculty member.

On what we know, it would seem that Mahallati would be protected under free speech and academic principles despite his reported anti-free speech views.

Of course, it does not take away from the grotesque position that he has taken. Ironically, his faculty page discusses how he “developed innovative courses with interdisciplinary approach to friendship and forgiveness studies and also initiated the Oberlin annual Friendship Day Festival.” His personal website further states his research is “focused on the ethics of peacemaking in Islam in the context of comparative religions.”

Nothing says ethics and peace more than a lethal fatwa targeting dissenting authors.

As for Iran, it denies any involvement in the attack but added its own sense of offense at being criticized. Instead, it again attacked Rushdie.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said “We, in the incident of the attack on Salman Rushdie in the U.S., do not consider that anyone deserves blame and accusations except him and his supporters.” He added that the West “condemning the actions of the attacker and in return glorifying the actions of the insulter to Islamic beliefs is a contradictory attitude.”

It is strikingly similar to Mahallati’s statement back in 1989. Only in the most twisted view of free speech (and logic) would there be a contradiction in condemning the attempted murder of an author while supporting the author’s right to express his views.
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more

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conclusion:

Few academics would support Iran’s blood-soaked interpretation of free speech. However, we need to address the creeping relativism that is sweeping across our campus. A recent poll was released by 2021 College Free Speech Rankings after questioning a huge body of 37,000 students at 159 top-ranked U.S. colleges and universities. It found that sixty-six percent of college students think shouting down a speaker to stop them from speaking is a legitimate form of free speech. Another 23 percent believe violence can be used to cancel a speech. That is roughly one out of four supporting violence.

Faculty and editors are now actively supporting modern versions of book-burning with blacklists and bans for those with opposing political views. Others are supporting actual book burning. Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll has denounced the “weaponization” of free speech, which appears to be the use of free speech by those on the right. As millions of students are taught that free speech is a threat and that “China is right” about censorship, these figures are shaping a new society in their own intolerant images.

It is the subject of my recent publication in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. The article entitled “Harm and Hegemony: The Decline of Free Speech in the United States.”
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FIRE has released its most recent campus free speech rankings. Chicago comes in first again.

https://rankings.thefire.org/rank

 

“Your Words are Violence!”: Coulter Cancelled at Cornell
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/11/12/your-words-are-violence-coulter-cancelled-at-cornell/

excerpt:

This week, we saw another incident of protesters shutting down an event to prevent others from hearing opposing views. At an event with commentator and author Ann Coulter, one protester yelled “Your words are violence.” It is the latest example of how some on the left are treating free speech as harm on college campuses. Unlike many other incidents, however, Cornell has stood by the right of the student group, Network of Enlightened Women, to hold the event and pledged to hold students accountable for the cancellation of the speech.

Students and faculty previously pressured Cornell to cancel Coulter as a someone who engages in “hate speech” and declared her speaking on campus as harmful. Cornell stood with free speech. However, the event lasted only 30 minutes until protesters succeeded in shouting down Coulter. One man is shown screaming “we don’t want you to be here, your words are violence. … They are threats, you cannot be speaking here. We don’t want your ideas here! Leave! Leave! Your words are violence! Your words are violence!”Two students chanted “no KKK no fascist USA” as they are escorted out by security. Others blared circus music and blew whistles.

The Cornell Review reported a common tactic: protesters “seemed to be employing a chain tactic, beginning just as soon as the last heckler was removed, so as to continuously speak over Coulter.”

Joel Malina, vice president for University Relations at Cornell, told Campus Reform.“Eight college-age individuals were removed from the auditorium following Cornell protocols. All Cornell students among the disrupters will be referred for conduct violations.” He also apologized to Coulter.

Cornell is to be commended for its stance, particularly if it proceeds with appropriate sanctions for these students. The incident also shows the value of limiting these events to faculty and students of Cornell, who are subject to rules protecting free speech and open discourse on campus.

We have previously discussed the worrisome signs of a rising generation of censors in the country as leaders and writers embrace censorship and blacklisting. The latest chilling poll was released by 2021 College Free Speech Rankings after questioning a huge body of 37,000 students at 159 top-ranked U.S. colleges and universities. It found that sixty-six percent of college students think shouting down a speaker to stop them from speaking is a legitimate form of free speech. Another 23 percent believe violence can be used to cancel a speech. That is roughly one out of four supporting violence.
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more at the link

 

related

 

book review of a new history of academic freedom:

Training for the Contemplative Life

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/training-for-the-contemplative-life/

too long to excerpt; the book apparently is available as Open Access.

 

that's a great quote, you should have included the entire paragraph:

"The Kalven Report, in one way, preserves what is wonderful about the 'Ivory Tower': we are here to develop and share knowledge about the physical and social world in accordance with the disciplinary techniques we have learned. The University does not exist as a pontificating entity alongside the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. Academic freedom protects the right of individual faculty to express their views on matters of public interest without sanction. That is a precious right, that universities should not take for granted."
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I think the key line here is "The University does not exist as a pontificating entity alongside the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. "

 

depends on the context, as I've said before and as @B-Bob observed in his earlier response before he edited it

https://bbs.clutchfans.net/threads/...trend-on-the-left.317267/page-8#post-14337896

 

again, context matters. give me a hypothetical

 

here's a good example, not hypothetical. From Leiter's blog this morning. Yes, Carol Hay has academic freedom both inside and outside the classroom to comment (as in this case) on an academic presentation.

That freedom does NOT extend, however, to her seemingly intentional misreading/misinterpretation of a speaker's presentation, and then to her borderline defamatory interpretation on a public forum like Twitter. She should be condemned (if Leiter's account is to be trusted, and I have no reason to doubt it), and academics would be well advised to take Leiter's advice and exercise caution when dealing with her in the future.

Conference organizers may want to think twice before inviting Professor Carol Hay (U Mass/Lowell) to their event

https://leiterreports.typepad.com/b...g-professor-carol-hay-u-masslowell-to-th.html

 

honestly I'm not sure that would fly today