Daily Archives: May 3, 2022

In summary

Assembly Bill 2408 proposes to punish popular social media platforms for editorial content promotion decisions. But it violates fundamental rights and must not become law.

Adam Sieff is a First Amendment and constitutional litigator, a lecturer in law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, and vice president of the American Constitution Society in Los Angeles.

If California passed a law exposing major newspaper publishers to liability for the selection, arrangement and promotion of articles they print, it would obviously violate the First Amendment. So why are some state lawmakers advancing Assembly Bill 2408, which proposes precisely the same type of unconstitutional penalties for major internet publishers?

The bill is well-intended, and aims to promote the mental and emotional well-being of young people on the internet. But to achieve these worthy ends, AB 2408 proposes to punish popular social media platforms when their editorial content promotion decisions can be shown to cause young audiences to suffer injuries.

That proposal violates core speech rights, and legislators must not allow it to become law in its current form.

The U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the First Amendment protects publishers decisions to select, arrange and promote content to audiences as a basic exercise of their editorial control and judgment. The protection applies regardless of the medium of communication publishers use to convey information, whether they run a newspaper, cable network, website or social network. And the court has expressly held that the amendment applies to online speech and content moderation practices.

Critically, the rule prevents California, or any state, from enacting a law that would penalize an internet publisher for exercising its judgment about what kinds of content to publish and promote to its audience, just as it prevents California from enacting a law punishing a newspaper for its decisions about what to print on the front page.

It makes no legal difference that social media platforms often create algorithms to apply their editorial judgments. An algorithm is just a set of pre-programmed editorial rules that reflects value judgments made by real people about the kind of content to display and promote.

To punish a platforms algorithmic promotion of popular content is, as a constitutional matter, no different than punishing CalMatters for recommending stories to particular users based on their browsing and reading history. Nor, ultimately, is it any different from punishing a tabloid magazine for publishing prurient content on its front page.

The fact that AB 2408 endeavors to protect young audiences is also, from a legal perspective, irrelevant. The First Amendment prohibits the imposition of legal penalties that restrict the ideas to which certain audiences may be exposed, and the general exercise of editorial discretion cannot be suppressed solely to protect young people from content or ideas that a government censor considers unsuitable.

While one cannot deny that these are difficult times to be a young person, and few policies are more important than those that advance the health and prospects of future generations, AB 2408 is the wrong remedy. Permitting California to punish social media platforms editorial decisions, as the measure proposes, would equally permit governments to punish newspapers and magazines, as well as authors of choose-your-own-adventure stories, video games and, arguably, any kind of literature if a plaintiff could establish injuries suffered from those authors editorial choices a prospect the Supreme Court rejected in 2011, the last time California attempted to restrict the publication of content to young audiences (in that instance, video games).

There are better ways to achieve AB 2408s goals that are consistent with the First Amendment values that define our open society. Earlier concerns over new forms of unsettling but constitutionally protected media, including comic books, movies, rock music, cable programming and video games, offer instruction.

After courts rejected attempts like AB 2408 to punish the publishers of these different types of content, governments, publishers, schools and civil society groups came together to develop rating systems, parental controls and public information campaigns to allow families to make informed choices about their media consumption.

The constitutionally required solution to concerns over new forms of speech, in other words, is more speech, not less. Californias lawmakers should embrace that approach and reject AB 2408, at least as written today.

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Crimping free speech is the wrong way to rein in social media - CalMatters

Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of a healthy, functioning democracy. A nation demonstrates the value it places on human dignity when each person can speak freely and express themselves through speech, art, literature and other means of expression.

We recently interviewed experts about this essential freedom, exploring topics like the rise of the internet as a vehicle for expression, the state of free speech on college campuses, and the challenges facing freedom of the press globally. The calls to action that we gleaned from those experts include these recommendations to bolster freedom of expression:

BIG TECH

Ukrainians keep using the digital world to rally one another and inform the world about Russias invasion. Meanwhile, Russia uses its own internet tools to spread disinformation about its moves in Ukraine.

These dualities highlight why U.S. and Western policymakers and technology leaders must strike the right balance in modernizing the internet. They must protect freedom of expression and the free flow of information while curtailing the spread of disinformation and the worst aspects of social media use.

