As some one who lives under a blasphemy culture, I think American greatly take for granted their freedoms of speech, and it boggles me that this is not a corner stone of the American Left.
While I could link to hundreds of example, this one example (out of hundreds) that occurred at a university is example of offense culture taken to extreme and weaponized:
Just the implication of possible offense caused this incident. Sure, the main culprits had other ideas, but the mob was there purely due to supposed offense. If you dare, you are welcome to look [1] the videos of the incident, it's horrifying.
And as a proxy, you can also guess just how guarded and buffered speech here is, and yet such events happen.
This is a slippery slope, and just because this happened for a few decades in the West doesn't mean it can't happen at all. And it's not the just the left, January 6 has shown that the American right are threat vector also..
Needless to remind you, it contains some NSFL material, I only linked because I think some education of reality is in order. This is the extreme end for the tolerance to offense.
I've seen instances of wealthy or powerful individuals publicly calling for private platforms to deregulate speech not because of a dedication to the ideals of free speech (the ostensible reason) but as a tactic to achieve some political goal, e.g. in order to promote confusion about anthropogenic climate change to benefit the fossil fuel industry.
I've also seen instances of individuals defending free speech because they hold unpopular (or sometimes even hurtful) opinions and want to be taken seriously, or want a megaphone – both of which they are free to demand but which no one is obligated to give them.
I signed the MIT Free Speech Alliance's petition and signed up for its newsletter because I agree with the aims of the movement, but I had the impression that some of the alumni leading the alliance have political motives, or are less angry about the loss of freedom at universities [1] than they are about the social opinions of the rising generation, which worries me somewhat.
[1] which IMO ought to be the paragons of free speech.
It is entirely normal and correct that a free society harbors many diverse and even rancorously disagreeing and opposed political agendas.
Of course we disagree with our political opponents and feel that the policies they advocate are not optimal. It might be convenient to your politics if your opposition’s voice is dampened, but your opposition feels the same of your voice and does so for reasons no less sincere than your own.
That’s the fundamental bargain. You are neither obligated to hand anyone a megaphone, nor obligated to confiscate theirs.
The megaphone analogy is limited in applicability. It only applies where the recipient never opted to hear the message, but it is forced upon them.
Free speech issues are about interfering with speech where there is a willing audience. Even in cases where someone is offended by a message, often it's not that they don't want to hear the message; it's that they don't want others to hear the message.
> "I've also seen instances of individuals defending free speech because they hold unpopular (or sometimes even hurtful) opinions and want to be taken seriously, or want a megaphone – both of which they are free to demand but which no one is obligated to give them."
Convenient that we're only doing that because "we have unpopular opinions". But did it ever occur to you that they're unpopular because we're not allowed to speak our minds fully and rationally convince others of our ideas' merits?
I have seen very very good arguments that climate change is happening, but human's impact on it is most likely miniscule.
If this is the indeed the truth, then the trillions we currently invest in "reversing man made climate change" would be better invested in "preparing for the inevitable".
Even if powerful people rally for free speech in order to achieve an (maybe evil) political goal, THATS OBVIOUSLY BETTER THAN using censorship to achieve a (probably evil) political goal.
I find it unbelievable that this is such a hard concept to grasp.
If powerful people use free speech to spread nonsense, then just present your counter arguments, god damnit.
I know that it "takes more time to refute bullshit than to produce bullshit", sadly, that's just how it is. The bitcoin community has spent more than 12 years now to refute bullshit and people still fall for all the debunked FUD. This just means that we need a better tool to refute bullshit faster and more efficiently.
Wikipedia was a good first try, but of course since it succumbed to the woke mind virus, it is no longer viable.
There is a civilisation altering opportunity here to produce a new tool like it. I don't know how such a tool would look like.
The next twist of free speech is trying to distinguish between "real" speech and shills (and worse, bots). If you allow free speech on your platform, do you allow freedom of dishonest speech? Do you allow freedom of automated speech? If you do, you won't have a platform that humans care about.
> both of which they are free to demand but which no one is obligated to give them.
