Daily Archives: January 12, 2024

People often extol the virtue of open-mindedness, but can there be too much of a good thing?

As a college dean, I regularly observe campus controversies about the Israel-Hamas war, race relations and other hot-button issues. Many of these concern free speech what students, faculty and invited speakers should and shouldnt be allowed to say.

But free speech disputes arent merely about permission to speak. They are about who belongs at the table and whether there are limits to the viewpoints we should listen to, argue with or allow to change our minds. As a philosopher who works on culture war issues, Im particularly interested in what free-speech disputes teach about the value of open-mindedness.

Free-speech advocates often find inspiration in the 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, who argued for what we might call a big tent approach: engaging with a variety of viewpoints, including those that strike you as mistaken. After all, Mill wrote, you could be wrong. And even if youre right, the clash of opinions can sharpen your reasons.

Some critics believe that Mills arguments havent worn well, especially in an age of demagoguery and fake news. Do I really need to listen to people who believe the Earth is flat? Holocaust deniers? My relatives crackpot conspiracy theories at the holiday dinner table? Whose benefit would such openness serve?

The primary argument for the big tent approach is rooted in intellectual humility: properly recognizing the limitations to what each of us knows. In one sense, it is a recognition of human fallibility which, when combined with hubris, can have disastrous results.

More positively, intellectual humility is aspirational: Theres a lot yet to learn. Importantly, intellectual humility does not mean that one lacks moral convictions, let alone the desire to persuade others of those convictions.

Having spent several decades advocating for same-sex marriage including participating in dozens of campus debates and two point-counterpoint books Im convinced of the value of engagement with the other side. At the same time, Im acutely aware of its costs. All things considered, I believe that the marketplace of ideas should err on the side of a big tent.

The contemporary philosopher Jeremy Fantl is among those concerned about the big tents costs. In his book The Limitations of the Open Mind, Fantl notes that some arguments are cleverly deceptive, and engaging with them open-mindedly can actually undermine knowledge. Imagine a hard-to-follow mathematical proof, its flaw difficult to spot, that indicates 2 + 2 = 5.

Interestingly, Fantl sees his stance as consistent with intellectual humility: No one is an expert on everything, and were all unlikely to spot fallacies in complex deceptive arguments outside our expertise.

Theres another worrisome cost to engaging with deceptive counterarguments: Some of them harm people. To engage open-mindedly with Holocaust denial, for example to treat it as an option on the table is to fail to express appropriate solidarity with Jews and other victims of the Nazi regime. More than giving offense, engaging those views could make someone complicit in ongoing oppression, possibly by undermining education about genocide and ethnic cleansing.

What about closed-minded engagement that is, engaging with opposing viewpoints simply in order to refute them publicly?

Fantl grants that such engagement can have value but worries that it is often ineffective or dishonest. Ineffective, if you tell your opponents from the outset Youre not going to change my mind a conversation-stopper if anything is. Dishonest, if you pretend to engage open-mindedly when youre really not.

In my view, Fantl misunderstands the goals of engagement and thus sets up a false contrast between open- and closed-mindedness. Theres a space between these two extremes and that may be where the most constructive conversations happen.

Consider again my same-sex marriage advocacy. When I debated opponents such as Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family and Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage a prominent nonprofit group opposing same-sex marriage did I strongly believe that I was right and they were wrong? Of course I did. And of course they believed the reverse. Did I expect that they would convince me that my position on same-sex marriage was wrong? No, never and neither did they.

In that sense, you can say I wasnt open-minded.

On the other hand, I was open to learning from them, and I often did. I was open to learning their concerns, perspectives and insights, recognizing that we had different experiences and areas of expertise. I was also open to building relationships to foster mutual understanding. In that sense, I was quite open-minded.

Audience members who approached the debates with similar openness would commonly say afterward, I always thought the other side believed [X], but I realize I need to rethink that. For example, my side tended to assume that Maggies and Glenns arguments would be primarily theological they werent or that they hated gay people they dont. Their side tended to assume I didnt care about childrens welfare quite the contrary or that I believe that morality is a private matter, which I emphatically do not.

At the same time, there were prominent figures whose position on the marriage question did change.

David Blankenhorn, founder of the think tank the Institute for American Values, had been a same-sex marriage opponent for many years, albeit one who always recognized some good on both sides of the debate. Eventually he came to believe that instead of helping children, as he had hoped, opposition to same-sex marriage primarily served to stigmatize gay citizens.

So sometimes the clash of opinions can surprise you just as Mill suspected.

Does this mean that I recommend seeking out Holocaust deniers for dialogue? No. Some views really are beyond the pale, and regular engagement has diminishing returns. There are only so many hours in the day. But that stance should be adopted sparingly, especially when experts in the relevant community are conflicted.

Instead, I recommend following Blankenhorn as a model, in at least three ways.

First, concede contrary evidence even when that evidence is inconvenient. Doing so can be difficult in an environment where people worry that if they give the other side an inch, theyll take a mile. Blankenhorns opponents would often gleefully seize on his concessions, for instance, as if a single positive point settled the debate.

But keeping beliefs proportionate to evidence is key to moving past polarized gridlock not to mention discovering truth. Indeed, Blankenhorn has since founded an organization with the explicit goal of bridging partisan divides.

Second, strive to see what good there is on the other side, and when you do, publicly acknowledge it.

And third, remember that bridge-building is largely about relationship-building, which creates a space for trust and ultimately, deeper dialogue.