This is no easy balance to strike, but it is best left to the private sector to strike it. A good example is Facebooks Oversight Board. The independent panel consists of leaders and experts who dont need to kowtow to any potential threat to their decision making. That is a good place to start, although Facebook or any other tech company cannot use such a board as window dressing.

The private sector also can attack this challenge through innovation. Freedom Houses Adrian Shahbaz emphasized to us how WhatsApp made end-to-end encryption the standard for its more than 1 billion users. That is a greater protection of privacy than a government regulation.

Still, elected leaders and regulators have a role to play. Congress, for example, should continue working on revamping Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Written in the late 1990s, that section rightly protected the emerging internet from the liability laws governing traditional news organizations.

Legislators should reconsider that exemption since social media platforms have become a go-to source for information, including disinformation.

Similarly, the United States and its democratic allies must thwart China and autocratic nations from rewriting the rules of the internet. Their attempts to do so in global forums could result in a body blow to freedom of expression.

FREE SPEECH ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES

Free speech in a diverse society needs citizens to engage with others, even if those engagements are uncomfortable. Without such exposure, were tempted to shut out everything with which we disagree.

Breaking down our bubbles is especially important for college students who hail from homogenous backgrounds. They often lack the skills to engage with classmates with different experiences and views.

Students themselves have the responsibility to act. Yet university administrators should create opportunities for engagements to occur as early as college orientation sessions. Administrators also must not shy away from inevitable controversies. As Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill, director of the Bipartisan Policy Centers Campus Free Expression Project told us, Having controversial expression is not a sign of

failure.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

Russias suppression of a free press during the Ukraine war underscores Vladimir Putins disregard for a free press. No independent media organization remains in Russia. That includes Novaya Gazeta, for which editor Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his commitment to independent reporting.

In our own hemisphere, an alarming challenge to freedom of the press exists. Eight Mexican journalists already have been murdered this year.

Guatemalan journalist Sofia Menchu explained in an interview how authorities in her country attempt to suppress an independent media. For instance, Guatemalan leaders use lawsuits against journalists to get them to censor themselves before publishing a story or commentary.

Journalists like Menchu need leaders from President Joe Biden to members of Congress to State Department officials to decry attempts to crack down on a free press in Guatemala, Central America and elsewhere. As she said, international governments and organizations can help journalists enjoy freedom of speech.

U.S. lawmakers also should adequately fund organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy and U.S. Agency for International Development. Part of their democracy-building work is growing a free press abroad. Likewise, legislators should effectively support taxpayer-funded organizations such as

Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. They provide valuable, factual information to people in nations that lack uncensored news.

These recommendations have a simple goal: enhancing a flow of reliable information and ensuring a robust marketplace of ideas. After all, that is essential to creating and maintaining a vibrant democracy.

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How to Protect and Enhance Freedom of Expression InsideSources - InsideSources

As one of the millions of Egyptians who took to the streets demanding Bread, Freedom, and Social Justice during the Arab Spring, I experienced firsthand the very best and the worst that Twitter has to offer.

When the government took control of the media, shut down the internet, and cracked down on dissent, we the people found refuge on Twitter to plan protests, notify protesters of changing routes and safe locations, and keep a record of people who were arrested or killed. But just as the government unleashed security forces to physically attack us in Tahrir Square, so too they came after us online, launching a coordinated wave of abuse and disinformation to intimidate and silence journalists and activists.

What we naively considered a safe space on Twitter turned into a nightmare of coordinated harassment and disinformation. The constant threat and the level of anxiety and fear dictatorial regimes inflict on anyone who opposes them lead many people to self-censor or leave the journalism profession.

Like so many journalists and human rights defenders, I am deeply concerned about Elon Musks potential takeover of Twitter. When Musk describes social media as a digital town square for public debate and asserts that Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, who could disagree? I have risked my life to freely express my demand for human rights and advocate for democracy. Today, as an exile in the United States, I work for the free speech advocacy organisation PEN America to keep writers and journalists safe online and off.

Musks understanding of free speech implies that the playing field is level and that we are all treated equally and safely online, which is why I can say with absolute certainty that getting rid of all guardrails on Twitter including meaningful content moderation policies and processes wilfully ignores the ways in which rampant online abuse chills free expression.

People are targeted not only for what they say online but often simply for being outspoken members of a particular group for their race, their faith, their gender identity, their sexual orientation, and their disability. If women and minorities, reporters and human rights defenders are pushed off digital platforms because of severe and constant abuse, then public debates are left to the most privileged few with the loudest voices. If Twitter is where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated, the question is who matters in these debates.

