Daily Archives: October 17, 2022

In a recent letter , associate professor of English at North Dakota State University, Anastassiya Andrianova, complains that conservative pundit Candace Owens will be speaking at NDSU on Oct. 17. She asserts that Owens promotes bigotry but does not provide a single example, likely because none exist.

Leftists have a filthy habit of calling everything under the sun bigotry in an attempt to poison the well and smear their political opponents without having to address the content of their arguments.

Andrianova claims that questioning the validity of an election and looking for fraud is antidemocratic. I disagree; wanting elections to be free, fair, and open is very pro-democracy. Im sure Andrianova doesnt feel the same way about Russia hosting elections in occupied eastern Ukraine on if those territories want to be annexed or not. I doubt shed call questioning those election results antidemocratic.

More importantly, and the purpose of this letter, is that Andrianova criticized North Dakota HB 1503 (passed in 2021) which protects the free speech of faculty and students, including student-sponsored guest speakers.

Specifically, what this bill does is require institutions to enact policy within a certain framework:

Andrianova questions if the intent of the legislature was to protect firebrand speakers. The additional fees that student organizations would face without this law usually take the form of security fees because the institution is concerned that a riot might break out in response to undesirable speech. Or at least thats the excuse institutions give when they want to dissuade that undesirable speech. I can say unequivocally that yes, it was definitely the intent of the legislature to protect firebrand speakers.

Thinking legal protections should only apply to a handful of government-approved viewpoints spits in the face of free speech.

Andrianova calls on readers to protest this campus engagement. She says the community should fight hate speech with more speech, but I have seen no evidence or any example that Owens spreads hate at all. I suggest the community listens to what she has to say first before they grab their pitchforks.

William Smith lives in Fargo.

This letter does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Forum's editorial board nor Forum ownership.

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Letter: Andrianova spits in the face of free speech - INFORUM

Barbara Leedom| Columnist

Words have always mattered, still do, and will even more as the midterm elections approach. Free speech is one of the most important guarantees in our democracy, but it is in peril. Some say free speech has always been dangerous to the speaker and to those to whom speakers direct their remarks.

It took a Supreme Court case to rule on free speech in 1919. In the case Schenck v. United States famed Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes coined phrases still used to define what is and isnt free speech fire in a theater and create a clear and present danger.

The case denied the petition of John Schenck, a man arrested for distributing pamphlets arguing against the legality of the draft. In those days pamphlets were popular methods to spread information and beliefs. Today its social media. Its the hundreds of thousands of blogs and posts and sites and platforms free to access by logging on or lurking in the background.

Users can voice their views, argue with people across the world, dispel misinformation, create misinformation, virtually yell at other users, find dates and mates, conspire with like-minded folks, write nasty things about anyone anywhere and expose themselves to ridicule and defamation. Libel and slander can result in serious, sometimes legal, repercussions.

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Social media sites are ratcheting up their efforts to dispel lies by those who post their opinions as facts.Meta (formerly Facebook), Twitter and TikTok released plans to look carefully at content involving the upcoming November elections. If the watchers at these companies deem content to be false, social media outlets can cancel accounts. Its happened.

According to a Meta fact sheet, the company has hundreds of people focused on the midterms across more than 40 teams and spent $5 billion on global safety and security last year.

Twitter said in a blog post it would label posts with misleading content or claims about voting, including false information about the outcome of an election.

Midterm election: Candidate profiles, voter information and more.

The Stop the Steal people, those who claim the 2020 presidential elections were stolen have no facts on which to base their claims. But that doesnt mean the movement is over. They believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that elections, national, state and local, were somehow rigged. Remember the phone call fromthen-President Trump to Georgias Secretary of State?He said hed won Georgia by hundreds of thousands of votes. Until now no investigations have found there was any manipulation of ballots in Georgia.

Now, after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, there are all kinds of threatening posts on social media sites. The magistrate who signed the arrest warrant and his family have been threatened. Anti-Semitic remarks have appeared on posts. Is this free speech? Is it the duty of the sites owners to take down obvious lies and slurs? Wheres the line between speeches and rants that incite violence? How far is too far?

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People who put themselves out there in public, who risk threats to themselves and their families are brave souls who (mostly) run for election because they want to change programs and policies currently in place in their towns, cities and states. They have whats called platforms in which they promise all kinds of things to everyone. They tout their accomplishments and taunt their opponents. Its politics.

Candidates running for the midterm elections this year best be careful about how they use words to talk about their viewsabout anything. They need to back up their claims, cite verified numbers, not defame theiropponents and tell the truth.