Such dialogue may not always uncover truth, as Mill hoped it would, but at least it acknowledges that we all have a lot to learn.

Read the original post:
In the 'big tent' of free speech, can you be too open-minded? - The Conversation

Joey Barton, the footballer turned manager, may be a controversial figure, but is it really the business of the sports minister, Stuart Andrew, to threaten to silence him on Twitter and Facebook? Andrew this week described Bartons derisive remarks about female football commentators as dangerous comments that open the floodgates for abuse. He called upon Ofcom to take action under the new Online Safety Act.

The notion of free speech including the freedom to be offensive seems increasingly alien to ministerial minds. The Online Safety Act only came into law in October, and politicians already think its up to them to regulate who says what online.

For 300 years, newspapers vigorously fought off any attempt by the state to suppress freedom of expression. But the new media world of Silicon Valley has capitulated quite quickly. In an era when more people get their news from Twitter, Facebook or Instagram than from any newspaper, these companies exert huge power. The national conversation has shifted to online. It is edited and controlled by bots programmed in California by companies whose main concern is to make money from adverts. The old press barons took free speech seriously; Silicon Valley sees its power over content as a negotiating chip.

Read this article:
The Online Safety Act is already stifling free speech - The Spectator

Investigative Bulletin | January 09, 2024

An unprecedented assault on free speech is underway in America. The White House and government agencies play central roles. But because this new war largely takes place in the shadows of cyber-space, unfolding in back offices of social media giants like Facebook, YouTube, Google, TikTok and Twitter, the public has been slow to catch on to the threat.

In recent months, however, the House Judiciary Committee, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and Judicial Watch have each issued findings that break new ground. Taken together, they go a long way to dragging the war on the First Amendment into the sunlight. The main target of the new censorship efforts? Conservative speech, speakers, and viewpoints.

The Weaponization of Disinformation, a November report of the Judiciary Committee, concludes that the worlds largest social media platformsintentionally suppressed constitutionally protected speech as a consequence of the federal governments direct coordination.

The Fifth Circuit Court agrees. In State of Missouri v. Biden et alan eye-opening October ruling that did not get the attention it deservedthe Court found that the White House likely (1) coerced [social media] platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences, and (2) significantly encouraged the platforms decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes, both in violation of the First Amendment.

Also in October, Judicial Watch released a groundbreaking four-part documentary Censored and Controlled, detailing the coordinated effort by Big Tech and the government to suppress debate on elections, Covid-19 information, and news of the Hunter Biden laptop. The documentary details efforts by Big Tech to censor content, exposing collusion between government and social media to suppress what Americans can see and hear.

*

The House report demonstrates, step by step, how the Department of Homeland Security worked with other government entities, Stanford University, and Big Tech to create an elaborate system to suppress speech. These efforts were centered in a group with a name straight out of Orwell: the Election Integrity Partnership.

The EIP was a consortium of academics led by Stanford University that worked directly with Homeland Security and the State Department to monitor and censor Americans online speech, the House report noted. The EIPs operation was straightforward: external stakeholders, including federal agencies and organizations funded by the federal government, submitted [alleged] misinformation reports directly to the EIP. The EIPs misinformation analysts next scoured the internet for additional examples for censorship. If the submitted report flagged a Facebook post, for example, the EIP analysts searched for similar content on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, and other major social media platforms. Once all of the offending links were compiled, the EIP sent the most significant ones directly to Big Tech with specific recommendations on how the social media platforms should censor the posts.

The pressure from Big Tech was largely directed in a way that benefitted one side of the political aisle: true information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as misinformation while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors. The EIP targeted candidates and commentators with conservative viewpoints. The report lists the targeted figures, which included Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, and Judicial Watchs own Tom Fitton.

Last week, Judicial Watch sued the Department of Homeland Security for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request for all its records regarding JW and Tom. Judicial Watch and I have been censored again and again by government and Big Tech, Tom said in a statement. That we had to file a federal lawsuit to get basic information about this targeting is another sure sign that [Homeland Securitys Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency] has been up to no good.

The Fifth Circuit ruling also puts on the record many facts about the new censorship efforts. The court ruled in favor of the secretaries of state of Missouri and Louisiana and five social media users who alleged that numerous federal officials coerced social-media platforms into censoring certain social- media content, in violation of the First Amendment.

The ruling details pressure on Big Tech from the White House, the FBI, the Surgeon Generals Office, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Department of Homeland Security. Each office, the ruling finds, violated the First Amendment.

The Court noted, for example, that in one email a White House official told a platform to take a post down ASAP, and instructed it to keep an eye out for tweets that fall in this same genre so that they could be removed, too. In another, an official told a platform to remove [an] account immediatelyhe could not stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved immediately. Often, those requests for removal were met.

The White House stepped up the pressure in 2021, the court noted. It started monitoring the platforms moderation activities. In that vein, the officials asked forand receivedfrequent updates from the platforms. Those updates revealed, however, that the platforms policies were not clear-cut and did not always lead to content being demoted. So, the White House pressed the platforms. For example, one White House official demanded more details and data on Facebooks internal policies at least twelve times, including to ask what was being done to curtail dubious or sensational content, what interventions were being taken, what measurable impact the platforms moderation policies had, how much content [was] being demoted, and what misinformation was not being downgraded.

