I'd be interested in seeing the underlying legislation, to determine just what is meant by "free speech" and what is meant by a legal obligation to "promote it." How does one do that? Invite Flat-Earthers to speak at the union? Hold symposiums regarding whether the Holocaust took place? Here in our Glorious Union government is merely prohibited from restricting speech, it isn't required to impose penalties on those who fail to "promote it." Thar be dragons, or some kind of monsters, I think.

I think you're mistaken. The effects are somewhere between difficult and impossible to quantify, but look into the case of Lindsay Shepard. How can you claim there's academic freedom under those conditions? — counterpunch

The law, at least in the US, is that the government cannot suppress one's speech. That's really as far as I'd go with that. The question then becomes who is a government actor and who's not. If the county sheriff locks me up for calling the mayor a mother fucker, then that seems a clear violation of my right to free speech, even if the mayor has not once fucked his mother.

How much these universities are government controlled in your example, I don't know, but I'm not completely comfortable with the government telling the provost of the privately funded Moron University that he cannot limit his professors from professing moronic viewpoints. Fundamentally, folks get to spend their hard earned money how they see fit, even if it's for something stupid.

But should we posit that State University is truly controlled by the state, then there should be some protection for students and I suppose teachers, who on their free time wish to pontificate their various viewpoints without government interference. That being said, the university need not abandon its mission to spread accurate knowledge just so it can be sure the sacred right to free speech be protected. I personally would be relieved to know that professors not be permitted to profess idiocy if those in charge of the university tell them not to, and I'd think the market would favor non-idiotic universities over idiotic ones and the former would be sought out and favored and would win this Darwinian contest.

I would not be relieved to know, however, that inaccuracy be permitted over the objection of the university administration because the good representative from the 10th district got pissed off and decided he needed a committee to decree how the professors at the university ought be instructed to profess. That is not how I wish curriculum be decided at any university, public or private.

I will also go back to what I said initially, and that is I find it highly doubtful that any professor or any student is actually not saying whatever he wants. It's just a matter of where he gets to say it.

Hm. So we ought socialise the free market of ideas when the stuff we want said gets ignored? — Banno

Free speech doesn't bypass academic merit. It bypasses politically correct censorship.

Oh dear, not another one. I'm not going reply to any comment arguing that insisting on free speech implies universities having to entertain flat earthers. It's a disingenuous, and pretty damn stupid argument. In my previous post I suggested you look at the case of Lindsay Shepard. Did you?

So... Universities ought give a platform to fools?

I'm at a lose to see what your point is.

Free speech doesn't bypass academic merit. It bypasses politically correct censorship. — counterpunch

So... Universities ought give a platform to fools? I'm at a lose to see what your point is. — Banno

Free speech doesn't bypass academic merit. It bypasses politically correct censorship. — counterpunch

And?

I'm at a lose to see what your point is. — Banno

Why would they have any fear? The new rules have only so far been communicated with speech and apparently speech has no effect whatsoever on other people...so if these people fear fines as a result of some speech, that's their problem.

One can listen to a speech and fear what he comes to understand are the intentions of the speaker. This is a rational deliberation, not something forced into the mind by words.

Oh dear, not another one. I'm not going reply to any comment arguing that insisting on free speech implies universities having to entertain flat earthers. It's a disingenuous, and pretty damn stupid argument. I — counterpunch

Oh dear, you may be referring to my post, not Hanover's. But as more than a brief glance at it would reveal, I was making no argument for or against free speech, whatever that is supposed to be. I was wondering what might be meant by the anticipated legal obligation to "promote" free speech referred to as being part of this law. I exaggerated because I'm inclined to mischief, but think it a legitimate and interesting question. Just how is a university supposed to promote it? Promotion would involve an affirmative effort to foster free speech. Does that mean inviting those with unpopular views to campus; providing them with special venues or forums at which they may declaim; suppression of those who seek to keep them from speaking? Or would merely posting signs encouraging free speech be adequate? I'm interested in how the law would be drafted. It's a lawyer thing, perhaps.

The specific measures are yet to be announced. But reason suggests looking first to the nature of the problem - rather than the nature of supposed solutions. I'm going to suggest to you what I suggested to Hanover, which is that you look at the case of Lindsay Shepard. I think it gives a good indication of the oppressive atmosphere that has developed within universities.

