Category Archives: Freedom of Speech

Michael Connelly| Guest columnist

A long time ago, when Ron Littlepage still opined in the T-U, and too much was going on, he would "click around the dial" covering a variety of subjects.

First, my sincerest condolences to Mr. Stang for the loss of his mother. Having lost my father recently (though not to COVID-19), I can relate to his pain, loss and sorrow. I am also Catholic, not always the best one, but when Pope Francis said getting the vaccine was "an act of love," I have to go with the pope.

Next, the First Amendment to our Constitution says in part "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …." The last time I checked, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and several lesser-recognized social platforms were not Congress. They are private -- meaning, not government -- companies and can set their own policies, which we may or may not agree with. As I have said in the past, if you don't like their policies, don't use them.

Finally, conflating the yellow fever epidemic of 1888 to the COVID-19 pandemic is a stretch of credulity. It would be more correct to say Capt. Cooper had an acquired immunity, not a natural one. Also, there was not a vaccine for yellow fever until 1951. In 1888 it was not known how yellow fever was contracted.

More than 130 years later we have a number of safe and highly effective vaccines for COVID-19. We know how it is transmitted and effective steps to mitigate the transmission. The push by some that should know better (our governor and his acting surgeon general) for herd or natural immunity has already cost over 58,000 lives in Florida and 700,000 nationwide. How many unnecessary deaths are too many? The true insanity is listening to those who oppose the "jab."

It is a fact: 50 percent minus one of all doctors graduate in the lower half of their class. I wonder where the anti-vaxxers fall?

Michael Connelly is a retired naval aviator and part-time tax preparer living in Jacksonville Beach.

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Guest column: The pope's vaccination, freedom of speech and comparisons to yellow fever - The Florida Times-Union

Thank you, vets, for all youve doneNo work today, get to play, a nice break in the week holiday,Catch a sale, catch a nap, do whatever I want throughout the day,With all the different generations, some lack the understanding of why,We take today to remember the brave, who gave their lives with prideThis poem is just one example, of our freedom of speech,Were allowed to pursue our dreams, and attain whats in our reach.Were free to come and go as we please, and live by our beliefs.Were allowed to make our own decisions, with little say or griefIve never served for our country, so I cant say what it must be like,But I do know how good it feels, to sleep safely at night,Im able to do so because of our great nation, and the principles we uphold.These principles are constantly reinforced by our serving veterans young and oldI personally want to thank you, for everything youve done,Your commitment, self-sacrifice, and the protection of our young,Ill never be able to thank you enough for the freedom youve given me today,Please know youre in my heart, and thoughts, each night when I kneel down and prayGod bless you and this great country alwaysKevin TeaneySchenectady

Ensure protection of our ConstitutionWho do we honor and why?Americans who gave their lives and served our country for the fundamental principles of democracy.A country that embodies the peaceful transition of leadership. We have all honored and experienced this principle until the last presidential election.I am extremely sorry that my grandchildren were unable to appreciate what has been the cornerstone of our democracy.I wish we could somehow erase that terrible insurrection from their minds.Lets join together, Americans of all political tendencies, never let anyone hold the coveted office who would deliberately wreck the Constitution of the United States of America.M. Thomas PorterSaratoga Springs

Why do drivers still keep hitting bridge?What are those truck drivers with the big trailers thinking of? Cant they read? How many more times is the bridge in Glenville going to get hit?The one who owns the bridge should sue the company and driver who hires them.How hard is it to measure the height of the trailer to make sure of the height? Maybe they should have a big sign in their rig telling them not to go under the bridge when it says 10-feet.As for the cargo ships, why not bring the National Guard? Im sure they can get the ships unloaded and back to normal.James MaxfieldScotia

Elect officials who will address climateIn the early 1900s, we went from horse and buggy and kerosene lighting to gasoline autos and electricity in about 20 years.Not only was this most convenient, but automakers and oil companies made huge profits.Today, both humans and other planetary life are facing an existential crisis in global warming/climate change.We have the technology to convert quickly to clean, renewable energy, and we can, just like we converted in the early 1900s. But we dont. Why? Because the fossil fuel companies dont want to give up their profits, and they delay our conversion by buying off our congressmen to do their bidding, and because it is considered inconvenient.Well, its also inconvenient to realize that without this conversion to clean energy, your children and grandchildren might well die prematurely due to natural disasters caused by climate change.How can we effect this change?By voting in politicians who recognize that climate change is real and is human-caused, and who intend to do something about it. Personal conservation is great and helpful, but for the necessary rapid change, we need both government and industry on board with us.Jahnn Swanker-GibsonJohnstown