Judicial Watch has been fighting the freedom of speech battle with major lawsuits. And in October, JW premiered Censored and Controlled, a four-part documentary that takes the viewer deep inside government censorship efforts, detailing controversies over free speech suppression on the site then known as Twitter, election interference, Covid-19, and the Hunter Biden laptop.

Clearly, Big Tech is censoring content, Tom Fitton told the filmmakers. It is not following a set of rules but following government dictates and their own ideological predilections and political biases.

The war over free speech and Big Tech is sure to grow more heated in 2024 with a presidential election, a crisis on the southern border, and wars in Ukraine and Israel. The stakes could not be higher. Well be watching closely.

***

View the Judicial Watch documentary, Censored and Controlled, here.

Read The Weaponization of Disinformation, Interim Report of the House Judiciary Committee, here.

Read United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, State of Missouri et al v. Joseph R. Biden et al, here.

Micah Morrison is chief investigative reporter for Judicial Watch. Tips:[emailprotected]

Investigative Bulletin is published by Judicial Watch. Reprints and media inquiries:[emailprotected]

Originally posted here:
Big Tech, Big Government, Big Brother: Washingtons War on Free Speech - Judicial Watch

In 2021, newspaper publishing revenue within the United States was down 30% from a decade prior. In Canada in 2022, broadcast television revenue dropped more than 18% from the same period a decade earlier. Yet revenue for internet providers doubled in about the same time.

Because most people get their news online, many fear that digital technology companies are directly threatening the very existence of news outlets, through various controls they exert over how people get information and what information they get.

This imbalance has been an international problem that democratic nations around the world have been struggling to address.

Australia took the first step in February 2021, passing the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code. Canada enacted the Online News Act in June 2023. These laws forced selected outlets like Google and Meta to pay for any news website links that were posted on their sites or apps.

In July 2022, the European Union signed and adopted a significantly different approach in the Digital Services Act package which established a new group of regulators in contrast to the other nations bills that empowered pre-existing agencies.

Tension rippled throughout Australia before the legislation had even passed. Meta protested by shutting down its Facebook platform.

It was an extreme reaction that demonstrated the power Meta and other large digital companies have. Consider that the five most visited websites in the world are owned by just two corporations: Google and Meta. Moreover, in 2023 Google controlled 92% of the global search engine market.

Worldwide, the news industry is in crisis. Some 40% of people trust their news. That perhaps explains the proportionate decline in global news interest. In the United States public trust in the news media fell 54% overall in the two decades prior to 2022.

Add to that concerns over mass censorship committed by social media outlets during the Covid-19 pandemic and the intrusive data collection tactics used by big technology companies like Google.

This battle between governments and the tech oligarchy has turned out to be much more complicated than many had hoped.

Initially, Australia presented the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code. This law forced selected digital intermediaries like Google and Meta to pay for any Australian news website links that were posted on their sites or apps. But before the legislation had even passed, Meta protested by shutting down its platform Facebook throughout Australia.

After a two-week stalemate, intermediaries of Meta and Google agreed to compensate Australian news outlets $200 million. Although the bill passed, no digital intermediary has yet been designated for regulation by the Australian Treasurer.

Following this, the Canadian parliament passed its own legislation, the Online News Act. Similar to Australias legislation, Canadas new bill awarded power to a pre-existing agency, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Its purpose, as explained in its Charter Statement, was to help news businesses get fairly compensated by introducing a bargaining framework applicable to news intermediaries that hold a significant bargaining power imbalance over news outlets.

In an 11-page response to the proposed legislation, Google said that the power imbalance was a flawed premise that would always weigh against them. It also considered the exemption provisions to be vague and broad. While inclusion would depend on criteria such as the size of the digital news intermediary and whether it occupied a prominent market position, it did not quantify size or prominent market position, Google argued.

Metas president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, testifying at a hearing of Canadas Heritage Committee, said: Asking a social media company in 2023 to subsidize news publishers for content that isnt that important to our users is like asking email providers to pay the postal service because people dont send letters anymore.

In August 2023, Meta fully removed Canadian news outlets content from its platforms within Canadian borders and Google threatened to follow suit. What was originally intended to aid the news media ecosystems had completely undercut the local and independent publishers.

At a time when wed normally be growing as quickly as possible, weve completely retreated, posted Jeff Elgie, owner of local news startup Village Media in Ontario, Canada, on his X account. He referred to the C-18 bill as, poison for business.

Google argued that people must be able to freely find and share links to news content online. Free expression, access to information, press freedom and an informed citizenry depend on that, it said.

But Google never fully abandoned negotiations and as of November 2023, it agreed to pay CAD $100 million annually, or about USD $75 million to Canadian news outlets.

In July 2022, the European Union signed and adopted a significantly different approach in the Digital Services Act (DSA) package. The DSA tasks investigative and enforcement to Digital Service Coordinators to be appointed by each member state no later than 14 February 2024.

This archetype offers a clean slate, something that other governmental regulations do not. Along with this, the bill specifies the size of a company that will fall under the legislation: those with average monthly active EU users at or above 45 million.

Largely, the DSA contrasts other nations laws in both agency structure as well as bill content. In response, entities such as Google and Meta have publicly been more open to the regulation and have been cooperating in its application.

With this knowledge, and the threat of digital monopolies still looming, the United States presented its own battle plan.

In May 2023, Democrat Elizabeth Warren and Republican Lindsey Graham introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate that would empower a newly formed federal commission. The commission would have investigative, enforcement and rule-making authority while cooperating with the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.

