Prof Dismisses Trump’s Efforts to Protect Campus Free Speech as ‘Wrongheaded’
“institutions of higher education have demonstrated repeatedly that they are staunch supporters of the First Amendment”
Professor Michele S. Moses teaches education at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She argues that higher education is fully committed to free speech and that Trump’s executive order misses the point.
She writes at Inside Higher Ed:
President Trump Misses the Point
President Trump is focusing on the wrong problem. He announced Saturday that he is planning to issue an executive order that would punish colleges and universities that “do not support free speech” by denying them federal research funds. In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump said, “If they [institutions of higher education] want our dollars and we give them by the billions, they’ve got to allow people to speak.”
This was prompted by an incident where a man (who is not a student) was on the University of California, Berkeley’s campus praising Trump and another man (also not a student at Berkeley) punched him.
Unfortunately, Trump’s response is wrongheaded. Like many others, the president mistakenly criticizes colleges and universities for not protecting free speech, when in fact, institutions of higher education have demonstrated repeatedly that they are staunch supporters of the First Amendment, as well as of related core values such as academic freedom and the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Colleges and universities actually are crucial allies in the promotion and protection of not only free speech, but also the open exchange of ideas and dialogue across difference.
The mistake that Trump and others make is to assume that to protect freedom of speech, campus leaders and faculty have to allow people on campus to say whatever they want. Valuing free speech does not have to come at the expense of students’ and faculty’s pursuit of knowledge and truth, a (some might say the) fundamental mission of higher education. Campus leaders can lean on their campus’s mission and on academic freedom to champion both truth and free speech on campus.
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Comments
So in order to protect speech, it’s important to suppress speech? And the smart people (meaning professors and administrators) get to decide which speech is which?
It amazes me when people spout this kind of gibberish and then act surprised and offended that the rest of us don’t take them at all seriously.
Note she also throws around the word “truth” a great deal. Which “Truth” would that be?
This is the sort of fuzzy thinking which becomes almost palatable only when set to music.
The mistake that Trump and others make is to assume that to protect the freedom to vote the government must allow people to vote for whomever they like.
The mistake that Trump and others make is to assume that to protect the freedom to marry the government must allow people to marry whomever they like.
The mistake that Trump and others make is to assume that to protect the freedom of movement between the states the government must allow people to go wherever they like.
This is fun.
Spot on.
Excellent! Sounds like something from the Babylon Bee.
Perhaps your best post ever.