Act now to stop Duanesburg projectOn Nov. 18, the Duanesburg Planning Board is expected to decide on the addition of four 53-feet containers of lithium-ion batteries at Oak Hill Solar.The 65-acre project is sited on a principal aquifer. The height of 43,500 motorized tracking panels has increased from 8.5 to 14.5 feet. At the Oct. 21 meeting, experts spoke about lithium-ion battery energy storage and possible PFAS contamination from anti-reflective coatings. Amps application can be reviewed athttps://www.duanesburg.net/planning-board.The project is opposed by all adjacent landowners due to risk of explosion, fire, stormwater damage, towering industrial views and lack of visual screening.The nearest home, 530 feet east of the shared property line, has been omitted or unidentified in project documents since 2018.The Visual Maintenance Agreement, approved by the town board in June, is not filed with the county clerk as required.The project does not have a Common Driveway Access Agreement. The Decommissioning Fund may be $200,000 short due to the disposal of hazardous material. Schenectady County has not weighed in because it is a local issue.On Oct. 20, the project recorded two mortgages totaling $29,325,235 with the county clerk. The county received $366,770 in combined filing fees. A building permit has not been issued.Duanesburg taxpayers may be stuck with the environmental risk and diminished property values while others profit.Attend the Nov. 18 Planning Board meeting. Submit your comments to the board at[emailprotected].Duanesburg deserves better!Susan BiggsDelanson

Lady Liberty could go in Central ParkThe Harriet Tubman Memorial is free-standing. It can be viewed from all sides. Such is not the case with the city of Schenectadys Statue of Liberty. The background wall is a distraction.I support the position of the group that wants to return Miss Liberty to her original site.The Oct. 29 Gazette editorial (Compromise on statues location?) suggested a compromise may be considered.My idea is to put the Statue of Liberty in Central Park across from the Rose Garden.The area gets many visitors and a lot of foot traffic. The statue would add much to ones sense of patriotism, as well as appreciation and beauty in nature. Just a thought.Mary B. McClaineSchenectady

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Categories: Letters to the Editor, Opinion

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Letters to the Editor Thursday, Nov. 11 The Daily Gazette - The Daily Gazette

Ron Daniels has had senior leadership roles within universities for 25 years, but it was onlyfour years ago that he had an encounter that made him realise the sector was failing in a crucial area.

New students at Johns Hopkins University had just had an introductory session on university culture and Daniels, president of the institution, sat with them and asked how the day had gone.

One of the students looked at me and said, I never knew. They told him they had never been exposed to the idea of academic freedom, the case for free speech, the importance of contesting ideas, and why those things are essential for democracy.

That was the aha moment, which then caused me to pivot to really focus more generally on how well we were doing in equipping students for democracy, he says.

Now Daniels is realigning the institution he has led for 12 years to become a bulwark for democracy, a calling he thinks all universities in democratic societies should take up urgently.

Critical juncture

It's a truly remarkable thing, when you think of the march of human history, how unusual it is to be able to create and sustain democratic states, he says. For Daniels, it is also astonishing, particularly now were increasingly seeing how fragile it is, that education on democracy is so scant.

If they dont get it in high school, and if we dont provide this to our students...how can that do anything but impair their capacity to be informed and effective citizens?he asks.

Free speech and academic freedom have been inherent to the idea of the university since it was formulated, according to Daniels, and with their additional, inbuilt mechanisms to enhance social mobility and foster civic duty, universities are in a unique position to strengthen democracy, he believes.In his new book, What Universities Owe Democracy, published last month, Daniels describes a democratic recession, pointing out that in 1996 more than a quarter of the worlds population lived in countries that were democratising, but by 2020 the figure had plummeted to 5 per cent.

Now, he claims, nearly 30 per cent or 2.6 billion people live in countries that are becoming more autocratic. We are, Daniels says, at a critical juncture in the story of democracy. If we do not act now, the arc will continue bending in the wrong direction.

Change in attitude

Some might see a danger in a university presidents highlighting his students lack of engagement with freedom of speech in the context of recent attacks on universities regarding this issue, particularly in the US and the UK. Daniels response is robust.It is his responsibility as a university leader to advocate for and defend his organisation, he says, but also to be alert to the criticisms that are being levelled against it, to unpack them and see whether they contain kernels of truth.

The characterisation of universities [as] monocultures, and hugely susceptible to the chilling effect of cancel culture,is overstated, he says.I dont think its accurate based on the data that I have looked at about the ways in which students perceive their ability to speak freely and to critique other views within the campus.

His own experience teaching seminars also suggests that students have no difficulty in challenging me or each other.However, Daniels has noticed a change in attitude among students when it comes to having their own ideas contested: I think that this generation comes in with less faith in how that contestation, that open vigorous debate, makes everyone better off.

Daniels says that faculty have been supportive when hes pointed out the problem. Some of the most progressive academics at Johns Hopkins were involved in the student protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s, he adds.

For them, free speech was indispensable to their advocacy and to be able to have influence on the university, he says, adding that academics are also worried about students lack of appreciation for debate.

Daniels wants people to understand that universities are places of controversy and that this is not pathological but the natural result of creating an environment in which dissent, vigorous debate, contestation are coins of the realm.

Bridging divides

One of Daniels core arguments is that universities have made great strides in increasing the diversity of their student and academic bodies, but they have not matched that with mechanisms that enable those individuals, who inevitably hold differing views, to form friendships and debate their ideas. Rather, they have dismantled some of the structures that once pulled students together.