The bill, aimed at all of Big Tech, is dubbed the Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act of 2023. Similar to the EUs DSA, the U.S. act provides specific values for inclusion based upon annual revenue or monthly active users both within the United States and globally.

It requires qualifying digital platforms to be licensed, or be immediately shut down and barred from legal operation. This power alone would allow the commission to implement the acts reforms aimed at company transparency, fair competition, user privacy and national security.

Failure to regulate tech companies till now in the United States reflects a friendly attitude towards business in general, said Julien Mailland, an assistant professor of telecommunications at Indiana University who has studied and written about Internet policy.

Lack of regulation is a problem, but I think the lack of regulation in general is linked to the ideological bent toward not regulating corporations, Mailland said.

Even if the United States could overcome the negative public perception of regulation, Mailland worries about the formation of a new agency that might lack the necessary experience in such a new area of governance.

Mailland pointed to Europes privacy regulators established through a data protection law it passed in 2018. The good thing about these agencies is that they have a history of knowing what theyre doing, Mailland said.

This history teaches valuable lessons that an experienced commission could build on to enforce the legislation effectively from the start and avoid the initial troubles new agencies often experience.

Outside of this, the United States and the EU specified their inclusion standards; something the Canadian and Australian bills did not. Mailland believed this to be a necessity as subjective laws can be dangerous. There needs to be objective criteria or else its the rule of the arbitrary, Mailland said.

The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, will hear multiple cases in 2024 regarding the constitutional rights of social media outlets that could affect how the law is applied.

The cases will establish whether online forums are public spaces. If they are established as such, user posts will be completely protected from censorship. If not, then social media outlets will be allowed to continue self-governance.

Regardless of the outcomes, we likely havent seen an end to attempts to regulate the digital oligopoly which currently controls the most powerful space ever introduced to man: the digital world.

See the original post here:
Can the world harness big tech without muzzling free speech? - News-Decoder

Update, 1:12 p.m.: Shortly after this article was published, Musk responded to a question about the issue from far-right influencer Jackson Hinkle. Musk promised to investigate, and the accounts went back up soon after. Musk later blamed the mistake on Xs spam algorithms. The Hamas account is still suspended.

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, purged an unknown number of prominent accounts over the last 24 hours with little to no explanation, and then restored the accounts minutes after this article was published. The list includes popular accounts belonging to journalists, writers, and podcasters. Among them are Ken Klippenstein of the Intercept, writer and podcaster Rob Rousseau, Texas Observer correspondent Steven Monacelli, the account for TrueAnon, a left-wing politics and news podcast, and a number of others. One thing the accounts have in common is recent criticisms of the Israeli government.

Elon Musk spent the last few months dealing with blowback after he endorsed the blatantly racist conspiracy theory that Jews encourage hatred against whites. The CEO then embarked on a campaign to restore his image, celebrating the Israeli military, denouncing antisemitism, and traveling to Israel for an impromptu meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

I cant think of anything Ive posted lately that would be worthy of suspension. Although I have written multiple critical reports about Twitter/X and Elon Musk in recent months, Monacelli told Gizmodo. Yes, I have made posts critical of Israels targeting of civilians and journalists, and have shared news about pro-Palestinian protests, but I have also recently made posts and shared news debunking antisemitism disguised as criticism of Israel.

Less than half an hour after this article was published, far-right influencer Jackson Hinkle tweeted at Musk, asking him why accounts critical of Israel were being suspended. Musk, who has a history of handling customer service questions for prominent conservative users, responded.

I will investigate. Obviously, it is ok to be critical of anything, but it is not ok to call for extreme violence, as that is illegal, Musk wrote. For the record, I do not personally agree with your views. Nonetheless, the point of freedom of speech is allowing those whose views you disagree with to express those views. Shortly thereafter, the accounts were restored.

Journalist firebrand Glenn Greenwald, a darling of the Neolibertarian Twitter movement, thanked Musk for looking into the problem. Musk blamed the suspensions on Xs anti-spam algorithms.

We do sweeps for spam/scam accounts and sometimes real accounts get caught up in them, Musk tweeted. In another tweet, the billionaire wrote, There are around 600 million active accounts on this platform. Mistakes are bound to be made at such a scale, but we try to fix them quickly.

Monacelli shared an email from X apologizing for the issue. Were writing to let you know that weve unsuspended your account, Xs support team wrote. Were sorry for the inconvenience and hope to see you back on X soon.

Like the other accounts, the TrueAnon podcast has a history of criticizing the Israeli government, and recently concluded a two-part series delving into the countrys nuclear weapons program. Why did Elon ban my podcast account what about free speech, Liz Franczak, co-host of TrueAnon, wrote on her personal X account. Why is the woke mob coming after hard working American small businesses?

Weve reached out to other affected users and will update this article if we hear back. X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As a journalist Ive been matrix dodging layoffs my entire career, Elon isnt even on the top 10 of threats to my survival, Klippenstein wrote on X. Had the ban stuck - and I imagine it will eventually - I wouldve just migrated to my newsletter.

Musk, who calls himself a free speech absolutist has previously said no one should be banned from X unless they break the law. Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy, Musk tweeted in 2022, in the lead-up to buying the platform. In reality, Musk has a long history of silencing his critics and censoring views he finds disagreeable.

The worlds richest man hasnt blamed the majority of the account suspensions on automated mistakes. However, @qassam2024, an account tied to Hamass military, was banned the just one day prior. This was an intentional policy decision, according to Musk, unlike the other mistakes.

