Morning Wire - Campus Free Speech Movement | Saturday Extra | 5.20.23

Episode Date: May 20, 2023

College campuses should be safe harbors for a wide range of opinions and arguments but instead many universities are pushing to silence speakers. While some schools are calling for censorship and content warnings, others are fighting the progressive notion that speech can be violence.  We speak with an education expert about the state of free speech on college campuses. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.   Balance of Nature: Get 35% OFF Your Preferred Order Use Promo Code ‘WIRE’ at BalanceOfNature.com   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The power struggle over free speech on campus has intensified in recent months. Students at several universities are pushing for content warnings for courses and calling for the silencing of speakers. While fractures have formed among faculty and administrators over the constitutional right to freedom of expression versus the progressive notion that speech can be violence. In this episode, we talk with an education expert on the state of free speech at universities, what's driving the movement against it, and what universities have to do if they want to reverse the trend. It's Saturday, May 20th, and this is an extra edition of Morning Wire. Joining us to discuss the battle over free speech on campus is Jonathan Butcher, Education Fellow at Heritage Foundation.

Hi, Jonathan. So recently, students at a variety of universities have pushed for content warnings for courses that could discuss traumatic content. We've also seen movement against speakers that are considered controversial. Meanwhile, some universities have moved to embrace these kinds of actions and others are pushing back. Where is all this coming from? So this is in line with what we've seen over the last decade, 15 years, where students believe that words are violent and that ideas that they disagree with should not be given the same

platform as ideas that they want to espouse. They feel challenged by ideas with which they disagree. And we saw this years ago when students were leading an effort to write letters to administrators saying you need to hire more faculty of color or you need to provide more benefits to people based on their race. Whether they knew it or not, I mean, they were pushing the idea of racial preferences as a part of school policies. So I think it's clearly still in the vein of this critical theory philosophy that we know has been in higher ed for decades, but has been really drawn out, I think, in this generation through the events we've seen, both in the national media as well as something about the way in which the issue of disagreement has been discussed

by the adults on campuses. Yeah, let's talk more about that. Students are learning this from someone. They're being taught this concept, and you're saying it's connected to critical theory. How does that theory directly relate to free speech? That's a great question, because I think 10 or 15 years ago, I was one of them, said there's a free speech crisis on college campuses because speakers are being shouted down, students are afraid to speak their mind, we are seeing sometimes even professors being chased off campus. And clearly, it is very much a free speech issue, but it is also a result of teaching students that there is a power struggle that manifests itself over ideas. And anything that challenges the orthodoxy of you must be tolerant of everything

except for those things that you disagree with, or anything that sort of challenges this view that the world is run by a superstructure, people in power trying to oppress you. And that is really the essence of Marxism. And so once you dig a little bit, you realize that Marxism, of course, is what created critical legal theory in the 1970s. Critical race theory built its ideas off of critical legal theory. So as you take this Marxist struggle for power, you add a focus on race being the determining factor and everything around you, you result in a world in which you can't have a debate, right? You can't have a discussion because anything that challenges the notion that race is what defines you or your identity, group is what defines you. Anything that challenges that identity, it has to be silence. It has to be

shut down. There's no room for discussion over that. A recent national survey, the academic mind in 22, what faculty think about free expression and academic freedom on campus found that around one third of faculty members at four-year institutions feel they can't express their opinions, and this is out of fear of the reaction from other members of their university communities. it also found that more than half expressed concern about being fired because someone maybe misunderstands a comment. How have colleges and universities fostered such an environment that this could be the case? Yeah, why would a faculty think that?

What could possibly make them think that that's possible, right? Well, I think programs such as bias response teams, which are very prevalent on campuses around the U.S., and these are the administrative teams where you can, in many cases, give an anonymous report about something that was done or said or that you saw, and you can report an individual anonymously that they offended you. And that will generate oftentimes an investigation into whatever that individual said. And that then will result in consequences. I mean, in a case of faculty, it could result in change to their work status for a student. It could result in loss of privileges or status or whatever as a student. So bias response teams are one. I think

free speech zones or another with a free speech zone. It's a small part of campus where you can actually speak what's on your mind, right, or talk about issues of religion or politics or values. Well, when you sort of cordon off a discussion about things that are deeply meaningful, well, that means that anywhere else on campus, you can't, right? And so if you feel like there's something important to be said, well, you know, you're going to keep it to yourself for fear that you'll have consequences imposed upon you. And I mean, look, we've seen a examples of this from teachers or professors teaching in a foreign language and they use a term that sounds like another term that's offensive that then wound up in that teacher being fired.

I mean, it's these kinds of things where it lends itself to the microaggression atmosphere. It doesn't have to be an intentional effort to offend someone. It could just be a side comment about an issue or even something that wasn't offensive at all, that someone can claim hurt their feelings, and then administrators will take action. That's a frightening environment in which to live. Speaking of administrators, we're seeing the growth of DEI departments in universities, and a lot of people see those as acting as ideological orthodoxy policing entities on campus. How are the DEI departments playing into this larger atmosphere?

I mean, sure. How else could they be described, right? I mean, their purpose is to perpetuate a political orthodoxy on campus. And that orthodoxy is racial preferences. I think that the DEI offices help to push the idea that individuals of certain races, minority individuals should receive benefits, regardless of their backgrounds, regardless of any other part of their socioeconomic status. It's all about pushing the idea that racial preferences are what matter. And look, one of the things that we have to remember is that poll after poll, after survey,

from Gallup to Pew Research and beyond find that Americans do not favor racial preferences. They don't like the idea of racial preferences, especially in college admissions. Now, when you turn it around and you call it affirmative action, they'll say, well, of course we'd like affirmative action, right? That sounds like a good thing. But when you explain that really what's happening is that you are giving something to a person based on the color of their skin, Americans don't like that. And surveys show that. And DEI offices are built on a mission to perpetuate racial preferences, either in admissions or in programs that are happening on campus.

Now, we've seen some statements from some very high-profile universities, the University of Chicago, Penn State, Harvard, pushing back to some degree on things like free speech zones and canceling speakers. Is there any momentum from administrators against anti-free speech activists? Well, this isn't new, right? I mean, the University of Chicago has been issuing reports or statements going back almost 100 years talking about the importance of protecting free speech on campus. And Yale did this in the famous Woodward report in the late 1960s, early 1970s.

So just because Harvard or Penn State or whoever else is issuing a statement now, I mean, good for them. And that's exactly what we need. But it's the follow-up. It's the way that they implement this that's going to matter, right? because we're still seeing shoutdowns. I mean, look, what happened at Stanford? What happened to Riley Gaines in San Francisco? Not too long ago.

What happened at New Mexico, closer to the beginning of the school year? So, you know, look, it's great that schools are issuing these statements, but the follow-through by administrators to consider suspension or expulsion for students who violate the free speech rights of someone else. To follow through and get rid of free speech zones, all of campus should be a free speech zone. By the same token, saying that the university will not enact sanctions on professors or students when they take a position that is contrary to the university's stated position on a public policy issue, right? All of these things, that has to be the follow-through that universities

take to actually create and perpetuate a culture of free speech. Well, follow-through is everything. Jonathan, thanks for talking to us. Great. Thank you. That was Heritage Education Fellow, Jonathan Butcher, and this is been an extra edition of Morning Wire.