A notable example is housing policy. Sharing accommodation has been one of the key ways that US students form bonds with people unlike themselves, Daniels says, but over the past decade universities have moved away from assigning room-mates randomly, instead allowing students to choose their own. Social media platforms such as Facebook allow students to pair up before they arrive at university and evidence shows that when they do so they are much more likely to choose room-mates from similar backgrounds to their own.

Another problem, according to Daniels, is the recent decline in institutional emphasis on debate. Debating societies are no longer the centre of academic life, as they were in the 19thcentury. This has conveyed the damaging notion that as he puts it in his book the highest ideal of a thinker is proclamation, and that ideas are meant to be developed hermetically and then broadcast to the world rather than cultivated in an ongoing dialogue with others who might disagree or refine them.

Johns Hopkins has remodelled the introductory session for new students to focus more explicitly on the core tenets of democracy, including the importance of academic freedom and freedom of speech, so that students are exposed to such ideas from their first week. Daniels tells them about his Polish fathers escape from Nazism and how that fuels his passion for democracy today, while lecturers introduce them to political theory and then a host of academics meet with the students and discuss the challenges and strengths of the democratic project.

Throughout the year, the university hosts events at which speakers from different political perspectives meet on the same stage, advocate for their positions and interact with one another. This is a very powerful way in which we start to model the idea of civic friendship, Daniels says.

But how does a university leader go about encouraging a broad shift in curriculum without undermining the very academic freedom he seeks to protect?

Making change happen

Any time one starts to talk about curriculum reform you find a diversity of very intensely held views, Daniels admits.Building courses on democracy requires groups of experts from different political and ideological perspectives to work together. But while there may not be a one-size-fits-all solution, there could be agreement on a core set of ideas that are essential to any democratic education. Thats what we need to be able to agree upon. And I think its doable, Daniels says.

But is it really possible to enforce the adoption of such courses across departments?

Some people look at universities, and they cant imagine that theres any likelihood that you can get meaningful changes at them, he says. That has not been my experience. It is true that...there are multiple veto points; decision-making is really distributed and there's a premium on process...But, having said that, I'm really struck by the capacity of universities to evolve and to...make responsible change.

But to effect that change, Daniels prefers to set challenges rather than prescribe solutions. His strategy is to explain why he thinks the challenge is important, in a way that speaks to the academys thirst for facts and principle.

And from there, I think its important that once the challenge is issued, you then get out of the way and leave it to colleagues to work through how precisely youll respond to that challenge, he says. After all, universities are not organisations that welcome top-down, detailed instructions.

Decisions are embraced most effectively by institutions if they are based on a consensus built up during the sometimes laborious and challenging process of consulting and deliberating before those decisions are announced, Daniels says. As a leader, he thinks it is important to get advice from as many sources as possible, and also to recognise that he has limited supply of political capital: You spend that capital on the issues which you believe are fundamental to the university and to the leadership that you wish to bring to that institution.

Teaching students to be more tolerant of opposing views is only one part of the solution to democratic backsliding. Research is another important avenue.Johns Hopkins has opened a new research institute, named the Agora after the central public spaces in Ancient Greek city states, toinvestigate the root causes of the threats to democracy and the growing polarisation of American and other Western societies. Scholars within it are seeking to understand the diminishing trust in core democratic institutions such as the media, the judiciary and elected institutions, and whether interventions could be employed to redress the situation.

Daniels book outlines other ways leaders can reposition their institutions to better support democracy. For instance, universities must do more to strengthen social mobility, and they must be better stewards of facts and upholders of the value of truthwhich includes addressing the reproducibility crisis in research.

All in all, redressing the democratic recession is a tall order, but Daniels is optimistic. Whats so great about leading a university is how ideas matter, he says. If you can get your ideas pitched at a level where people can understand them and see the force of them, then you have every prospect of seeing them have influence.

Born: Toronto, 1959

Leadership positions: President at Johns Hopkins; provost and professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania; dean and professor of law at the University of Toronto

Academic qualifications: LLM from Yale University; JD from University of Toronto; BA from University of Toronto

Family: Married, has three grown-up children, two are lawyers and one is studying for an MD-PhD

Academic hero: Daniel Coit Gilman, the first president of Johns Hopkins. A visionary leader who birthed the great American research university

This is the first in our new series of 50 interviews over 50 weekswith the people running the worlds top universities about how they solve common strategic issues and implement change. Follow the series here.

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Talking leadership 1: Ron Daniels on the university as a bulwark for democracy - Times Higher Education (THE)

The hounding ofKathleen Stock who left Sussex university following a concerted campaign against her by trans rights activists was a disgraceful indictment of freedom of speech on campus. But one remedy for preventing a repeat the so-called'Stock amendment' to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, now passing through the Commons isn't the answer.Impetuous legislation is normally bad legislation; unless we think very carefully, we may end up with something ineffective or even counter-productive.

At first glance, a simple ban on students piling in to demand the sacking or departure of professors on account of their politics or teaching might look good. Indeed, it could be defended very plausibly on the basis that it is up to universities, not students, to dictate what they teach and who teaches it, and that we need to protect that right.But a closer look reveals the problem with the 'Stock amendment'.