I think the university is trying to find a middle ground here: The university - as institution and administrative body - is acting as the entity that "gives free speech to them" here: They are permitting those arguments be made in public events, on flyers, posters, etc. Of course they can't force students to listen to that speech. So I'd imagine that calls to boycott certain classes still remain valid. However, what they do is forbidding people from blocking others from listening, e.g. by demanding that certain people don't speak at all, blocking entrances to lecture halls, etc. That seems like a reasonable approach to me.
More generally: I've seen the "free speech does not apply to private entities/free speech is no right to be listened to/free speech is not freedom from consequences" arguments online a lot - they seem to be the standard counter arguments of some groups - and I've always found them deeply problematic.
First of all, I think there are a lot of authoritarian states who would be more than happy to adopt the "public only" definition of free speech without any substantial loss of control: "Yes of course, dear dissident, you're perfectly in your legal rights to accuse me of human rights violations on your website. But I'm afraid, I won't be able to help you if the country's ISP makes a private decision to block your site, if your employer spontaneously exercises its right to fire you the next day and if a crowd of concerned private citizens with privately-owned baseball bats will gather in front of your house tonight. Consequences!"
Secondly, the arguments rely on a situation where most services that faciliate discussion in a society - i.e. the media sector - are provided by private companies and are not subject to democratic decision making. So basically they rely on a weak state. That's originally a right-libertarian vision of society and I don't think anyone who calls themselves "left" should be comfortable adopting that vision.
Universities are agency normalizing agents of government.
We’re not talking launching some professor from a cannon but doing as humans have done for years and updating colloquial language models. This is freaking out the establishment as it does and has, and of course the establishment labels it as anti-freedom to teach them anything, because of course it’s the establishment; it teaches us not the other way around!
MIT is like a rack of Twitter servers; we could unplug it and society will keep going because it’s not immutably reliant on society. Many thousands of workers are though and only “essential workers” have an obligation to output real results.
Also in the Soviet Union most people publishing and spreading unsanctioned works, did so because they did not propagate the blessed and (therefore) popular views of the party. How strange.
If you don't have any unpopular opinions you're not a very interesting person. And if you can't even argue as a devil's advocate for the other side, you're not a very skilled thinker. And institutions that don't foster and protect divergent thinkers do not produce interesting science or engineering.
The original statement was proposed in a September report by the Ad Hoc working group on free expression. The report is much more interesting since goes into quite a bit of detail on MIT's current de facto policies and proposes real steps for moving forward. The cancelled 2021 lecture by Dorian Abbot is discussed. Their recommendation #6 explicitly says that "Rescinding an invitation to deliver protected speech, as defined and explained in this report, conflicts with freedom of expression." . Their full report, including the original proposed statement and their recommendations, is here: https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/report...
Let's see how this pans out but, if I were a student and deciding between MIT or Standford I'd likely choose MIT if Standford didn't have the equivalent of this. However, I don't have much faith in this actually happening or being implemented without carveouts or exceptions.
I honestly don't think statements like these mean that much, nor do I think speech policing quite takes the form people expect. Columbia's president Lee Bollinger is well known as being a free speech advocate and scholar, but Columbia usually strikes people as having a more social-justice sort of climate (if I'm not mistaken Latinx as a term originates from Columbia).
Usually, I believe that undergrads are typically the source of protest and these sort of policies. These policies really just indicate whether the university will formalize student demands, but de jure doesn't really do much when you'll still have tenured faculty doing their own thing and students protesting regardless.
Additionally, I don't know if many students will share your convictions. Chicago has long had a free-speech policy, but even though they're probably the most academically serious/legitimate institution alongside Princeton and Caltech, I think their usnews ranking has done more for their applications than free speech.
Still a good thing, but I'd think it'd be more meaningful if MIT brought back stallman
A few days ago Stanford published some guide on words you can't say like "American" and "grandfather", so it seems the universities are total opposites in their stances now.
I, too, am suspicious of this statement. It brings to mind the context of the similar one issued by the University of Chicago a few years ago. While the administration was publicly affirming its commitment to free speech, individual departments and organizations within the university were unobstructed in contravening it. My sense is that, at the time, a number of wealthy private schools had made the national news for the nonsense in which their students were engaging. Rich parents started balking at sending their kids to them, so enrollment (and thus vast sums of tuition money) declined. The University of Chicago put out that statement to buttress its public reputation as an elite, exclusive private school without ever enforcing it.
