BY JOHN K. WiLSON
Tony Woodlief in the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 30 offered a conservative critique of free speech absolutism, claiming that “the intolerance prevailing on college campuses isn’t the result of too little speech. It’s a consequence of too much speech.” Woodlief represents a disturbing trend on the right, where a sneer of contempt toward the concept of free speech is increasingly common, as it is among some on the far left.
The left and the right are growing to share a belief in repression on campus as an ideal, each believing that destroying the other side is more important than protecting their own speech–or deluded enough to imagine that abandoning free speech would never harm them.
Even if you imagine that censorship is wonderful and will enable your ideas to prevail, there is no guarantee that censorship will serve your goals, rather than being used by your political enemies to silence you. Woodlief and the censors on the right imagine that banning leftist faculty will protect the freedom of the conservatives; the censors on the left imagine that free speech is silenced by the existence of hate speech. They’re both wrong.
Woodlief complains that “ideas inimical to free speech—Marxism and its identitarian offshoots—receive perennially fresh hearings under various guises in departments ranging from gender studies to philosophy to English.” Since he thinks Marxism is always evil, Woodlief believes it should be forever banished from colleges–ironically, in the name of free speech.
Woodlief thinks that we must be “constraining radicals who use their classrooms and administrative perches to persuade the young that freedom is a fiction.” Notice the word “persuade” there. Woodlief isn’t complaining against those who violate the rights of students; he is directly attacking those who seek to persuade students with ideas Woodlief thinks must be prohibited.
So what is Woodlief’s plan? Woodlief cites the AAUP’s Statement on Professional Ethics that urges faculty to protect “free inquiry” and he declares, “University administrators may not have the courage to hold their institutions to these standards, but there’s no reason courts won’t. These standards should be rigorously applied to every university instructor on the left and right.”
It’s extraordinarily dangerous to say that universities should be firing faculty members deemed to be opposed to free inquiry (especially if all alleged Marxists are covered by that opinion). But that’s nothing compared to the nightmare of repression that would occur if courts stepped in to order the firing of professors said to be opposed to free speech.
The AAUP’s Statement on Professional Ethics is a statement of grand ideals for professionals, not an enforceable code that can be used to fire any professor who is thought to fall short of perfection.
The call for censorship is often based on grossly exaggerated assertions. Woodlief claims, for example, that the University of Chicago “allowed radical faculty members to obstruct Steve Bannon from speaking on campus, claiming his words were dangerous to students.” In reality, while some left-wing faculty opposed having a university program invite Bannon to speak (even before Bannon was indicted for fraud), they did not obstruct him; instead, Bannon apparently failed to schedule a date.
Austen Goolsbee, who had agreed to debate Bannon, called Bannon a “snowflake” for refusing to confirm an appearance. Woodlief seems to imagine that courts should be intervening to fire every professor who dares to say Steve Bannon didn’t merit an invitation from the University of Chicago. Ironically, Woodlief shares the exact same approach as those who argue for banning Bannon. He thinks free speech absolutism is a terrible idea and that universities should exclude bad people for their wrong ideas.
Woodlief concludes, “To save free speech in our broader society, it’s imperative that we demand its more responsible exercise in our classrooms.” The belief that we must destroy free speech to save free speech, that we must violate democracy to save democracy, that we must abandon principles to save our principles, is uttered by those who don’t understand and who don’t truly believe in free speech.
If you are equating some powerless student groups who have no power with the right who control both political parties, every television network and nearly everything else worth owning, then I have nothing to say. Try defending Palestine or rejecting the innate good intentions of American Foreign policy and see what platforms you are permitted. There is a very tiny left in the US and outside of labor and civil society groups, it has very little actual power, as the economic distribution of the last 50 years makes clear.
Yes, I too am interested in the “both sidesism” of this (which, as the respondent above reminds us, does not account for financial and power imbalances, among other possible things) — which groups on the left do you equate with the conservative argument you focus on? You say “the censors on the left imagine that free speech is silence by the existence of hate speech.” I’m not sure I understand what that sentence means. Can you say more?