For one thing, it would look incongruous in a bill ostensibly meant to increase students rights to speak their mind. 'You can say what you like, but you mustnt concertedly attack your professors qualification to teach you,' is hardly a ringing endorsement of free speech.

Rather more importantly, it could also backfire. Imagine the boot is on the other foot, and we are dealing not with an analytical philosopher, but an academic in the humanities who, for example, frowns on any questioning of the tenets of Michel Foucault or critical race theory, or for that matter of the proposition that 'trans men are men'. Do we want to give a left-wing vice-chancellor a cast-iron legal justification for telling students that they cannot campaign against that professor on the basis that they are not receiving a rigorous education worth the name, and that if they do they will be disciplined?

Another possibility would be to add a specific bar on any student speech that could cause offence or distress to a member of staff. But this too would almost certainly cause more trouble than it was worth. It would encourage a large degree of manufactured offence. To make maters worse, it would go a great way to negating the guarantee of free speech elsewhere in the bill and give its critics of whom there are many, especially in academia some reason to say that the mountain of academic free speech advocacy had groaned and brought forth a mouse. University administrators could plausibly continue to suppress a great deal of speech, going way beyond the unacceptable events at Sussex, by repeating the mantra that they were merely protecting their staff.

What should we do, then, to prevent others suffering the fate of Stock? Perhaps the only practical way forward is to concentrate, not on speech, but on physical intimidation and disruption. It is already a criminal offence to demonstrate in such a way as to cause others to experience alarm or a reasonable fear of violence. The actions of balaclava-clad protesters who yelled obscenities aimed at professor Stock were thus arguably illegal. But this could be extended. A new offence of deliberately acting anywhere on, or just outside, a university building or campus with intent physically to prevent the carrying on of the activities of the university, its students and staff, could be introduced.

Even here, though, the prospects are limited. Unlike US colleges, our universities do not have campus police to deal with troublemakers; and it is a fair bet that the ordinary police would show little interest in getting involved in activities like those that disfigured the Brighton campus.

Another possibility would be to impose a specific legal duty on universities to protect staff from intimidation, with provision for compensation if they fail to do that. But this also has its own difficulties. Making universities automatically liable for the acts of their students on campus, even if such activities were spontaneous and unpreventable, would be drastic and possibly unfair to universities. With limited numbers of security staff on site, and police intervention from outside pretty unlikely, a university would be unlikely to be found at fault for failure to take on directly the kind of thuggery we encountered in Brighton.

In the end, it seems likely that the long-term answer lies in the hands of the universities themselves. Those who act as the Brighton protesters did are nearly always guilty of a serious breach of university regulations, and liable to fairly severe disciplinary penalties. Provided that they can be recognised and named, there is a strong case for universities to get tough and introduce a zero-tolerance policy towards intimidating others on campus. After all, ifyou are not prepared to allow your university to act as a home for free thought for those you disagree with, you have no place in it, and you have nothing to complain about if you are suspended or sent down.

Admittedly this solution, however potentially effective (and, one suspects, attractive to parents who, asked to fund their childrens education, will naturally look for a programme that will not be disrupted), is nothing to do with the Free Speech Bill. But perhaps thats not surprising. The outrage at Sussex was due more than anything else to veiled threats of violence. Menaces like that call for suppression, not by well-meaning changes in the law on university free speech, but by more radical measures.

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Could the 'Kathleen Stock' amendment backfire? - Spectator.co.uk

The announcement of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize highlights the right to information and freedom of speech in a world where democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions.

By Linda Bordoni

Reading the signs of the times, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is honouring the right to free speech in 2021 with the most prestigious of the Nobel Prizes going to two journalists, undeterred by threats and blacklists in order to get the story out.

Filippino journalist Maria Ressa, and her Russian colleague, Dmitry Muratov, are this years Peace Prize laureates chosen, in the words of the Committees chairwoman, "for their courageous fight for freedom of expression in their countries.

At the same time, Berit Reiss-Andersen added, they are representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions."

"Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda," she said, announcing the Prize on Friday morning.

Muratov is editor-in-chief of Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which has defied the Kremlin under President Vladimir Putin with investigative probes into wrongdoing and corruption. He has also extensively covered the conflict in Ukraine.

Ressa meanwhile, heads Rappler, a digital media company which she co-founded in 2012, and which has grown prominent through investigative reporting, including into large-scale killings during a Filippino police campaign against drugs.

Several lawsuits have been filed against her and she says she has been targeted because of her news site's critical reports on the countrys President.

The last time the Nobel Peace Prize went to a journalist was back in 1935 when the German Carl von Ossietzky won for revealing his country's secret post-war rearmament programme.

Journalists in both countries, and across the globe, have welcomed the accolade expressing the hope that greater visibility leads to greater protection for the rights and safety of the individuals concerned, and ultimately help protect journalism and freedom of speech across the world, as well as inspire a new generation of journalists.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be presented on 10 December.