This was a tough call, Musk wrote on X. While many government leaders, including in the USA, do call for killing people, we have a UN exemption rule; if a government is recognized by the UN, we will not suspend their accounts. Hamas is not recognized as a government by the UN, so was suspended.

Unlike the other users, the Hamas account is still suspended. Musk tweeted that the UN exemption still applies.

Other banned accounts, however, have no history of calling for killing people, but theyve all criticized the Israeli government. Klippenstein, for example, recently posted an article on his Substack newsletter noting that Musk discussed AI during his November meeting with Netanyahu as the Israeli government used AI to bomb Gaza. Klippenstein has also posted critiques of the Israeli government and military on X.

This isnt the first time Musk kicked journalists off the platform and then welcomed them back after public criticism. In 2022, Musk rewrote Twitters rules in order to ban @ElonJet, an account that tracked his private jet, and then suspended the accounts of a number of journalists who wrote about @ElonJet, including some that had never actually discussed it on X. It sparked widespread condemnation, and soon after, the accounts were restored, despite the fact that Musk continued to claim they violated Xs rules.

Read more here:
X Bans and Then Unbans Journalists and Podcasters in Twitter's Latest Free Speech Massacre [Updated] - Yahoo! Voices

Oski Dolls, Pompom Girls,

U.C. all the way!

Oh, what fun it is to have

Your mind reduced to clay!

Civil Rights, politics,

Just get in the way.

Questioning authority

When you should obey.

Sleeping on the lawn in a

Double sleeping bag [during a sit-in]

Doesnt get things done,

Freedom is a drag.

Junk your principles,

Dont stand up and fight,

You wont get democracy

If you yell all night.

Oski Dolls by Joe La Penta, FSM Record, to Jingle Bells.

As I write, it is now the year of the 60th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) at U.C. Berkeley, in which I was an active participant (I am at the far right in the photo.) It is also a time when free speech issues are again triggering campus conflicts, largely because of intense polarization over fighting in Gaza, and the mutually antagonistic activities of student supporters of Israel or Palestine.

The students who are waging these battles are, of course, quite different from those who participated in FSM, as are the historical conditions in which they have arisen, yet the issues they raise regarding free speech and civil liberties on university campuses, as well as their meaning regarding the relationship between law and politics, or between democracy and revolution, reveal many similarities.

It is also a time when democracy is regarded as expendable by many, including, as I write, a major presidential candidate supported by a major political party with significant popular support and a strong likelihood of winning. Under these conditions, as white supremacist, neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, fascistic organizations are organizing openly and gaining ground, the attack on liberal higher education, and the related push to restrict free speech and civil liberties on campus take on different meanings.

During the 1960s, student activists complained that universities, shaped during the 1950s by political conservatism, McCarthyism, and the Cold War, was increasingly seen as irrelevant to the pressing social issues that began to emerge in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Here, for example, is Mario Savio, speaking in 1962 on the nature of the university and the reasons for political alienation among students:

Many students here at the university, many people in society, are wandering aimlessly about. Strangers in their own lives, there is no place for them. They are people who have not learned to compromise, who, for example, have come to the university to learn to question, to grow, to learnall the standard things that sound like clichs because no one takes them seriously. And they find at one point or another that for them to become part of society, to become lawyers, ministers, businessmen, people in government, that very often they must compromise those principles which were most dear to them. They must suppress the most creative impulses that they have; this is a prior condition for being part of the system. The university is well structured, well tooled, to turn out people with all the sharp edges worn off, the well-rounded person. The university is well equipped to produce that sort of person, and this means that the best among the people who enter must for four years wander aimlessly much of the time questioning why they are on campus at all, doubting whether there is any point in what they are doing, and looking toward a very bleak existence afterward in a game in which all of the rules have been made up, which one cannot really amend.

As a result of my personal experiences during the 1960s, I have spent a large part of my life thinking about and advocating for free speech, not only in the Free Speech Movement, but as a lawyer for various movement activists and organizations in the late 1960s, and later as a law professor teaching Constitutional Law in the 1970s.

Starting in the 1980s, I spent a still larger part of my life as a mediator, conflict resolver, and dialogue facilitator, helping thousands of people and hundreds of organizations with vastly differing opinions, many mired in hatred and enmity, discover that they could somehow, unexpectedly, actually talk to each other, engage in open, honest, constructive dialogue, improve their understanding, and solve common problems.

In my experience, conflict resolution methods and processes allow people on all scales, from individuals to couples, families, schools, workplaces, and organizationsespecially colleges and universitiesto raise free speech to a significantly higher level of skill, where it becomes possible for authentic communication, empathetic engagement, collaborative problem solving, and profound learning to take place. I have written several books outlining how to conduct these processes, most recently in Politics, Dialogue, and the Evolution of Democracy, and The Magic in Mediation.

Where We Fell Short in FSM

Walter Benjamin wrote that Every emergence of fascism bears witness to a failed revolution. In hindsight, it is important to note that not only did FSM succeed in enormously expanding the scope and range of free speech on campus at Berkeley, it also fell short of reaching its larger goal of revolutionizing the practice of free speech, and in transforming universities into centers for political discussion, learning, and engagement.