My sense is that this MIT statement serves a similar purpose in that it panders to the sensibilities of parents paying the tuition bills. However, if their conviction is, in fact, sincere, I think there is one good way to demonstrate it --- officially sanction professors and students engaging in behavior contrary to the free expression of their peers. Has MIT ever done this? If not, I cannot think of this announcement as little more than an advertising stunt.
Can anyone say what this section means in practice?:
>A commitment to free expression includes hearing and hosting speakers, including those whose views or opinions may not be shared by many members of the MIT community and may be harmful to some. This commitment includes the freedom to criticize and peacefully protest speakers to whom one may object, but it does not extend to suppressing or restricting such speakers from expressing their views.
I'm interested in hearing how the process for selecting speakers currently works, as well as how the signatories would like it to be changed. If a single faculty member wishes to invite a speaker, does that give that speaker the right to talk in an official capacity? What if a speaker has no support on campus? Are they entitled to be hosted by MIT? If not, are they being 'restricted from expressing their views'?
It seemed to me like the actual problem was not intolerance of free expression per se, but rather that the administration had adopted a position of submission with respect to student activism. As soon as students raised a hue and cry over some issue — any issue — the administrators just rolled over, as though they were not actually in charge of the institutions they nominally oversaw. Frankly, as though they were terrified of their own students. The loss of academic freedom follows from that, but only as a consequence of the administration losing their grip and being unable (or unwilling) to sustain it. Others in this thread are, I think, safely predicting that this declaration will turn out to be toothless — if so, I think the explanation will be that you can't drive from the back seat.
There's little chance this will ever be supported by the administrative class at MIT or any other institution. By expanding protected speech it limits their power. They have fewer punitive options and less dominion over campus activities.
I always come back to this exchange between the Yale administrator and the protesting students:
Prof: I stand behind free speech; yes, I do.
Student 2: Well then that sorry doesn't mean anything.
Student 3: Even when it's offensive?
Prof (addressing Stud 3): Even when it's offensive. Especially if it's offensive. Even if-
Stud 3: Even when it denigrates me?
Prof: Even when it denigrates you, even though I don't agree with the content of the speech. I have the same objections to the speech that you do. The same ones.
Stud 2 (interrupting): But it doesn't submit(?) afflict to you-
Stud 1 (interrupting): But what about the swastika-
Prof (cont'd): But, I defend the right for people to speak their mind.
Stud 3: So when the IAC (Intercultural Affairs Council) sends out an email saying...
Prof: So who gets to decide what's offensive? Who gets to decide guys?
Stud 2: When it hurts me!
Stud 1: When it's offensive to me!
Prof: What if everybody says, "I'm hurt"? Does that mean everyone else has to stop speaking?
Student 4: But that's not what was happening!
Stud 1: No! Because you don't- No, but you don't under-
Prof: Hold on. So I agree with the content of your speech. I am as against racism as you are. I am as against social inequality as you are. I have spent my life addressing these issues, even some of the students in my class can speak out to this, but that is different than the freedom of speech. The right to defend people to say whatever they want including you! Including your right to write what you want and speak to me; which I will also defend.
Professor seems to forget that freedom of expression includes the freedom of association. You’re free to say awful things, and <private university> is free to not want their name associated with yours.
These freedoms always seem to extend just far enough to protect the person who offends, but never the reaction to the offense. I guess being offended is too offensive?
The “it hurts me” argument is a very-very obvious red herring.
If just saying “let’s kill xy” is not okay, then somebody already decides what is offensive. That somebody is for example the judges. The question always whether restricting something is beneficial to the population in general, or not.
Spreading distractions to real issues is absolutely not beneficial. This video, and comment does exactly that. The real problem is what we do with this non beneficial behaviour for example. The absolutist viewpoint of freedom of speech, thinks that everybody can decide on their own what’s good for them. That’s obviously not true, we know countless examples of that. We just need to restrict access to real information, which happens currently to most of the people everywhere. Fortunately, the general population is not stupid, but we don’t have enough time/attention to details (I think). So we just needs to be sure, that everybody can get the real stuff in their own limited time. The problem is, you cannot achieve this without control, and probably, restricting others freedom of speech, because otherwise they can fill that “limited time”. Another obvious problem is what is the “real stuff”.