Todays announcement comes on the heels of the assignment of the Nobel Prize for Literature that went to Tanzanias Abdulrazak Gurnah. He was chosen for his uncompromising perspective on the effects of colonialism, including forced migration. Another poignant sign of the times.

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Nobel Peace Prize honours freedom of speech - Vatican News

Lesson Overview

Featured Podcast: The Daily episode The Facebook Whistle-Blower Testifies hosted by Astead W. Herndon with special guest Sheera Frenkel

The recent congressional testimony of Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, reveals the ways that Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, negatively affects teenagers mental health and how hate speech has spread on the companys platforms. The hearing could be a turning point for the social media giant.

In this lesson, you will learn about Ms. Haugens testimony and about some of Facebooks most problematic practices. Then we invite you to discuss with your classmates how the company should be held accountable and what change should look like.

Part I. Temperature check

Read the statements below related to the way people use Facebook and Instagram. Then, rank each one on a scale of 1 (never) to 10 (always).

I see harmful content related to disordered eating, suicide or violence on social media.

I see inflammatory content shared by family and friends before I see reputable news sources.

I pause to read an article, or do additional research, before sharing something to my social media accounts.

Instagram and Facebook have a negative impact on my mental health.

Pause to reflect: What do your responses say about the way these social media apps work?

Part II. Watch a video

Watch a two-minute excerpt from the congressional testimony of Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, below. Then answer the following questions:

What kind of expertise does Ms. Haugen have to talk about the inner workings of Facebook?

What is the main idea of her testimony?

The New York Times calls Ms. Haugen a whistle-blower, or an informant who exposes wrongdoing within an organization in the hope of stopping it. What evidence from her testimony shows that she is a whistle-blower?

Listen to the first 28 minutes of the episode below. Then answer the questions that follow:

1. What was unique about Tuesdays congressional hearing, compared with previous ones on Facebook and other large tech companies?

2. How does Ms. Haugen describe Facebooks relationship with profit and its users?

3. Ms. Haugen uses two terms, engagement-based ranking and amplification of interest, to explain why harmful content such as that on disordered eating, suicide or violence is pushed to young people. In your own words, describe what these two terms mean and how they relate to the spread of negative content. Have you, or have any of your friends, experienced this?

4. What are meaningful social interactions, or M.S.I., in the world of Facebook? How has this practice become effective in spreading misinformation and keeping people attached to Facebook? Have you noticed M.S.I. affecting what you see on Facebook or Instagram?

5. Ms. Haugen talked about two things that would make using Facebook and Instagram less harmful: creating more friction and re-implementing a chronological newsfeed. Explain the purpose of each of these. Do you agree with her recommendations? Why or why not?

6. What does Sheera Frenkel, a technology reporter for The Times, say are the ways that Facebook can be held accountable? How do people within Facebook feel about these various methods of accountability?

7. Why dont Ms. Haugen and other Facebook insiders want Facebook to be broken up or totally taken down? Do you agree with this perspective? Or would you rather see Facebook taken offline entirely? Why?

In your journal, respond to the following questions: What is your reaction to Frances Haugens testimony? What surprised you in what she revealed about the inner workings of Facebook? What frustrated or angered you? What, if anything, gives you hope about the future of the company or social media in general?

Now, discuss the following questions with your classmates:

What do you think should happen next to Facebook? What should accountability look like?

Ms. Haugen suggests that Facebook should declare moral bankruptcy. What do you think this would look like and what might the outcomes or consequences be?

What role do you think the government should play in investigating or regulating social media?

The podcast references Rene DiResta, an academic and misinformation expert at Stanford University, who differentiates between freedom of speech and freedom of reach. Do you think it is possible for the government to control the spread of misinformation without infringing on the right to free speech? Why or why not?

Additional Teaching and Learning Opportunities

Read a guest essay. You can read a former data scientists recommendations on how to regulate algorithms, Kara Swishers interview with the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory and a former head of security at Facebook, or an essay that asks if Facebook should go away forever. What points do you agree and disagree with? How do these pieces change or reinforce your opinion of Facebook?

Write a letter to your senator. Explain what you should think should happen next with Facebook. You can share your own experiences with Facebook and Instagram what you find fulfilling about the sites and what you find concerning. (If you dont know where to start, read what other teens have said about their relationship to social media and mental health and react to their comments.) Then, provide two or three recommendations for how you think Congress should handle Facebook. Finally, find out how to send your letter.

Want more Lessons of the Day? You can find them all here.

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Lesson of the Day: The Facebook Whistle-Blower Testifies - The New York Times

As of Sept.1, Texas has a new law that effectively overturns Roe v. Wade. This law bans abortion after six weeks and empowers private citizens as enforcers. While this law has received much warranted attention, including numerous legal challenges, what is missing is how it threatens educators with potential lawsuits.

To provide some background: abortion is an appropriate, relevant topic in a variety of college classes, including biology, history, political science, sociology and womens studies. Lessons might address how abortion has always been around and will always exist. Coverage might further include that when legal, abortion is a safe, legitimate procedure; mandating that abortions go underground only causes harm to pregnant individuals, and that harm spreads. Lessons might also acknowledge that about 30percent of pregnancies end in natural miscarriages (also called spontaneous abortions) -- a pregnant body does not automatically mean a future human.