If Elon Musk is serious about making Twitter a safe haven for free speech for all, he needs to remember that social media is a critical tool used by journalists, dissidents, and activists around the world to speak truth to power. And those in power cynically deploy coordinated harassment and disinformation campaigns to undermine the free press and de-platform dissent.

Over the course of its history, Twitter has prioritised American and English-speaking users over the safety of Black and brown people and others from marginalised communities globally. The platform has been exceedingly slow to put meaningful policies and features in place to better protect its most vulnerable users. After a decade of tireless advocacy from civil society and activists, Twitter has finally started to make progress in recent years to address abuse and disinformation. But there is still much work to be done, including: giving people the option to filter the abusive content they receive so they can review and address it later, with the help of trusted allied individuals; making it easier to document online abuse; making it easier for people to separate their personal and professional identities online and allow them to control their privacy settings accordingly.

When voices are silenced and speech is chilled, public discourse suffers. Freedom of expression and user agency do not exist without safety and protection online. By reducing the harmful effect of online harassment, platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram can ensure that social media becomes more open and equitable for all users.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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We need Twitter guardrails that protect lives and free speech - Al Jazeera English

Eighty-four percent of American adults say it is a very serious or somewhat serious problem that Americans are refraining from speaking freely because of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism.

The New York Times Editorial Board cited this study, commissioned with Siena College, along with a statement defending freedom of speech as vital for the search for truth and knowledge. When the board did so, critics balked. Several journalists condemned the New York Times for endorsing bothsidesism.

What is bothsidesism? The word is a recent addition to our cultural lexicon. It refers to the journalistic practice of presenting both sides of an argument. The alleged problem with this practice is that it tends to bestow on controversial views an intellectual or moral credibility they otherwise would not have.

According to one writer in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the disease of bothsidesism is evident in the Times case because it advertises a false equivalence. It places equal blame on both the political left and on the political right for promoting an environment hostile to open discourse.

In other words, progressive critics of bothsidesism argue that cancel culture on the left poses far less of a danger to free speech than attempts in right-leaning state legislatures to determine, by law, what can and cannot be taught in K-12 classrooms and public universities. A City University of New York professor calls this bothsidesism appalling because it equates the left criticizing hate and the right burning books .

The opposite of bothsidesism, of course, is onesideism. And that is what journalists are doing when they habitually exculpate one political party and charge another with all that ails the country.

It is certainly easier to congregate with like-minded people to dwell within, and speak within, our own echo chambers, so that our favored views go unchallenged.

There is, however, no free speech without bothsidesism. There is no genuine public political discourse without bothsidesism.

If we want to cultivate healthy civil discourse and make strides toward truth, we must practice bothsidesism. The ancient skeptics can help us understand why this is the case.

The academic skeptics, who were followers of Socrates, did not shy away from the hard work of engaging in for-and-against argumentation for the sake of finding views that, if not true, at least resemble truth and serve as suitable guides for thought and action.

The academic skeptics practiced bothsidesism for the sake of intellectual integrity and freedom from falsehood.

It is our practice to say what we think against every position, the Roman philosopher Cicero maintained. And the reason for this is simple: We want to discover truth.

The early modern French skeptic Pierre Bayle differentiated between philosophers who acted as reporters and those who acted as advocates. The advocate hides the weakness of his view and the strength of his opponents view. The reporter, meanwhile, represents the strong and the weak arguments of the two opposite parties faithfully, and without any partiality.

Bayle thought the philosopher, like the historian, should act as a reporter. And this would seem to apply to journalists, too.

To the extent that the reporter advocates a cause, it should occur after one has laid out the arguments for the reader and sided with the one that seems most persuasive. This method, while not guaranteeing impartiality, at least promotes the kind of intellectual modesty and integrity necessary for good-faith public deliberation.

The 18th-century British philosopher David Hume was an admirer of both Bayle and Cicero. He weighed pros and cons of the party positions of the Whigs and the Tories the parties of his day. He thought this approach would teach us a lesson of moderation in all our political controversies.

Through the practice of for-and-against argumentation, we might improve our own thinking and cultivate the art of discernment. That is one advantage of the liberal arts, which Hume argued softens and humanizes the temper. As the ancient Roman poet Ovid remarked: A faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.