Instead, we are now witnessing a barrage of conservative attacks on universities and colleges, triggered by profoundly adversarial, campus conflicts over the war in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank, which ultimately appear to be aimed at turning campuses back into havens for repression of unpopular thoughts, political conformity, and apathy. The alternative, as I see it, is not to repress civil liberties on campus, or wage political battles more aggressively, but to transform these conflicts into opportunities for dialogue, understanding, problem solving, and collaborative negotiation.

One of the early founders of modern mediation and advocates of participatory democracy was Mary Parker Follett, who wrote The New State in 1918, in which she insightfully observed:

[I]t is not merely that we must be allowed to govern ourselves, we must learn how to govern ourselves; it is not only that we must be given free speech, we must learn a speech that is free; [I]t is not only that we must invent machinery to get a social will expressed, we must invent machinery that will get a social will created.

It is clear, of course, that it is possible to have free speech, yet lack a speech that is free; to have student power, yet not know how to use it; to express an outdated social will, yet lack the skills to create a new one. But it is this second set of tasks that allow us to move from purely procedural forms of democracy to higher order substantive ones; and from a mere transfer of power between conflicted and competing groups to a genuinely revolutionary transformation and transcendence of adversarial, zero-sum, violent, domineering, power-based communications, processes, and relationships.

Some of the hostility expressed toward universities today is an effort to turn the clock back to the sort of university Savio complained of; to return to the 1950s; before there was affirmative action or diversity in enrollment and hiring; before there were Black, Womens, Latino and LGBTQ Studies programs; before issues of race and gender and other social problems were regarded as legitimate to speak about publicly, or as topics for academic research and teaching.

But some of the hostility also emerges, I believe, from the failure of universities to fully live up to their Enlightenment promise, by becoming not mere marketplaces of ideas but symphonies, laboratories, workshops, playgrounds, and dances of ideas.

How might colleges and universities achieve this? We can begin by affirming five important ideas about political differences. First, it is not helpful to try to silence or minimize the passion and commitment people feel for what they believe in and want for the world. Second, it is helpful to assist people in turning their passion and commitment from personally attacking their opponents to jointly tackling their problems, seeking to understand what lies beneath the surface of their conflicted beliefs and desires, and searching together for core values and principles on which they can fashion solutions. Third, it is possible, even for political activists in the grip of antagonistic passions and beliefs, to realize that they are all members of the same human family; the same campus, neighborhood, and community; the same species and planet. Fourth, it is helpful to acknowledge that because we all live on the same planet, short of mass murder and genocide, no one is going anywhere, so the only real, sensible choice we have is to learn how to live and work together. Fifth, we are now facing serious global problems that require us to collaborate across our differences and find ways of solving problems together if we are going to survive.

At the level of process, rather than content, we can begin by recognizing that the ability to speak openly, honestly, empathetically, and skillfully is essential for successful problem solving on all scales, from navigating and improving interpersonal relationships to making difficult political decisions. It has been repeatedly demonstrated in studies of small groups that diversity, dialogue, and democratic decision-making are key elements in problem solving, especially where problems are complex, layered, and multi-faceted.

Yet when people are in conflict, whether personal or political, they often lose their perspective, forget their values and goals, and revert to lower-level child-like communications, adversarial negotiations, autocratic or dictatorial problem solving, unilateral decision-making, and zero-sum processes that encourage them to believe that dialogue, collaboration, learning, and problem solving are entirely impossible.

Yet it is possible, for example, for universities and colleges to bring together Israelis and Palestinians, and opponents on all kinds of issues, and help them engage in civil dialogues, storytelling sessions, empathy building exercises, joint critiques of historical narratives, problem solving practices, political debates, brainstorming, research, collaborative negotiation, ground rule setting, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, restorative justice circles, mock mediations, model UN sessions, and many similar processes.

It is equally possible for every university and college to hire a full-time ombudsperson to help design and facilitate these processes, train faculty and students as peer mediators and volunteer dialogue facilitators; establish campus clinical programs in social change, including community organizing, mediation, and effective political advocacy; and to create academically rigorous majors with required courses in mediation, dialogue, collaborative negotiation, consensus building, conflict resolution, international peace building, and similar topics.

It is possible for universities and colleges to assign students to on-going or episodic dialogue groups; to conduct teach-ins with diverse speakers and points of view, and opportunities for small group discussion; to maintain a list of professional mediators and dialogue facilitators who would be able to intervene early, when divisive issues threaten to turn political differences into battles for campus supremacy; and to invite participants and advocates to join in open, campus-wide learning experiences not by shutting down debate, banning unpopular groups, or expelling student advocates, but drawing them into honest conversation with those whose ideas they disparage.

This happened with great success at various moments during FSM, as when Mario Savio invited fraternity and sorority critics who arrived to disrupt a rally to instead come to the microphone and speak to the audience of FSM supporters; or when anyone could say whatever they thought or felt from on top of the police car; and at virtually every mass meeting when the floor was open for comments.

More importantly, the entire FSM and political movement experience in the 1960s, for me and thousands of others, was one of the most significant educational and learning experience of my life. UC Berkeley certainly gave me an education, though it wasnt entirely the one they meant to deliver. Instead, I learned profoundly important lessons about how to stand up for what I believed in, how to organize and work with people I didnt always agree with to bring about social change, how to disagree politically and still work collaboratively to achieve common ends, and how to disagree even over principles yet learn something valuable from those disagreements.