I see abortion in the same way that I see equal marriage, child labor laws or womens suffrage: rights that cant be debated in 2021. Where debates do occur, I agree with sociologist Sara L. Crawley and others that those debates should focus on core questions: How can we increase the health and well-being of pregnant individuals, how can we reduce unwanted pregnancies, and how can we make parenting more manageable?

Educators in Texas are presumably facing new risks with little precedent and little guidance.

In Texas, a person who knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion regardless of whether that person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed can now be sued by any private citizen.

The law is vague enough and the sociopolitical atmosphere is anti-intellectual and antiwoman enough that private citizens looking to further attack education could well exploit this new law. They might point to a college student who has an abortion and argue that they were encouraged during a routine lecture. Theres even the possibility that during a discussion, another student might share personal experience that encourages another student to have an abortion. Would both that student and the professor be liable? Would the university in question be liable, too?

Professors are thus left with impossible questions about how to deliver course curriculum without potentially confronting legal roadblocks and while also protecting their students.

An Introduction to Womens Studies class, for example, cant just omit any discussions about abortion. Usually, my gender studies classes discuss current events, especially ones of such magnitude like this Texas abortion ban, but I quickly realized the laws implications. I explained to my students that the new law might introduce challenges that impact what conversations we can have about abortion and that I needed to place a moratorium on all topics related to abortion while I tried to find answers.

Of course, this all involves a cornerstone of higher education that has been under attack for decades: academic freedom. Professors, as the content experts, need the freedom to determine how best to manage their curriculum. Education suffers when we must censor or second-guess ourselves when facilitating discussions about important, course-relevant topics due to draconian laws.

There are even free speech questions to consider when students and instructors cant speak without fearing retribution from unknown third parties. And for some people, these free speech issues morph into how Texass new law also violates their right to have sincerely held religious beliefs honored by courts of law. Specifically, members of the Satanic Temple hold that denying access to abortion and punishing people who assist in any way with an abortion violates their religious freedoms. Despite its too shocking and provoking name for my taste, I have been a member of this organization since 2020 because of its reputation and record of supporting free speech and making government entities uphold separations of church and state. In terms of abortion, members cite the seven tenets, including Ones body is inviolable, subject to ones own will alone and Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

If professors are obliged to modify curricula -- in direct response to the law or indirectly through being intimidated or for fear of it as a harbinger of things to come -- we should acknowledge that students rights are also being violated. Even when they may not immediately recognize it and even when they are against it, they have a right to accurate, clear knowledge about abortion, because like cancer or COVID-19, it impacts everyone.

And its not just educators who might talk about abortion who face new government-sponsored constraints when going about their duties. Another law took effect in Texas on Sept.1, one that bans the teaching of racism (otherwise known as critical race theory) in K-12 schools, and other states have passed or are considering passing similar measures.

As a means of protection, the most immediate option available is probably the acquisition of liability insurance for educators. Otherwise, Im not certain. Faculty are increasingly afforded less power and less support. And individual petitions to elected officials matter little in an era of minority rule and aggressive disenfranchisement.

Curriculum should always take priority, not partisan distractions and crackdowns on the vulnerable that have been happening in Texas and in other states controlled by Republicans. Academic freedom and freedom of speech are bedrock principles of our democracy and must be respected and valued as such.

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The threats of Texas's abortion law to educators (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed

A new survey shows a stunning number of college students support the idea of shouting down campus speakers they don't like or even using violence to shut them up.

In recent years, free speech on America's college campuses has come under scrutiny after numerous incidents were reported showing higher education institutions were stifling students' First Amendment rights. The so-called "thought police" can be so harsh that students are simply afraid to utter their opinion because they fear it could lead to run-ins with their peers or professors meaning lower grades or even worse.

A recent survey found that more than 80% of students report self-censoring their viewpoints at their colleges at least some of the time, with 21% saying they censor themselves often.

That startling statistic comes from the 2021 College Free Speech Rankings, conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) in partnership with RealClearEducation, which was commissioned by College Pulse.

In the same poll, almost a quarter of the college students surveyed on 159 U.S. college campuses said it was acceptable to use violence to shut down a controversial speaker. Another 66% of respondents also supported shouting down a campus speaker with whom they did not agree.

The method of using violence to stop a campus speaker saw a 5-point increase over FIRE's 2020 report, according to the non-profit organization. When it comes to violent rejection of free speech, two elite women's colleges, Wellesley College and Barnard College top that list at 45% and 43% respectively.

Largest College Survey of Free Expression Ever Conducted

The rankings assess a school's free speech climate based upon the opinions of over 37,000 students at America's largest and most prestigious campuses. The results are based on the largest survey of campus free expression ever performed.

"Existing ranking systems don't look at a core aspect of higher education: the ability to think, discuss, and speak freely," said FIRE Executive Director Robert Shibley. "Our rankings guide prospective students and their parents toward schools that value free speech and open inquiry. They also help us hold schools accountable and demand they do better."