The attempt to silence political opponents has an element of cruelty about it and it certainly dehumanizes ourselves and our political enemies. Universities, formerly bastions for the study of liberal arts, now tend to prioritize political advocacy over sound political judgment. And this has produced the kind of self-righteous zeal that has flooded journalistic outlets and that has damaged the quality of public political debate.

In the Tocqueville Program at Furman University, we strive, as Tocqueville did, to see, not differently, but further than the parties. This calls for the practice of bothsidesism, a prerequisite of citizenship in a democratic republic, no matter how unpopular it may seem at the moment. Onesideism, on the other hand, is a formula for stifling speech, not encouraging it.

Aaron Alexander Zubia is a postdoctoral fellow in the Tocqueville Program at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.

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National View: There is no free speech without 'bothsidesism' - Duluth News Tribune

To adjust the sample to reflect proportionally the composition of the U.S. population for the data used in the Free Speech graph, a sample of the population was taken with weights applied to 8 categories with 26 subgroups. The groups are: gender (2 subgroups), age (4 subgroups), region (4 subgroups), party identification (3 subgroups), political view (3 subgroup), race/ethnicity (4 subgroups), area (3 subgroups) and income (3 subgroups).

BIAS vs. STATISTICAL BIAS

Bias is the tendency to favor one thing over another. Statistical bias is the tendency of a statistic to overestimate or underestimate the actual value of a population characteristic of interest. Statistical bias may be caused by factors involved in the study design and in the data collection.

In the Free Speech graph, the statistical bias relates to how the poll was taken, including the over- or under-sampling of the subgroups, the use of a phone survey, and the wording and ordering of the questions. Statistical bias from the over- or under-sampling was reduced by weighting their responses.

MARGIN OF ERROR (MOE)

Because sample surveys include only some members of a population of interest, surveys are only able to provide an estimate of the actual value. Usually, for a sample, an interval of values that is likely to include the actual value of the population parameter is given, rather than just the value of the sample statistic. This range is determined by the sample statistic plus or minus the margin of error (MOE). (Note that the MOE does not compensate for errors resulting from flawed survey methods, such as using an unrepresentative sample, responders not telling the truth, or faulty wording of the question.) The margin of error is calculated by using a formula that includes the desired confidence level (the confidence that the sample interval includes the actual value) and the sample size. A MOE of 3% is typical in large national polls, using a 95% confidence level and a sample size slightly more than 1,000.

In the Free Speech graph, the sample statistics for the sample of 1,507 have a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent. Though the confidence level is not stated, it is reasonable to assume that it is the standard 95 percent. Statistically speaking, we are 95% confident that the actual value of each statistic is between the percentages shown in the graph plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. For example, looking at the overall sample with 40 percent of responding that there is a very serious problem with exercising freedom of speech, we are 95 percent confident that the actual value of the share of the overall population who believe that there is a very serious problem with free speech is between 36.9% (40% - 3.1% = 36.9%) and 43.1% (40% + 3.1% = 43.1%).

________

The graph for Whats Going On in This Graph? is selected in partnership with Sharon Hessney. Ms. Hessney wrote the reveal and Stat Nuggets with Roxy Peck, professor emerita, California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, and moderates online with Tara Truesdale, who teaches math and statistics at Ben Lippen School in Columbia, South Carolina.

________

The graph for Whats Going On in This Graph? is selected in partnership with Sharon Hessney. Ms. Hessney wrote the reveal and Stat Nuggets with Roxy Peck, professor emerita, California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, and moderates online with Tara Truesdale, who teaches math and statistics at Ben Lippen School in Columbia, South Carolina.

More?

See all graphs in this series or collections of 60 of our favorite graphs, 28 graphs that teach about inequality and 24 graphs about climate change.

View our archives that link to all past releases, organized by topic, graph type and Stat Nugget.

Learn more about the notice and wonder teaching strategy from this 5-minute video and how and why other teachers are using this strategy from our on-demand webinar.

Sign up for our free weekly Learning Network newsletter so you never miss a graph. Graphs are always released by the Friday before the Wednesday live-moderation to give teachers time to plan ahead.

Go to the American Statistical Association K-12 website, which includes teacher statistics resources, Census in the Schools student-generated data, professional development opportunities, and more.