Oh dear, not another one. I'm not going reply to any comment arguing that insisting on free speech implies universities having to entertain flat earthers. It's a disingenuous, and pretty damn stupid argument. In my previous post I suggested you look at the case of Lindsay Shepard. Did you?

You’re right: it is stupid. One would be hard-pressed to find flat-earthers and fools among the growing list of disinvited speakers.

list of disinvited speakers. — NOS4A2

There's a plan - who are we talking about?

In the US the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has a database of “disinvitations”. I’m not aware of any such database in the UK, but I’m sure some examples (such as Flemming Rose and Sir Tim Hunt) are available.

SO the first item was a guy who backed out of giving a commencement speech because someone didn't like his team mascot...

I was thinking maybe you could give us something with a bit more grit.

There are plenty examples there, spanning decades. The point, though, is that I am unable to find many fools among them. And it’s not a question about whether a university ought to give a platform to fools, but weather a university should bend to the pressure of protesters and deny both the rights of a speaker and those who wish to see him.

So... it's back to we ought socialise the free market of ideas - introduce government controls so that things folk don't want get produced?

Personally I think the government, especially one as censorial as the UK, should not compel universities to promote free speech with the threat of sanction. I believe universities should be able to do what they want. If people need a little safe-space university, where scary ideas are verboten, let them have it.

Lurking behind this entire discussion is the question “what is the proper relationship b/w the university and the government?”, and that is a question that is very old, reaching all the way back to when the university was called the “academy”.

Freedom of thought has not always depended on the existence of the university: it (the former) surreptitiously maintained itself through the dark ages, often by men attached to ecclesiastical institutions.

Only when Machiavelli and his followers won the war waged by the state against the philosophers, and universities became generally accepted as places where smart men could come up with ideas that materially benefitted the citizenry, did the two institutions, that of the university and that of the government, unite in a common goal.

One thing on this topic that I don’t see discussed is people’s right to listen. Why do some people get to decide what Im allowed to listen to?
If a bunch of people show up to listen to a speaker, especially one invited, why does some mob of haters get to decide for me that Im not going listen to them today?

Also, it’s very disappointing to see such a sad lack of self awareness on the part of those arguing against Counter Punch. Their use of free speech as a defence against shutting down someones ability to speak to people is shameful. The spirit of free speech is being mutilated there, whatever technicality, semantic style arguments you try and make it’s clear to anyone not using free speech as an argument tool to promote (force?) their views on others that free speech and shutting down a speaker are contradictory.

it's actually hard to understand that the majority of students back then were far more conservative than the hippies that are now described as to be the dominant group back then. — ssu

You are correct. I was a student at a midwestern state college in the 1960s. The student body of my midwestern state college had no hippies; it was conservative--socially as well as politically. We were also politically inert. There were no protests to speak of. A sociology professor who began his sociology 101 classes with provocative readings was lucky to get a weak reaction, let alone outrage.

My guess is that a lot of colleges are still fairly placid places. There are outstanding exceptions of course, where everyone is on somebody else's thin ice.

One thing I don't quite understand is why college administrators are so vulnerable to small hot-headed gangs with a burr up their butt about transphobia, homophobia, incipient fascism, racism, et al. Have the administrators inadvertently believed their own bullshit? It seems like they would have the wherewithal to deal with a dozen students who wanted to deplatform an instructor in the 1-member Kyrgyzstan Studies Program for offending some twit in campus Antifa gang.

Is there not something paradoxical about “government-mandated freedom” of any kind? It can be (and should already be) illegal to prevent people from speaking, but if you are mandating that all voices be amplified to the same volume then that’s no longer freedom of speech, that’s Fox News style “balance”, insisting that every fringe looney be treated as just as credible as people who actually have well-established reality behind what they say.

I'm offended by people who seek to take offence. — counterpunch

Yeah. Let's keep an eye out for those!

:lol:

Freedom of speech has been rather shamelessly invoked as a means to exonerate otherwise completely unacceptable behaviour. If one's speech is used as a tool to intentionally harm an innocent, it needs to be stopped.

Unfettered freedom of speech is a dangerous, potentially world-ending thing.

Personally I think the government, especially one as censorial as the UK, should not compel universities to promote free speech with the threat of sanction. I believe universities should be able to do what they want. If people need a little safe-space university, where scary ideas are verboten, let them have it. — NOS4A2

I can see some logic in your argument, but you do not acknowledge the problem - which is, to use the crude vernacular: "cancel culture." The idea that cancel culture creates safe spaces is as false as the claim political correctness promotes harmony. Things have never been less safe or less harmonious.