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When candidates talk about their rivals, they better authenticate their remarks with those in authority to verify the truth. Did Candidate A attend only one Governors Council meeting last year? Did Candidate B really take donations from the NRA?

Fuzzy comments distort but are not necessarily true or false. We voters should ask candidates to explain such comments as: He doesnt know what hes talking about. She is the supreme example of a bigot. He cheated. Shes off the wall. Hes been known to attend off-color establishments. Shes been seen at a violent demonstration. Hes all wet. Shes shading the truth. Hes an idiot. Shes just stupid. And so on and so on.

Words matter.

Barbara Leedom is a resident of South Yarmouth. Contact her atbleedom@gmail.com.

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Freedom of speech not a ticket to lie, especially during election time - Cape Cod Times

By Greg Varner

Three views of academic freedom were presented by a trio of speakers in the latest Useful Knowledge Workshop hosted virtually by George Washington Universitys Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Dwayne Kwaysee Wright, GSEHDs director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiatives and assistant professor of higher education administration, presented one of the three hourlong sessions and also moderated for the event as a whole.

Think of todays workshop as a buffet of ideas, Wright said. We want to expose you to different views.

The first session, dubbed Academic Freedom 101, was presented by Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education programs at PEN America, a nonprofit devoted to the defense of free expression. With so much energy being spent to portray todays campuses as intolerant of diverse views, Friedman offered a much more nuanced view of where we are and how we got here, as well as tips for encouraging open and respectful exchange on campus. His comments were informed by PEN Americas Campus Free Speech Guide.

Some of the key ideas Friedman presented were that free speech and the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) can be compatible values; that in an open and equitable society, knowledge institutionsschools, universities, bookstores, librarieshave unique obligations to these dual values; and that free speech is under threat in many locations worldwide, with people being imprisoned or even killed for their speech.

All societies, Friedman said, make decisions about how ideas can be expressed. The question is, where do we want to draw the line between total free expression on one side of the spectrum, and total regulation of speech on the other?

The United States is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, Friedman suggested. He briefly traced the role of various progressive movements (such as those pushing for birth control, sexual liberation, greater secularism, womens rights and workers rights) in the history of free speech gains in the United States. In 1860, Frederick Douglass gave a speech calling for freedom of speech as a bulwark against slavery.

Today, Friedman said, A lot of people are pushing in different directions when it comes to freedom of expression. From the left, there are calls to regulate hate speech or cancel use of language that some find harmful; on the right, there is concern about critical race theory, LGBTQ+ issues and actions deemed by some to be unpatriotic, such as kneeling during the national anthem.

As interpreted by the judiciary, Friedman added, some restrictions on speech are acceptable as long as they are neutrally and consistently enforced. On a college campus, its reasonable to insist that people not walk around shouting through bullhorns at night, so long as theres no explicitly political excuse for the restriction.

Around the world, the United States has the highest allowance for politically offensive speech, Friedman said, and for speech that really comes as far up to, and probably over, the line of decency that most people think of when they think of a civil, respectful society.

Since early in the previous century, there has been an effort to protect the freedom of professors to research and publish; to teach; to express internal criticism without losing their job; and to participate in public debate. Universities have usually been permitted to regulate these matters internally.

A lot of whats happening right now is deeply anti-intellectual, Friedman said. A lot of the people who are showing up at school board meetings and putting pressure to remove books dont seem to be very interested in compromise. In open, equitable, democratic societies, he added, We ought to be able to have open and equitable conversation.

Nonetheless, Friedman said, a degree of friction on campus is a positive good. Respect, he added, entails an obligation to understand what may cause offense and why, to avoid words and actions that do so, even when theres no intention to do so.

Critical race perspective

In the second hourlong session, Wright presented a critical race perspective. The central question he posed is: Whom does the First Amendment protect under our current jurisprudence, and who is left behind?

In a society as big as ours, as diverse as ours, where people have diverse views, we need freedom of speech, he said. In a democracy, if were not allowed to speak, we might as well not be allowed to vote.

After a brief explanation of critical race theory (CRT) as less a single theory than a way of looking at things as a whole, Wright proposed a hypothetical counter-story set in an imaginary state where both CRT and affirmative action have been banned. Wrights scenario illustrated his claim that a ban on CRT or on affirmative action is not neutral, despite the fact that enhancing neutrality is given as a rationale for such bans.

As a lawyer, I truly do believe in free speech, Wright said. I believe that the way to combat speech you dont like is with more speech.

Academic freedom is a special type of freedom of speech, Wright said, enforced more by contract and custom than by the courts. It refers to the ability of teachers, students, and educational institutions to pursue knowledge without unreasonable political or government interference.