Students 13 and older in the United States and the Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

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Whats Going On in This Graph? | Free Speech - The New York Times

It's easy to overstate, but attitudes towards freedom of action differ in the United States and the European Union. Americans tend to believe that people have a right to make their own decisions and are better trusted to do so than coercive governments; Europeans place more faith in the state, allowing room for personal choice only after officialdom installs guardrails and files away sharp edges. Yes, that exaggerates the case and there are plenty of dissenters under both systems, but it captures the treatment of speech and online conduct in the EU's new Digital Services Act.

"Today's agreement on the Digital Services Act is historic, both in terms of speed and of substance," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen commented on April 23. "The DSA will upgrade the ground-rules for all online services in the EU. It will ensure that the online environment remains a safe space, safeguarding freedom of expression and opportunities for digital businesses. It gives practical effect to the principle that what is illegal offline, should be illegal online. The greater the size, the greater the responsibilities of online platforms."

There's a lot in the proposed law, as you would expect of wide-ranging legislation paired with a companion bill addressing digital markets. The overall tone is of micromanagement of online spaces with dire consequences for platforms that fail to protect users from "illegal and harmful content" as defined by the government. Those who violate the rules by, for example, repeatedly failing to scrub forbidden material in timely fashion, face massive fines or expulsion from the EU market. Of course, no matter official assurances, speech hemmed in by red tape and subject to official oversight in monitored spaces isn't especially "free" at all, which is a contradiction recognized by critics.

"The DSA does not strike the right balance between countering genuine online harms and safeguarding free speech," Jacob Mchangama, the executive director of Copenhagen-based human-rights think tank Justitia, warns in Foreign Policy. "It will most likely result in a shrinking space for online expression, as social media companies are incentivized to delete massive amounts of perfectly legal content."

Mchangama is the author of the recently published Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media, which Katrina Gulliver reviewed for the May issue of Reason. He's familiar with differing attitudes towards speech around the world. In particular, he understands that the American approach leaves speakers more room, while the European approach favors those who impose constraints.

"While free speech is protected by both the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, these legal instruments offer governments much greater leeway than the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution when it comes to defining categories, such as hate speech, that can be regulated," he adds in the Foreign Policy piece. "Nor does European law provide as robust protection against intermediary liability as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields U.S. online platforms from liability for most user-generated content."

But the danger isn't just to Europeans who voice edgy opinions or manage online forums; it's to the whole world through the "Brussels Effect." That is, it's easier for large platforms like Facebook to apply Europe's tight rules to everybody than it is for them to vary rules by country, which is complicated and risks the wrath of EU regulators when speech inevitably bleeds across digital borders.

Of course, some people hope that the Digital Services Act becomes a global standard. Just as Mchangama is a European who sees free speech as a right that favors the powerless over those in authority, there are American fans of the EU approach who want officialdom to exercise more control.

Reacting to the announced sale of Twitter to Elon Musk, The New Yorker's John Cassidy objects that "Musk seems intent on taking Twitter back to the not at all distant era when social media was a free-for-all." He sniffily dismisses that prospect as unacceptable. For proper regulation of speech, he suggests "the E.U. has just provided a road map for how it could be done: by putting the onus on social-media companies to monitor and remove harmful content, and hit them with big fines if they don't."

"Musk would surely object to the U.S. adopting a regulatory system like the one that the Europeans are drawing up, but that's too bad. The health of the Internetand, most important, democracyis too significant to leave to one man, no matter how rich he is."

But, as the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. warned in 2019, "the dangers of social media company, legislative and 'watchdog'-backed mandates to censor speech and otherwise regulate 'harmful content' are themselves the harms facing the Internet of today and the splinternet of tomorrow. Some authoritarian-minded interventionists seek a pre-ordained deplatforming of unpopular ideas and controversial debate and even pretend they protect democracy."

Such restrictions put the definition of "harmful" in the hands of self-serving political operatives and favor large established and, yes, rich companies, for whom compliance is easier, over smaller firms.

"Social media giants and international governments engaging in censorious consultative alliances and frameworks incorporating politically derived norms threaten free expression even in the U.S.," Crews added.

Justitia made a similar point about Germany's censorious 2017 NetzDG law. "In under a year, the number of countries copy-pasting the NetzDG matrix to provide cover and legitimacy for digital censorship and repression has almost doubled to a total of 25," the think tank noted. The German law inspired copycat "measures to combat vaguely defined categories of hate speech and fake news by placing responsibility on the social media platforms for user content."