Through these experiences, and later from my practice as a mediator, I learned that simply shifting the way we speak to each other, without tempering in the least the content of our beliefs and values, automatically encourages listening and dialogue, elicits authentic communications, supports collaborative negotiation, invites deep learning, and gradually rebuilds the trust that is essential for joint problem solving, without having to force others to support the content of what we take to be true.

In the absence of these higher order communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution skills and processes, it is easy to slip into a state of impasse that encourages angry, hostile individuals and groups to exercise their freedom of speech primarily for the purpose of blocking or destroying the free speech of others as occurred, for example, in Nazi Germany during the late 20s and early 30s.

Unfortunately, when we oppose free speech rights for our opponents, we make the future repression of our own speech far more likely. We also cheat ourselves and others out of the opportunity to turn highly adversarial denunciations into learning, and slip into pointless, hostile, destructive communications that encourage others to suppress democracy, both in content, and in processes and relationships. In the end, whatever connects us empathetically and collaboratively reduces our resort to fear, distrust, and hatred, which are the deeper truths of our hostility toward others, and encourages communication and learning, which are often the unstated goals of free speech, and the implicit promises of higher education.

One of the most enduring and heartrending sources of human tragedy arises from the assumption that history will continue moving in the direction it is currently heading. Yet history has many sources, with innumerable, complex, and contradictory inputs that make it, like the weather, unpredictable and highly sensitive to initial conditions. How many people were able to accurately predict the 1930s bust in the midst of the 1920s boom, or the 40s from the 30s, the 50s from the 40s, the 60s from the 50s, etc.? And of those who did, were they not treated like the legendary Trojan priestess Cassandra, who was deadly accurate but disbelieved by all?

How, then, do we discern our future direction? Which of the current contradictory undercurrents on campuses and in the world will prove ascendant, for how long, and why? The only way I know of finding the answer is to bring opposing perspectives, experiences, beliefs, and ideas together into dialogue, problem solving, collaborative negotiation, and mediation, and listen to what emerges.

It may sound bizarre or self-serving, but I find it increasingly clear and open for all to see, that no single highly polarized political group is exclusively correct, that each is correct about something, and that the only intelligent way forward is together. For higher education institutions, this means encouraging learning through open discussion, dialogue, debate, negotiation, problem solving, mediation, and a search for restorative justice.

There are no unilateral judicial or military solutions to the wars being fought in Ukraine or the Middle East, or Sudan, Myanmar, DR Congo, and elsewhere. They lead only to death and misery, grief and guilt, environmentally unsustainability and self-destruction, so figuring out how to live together has to become a priority over anti-democratic, brutal, inhumane, potentially genocidal alternatives, or the consequences will begin to multiply, and worse disasters will follow. The choice is ours. In the end, as Hannah Arendt astutely observed,

No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics: the cause of freedom versus tyranny.

The difference between these options inevitably becomes one of freedom of speech, freedom to learn, and freedom to imagine better ways of living, for each and for all, which requires us to learn how to settle, resolve, transform, and transcend the conflicts that divide us.

Originally posted here:
Free Speech on Campus: What Colleges and Universities Can Do - Mediate.com

Colleges and universities have been volatile places since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel and Israels war in Gaza.

This has led to concerns over free speech and safety on college campuses.

Last month, the presidents of Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology testified in front of a U.S. House committee on combating antisemitism on college campuses, receiving backlash for their comments.

Tom Ginsburg is a professor of international law and political science, and the faculty director of the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression at the University of Chicago. He says the hearing exposed some hypocrisy from universities and their leaders.

Those schools, the presidents that were up there testifying, while they were saying, oh you know we preserve freedom of speech, we value freedom of speech, they in fact do have records of suppressing speech, he said.

Ginsburg pointed out instances of canceling guest speakers or events universities believe will be too controversial as one example.

The University of Chicago also conducted a poll through AP-NORC asking whether governments should be able to dictate what is taught on college campuses despite receiving federal funding. They found that 68% of participants opposed this.

Were in a phase of this controversy, after those hearings before congress, where in a way whats going on has nothing to do with antisemitism anymore, he said. Its about Congress really trying to really try to attack, and get into university governance, and try to make some political points off of it. So Im sort of dreading this year in that regard.

Ginsburg said that in order to avoid this and find a solution, universities need to go back to their core missions creating diverse communities, providing places of free expression and challenging each others ideas.

You can't disrupt the speech, he said. And the reason for that, if you think about it, its not necessarily because we endorse the speaker, its because we protect the autonomy of the listener. That we respect that the person hearing this allegedly offensive speech is going to be able to make a judgment on their own that this is a good idea or bad idea.

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Director of UChicago's Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression on Campus Controversy and University Presidents - WTTW News

Within hours of the start of Florida's legislative session, newly filed bills are set to test the limits on hot-button topics such as abortion and free speech.

Florida's new 15-week abortion ban has yet to be implemented due to litigation, but state Rep. David Borrero, R-Sweetwater, has filed H.B. 1519, which would prohibit any person or entity from purposely performing or attempting to perform an abortion.

Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, took to social media to express her outrage, calling the move "cruel for the sake of being cruel."

"It is a total abortion ban that eliminates what were already narrow exceptions for rape or incest and also goes further into criminalizing individuals or entities that provide medication abortion by mail, " she implored.

The news comes as a state constitutional amendment that would protect abortion access in Florida received enough signatures of support to appear on ballots in the November election. However, a challenge by the state's attorney general could still block it, claiming the language is misleading.

