BY HANK REICHMAN
Last week The Atlantic magazine announced a year-long reporting project, “The Speech Wars,” exploring questions of American free expression and public discourse. It is funded by the Charles Koch Foundation, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Fetzer Institute. According to the magazine, “The project will unfold across TheAtlantic.com, in video, and through live events.” It kicked off today in San Francisco at a public forum, “Free Speech (Un) Limited,” which promised to address “the debate about free speech on campuses, on tech platforms, and in politics.” The event, which I attended along with about 200 or so others, is now available on video, which can be viewed here, where you can also find a full list of speakers.
Overall, I’d say this was a good start, with much interesting and lively discussion representing different but not generally conflicting views. As AtlanticLIVE president Margaret Low put it in her closing remarks, a few sparks flew but the discussions were civil and constructive. Yet in important respects the event was disappointing nonetheless. In particular, discussion of campus free speech was limited at best, and the tech discussion was one-sided, given that all three speakers on the subject came from within the industry. At the risk of being charged with special pleading, the conversations might have benefited from more academic expertise. The professoriate was represented only by law professor Catherine MacKinnon and anti-racist historian and Committee A member Ibram X. Kendi, who along with PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel participated in a 20-minute opening panel on “Who Benefits from Free Speech?” that was necessarily somewhat superficial and too dominated by MacKinnon.
Coverage of higher education free speech issues was essentially limited to an interview with University of Chicago president Robert Zimmer, who has gained much (undeserved, in my opinion) notoriety for his aggressive championing of campus “free speech.” (There was no discussion of professorial academic freedom, including of how colleges and universities respond to online harassment of faculty members.) I have previously on this blog bemoaned the Chicago administration’s blatant hypocrisy on free speech. John Wilson has also weighed in critically (here and here), as has Chicago student Malloy Owen, whose piece in the American Conservative is very much worth reading. But it would be a bit churlish to deny that Zimmer is a legitimate voice in this debate, however. Much more troubling is that faculty members and students were entirely absent.
The situation was compounded by the fact that Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg mostly lobbed softball questions at Zimmer, rather than challenging him to defend his actions as well as his words, as some other Atlantic staff interlocutors did with other speakers at the event. Especially outrageous was Goldberg’s comparison of Zimmer with the late Mario Savio as twin university free speech icons. The pairing is absurd. Under Savio’s leadership Berkeley students gained greater free speech protections only after nearly 800 of them were arrested while occupying a campus administration building overnight, an action for which they would surely have been expelled by Chicago. By contrast, in 2016 Zimmer’s administration attempted to throw the book at a graduating senior, Tyler Kissinger, for his participation in a non-violent sit-in supporting campus workers seeking a $15 minimum wage that lasted less than an hour. Kissinger was able to graduate only after 187 faculty members signed a petition supporting him that was circulated by the campus AAUP chapter and 3,000 others signed a broader petition. At one point Goldberg told Zimmer, “You’ve surely been challenged by students” and inquired about how he responds. In fact, the truth is that he mostly doesn’t. Kissinger’s sit-in was prompted by the Zimmer administration’s repeated refusals to accept invitations to defend its labor policies at a public forum sponsored by students. Zimmer has also repeatedly refused to meet with graduate student employees, who have voted overwhelmingly to unionize with the AAUP and the AFT.
In fairness, however, I did like Zimmer’s answer to those who respond to the question “what is your view of free expression on campus” with a retort like “I prioritize safety.” This, he noted, is equivalent to responding to a question about how the faculty approaches the study of science with the comment, “I prioritize lab safety.” Of course, Zimmer noted, lab safety is critical, but it’s not an approach to the teaching of science. Similarly, campus safety is essential, but it can’t excuse a failure to grapple with the vicissitudes of intellectual freedom.
Discussion of the tech industry occupied the final 45 minutes of the nearly three-hour event. Ellen Pao, who gained fame for her challenges to Silicon Valley sexism, was interviewed first and then Nicole Wong, former Google executive and Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the Obama administration, and Elliot Schrage, outgoing VP of Communications at Facebook, discussed the industry’s “tough choices.” The discussion was interesting, but I had to think it would have been more enlightening to also hear from academic critics of the tech industry like the University of Virginia’s Siva Vaidyanathan, author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy, or the University of North Carolina’s Zeynep Tufekci, author of Twitter and Tear Gas, or Yale legal scholar Kate Klonick, who has analyzed the role of Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. as the “new governors” of speech. Perhaps at a future event.
Other comments: A session on “How to Fight Hate Speech” was probably the most riveting segment, as Brennan Gilmore, who filmed the deadly Charlottesville automobile assault and has sued Alex Jones and Infowars for defamation, Brittan Heller, who experienced unimaginable online harassment as a law student, and Susan Christian, chair of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, made the importance of getting the free speech issue right very real to those in the audience, which included two large groups of high school students. An interview with Noam Dworman, owner of the Comedy Cellar who returned disgraced comedian Louis C.K. to his stage, was surprisingly stimulating. “There’s a big difference between the Twitter mob and everyone else,” Dworman said, adding that employers would be well advised not to fire people based on online responses, a warning that should also be heeded by college and university administrators. Lastly, in a session on freedom of the press Michael Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, which tracks violations of press freedom around the world, pointed out that freedom and democracy globally have been in “a world of hurt for at least a decade.” Hence we can’t blame it all on Donald Trump. Nonetheless, in just the past year, he reported, seventeen different countries have adopted laws that go after bloggers or journalists for promoting either hate speech or “fake news.’ In that sense, he concluded, Trump’s influence may be more significant globally than it is at home.
The Atlantic has begun an important initiative that I hope continues and reaches more people. I also hope they will seek out a broader variety of participants and viewpoints, especially when it comes to issues of academic freedom and free speech on campus.
why do you think Koch is supporting this effort? How does it square with their efforts to control what is thought and taught at universities in the US? There is a national organization of students, UnKoch My Campus……Is this Koch’s way of replying to them and seeking cover as a “tolerant” operation. I would like to know more about that.
This is a well written and fair minded report. I otherwise agree, as an alumnus, executive and scholar, with the writer’s characterizations of University of Chicago president Rob Zimmer. It is difficult to discern what his actual intentions, position or loyalties are. His public assertions are largely platitudes appearing as enlightened ratifications of constitutional speech and assembly rights. But in the actual contractual documents enforced on students–and others– his motivations appear more designed to shield the sensibilities and affiliations of corporate and other donors who more than anything are sensitive to controversy of the kind that can snowball from student unrest. Chicago’s Articles of punishment are in fact designed to rather severely suppress dissent (or rather than ratify free speech standards, instead, silence speaking out) and intimidate active political initiative. In these regards there’s little about free speech and the constitution, the first amendment, students even or any pedagogic philosophy– and more about tort law, liability management and the protection of administrative privilege and economic largess (Zimmer is the highest paid president among his peers and recently purchased a nearly $4 million private estate, off campus, on Chicago’s Gold Coast. He used to be a math teacher). I don’t cite this to be critical per se but to underscore what motivations are actually in play when student protesting and disruptive speech acts are seen as a threat to university corporate regularity, and private privileging. Readers may see my opinion on this matter in the WSJ, or more broadly on its pedagogic ramifications, on a PBS public television guest interview from a 2016 program on college free speech controversy. Otherwise a good piece and thank you for sharing The Atlantic series program. This is an important issue among many debated on our campuses across the country. In that regard it should be of note to the broader public as well, as a matter of good civic engagement if not occasional civic leadership. Regards.