Jennifer–if you’re trying to claim that nobody on the left rejects free speech, I can suggest a very long reading list, including books such as “The Case Against Free Speech.” And one of those leftist arguments is that absolute free speech promotes hateful speech that ends up silencing members of oppressed groups. There is an argument that the attacks on free speech by the right are more consequential and repressive than those by the left, and that’s an argument I make, but we can’t pretend that leftists never argue against free speech.
I was not claiming that. I was asking you to say more about the arguments on the left that you object to.
I’m tempted to agree with you, because it proves my point: Leftists don’t have power, so they should oppose giving the authority to censor to those in power and instead support free speech absolutism as the best protection for their ideas. However, I don’t think the facts completely support your belief. Yes, student groups are largely powerless, but certainly faculty have some power (if only in the classroom and in the hiring process on occasion), and they tend to be left of center.
The left is so powerful in department hiring that Norman Finkelstein, a world renowned scholar whose work was translated into more languages than the rest of his Humanities department combined, cannot get a job at any American University. That is one scholar off the top of my head. There are others. The both sides mantra is absurd.
Agreed. That is an excellent example.
Can you really compare someone who is fighting for awareness of oppression (Finkelstein) with someone anxious to argue the genetic inferiority of others (Murray) or the need for Belgium to re-colonize the Congo (Gilley)? At least we need to acknowledge that in the post-Charlottesville (“both sides have fine people”) era of the Trump presidency, the terms of left and right have changed. The desire for nonpartisanship for the sake of putative objectivity is no longer tenable and is arguably cowardly.
Really, though, the issue here is not “destroying” or “saving” free speech. It’s how universities regulate speech, which they do all the time. Some conservatives seem to want legislators, Administrators, or the Board to discipline faculty speech. Such a position is classically anti-academic freedom. Academics who object to speech denigrating others or argue for the rights of academics to speak against institutionalized power aren’t typically calling on someone from above to take charge but are making their case to other academics.
John: This is one of your best posts on free speech, as a statement of “first principles” let’s call it. In practice, though, there are some complications. Allow me to briefly explain just a few.
You bring up the University of Chicago. Their “principles” document threatens students with sanctions if found in violation by a “speech Dean.’ Their latest contract is the “Health Pact” which contractually obligates any student so unwise to accept it, with full ideological compliance with any biosecurity pretext. Raising objections is reportable to the administration by “Health Monitors” that track students, record private information, profile their habits, and post their photo if found a “Divergent.” If a Middle East former prime minister, an accused war criminal speaks on campus (he has) and you are a protesting Muslim (there were many) you will be escorted out before even speaking, and blocked from even listening, by paramilitary police (they were). If you criticize Israel, or assert BDS policy, you will be sanctioned under new executive orders fully endorsed by the University, and accused of violating a federal order, while being accused of Civil Rights Act violations under the Order’s assertion that criticizing Israel is a personal attack of anti-semitic discrimination. Destroying free speech, indeed.
UChicago graduate and writer Susan Sontag said ““The white race is the cancer of human history.” No problem, right? Applause awaits you in every UChicago classroom by the radical Left. But dare change one word, and you will be subject to effective gang violence, a report, a hearing and tribunal. Or take terrorism, racism, climate, warming, or now covid, and you are either a believer, or you are a heretic and an outcast. Indeed, you are now “dangerous,” and “unsafe,” especially if you are a member of a sorority or fraternity. For many, it is bullying, extortion, intimidation and even suspension of due process. As for Bannon, he was not indicted, he was charged. Under the Constitution, he is presumed innocent. As for UChicago professor Austan Goolsbee, his recent performance on Fox news, defending BLM crime, assault and destruction, perhaps set new standards in free speech acts.
See Northwestern University retired professor Joe Epstein’s WSJ article this weekend: “Today’s College Classroom Is a Therapy Session: The tough guys are gone. Instructors are expected to foster ‘safe,’ ‘nurturing,’ ‘antiracist’ spaces,” 30 August, https://www.wsj.com/articles/todays-college-classroom-is-a-therapy-session-11598654387.
Woodlief’s argument is more subtle than you portray, and Left (and special interest) indoctrination is a very real, if profound problem on campus (including the previous “neo-con’ constructs of terror). It is so bad, many students are not returning, many parents aren’t paying, and Turning Point is raising millions, among many other groups. That should concern the AAUP, but they appear politically captured.
Regards, ’96, UChicago