According to FIRE, the report takes into account the varied dimensions of free expression on campus from the ability to discuss challenging topics like race, gender dynamics, and geopolitical conflicts, to whether students hold back from openly sharing their views. You can find out more about the survey's methodology here.

The top five colleges where free speech is protected and valued:

The worst colleges for free speech at the bottom of the list of 159 schools:

You can explore the 2021 College Free Speech Rankingshere.

"There are fundamental questions that every student should want answered before committing to a college," said FIRE Senior Research Counsel Adam Goldstein. "The value of higher education comes from developing a fuller understanding of the world by asking questions that challenge the status quo. A college that won't clearly protect your right to ask those questions is a bad deal, even if it boasts small class sizes or a fancy stadium."

Colleges were scored on seven main components: openness to a discussion of controversial topics, tolerance for liberal speakers, tolerance for conservative speakers, administrative support for free speech, comfort expressing ideas publicly, whether students support disruptive conduct during campus speeches, and FIRE's speech code rating.

Public schools generally performed better than private schools. Only 5 of the bottom 30 schools on the list are public, according to FIRE.

Sean Stevens, FIRE senior research fellow for polling and analytics, said a school's administration is in control of the climate for free thought and free expression on campus. Administrators need to take the lead to assure students their right to free speech will be recognized.

"The research is clear, and our experience working with these schools confirms it: Much of the campus climate for expression is determined by the administration," Stevens noted. "Staking out a leadership position on free speech and open debate resonates with students and has a real effect on a campus' climate for free expression."

Other highlights from the 2021 report include:

You can download the report here.

FIRE is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of students and faculty members at America's colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience the essential qualities of liberty.

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College Students Support Shouting and Violence to Block Free Speech - Here Are the Best and Worst Schools in 2021 - CBN News

This past week the American Civil Liberties Union honored the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader GinsburgRuth Bader GinsburgWhat would Justice Ginsburg say? Her words now part of the fight over pronouns Supreme Court low on political standing To infinity and beyond: What will it take to create a diverse and representative judiciary? MORE on the one-year anniversary of her death by rewriting her famous defense of a womans right to abortion to remove offensive language.The offensive language? References to women and female pronouns.

While Ginsburg herself likely would have made short work of such woke revisionism, the incident highlighted a critical crossroads reached in politics and academia in the treatment of misgendering as a form of hate speech or discrimination.

Across the country, universities are ramping up misgendering rules for faculty and students. The most recent isPoint Park University in Pittsburgh, which notified students that itsOffice of Equity and Inclusionwill enforce rules against misgendering, pronoun misuse anddeadnamingfor individuals who do not use their classmates' preferred pronouns.The university sent an email to students that states any individual who has been informed of another persons gender identity, pronouns, or chosen name is expected to respect that individual. Students were informed that using the wrong pronoun was a violation and action could be taken.

Many of us have no objection to using a students preferred pronouns. Indeed, many faculty members try to avoid using pronouns altogether in class, rather than look up a students designated pronoun. Confirming the right pronouns can be challenging in the middle of a fast-moving class. Students today identify from a growinglist of gender identitiesincluding, but not limited to, genderfluid, third-gender, amalgagender, demigender, bi-gender, pansgender, and a-gender. Pronouns can include, but are not limited to: He/She, They/Them, Ze/Hir (Ze, hir, hir, hirs, hirself), Ze/Zir (Ze, zir, zir, zirs, ze), Spivak (Ey, em, eir, eirs, ey), Ve (Ve, ver, vis, vis, verself), and Xe (Xe, xem, xyr, xyrs, xe).

Pronouns are fast fading from common discourse under the threat of pronoun penalties.Cities, too, are enforcing misgendering rules; for example, theNew York City Human Rights Law allows for fines if employers, landlords or professionals fail to use a preferred name, pronoun or title.

Yet some people have religious beliefs against following the new order and using such pronouns. As a result, there are serious free-speech and religious-freedomobjections to mandatory usage rules.

We are seeing a new stage in the fight over pronouns, where usage is mandatory and misgendering is a sanctionable offense. In other countries, it can be a violation of the criminal code. In England, a woman,Kate Scottow, was arrestedfollowing a debate on twitter over transgender policy. A transgender activist charged Scottow with harassment anddeadnaming, or using the prior name or gender of a transexual person.

It is not just religious conservatives objecting to misgendering and new identification rules.Some feminists have objectedthat the movement endangers feminist values and undermines advances for women. In Scotland,feminist activistMarion Millarwas charged withmalicious communication due to tweets criticizing gender self-identification.She has been labeled aTERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist).

Will misgendering in the United States be treated as actual hate speech or discriminatory speech?

To protect students from misgendering, universities and agencies would have to compel speech. This already is being litigated in some lower courts. In Loudon County, Va., a school board is fighting the courts in its effort to fireteacher Byron Tanner Cross, who was suspended for speaking against gender policies in a public board meeting.Crossrefused to use required pronounsand told the board: Its lying to a child, its abuse to a child, and its sinning against our God.The courts, includingthe state supreme court, ruled for Cross, noting that he could keep his job, adhere to his faith and satisfy the policy by avoiding pronouns altogether.