One interesting idea is to restrict the amount of content which can be created per day, for example. The content still could be quite free. Obviously, these won’t be achieved in a free market, and I’m absolutely not sure that there won’t be new ways to break the system. What we can see today, is another idea, the context bubbles next to obvious lies, but this also have issues regarding deciding what’s true.
1. Repercussions for harmful or bigoted speech, as well as escalation of responses. For example what if a person or group is being bullied but it’s claimed under free expression? What recourse is allowed within the realms of their free expression? What happens when things escalate between parties beyond just words but physical harm?
2. Similarly how do they stop majority dominance and snowballing into group think? E.g if there are way more men or women in a program and they use their larger numbers to amplify their freedom of expression in a way that affects the others. That then risks reducing the number of the minority demographic as they slowly get pushed out, leading to largely heterogeneous programs.
I’m sure, or at least hopeful, that they cover it because it would be a ridiculous omission. However balance is tricky.
It’s why I typically don’t like using “free” as a descriptor often for freedom to do stuff. Society has tons and tons of limitations and absolute freedom of speech has never really been a thing, nor do I think it can/should be, because speech can have so many extreme consequences.
There is almost no one who's actually for completely unchecked freedom of speech, so it's all a matter of deciding where along your sliding scale you draw the line.
Would you suggest that things like murder threats or libel should be legal? Otherwise you're advocating for conditional or contingent free expression too.
> We cannot prohibit speech that some experience as offensive or injurious.
They are giving credence to the idea that words can injure. I would have rather seen this phrased as "that some believe to be offensive or injurious". But I imagine this sentence was heavily negotiated.
The YouTube channel [0] for the Stanford Academic Freedom Conference is a relevant watch. While this conference has been incredibly and unjustly demonized by the media, I'd still urge people to watch it. Despite my disagreement with the political views of some of the panelists, they do bring up sensible points pertaining to free speech in academia, and the threat it's presently facing.
Sound like virtue signaling to me. I wish this works out.
I was watching Funky Town mix and thinking how much freedom and joy we lost from those times to now. Things are seriously messed up.
We have fantastic computers, but we have app stores to "protect us" from software. People stopped building software for fun (mostly), now you can't even buy software, you have to subscribe...
Was reading the policy document when this “innocuous” paragraph struck me. Am I misunderstanding something?
> Regarding freedom of teaching, faculty do not have total discretion over their course content. For example, a class titled “Beginning Chinese” cannot be taught as an advanced calculus class. And department heads would be within their rights to consider faculty members’ expertise in the process of making or adjusting teaching assignments. Working within our standard administrative structures such as curriculum planning committees, faculty generally should be able to teach the scholarly content they wish. Academic freedom does not give faculty members the unfettered right to advocate political beliefs in their classrooms that are irrelevant to the course content. Such political expression should be grounded in the faculty member’s expertise, relevant to the subject matter, and consistent with both sound pedagogical principles and the achievement of learning objectives.
The exercise of academic freedom with respect to research, publication, and teaching takes place in a context of scholarly rigor. Evaluating the strength of arguments and the quality of ideas is intrinsic to research and education processes. Aside from cases where evidence of invidious discrimination exists, faculty members cannot claim that the denial of tenure based on a professional assessment of the faculty member’s scholarship constitutes censorship. Nor can a student receiving a less than desired grade in a class claim that wrong answers are a form of protected speech. Though faculty and researchers have a good deal of freedom, that freedom is exercised in an academic context in which disciplinary competence and professional judgment are crucial to knowledge production and education.19
Freedom of intramural expression means that faculty members should be able to speak their minds about their own institution and its policies. MIT strongly values this freedom
Isn’t this saying “stay in your lane and only express political views if it’s relevant to your academic discipline”. An engineering professor might have a thing or two to say about copyright but since their academic profession isn’t law, they’re not allowed to opine on it? A biology professor might not agree with climate policy of the current administration and that means they can’t speak their opinion because they’re not a climatologist nor a political scientist? Isn’t academic freedom supposed to be the opportunity to mix in thoughts from outside the field so that blind spots can be examined? Stratifying and isolating freedom of speech in this manner would seem to encourage intellectual isolation. Not something I’d want to see from an institution that’s supposed to be educating the next generation of great thinkers who aren’t bound by conventional thinking. Of course, I probably just misunderstood what this is saying. I didn’t go to MIT and I never did do well in English class.
