16AR21-40

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AR 21:40 - The fight for free speech on university campuses

In this issue:

FREEDOM OF SPEECH - an "ongoing campaign to trick people" into understanding their First Amendment rights

ROMAN CATHOLICISM - Rodney Stark produces a history of "anti-Catholic hogwash"

Apologia Report 21:40 (1,313)

November 11, 2016

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"Fighting for Free Speech on America's Campuses" by Cecilia Capuzzi Simon -- profiles the work of Greg Lukianoff, president and chief executive of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). "It was Mr. Lukianoff who made the argument, in a widely read opinion piece in The Atlantic, that today's students are 'coddled' and demanding protections against offensive words and ideas at the expense of intellectual rigor and the First Amendment." [See AR 20:41 <www.goo.gl/eOFLey> for more on this.]

According to Lukianoff: "I think everyone understands that they have a free-speech right, but they don't necessarily understand why you should have one."

"Mr. Lukianoff, a First Amendment lawyer who joined FIRE in 2001 after a stint at the American Civil Liberties Union, has been on an 'ongoing campaign to trick people' into understanding those rights.

"The ultimate goal? 'Change the culture,' he said, adding quickly. 'I am under no illusion that I can do that, but I keep trying.'

"FIRE was started in 1999 by Harvey A. Silverglate, a criminal and civil rights lawyer in Boston, and Alan Charles Kors, now a University of Pennsylvania history professor. ...

"FIRE's mission has not changed, but interest from conservative groups has. Conservatives, Mr. Silverglate explained, are 'seriously squeezed in the academic world' and finding their causes 'suddenly coinciding with our agenda.' ...

"FIRE bristles at the right-wing tag often applied to them. They say they are a free-speech group, period.

"In many ways, their work has become even more complicated. Most significantly, students are, wittingly or not, becoming vocal opponents of free speech by demanding protections and safe spaces from offensive words and behaviors.

"'Something changed,' Mr. Lukianoff said. 'I don't entirely know why.' But he can date the shift: October 2013, at Brown University, when the New York City police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, was invited to speak but was shouted down by students over his support of stop-and-frisk practices.

"'I count that as the symbolic beginning because that's when we noticed an uptick in student press for disinvitations, trigger warnings and microaggression policing,' he said. 'That doesn't mean administrators have stopped doing goofy things, but now they can say, at least more convincingly, that they are being told by students that they need to do those things.'"

Simon reviews details from a recent Gallup survey that "bears out" the concerns of Lukianoff. She also discusses the case of "Teresa Buchanan, who was fired from her tenured position as an associate professor of education at Louisiana State University. FIRE is subsidizing her suit against the university, filed in January." Robert Corn-Revere, a high-profile lawyer who works with FIRE's litigation program, explains that "the case is also about 'the bigger picture - the widespread use of Title IX to violate First Amendment rights.'

"Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex in federally funded educational programs. ...

"In April, the Justice Department cemented the definition in a letter to the University of New Mexico, which.... makes clear that any complaint of a sexual nature - say, someone finds offense in an overheard Amy Schumer joke - must be investigated even if no one claims it created a 'hostile environment,' a threshold set by the Supreme Court. This 'invites censorship,' Mr. Creeley said. ...

"Universities investigated for violations of Title IX, or those that do not adequately investigate charges of sexual assault or harassment, face lengthy and expensive investigations — 246 cases are currently under investigation at 195 campuses. Those found guilty, public or private, could lose federal funding.

"Understanding Title IX, Mr. Lukianoff said, 'is not sexy and it's complicated, but it is the secret engine as to why universities overreact' in creating and enforcing speech codes and in charges of harassment or sexual assault. ... Colleges and universities, he said, are being 'asked to do the impossible.'

"There are other groups that fight for First Amendment rights on campus, but none as vocal — or pushy — as FIRE, which has gone public with 421 interventions on behalf of aggrieved students and faculty members over almost two decades (many more have been resolved privately). ...

"A lawsuit is FIRE's tactic of last resort, especially when it comes to speech codes. In about 90 percent of cases, it uses 'persuasion,' as staff members call it, to get administrators to revise or revoke questionable parts of a code. Depending on the level of 'obstinacy,' Mr. Bonilla said, 'the levers of publicity' — news releases, op-eds, media appearances — kick in. Most administrators, wary of bad press or an expensive suit, eliminate the speech codes.

"As Mr. Lukianoff likes to note, FIRE has not lost a speech-code legal challenge yet. (He recounts many of them in his 2014 book, 'Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate.' [1])

"FIRE has slowly encouraged many [schools] to rewrite their rules. In 2007, 75 percent had at least one policy restricting speech. Last year, that was down to 49 percent.

"'I admire FIRE enormously,' said Harvey Klehr, a professor of politics and history at Emory University who took an unpopular position last spring against student protesters who said they felt threatened by pro-Trump slogans chalked around campus. 'Far too many universities persist in having speech codes,' he said. 'It's very important work calling them into account.' ...

"Mr. Silverglate, who made his reputation defending radicals and protesters since the Vietnam War, objects: 'Communists, labor organizers, war protesters — they are the people responsible for the majority of great First Amendment law. We don't care what you say. If you are penalized for it, we're there.'" New York Times, Aug 7 '16, pED20. (Print edition headline: "Helping America Speak Its Mind") <www.goo.gl/XjeCwI>

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ROMAN CATHOLICISM

Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History, by Rodney Stark, distinguished professor of the social sciences and codirector of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University <baylorisr.org> and honorary professor of sociology at Peking University in Beijing [2] -- writing for the National Review (Jul 25 '16), attorney Ann Corkery calls the book "a wise and rollicking work of intellectual history." Stark "actually writes in English, not academic jargon. He never minces words. He'll tell you what's historical hogwash and why, and who promoted anti-Catholic history - and who is promoting it today. ...

"Right from the start of the book, from the first chapter on 'The Sins of Anti-Semitism,' he lets readers know when his past views were out sync with the historical record." In his discussion of the Dark Ages, "which is said to have 'fallen' over Europe following the fifth-century collapse of Rome and lasted to at least 1300, a benighted millennium hostile to progress and knowledge, thanks to orthodox Christendom. Even the most educated will be forgiven for accepting this view, which writers ... advanced for their own purposes. Yet, as Stark points out, 'serious scholars' have known for decades that this organizing scheme for Western history is a 'complete fraud' and, as Warren Hollister wrote, 'an indestructible fossil of self-congratulatory Renaissance humanism.'"

Stark covers a lot of ground: "In addition to the alleged anti-Semitism early on up to Pope Pius XII’s fabled complicity with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, he gives us chapters on the Crusaders and the Inquisition…."

Corkery concludes: "According to Stark, the rise of the West began late in the second century because of an 'extraordinary faith in reason and progress' that originated in Christianity, which held that human reason could unlock God's creation." <www.goo.gl/yZwacw>

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, by Greg Lukianoff (Encounter, 2014, paperback, 304 pages) <www.goo.gl/BBA3YK>

2 - Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History, by Rodney Stark (Templeton, 2016, hardcover, 280 pages) <www.goo.gl/HSG8E3>

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