Beyond the framework of individual rights, the practical argument for free speech is that the powers-that-be can't be trusted to distinguish "good" speech from "bad speech" and to ban only that which is harmful. As Justitia emphasizes, that has already happened with NetzDG. There's no reason to expect a less authoritarian outcome from the Digital Services Act which borrows much from the German law.

Mchangama proposes using human-rights law as a benchmark for speech regulation, though he concedes that it's "not a panacea." More promising is his suggestion for "distributed content moderation" including "voluntary filters that individual users could apply at will." People could decide for themselves what is "harmful" and block or engage as they pleased. That might satisfy everybody except those most invested in controlling others.

Fans of regulated speech always seem to envision the regulators as sharing their own sensibilities in the exercise of censorship powers; they never imagine themselves being muzzled. But the "free for all" to which they object means freedom for them as much as for everybody else, and if they get what they want they may come to miss it as much as the rest of us.

See the rest here:
Europe Escalates the Threat to Online Free Speech - Reason

Last year, a Texas historical association named me educator of the year. In January, my college fired me.

Im a professor of American history at Collin College in Plano, Texas. For almost 15 years, I have loved teaching, sponsoring student organizations, winning grants and awards for my scholarship, and earning excellent evaluations from students and administrators alike.

But on May 15, my career will end. I never imagined I would lose my job because I shared knowledge.

In August, while teaching about the history of pandemics, I gently encouraged my students to consider wearing masks to keep themselves and others safe from a deadly pandemic. No mandates. No punishment for not wearing a mask. I simply offered advice.

For that, I received a pink slip.

For years, Collin College has worked tirelessly to erode free expression.

In 2017, I co-wrote an opinion piece, published by this newspaper, calling for the removal of Confederate monuments. I was warned that my advocacy might make the college look bad.

In 2019, I gave an interview with The Washington Post as an expert on the history of race relations in Dallas, after a former Collin College student was arrested in the 2019 El Paso shooting that killed 23. I was disciplined by the college for granting an interview.

Sadly, I am not alone.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which is representing me in a lawsuit against Collin College, estimates that there were more than 570 incidents over the past seven years in which scholars were targeted for some type of professional punishment when they exercised constitutionally protected speech. In more than 20 percent of the cases, the professors were terminated.

This trend is not limited to one end of the political spectrum. Professors across the country, representing diverse viewpoints, are routinely punished for their constitutionally-protected speech.

Collin College has become an epicenter of the war on free speech in higher education, with four professors fired there over the past two years. One professor was fired for criticizing Mike Pence after work hours, on her private Twitter feed during the 2020 vice presidential debate. Another lost her job after publicly calling for the college to post a COVID dashboard. A third was canned when she was listed on the statewide Texas Faculty Associations website as a contact person for the nascent local chapter being organized by Collin College faculty members. All these professors were beloved and acclaimed educators.

Collin Colleges actions have prompted an investigation by the American Association of University Professors and two years of passionate protests, including a free speech rally held last Tuesday night that drew two dozen to the colleges Board of Trustees meeting. Nevertheless, the institutions leadership has refused to budge.

Meanwhile, the chilling climate of censorship, and the fear of addressing subjects that might offend somebody, sometime, somewhere started with K-12 classrooms and has now reached graduate programs.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, concerned that Marxists are supposedly poisoning the minds of college students, proposed banning tenure for new professors. Tenure is a system designed to protect professors from being fired because the topics they research or the conclusions they draw are unpopular at the moment. Patricks proposal could cause a serious brain drain in the state.

College classrooms should be where students get their final lessons in how to cope with, learn from, and respond to competing ideas and how to empathize with those who have different experiences before they emerge into the larger world. Students are being robbed of the opportunity to learn those lessons at institutions of higher education across the nation.

Threats to democracy do not have to come in the form of a Russian tank or exploding missiles. Freedom can be fatally eroded, slowly but relentlessly. A professor is fired here, a principal forced to retire there, a book is banned or an idea forbidden elsewhere. Soon the crumbling edifice of a flawed but once-vibrant republic collapses.

Michael Phillips is a history professor at Collin College, and author of White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001. He wrote this for The Dallas Morning News.

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I'm one of the professors Collin College fired in its attack on free speech - The Dallas Morning News