Free speech is about time and place. They are saying that speech can be free, but going into a political rant in the middle of a class on calculus is not appropriate.
Free speech is about saying what you like, but in a context where others are free to leave. I can't leave my class without prejudicing my grade, but I didn't sign up for your diatribes on human diet.
It seems to be talking specifically about course content.
So if you're a biology professor, and you dislike the government (or universities) climiate policies, you can't use your lessons as your soap-box.
Unless you can tie it to "faculty member’s expertise, relevant to the subject matter, and consistent with both sound pedagogical principles and the achievement of learning objectives."
This seems entirely reasonable - heck, it goes as far as allowing proffesors to expouse their own political views in classroom as long as they can establish it's relevant.
[+] [-] ryzvonusef|3 years ago|reply
While I could link to hundreds of example, this one example (out of hundreds) that occurred at a university is example of offense culture taken to extreme and weaponized:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_of_Mashal_Khan
Just the implication of possible offense caused this incident. Sure, the main culprits had other ideas, but the mob was there purely due to supposed offense. If you dare, you are welcome to look [1] the videos of the incident, it's horrifying.
And as a proxy, you can also guess just how guarded and buffered speech here is, and yet such events happen.
This is a slippery slope, and just because this happened for a few decades in the West doesn't mean it can't happen at all. And it's not the just the left, January 6 has shown that the American right are threat vector also..
----
[1]:https://twitter.com/search?q=Mashal+Khan+until%3A2017-04-14+...
Needless to remind you, it contains some NSFL material, I only linked because I think some education of reality is in order. This is the extreme end for the tolerance to offense.
[+] [-] agalunar|3 years ago|reply
I've also seen instances of individuals defending free speech because they hold unpopular (or sometimes even hurtful) opinions and want to be taken seriously, or want a megaphone – both of which they are free to demand but which no one is obligated to give them.
I signed the MIT Free Speech Alliance's petition and signed up for its newsletter because I agree with the aims of the movement, but I had the impression that some of the alumni leading the alliance have political motives, or are less angry about the loss of freedom at universities [1] than they are about the social opinions of the rising generation, which worries me somewhat.
[1] which IMO ought to be the paragons of free speech.
[+] [-] lelanthran|3 years ago|reply
Well, popular opinion needs no protections.
[+] [-] ehvatum|3 years ago|reply
Of course we disagree with our political opponents and feel that the policies they advocate are not optimal. It might be convenient to your politics if your opposition’s voice is dampened, but your opposition feels the same of your voice and does so for reasons no less sincere than your own.
That’s the fundamental bargain. You are neither obligated to hand anyone a megaphone, nor obligated to confiscate theirs.
[+] [-] chmod600|3 years ago|reply
The megaphone analogy is limited in applicability. It only applies where the recipient never opted to hear the message, but it is forced upon them.
Free speech issues are about interfering with speech where there is a willing audience. Even in cases where someone is offended by a message, often it's not that they don't want to hear the message; it's that they don't want others to hear the message.
[+] [-] zo1|3 years ago|reply
Convenient that we're only doing that because "we have unpopular opinions". But did it ever occur to you that they're unpopular because we're not allowed to speak our minds fully and rationally convince others of our ideas' merits?
[+] [-] martin82|3 years ago|reply
If this is the indeed the truth, then the trillions we currently invest in "reversing man made climate change" would be better invested in "preparing for the inevitable".
Even if powerful people rally for free speech in order to achieve an (maybe evil) political goal, THATS OBVIOUSLY BETTER THAN using censorship to achieve a (probably evil) political goal.
I find it unbelievable that this is such a hard concept to grasp.
If powerful people use free speech to spread nonsense, then just present your counter arguments, god damnit.
I know that it "takes more time to refute bullshit than to produce bullshit", sadly, that's just how it is. The bitcoin community has spent more than 12 years now to refute bullshit and people still fall for all the debunked FUD. This just means that we need a better tool to refute bullshit faster and more efficiently.
Wikipedia was a good first try, but of course since it succumbed to the woke mind virus, it is no longer viable.
There is a civilisation altering opportunity here to produce a new tool like it. I don't know how such a tool would look like.