If you want a marketplace of ideas, he concluded, maybe you should not restrict the marketplace.

A libertarian view

In the final session, a libertarian perspective was offered by Adam Kissel, visiting fellow on higher education reform at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

People are drawn to the university environment, Kissel said, because they want to take part in a communal search for truth. Privileging another value, such as social justice, over the truth is like being at a religious institution, which chooses its own truth as a starting point.

The university, he said, can be conceptualized as nested spheres of academic freedom. Trustees and university leadership may require faculty members to behave in a certain way; similarly, deans and department heads may impose additional requirements. Each academic discipline imposes its own restraints; in Kissels example, a history professor isnt permitted to teach a chemistry class.

These nested spheres continue downward to the classroom, where a professor exercises considerable freedom within given constraints. Students also have freedom. The best government, in liberal theory, permits maximum freedom for the individual.

You get to say what you want, and what you say is protected, just like any other person, Kissel said. The point is to be able to argue together and think together. We need one another to challenge our ideas and see mistakes in our own reasonings so that we can try to do better. Reasons and reasonings are what matters. Even when an opponent is entirely wrong, he added, it can help us sharpen our arguments.

The workshop concluded with a question-and-answer session hosted by Wright and Christy Anthony, GWs director of student rights and responsibility. What, Wright asked her, should students know about academic freedom?

If I had the ear of every student, I would want to share a couple of things, Anthony said. GWs statement on student rights and responsibilities explicitly states that academic freedom is not only freedom to teach and research, but also freedom to learn; and it is viewed as a requirement for a full exploration of ideas, sometimes even offensive ideas.

As with any form of speech, she added, there are limits. Freedom of speech is not a limitless right, neither for faculty nor for students, but it is a preeminent value of the institution. Fully exploring ideas, and controversial ones, is essential for learning.

See more here:
Three Perspectives on Academic Freedom | GW Today | The George Washington University - GW Today

Will Bunch| The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)

The one contribution that the Proud Boys the mostly white-boy street thugs who arrived on the scene around the same time, not coincidentally, as the political ambitions of their hero Donald Trump and the movement's Canadian founder Gavin McInnes have made to the canon of modern intellectual thought is that society needs a bloody punch in the nose.

"I want violence," McInnes, who has clung to a veneer of respectability for also founding the magazine that became Vice, proclaimed on his talk show in the spring of 2016, as Trump was claiming the GOP presidential nomination. "I want punching in the face. I'm disappointed in Trump supporters for not punching enough." Those words came just before McInnes publicly announced he'd organized his followers into the Proud Boys gang.

McInnes was presumably less disappointed over the next six years as he watched his ambitions translated into blood-soaked bedlam first in street clashes with leftists, like a 2018 brawl outside a GOP-sponsored event in Manhattan (for which two Proud Boys were sent to prison), and ultimately for the group's critical role in the Jan. 6 insurrection that aimed to keep Trump in power, a day that left five dead and scores wounded.

More:Penn State officials criticize student group's event with Proud Boys founder

More:Judge: Proud Boys leaders dangerous, must be jailed before trial in Capitol attack

More:Did Secret Service drop the ball before Jan. 6?

The government of Canada got it right, in my opinion, when it listed the Proud Boys as a terrorist organization.

But last week, the leadership of Pennsylvania's flagship state-supported university, Penn State, went in a different direction citing free speech grounds for allowing McInnes to co-headline a campus event on Oct. 24 that's being billed as "a comedy show." The program called "Stand Back and Stand By," which was Trump's televised message to the Proud Boys weeks ahead of Jan. 6 is even being supported by some $7,522.43 in student-activity funds, which will mainly be an "honorarium" to McInnes and co-host Alex Stein.

"As a recognized student organization, Uncensored America has the undeniable constitutional right to sponsor this presentation on our campus," three high-ranking Penn State administrators wrote of the group backing McInnes' appearance, adding the seemingly obligatory disclaimer against the "repugnant and denigrating rhetoric" of the Proud Boys founder. In this instance, I think Penn State's leadership is getting it terribly wrong.

Liberals and conservatives can or should, anyway agree that free speech on campus has not only become a fraught issue in the 21st century, but that we've been struggling mightily to get it right. My own personal views on university discourse were shaped as a boomer growing up in the shadow of the 1964 Berkeley Free Speech movement, in an era in which administrators sought to treat students as children, not as adults with political free expression. It was fitting that the Berkeley protests, while led by folks on the left like Mario Savio, also had support from campus conservatives.