Notably, the schools rule extends to students themselves, who are required to use correct pronouns, and mandates punishment for those who intentionally and persistently refuse to respect a students gender identity by using the wrong name and gender pronoun.Religious families have said such a rule would require them to leave the public school system as a threshold exclusionary condition for public education.

The same objections are being heard in other areas. Recently, aCalifornia court ruledthatmisgendering patients is protected despite a landmark LGBTQ+ rights bill. The appellate court ruled that the 2017 lawunconstitutionally restricted freedom of speech by classifying willful and repeated misgendering and deadnaming as a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 or imprisonment of up to 180 days. The court stated thatwe recognize that misgendering may be disrespectful, discourteous, and insulting, and used as an inartful way to express an ideological disagreement with another persons expressed gender identity. But the First Amendment does not protect only speech that inoffensively and artfully articulates a persons point of view.

Now, as shown by the ACLU, past pronoun offenses are being scrubbed away even for feminist icons like the notorious Ginsburg, for referring to the right of women to have abortions. Activists like Charlotte Clymerinsisted that"trans men and non-binary folks need abortion access.The result is deepening rather than closing the divide in our society.

It is possible to allow for the adoption of alternative pronouns and the recognition of different gender identities without seeking to compel others to do so. We need to find a place of common accommodation and respect in our society. Religious people, conservatives and TERFs also are part of the diversity that we should seek to protect. In the end, a degree of mutual understanding and tolerance could produce greater integration of all of these groups.

Justice Ginsburg herself may have said it best when she advised people to fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates on Twitter@JonathanTurley.

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Freedom of speech is one of the most cherished and lately, also one of the most controversial rights we have as Americans. From accusations of fake news to the debate over politically correct speech, some believe free speech is being eroded before our very eyes.

Last week, to commemorate Constitution Day an annual event celebrated on Sept. 17, the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution Diablo Valley College hosted an expert panel via Zoom that included authors, journalists and professors to discuss the rising tide of cancel culture and what todays charged culture-war debates mean for the future of free speech.

The conversation was steered by the chair of the Journalism program at DVC, Professor Mickey Huff, and co-sponsored by the Social Justice Program, Social Sciences, the Journalism Department, and the History Area at DVC, as well as the Student Life Office, Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation.

Speakers included Dan Kovalik, author of Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture; Mnar Muhawesh Adley, editor-in-chief and founder of MintPress News and Behind the Headlines; and DVC professors Nolan Higdon (History and Media Studies) and Sangha Niyogi (Sociology and co-director of the Social Justice Program).

Professor Huff said the event was all about celebrating the freedom of expression the right to learn, the right to be heard and the right to listen, especially to the ideas that we may find abhorrent.

He opened with a brief history of the Constitution and the right to free speech in America, and provided examples of the numerous attacks against that freedom from the era of the abolitionists, through McCarthyism in the 1950s, to the Patriot Act signed by George W. Bush after 9/11. Huff ended by describing the rise of cancel culture as a growing case of censorship that I frankly find alarming.

The panelists debated a variety of viewpoints about todays fraught political and cultural climate, with some expressing deep concern about censorship and others saying they were relieved that hate speech today is less tolerated than it was in the past.

A common focus among the speakers was Big Tech, and the role that social media giants like Facebook and Twitter are playing in cases of censorship. Author Dan Kovalik noted that there has been a shift between the left and the right on free speech, and claimed that government censorship, once associated primarily with only right-wing ideology, is now being embraced by the left in the name of rooting out fake news.

Mnar Muhawesh Adley knows this all too well. Her journalistic work with Mintpress News covering abuses and the struggle for freedom in Palestine has been heavily censored and attacked as both fake news and anti-Semitic hate speech, she said.

In fact, Muhawesh Adley shared that after the 2016 partnership of Facebook and the Atlantic Council a think tank the social media giant brought in to censor so-called fake news the number of Mintpress viewers on Facebook drastically declined overnight.

The term anti-semitism is being weaponized to shut down any criticism of Israel, she said. We are living in a time where our First Amendment rights are being trampled on.

While she agreed that oppressed groups are often the most likely to be censored, politically and socially, Professor Sangha Niyogi argued that speech can incite violence against minority groups and raised the question of what kind of racist speech should be prohibited?

Niyogi spoke about hate speech, which expresses or incites hatred toward people on the basis of their identity, and said that censorship and cancel culture can be used in a positive sense to fight against it.

She emphasized that hate speech is something that society must take seriously, not dismiss as something that might, at worst, hurt the feelings of some over-sensitive liberals.

Once the panel opened up for a Q&A, many students asked questions about how to get involved in the movement to protect free speech and where to find out more information. Huff recommended both Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation as places for students to learn more.

He concluded the meeting by paraphrasing the famous fictional professor fighting for freedom in Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore, saying: We live in a time where we can choose what is easy or what is right and we should choose what is right.

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