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xg15|3 years ago|reply
I think the university is trying to find a middle ground here: The university - as institution and administrative body - is acting as the entity that "gives free speech to them" here: They are permitting those arguments be made in public events, on flyers, posters, etc. Of course they can't force students to listen to that speech. So I'd imagine that calls to boycott certain classes still remain valid. However, what they do is forbidding people from blocking others from listening, e.g. by demanding that certain people don't speak at all, blocking entrances to lecture halls, etc. That seems like a reasonable approach to me.
More generally: I've seen the "free speech does not apply to private entities/free speech is no right to be listened to/free speech is not freedom from consequences" arguments online a lot - they seem to be the standard counter arguments of some groups - and I've always found them deeply problematic.
First of all, I think there are a lot of authoritarian states who would be more than happy to adopt the "public only" definition of free speech without any substantial loss of control: "Yes of course, dear dissident, you're perfectly in your legal rights to accuse me of human rights violations on your website. But I'm afraid, I won't be able to help you if the country's ISP makes a private decision to block your site, if your employer spontaneously exercises its right to fire you the next day and if a crowd of concerned private citizens with privately-owned baseball bats will gather in front of your house tonight. Consequences!"
Secondly, the arguments rely on a situation where most services that faciliate discussion in a society - i.e. the media sector - are provided by private companies and are not subject to democratic decision making. So basically they rely on a weak state. That's originally a right-libertarian vision of society and I don't think anyone who calls themselves "left" should be comfortable adopting that vision.
[+] [-] portaPoopy|3 years ago|reply
Universities are agency normalizing agents of government.
We’re not talking launching some professor from a cannon but doing as humans have done for years and updating colloquial language models. This is freaking out the establishment as it does and has, and of course the establishment labels it as anti-freedom to teach them anything, because of course it’s the establishment; it teaches us not the other way around!
MIT is like a rack of Twitter servers; we could unplug it and society will keep going because it’s not immutably reliant on society. Many thousands of workers are though and only “essential workers” have an obligation to output real results.
[+] [-] zosima|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisco255|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] butythoman|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] varenc|3 years ago|reply
And here's final ratified statement which had only minor edits: https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/report...
Also there's this note at the bottom of the final statement suggesting more clarity on how this manifests itself as policy could be coming:
"Note: A motion is pending before the Faculty to refer the statement to a committee that would edit the statement for clarity."
[+] [-] AustinDev|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lofatdairy|3 years ago|reply
Usually, I believe that undergrads are typically the source of protest and these sort of policies. These policies really just indicate whether the university will formalize student demands, but de jure doesn't really do much when you'll still have tenured faculty doing their own thing and students protesting regardless.
Additionally, I don't know if many students will share your convictions. Chicago has long had a free-speech policy, but even though they're probably the most academically serious/legitimate institution alongside Princeton and Caltech, I think their usnews ranking has done more for their applications than free speech.
Still a good thing, but I'd think it'd be more meaningful if MIT brought back stallman
[+] [-] jdkee|3 years ago|reply
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/opinion/2022/12/21/sta...
[+] [-] ajvs|3 years ago|reply
A few days ago Stanford published some guide on words you can't say like "American" and "grandfather", so it seems the universities are total opposites in their stances now.
[+] [-] carrionpigeon|3 years ago|reply
My sense is that this MIT statement serves a similar purpose in that it panders to the sensibilities of parents paying the tuition bills. However, if their conviction is, in fact, sincere, I think there is one good way to demonstrate it --- officially sanction professors and students engaging in behavior contrary to the free expression of their peers. Has MIT ever done this? If not, I cannot think of this announcement as little more than an advertising stunt.
[+] [-] texaslonghorn5|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seaourfreed|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cs702|3 years ago|reply
And an even bigger question is, will professors and administrators at other elite schools follow MIT's example?
[+] [-] hexane360|3 years ago|reply
>A commitment to free expression includes hearing and hosting speakers, including those whose views or opinions may not be shared by many members of the MIT community and may be harmful to some. This commitment includes the freedom to criticize and peacefully protest speakers to whom one may object, but it does not extend to suppressing or restricting such speakers from expressing their views.