Exhibit A: That lofty ideal is struggling today. Many young people have come to see what some call "free speech" as a cover for maintaining noxious hierarchies like racism or misogyny with someone like a Gavin McInnes serving as Exhibit A. I've applauded the college kids who've showed up to protest the toxic views of such right-wing speakers, but yet I also feel it crosses a line when speakers are shut down altogether, or when activists steal copies of a campus newspaper.

I'm on record with columns criticizing the students at Berkeley, of all places who silenced the odious Ann Coulter in 2017, and the University of Missouri communications professor who bizarrely blocked journalists from covering a protest in 2015. My grossly unrealized fantasy is a new campus paradigm around speech one that allows oxygen for activists to beat down racism and sexism while also upholding the Spirit of 1964.

At the core of this debate is a staggeringly simple notion: That colleges and universities were created to study, formulate, and debate ideas especially controversial ones. The even greater ideal is the most noble concept that intellectual discourse not violence is the one true and moral way for humankind to solve its problems. Which is what makes Penn State handing a microphone to a violence advocate like McInnes and tossing some of its tapped-out students' cash his way in the process such a mockery of academic freedom.

Indeed, it's telling that, according to reporting by the Huffington Post's Andy Campbell also author of the just-published history of the group, We Are Proud Boys the Penn State organizers essentially fibbed in claiming that McIness has mostly "veered away" from recent direct ties with the Proud Boys. Instead, Campbell presents evidence that McInnes is continuing to play a leadership role, as the Proud Boys' leader at the time of Jan. 6 insurrection, Enrique Tarrio, remains sidelined as he awaits trial on sedition charges.

The lack of daylight between McInnes and the Proud Boys organization means that Penn State is platforming a fascist-style, increasingly paramilitary type group that criminal investigations are showing was deeply tied to the idea of a violent coup against the U.S. government certainly on Jan. 6, if not today. Last week, another leader, Jeremy Bertino, pled guilty to seditious conspiracy and admitted the Proud Boys were fighting to block the peaceful transition of power to President Biden, stating in his plea that members "were willing to do whatever it would take, including using force against police and others, to achieve that objective."

What's to debate?: Given that, can Penn State platforming a Proud Boys founder and leader be justified as part of the open exchange of ideas? Not when the group has failed to espouse anything worthy of intellectual debate during these six years. That is, of course, unless you find academic worth in rank misogyny Campbell and others have documented the hatred for women that flows from McInnes and his followers, who call themselves "Western chauvinists" and the notion that America's moral problems can be solved with a few right hooks.

I reached out to the Philadelphia political activist Gwen Snyder, a leading researcher of right-wing, antidemocratic involvement in political activity here in the city and elsewhere. For her work in highlighting the Proud Boys' activities, group members chose to "intellectually engage" with Snyder over the years by visiting her home, badgering her neighbors, putting up Proud Boys' stickers outside her home, and finally posting her photo online with the threat that she was "done in Philly." A member of the Proud Boys then-40-year-old Kyle Boell of Northeast Philadelphia was arrested in 2021 and charged with harassment and making terrorist threats against Snyder.

"They made violent threats against my family, they dared each other to rape me in their national Telegram chat," Snyder told me. "All because I spoke in ways they didn't like." Not surprisingly, Snyder sees the group gaining a platform at Penn State as part of a strategy that doesn't advance free speech, but destroys it.

She said that "to offer the founder of this violent white supremacist gang a platform in the name of 'free speech' isn't just ridiculous, it's part of the broader fascist project of abusing the language of liberal democracy ('free speech,' 'tolerance') in order to ultimately make that language meaningless. It's not just hypocrisy. It's their strategy for systematically undermining these values."

Exactly. What's more, it's hard not to think that McInnes and his allies didn't choose both their location State College, on a campus surrounded by the counties that went so heavily for Trump in the last two elections and the timing (15 days ahead of two of the nation's most-watched midterm elections) with the idea not of winning converts through their "humor," but with the hope of fomenting even more violence. That would be an awful stain on the Penn State community.

No wonder that so far more than 1,400 signers with the Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity at Penn State have demanded that the university reverse course and cancel the campus event, arguing that the school should not be "platforming fascists." I hope their effort succeeds.

The Proud Boys are not some random group. They sit at the heart of a movement to undermine American democracy the very thing that allows open academic discourse at Penn State to exist in its first place. The only thing worse than watching this demolition take place would be writing a $7,522.43 check to the wrecking crew.

Will Bunch is national columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Read more here:
Proud Boys' only 'idea' is violence. Penn State is wrong to give its leader a platform - York Dispatch