These people are wolves in sheep's clothing - pretending to moral righteousness as a means to power. Handing over universities to this mob of post modernist neo marxist yahoos - would do serious damage to the UK's academic reputation. Freedom of thought and expression are essential to academic freedom.

And then, think of the children - indoctrinated with this insidious dogma in place of an education, inducted into the ranks of a 5th column that despise themselves, are ashamed of their history, and reject the values of the most successful human civilisation yet to have existed.

The classic example is shouting fire in a crowded theatre without cause. It would cause panic, and unambiguous harm. It's not controversial to accept this would have no free speech defence. Any advocate of free speech would accept this limitation. Child pornography is another accepted limitation. Accepted limitations generally revolve around the harm principle. — counterpunch

So why the song and dance about free speech? The issue clearly has nothing to do with that. You think the speech in question does not cause sufficient harm, others (in the universities) think it does. So what's needed is statistically significant evidence of the harm in either case to make an informed choice (or reasoned speculation in the case that such evidence is unavailable). You've given nothing but a single anecdote in evidence of harm for your case and mentioned nothing whatsoever about the harm against which it is to be weighed. Is that the really scientific method as you understand it?

One can listen to a speech and fear what he comes to understand are the intentions of the speaker. This is a rational deliberation, not something forced into the mind by words. — NOS4A2

Well then he ought rationally deliberate the opposite, it would be far less problematic. Unless, of course he couldn't, in which case the words would have inevitably caused him to think that way...but since words can't do that apparently, he's free to deliberate whatever he chooses to in response to those words.

I'm not an advocate of free speech as it's understood - the liberty to say whatever you want, to whomsoever you want, wherever and whenever you want. As you can see such a conceptualization of free speech is basically hostage to people's whims and fancy and it has, if history is a reliable witness, caused more problems than solved them. I'm afraid going down that road will spell trouble for all of us.

What I would prefer is what I've labeled as freedom of expression and by that I mean allowing people to find something they're good at, everyone has a nascent talent that just needs the proper environment to flourish, and let them go to town with it. This is a much more healthier form of freedom for it, as far as I can tell, encourages personal development and, at the same time, enriches society. Yes, there are risks in such a policy too and we must not forget matters of feasibility but if it achieves anything it must be a readjustment of people's focus on the crux of the matter - we want to express ourselves, speech is only one way of doing that and if we provide the right setting for expression in the many ways it can be achieved, I'm sure we'll all be better off.

Yes. It's called "being civilized". — baker

No. It's called being silenced by a mob.

So why the song and dance about free speech? — Isaac

I think there's probably something to Peter Tatchell's claim that these measures are in some part adopted for political advantage; but the reason insisting on free speech constitutes a political advantage is because, to use the well worn term, political correctness has gone mad. It's false and hypocritical - and seeks to cause division, outrage and distress.

You think the speech in question does not cause sufficient harm, others (in the universities) think it does. — Isaac

What speech in question? Does the word "blackmail" cause you distress? Because there are calls emanating from universities to censor all words using the term "black" in any negative way, even though the etymology of the word blackmail is Gaelic - bla-ich, and has nothing whatsoever to do with black people. Do you think that a reasonable limit on free speech?

On a more practical note, do you think it reasonable to impose the kind of cognitive burden on everyone, required to be aware and conscious of the ever growing mountain of verboten verbiage - lest some delicate little flower be offended?

We can bat these questions around all day, but I'm going to cut to the chase. What it comes down to is this, from Rawls A Theory of Justice:

"Principle of Equal Liberty: Each person has an equal right to the most extensive liberties compatible with similar liberties for all."

Imposing an obligation on me not to offend you, is not consistent with the most extensive liberties compatible with similar liberties for all. Rather, the obligation is on you to grow the fuck up!

Do you think that a reasonable limit on free speech? — counterpunch

I'm not actually commenting with the intention of discussing the matter with you, you've shown yourself to be completely uninterested in any empirical facts or rational argument therefrom and I've certainly no interest in hearing a fifth reading from your 'Stuff I Reckon'.

My comment was only aimed at showing how the use of polemical terms like 'free speech' is unhelpful when what we're really talking about is just balancing harms, like any other question of social activities.