I'm interested in hearing how the process for selecting speakers currently works, as well as how the signatories would like it to be changed. If a single faculty member wishes to invite a speaker, does that give that speaker the right to talk in an official capacity? What if a speaker has no support on campus? Are they entitled to be hosted by MIT? If not, are they being 'restricted from expressing their views'?
[+] [-] karaterobot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mgamache|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2bitencryption|3 years ago|reply
Prof: I stand behind free speech; yes, I do.
Student 2: Well then that sorry doesn't mean anything.
Student 3: Even when it's offensive?
Prof (addressing Stud 3): Even when it's offensive. Especially if it's offensive. Even if-
Stud 3: Even when it denigrates me?
Prof: Even when it denigrates you, even though I don't agree with the content of the speech. I have the same objections to the speech that you do. The same ones.
Stud 2 (interrupting): But it doesn't submit(?) afflict to you-
Stud 1 (interrupting): But what about the swastika-
Prof (cont'd): But, I defend the right for people to speak their mind.
Stud 3: So when the IAC (Intercultural Affairs Council) sends out an email saying...
Prof: So who gets to decide what's offensive? Who gets to decide guys?
Stud 2: When it hurts me!
Stud 1: When it's offensive to me!
Prof: What if everybody says, "I'm hurt"? Does that mean everyone else has to stop speaking?
Student 4: But that's not what was happening!
Stud 1: No! Because you don't- No, but you don't under-
Prof: Hold on. So I agree with the content of your speech. I am as against racism as you are. I am as against social inequality as you are. I have spent my life addressing these issues, even some of the students in my class can speak out to this, but that is different than the freedom of speech. The right to defend people to say whatever they want including you! Including your right to write what you want and speak to me; which I will also defend.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3s5wz2/yale_adminis...
[+] [-] SpeedilyDamage|3 years ago|reply
These freedoms always seem to extend just far enough to protect the person who offends, but never the reaction to the offense. I guess being offended is too offensive?
[+] [-] pgayed|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ruszki|3 years ago|reply
If just saying “let’s kill xy” is not okay, then somebody already decides what is offensive. That somebody is for example the judges. The question always whether restricting something is beneficial to the population in general, or not.
Spreading distractions to real issues is absolutely not beneficial. This video, and comment does exactly that. The real problem is what we do with this non beneficial behaviour for example. The absolutist viewpoint of freedom of speech, thinks that everybody can decide on their own what’s good for them. That’s obviously not true, we know countless examples of that. We just need to restrict access to real information, which happens currently to most of the people everywhere. Fortunately, the general population is not stupid, but we don’t have enough time/attention to details (I think). So we just needs to be sure, that everybody can get the real stuff in their own limited time. The problem is, you cannot achieve this without control, and probably, restricting others freedom of speech, because otherwise they can fill that “limited time”. Another obvious problem is what is the “real stuff”.
One interesting idea is to restrict the amount of content which can be created per day, for example. The content still could be quite free. Obviously, these won’t be achieved in a free market, and I’m absolutely not sure that there won’t be new ways to break the system. What we can see today, is another idea, the context bubbles next to obvious lies, but this also have issues regarding deciding what’s true.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dagmx|3 years ago|reply
1. Repercussions for harmful or bigoted speech, as well as escalation of responses. For example what if a person or group is being bullied but it’s claimed under free expression? What recourse is allowed within the realms of their free expression? What happens when things escalate between parties beyond just words but physical harm?
2. Similarly how do they stop majority dominance and snowballing into group think? E.g if there are way more men or women in a program and they use their larger numbers to amplify their freedom of expression in a way that affects the others. That then risks reducing the number of the minority demographic as they slowly get pushed out, leading to largely heterogeneous programs.
I’m sure, or at least hopeful, that they cover it because it would be a ridiculous omission. However balance is tricky.
It’s why I typically don’t like using “free” as a descriptor often for freedom to do stuff. Society has tons and tons of limitations and absolute freedom of speech has never really been a thing, nor do I think it can/should be, because speech can have so many extreme consequences.
[+] [-] pgayed|3 years ago|reply
It is. And it ought to be.
The version being espoused here is conditional or contingent free expression.
It doesn't mean much.
In this form, expression is permitted only to the extent it is “enlarging understanding and uncovering truth.”
Is this the (sole) purpose of expression?