Another newly filed measure, S.B. 1780, by Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Lake Mary, would make it easier for an individual to sue another person for defamation.

Eskamani sees the measure as an attempt to create a penalty for an opinion one doesn't like, which she believes is a slippery slope that could lead to criminalization.

"As long as you're not directly threatening me, there really is not a path forward that I can pursue," Eskamani explained, "and I'm OK with that because I should not be punishing people for expressing a viewpoint I don't like. I don't have to agree with it."

For a successful defamation case, one has to prove "actual malice." A defendant found liable for defamation could be fined at least $35,000. The bill also removes bedrock journalistic privileges, particularly the right to keep sources anonymous. Statements from anonymous sources would be considered "presumptively false," making journalists reporting on discrimination vulnerable to lawsuits.

Tuesday is the final day for lawmakers to file bills, and the legislative session wraps up in early March.

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January is Cervical Health Awareness Month and health experts said they are concerned about the growing number of cervical cancer diagnoses nationwide.

Kentucky already has the highest rate of cervical cancer in the U.S., with the state's Appalachian region having cases at twice the national rate.

Rebecca Gibron, CEO of Planned Parenthood in Kentucky, said cervical cancer takes years to develop, and can be prevented easily with regular screenings for early detection and with the HPV vaccine. Middle-aged patients who missed early detection are at highest risk.

"Older women are more vulnerable," Gibran explained. "I think the reason is this age group in particular may not have received the recommended number of screening tests with normal results before they stopped having Pap smears."

Studies have shown women ages 40-44 who live in the south are less likely to be vaccinated against HPV or screened for cervical cancer, and also comprise the demographic who did not have access to the vaccine during adolescence. The American Cancer Society estimated in 2023, more than 4,000 women died from cervical cancer nationwide.

Infection with HPV is the single greatest risk factor for cervical cancer. It is estimated more than 90% of cervical cancer cases are caused by HPV each year. Gibron encouraged Kentuckians to prioritize their reproductive health in the new year. She added regional Planned Parenthood Health Centers offer PAP exams and more.

"We often are the only provider of affordable reproductive health care or the only provider that offers specialized care," Gibron pointed out. "We want folks to take control of their health care and get their annual wellness visit, get their HPV test, young people get your HPV vaccine."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the HPV vaccine for children ages 11 and 12, but adults up to age 45 can also receive their shot. Condom use has been shown to help lower the chances of spreading HPV.

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As the United States Supreme Court decides whether the abortion pill is safe, some legal scholars predict the decision may backfire on anti-abortion advocates.

The case paving the way for the nation's highest court to get involved does not focus on abortion access, but rather the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's process to approve drugs.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled last summer that mifepristone can stay on shelves where it is legal. However, the appeals court decided FDA changes making easier access to the drug failed to follow proper procedure.

Indiana University Law Professor Jody Madeira isn't surprised the high court picked up the case and predicts it might not have the result anti-abortion proponents expect.

"And I do think that it might end up, in a surprising way, protecting abortion rights," Madeira said. "The Supreme Court has been sort of on a trend where it's been narrowing agency rights. But here, the right the FDA has is to judge whether mifepristone is safe."

Madeira posed this question: If courts start deciding drug safety, then what becomes the incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs and treatments?

A final decision on mifepristone use is expected by the end of June.

Another obstacle women and girls face is finding doctors comfortable with the ambiguity of new laws restricting abortion. In many cases, according to Madeira, patients cannot find care because doctors don't want to risk losing their medical license.

"State authorities will go to great lengths to persecute and prosecute doctors who even speak to the media about performing and abortion," Madeira stressed. "Dr. Caitlin Bernard and our attorney general, Todd Rokita, is the perfect example. Certainly, doctors have a right to feel very wary and reluctant."

Drug companies and the FDA say mifepristone is safe and has lower risks than such common drugs as Tylenol and Viagra.

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A federal judge has temporarily blocked an anti-abortion law in Idaho restricting people's ability to travel to other states for the procedure.

During the 2023 legislative session, state lawmakers passed a law restricting "abortion trafficking," which it describes as an adult bringing a child across state lines for an abortion with the intent to conceal it from the child's parents or guardians.

Kelly O'Neill, staff attorney for the nonprofit Legal Voice, said a U.S. district court judge agreed to their preliminary injunction request, blocking the law while the case is decided.

"The judge agreed that the law is unconstitutional and that it violates First Amendment freedoms, the right to interstate travel, and that it's unconstitutionally vague and that it's confusing," O'Neill outlined. "A person can't determine what conduct is legal and what might land you in prison for a minimum of two years."

Idaho has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, with the procedure banned in nearly every instance. While abortions have decreased in the state, research shows they've increased in neighboring states where it is protected since Roe v. Wade was overturned, such as in Washington.

O'Neill noted Idaho is not the only state where lawmakers are attempting to restrict abortion.

"There's a huge wave of anti-abortion laws coming out of Idaho in particular and every state in the nation," O'Neill pointed out. "People are working and doing their part to try to push back against those and restore options of choices and freedom, and this is certainly a way that we're helping to do that."

The suit challenging the Idaho law was filed in July. The parties involved gave oral arguments in September.

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FL lawmakers back in Tallahassee to debate limits on abortion, free speech - Public News Service

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In the 'big tent' of free speech, can you be too open-minded? - Bozeman Daily Chronicle

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In the 'big tent' of free speech, can you be too open-minded? - goskagit.com