[+] [-] librish|3 years ago|reply
Would you suggest that things like murder threats or libel should be legal? Otherwise you're advocating for conditional or contingent free expression too.
[+] [-] 082349872349872|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dang|3 years ago|reply
Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32893842 - Sept 2022 (116 comments)
[+] [-] crackercrews|3 years ago|reply
They are giving credence to the idea that words can injure. I would have rather seen this phrased as "that some believe to be offensive or injurious". But I imagine this sentence was heavily negotiated.
[+] [-] commandlinefan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NotYourLawyer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peanutcrisis|3 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.youtube.com/@stanfordcli/videos
[+] [-] psychphysic|3 years ago|reply
/S
I believe criticism of the way UK university's responded to quite unacceptable intimidation of people like Kathleen Stock[0] was a catalyst.
Shocking it's taken this long.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/05/kathleen-sto...
[+] [-] oldnetguy|3 years ago|reply
https://fox23maine.com/news/local/usm-students-reach-agreeme...
[+] [-] agluszak|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] desireco42|3 years ago|reply
I was watching Funky Town mix and thinking how much freedom and joy we lost from those times to now. Things are seriously messed up.
We have fantastic computers, but we have app stores to "protect us" from software. People stopped building software for fun (mostly), now you can't even buy software, you have to subscribe...
[+] [-] vlovich123|3 years ago|reply
> Regarding freedom of teaching, faculty do not have total discretion over their course content. For example, a class titled “Beginning Chinese” cannot be taught as an advanced calculus class. And department heads would be within their rights to consider faculty members’ expertise in the process of making or adjusting teaching assignments. Working within our standard administrative structures such as curriculum planning committees, faculty generally should be able to teach the scholarly content they wish. Academic freedom does not give faculty members the unfettered right to advocate political beliefs in their classrooms that are irrelevant to the course content. Such political expression should be grounded in the faculty member’s expertise, relevant to the subject matter, and consistent with both sound pedagogical principles and the achievement of learning objectives. The exercise of academic freedom with respect to research, publication, and teaching takes place in a context of scholarly rigor. Evaluating the strength of arguments and the quality of ideas is intrinsic to research and education processes. Aside from cases where evidence of invidious discrimination exists, faculty members cannot claim that the denial of tenure based on a professional assessment of the faculty member’s scholarship constitutes censorship. Nor can a student receiving a less than desired grade in a class claim that wrong answers are a form of protected speech. Though faculty and researchers have a good deal of freedom, that freedom is exercised in an academic context in which disciplinary competence and professional judgment are crucial to knowledge production and education.19 Freedom of intramural expression means that faculty members should be able to speak their minds about their own institution and its policies. MIT strongly values this freedom
Isn’t this saying “stay in your lane and only express political views if it’s relevant to your academic discipline”. An engineering professor might have a thing or two to say about copyright but since their academic profession isn’t law, they’re not allowed to opine on it? A biology professor might not agree with climate policy of the current administration and that means they can’t speak their opinion because they’re not a climatologist nor a political scientist? Isn’t academic freedom supposed to be the opportunity to mix in thoughts from outside the field so that blind spots can be examined? Stratifying and isolating freedom of speech in this manner would seem to encourage intellectual isolation. Not something I’d want to see from an institution that’s supposed to be educating the next generation of great thinkers who aren’t bound by conventional thinking. Of course, I probably just misunderstood what this is saying. I didn’t go to MIT and I never did do well in English class.
[+] [-] bruce511|3 years ago|reply
Free speech is about time and place. They are saying that speech can be free, but going into a political rant in the middle of a class on calculus is not appropriate.
Free speech is about saying what you like, but in a context where others are free to leave. I can't leave my class without prejudicing my grade, but I didn't sign up for your diatribes on human diet.
[+] [-] unusualmonkey|3 years ago|reply
So if you're a biology professor, and you dislike the government (or universities) climiate policies, you can't use your lessons as your soap-box.
Unless you can tie it to "faculty member’s expertise, relevant to the subject matter, and consistent with both sound pedagogical principles and the achievement of learning objectives."
This seems entirely reasonable - heck, it goes as far as allowing proffesors to expouse their own political views in classroom as long as they can establish it's relevant.
[+] [-] PakG1|3 years ago|reply