- Good afternoon, everybody.
I'd like to call this meeting to order.
I'm Anthony Appiah, I teach here
and in the Philosophy Department at NYU,
and I'm your chair for this discussion
of freedom of expression,
mostly on campus.
But I should begin by introducing,
I'm only going to tell you
the names of the people here,
you will discover who
they are as they speak.
On my far left, is Jeremy Waldron,
who's a university professor here,
and professor in the
School of Law, of course.
Jeannie Suk, who's a professor
at the Harvard Law School.
Viviana Bonilla Lopez, who's a 2L here,
And, Jon Haidt, who is
the Thomas Cooley Professor
of Ethical Leadership
at the Stern School of
Business here at NYU.
So Jeannie is holding the flag
for everybody else (laughs).
So what I wanted to do,
we're gonna discuss for
a little under a hour
and then we'll leave room for
your questions and comments.
When that happens, please remember
to wait until the microphone arrives,
so that we can hear you and
you'll also be recorded.
I want to start by just
getting the panelists here
to think a little about the
classroom, in particular,
as a locus of freedom of expression.
We do have traditions of
civility in the classroom,
but a classroom is its
own of academic freedom,
but it's one that the teacher
has some right to regulate,
certainly on ground of
relevance, for example,
but also on grounds of process presumably
in order to manage the
participation of students.
I assume it's also thought
generally to be all right
to ask students to avoid explicit insults,
vulgarity and the like.
On the other hand,
civility is not traditionally
been regarded as
barring the expression of
sincerely held beliefs,
however upsetting they might
be to others in the classroom.
So it largely regulates
manner rather than matter.
But there are couple
of recent developments
that might be thought to be
challenges to that tradition.
One is to do with the rise of issues,
that from a legal point of view,
derive from things like the ADA,
the Americans with Disabilities Act,
where on a psychotherapeutic
model, as it were,
people need accommodations,
if for example they have
post-traumatic stress disorder,
and that's one kind of case.
And another kind of
issue, new issue, perhaps,
which rises out of Title IX, for example,
is sexual harassment,
hostile environment issues.
Where the issue is not mental disability,
but rather participation on
terms of social equality.
At least that's how it seems to me.
But I wanted to start
by asking Viviana to just
talk a little bit about
the issues of accommodation
that arise in this context,
and to think about
how they relate to questions
of freedom of expression.
- Of course, so I think particularly
when we're talking about
being in the classroom
and making sure that this
is a safe environment
for all students, one thing
that comes up really often,
is this idea of content warnings.
And the reason
that I like bringing up the
Americans with Disabilities Act
is that to me, content
warnings are all about access.
So, I think of them
as sort of collective
reasonable accommodations.
If you think about the purpose of
the Americans with Disabilities Act,
it is to make sure that
people with disabilities
have the same ability to participate
and access to the same things
that people who don't
have disabilities do.
And that's where the same
idea behind content warnings,
if you think about the way
our society is organized,
it's in an ableist way.
It's to privileged people
without disabilities,
people who don't need these
kinds of accommodations.
And that's sort of an arbitrary choice.
Like why did we decide to
organize our society that way?
If we think about things
like sidewalks, for example,
why are curbs elevated?
We've added ramps in order to make sure
that people with wheelchairs
can access sidewalks.
And those benefits all kind of people,
people with their groceries,
people with strollers.
So content warnings in the classroom,
they're really similar.
They don't just benefit
people who might be triggered
or traumatized by content,
but also everybody,
by setting an idea
that this will be a safe
space for this conversation,
it signals to those who might
not have those experiences,
"Hey, this is an area
"where I maybe need to take a second look
"to be a good ally, to be a good peer."
And I think that it's also
really important to think about
when we say things like,
oh, those are inconvenient,
or why should I have to do this,
why should I have to change
the way that I teach?
I feel like we're making people
from marginalized communities invisible,
and we're pretending
that they're not there.
Why should we have to wait for someone
who has experienced sexual
violence to come forward
and ask for a content warning,
when we know that one
in four women in college
will go through this.
When we refuse to
affirmatively do these things,
to affirmatively make our
classroom safer for people,
we're pretending that people
from marginalized communities
are invisible and that they're not there.
And I think that that's a problem.
- Okay, anybody want to comment on this?
Yes, Jon.
- I'd be happy to.
So I think it's helpful
to take the accommodations perspective
and we certainly all want people to feel
that the classroom is open to them,
we don't want people coming
to the classroom being afraid.
But first, I would question,
is there any evidence or reason to think
that giving content warnings,
or trigger warnings,
actually will do this.
As a psychologist, I've
been looking into this
and the more you label things
as potentially threatening,
the more they develop a certain
power to actually threaten.
So think about it this way,
I teach classes in the
business school here,
suppose I took my students on
field trips all over New York,
but every time we went
to The Bronx, I said,
"Now, today, we're going to The Bronx.
"Just wanted to let you know.
"We'll have an ambulance with us,
"we'll have police protection,
"but don't worry about it,
we're going to The Bronx."
And I only do that for The Bronx.
What are people gonna
conclude about The Bronx?
Now if there was evidence
that these warnings actually
helped people get over PTSD,
then we'd have to balance various things.
But there isn't and the
therapist that I talk to,
the people who study PTSD,
were unanimous in saying,
that if someone has PTSD
the last thing you wanna do
is shield them from small reminders.
In fact the only way to get over
the Pavlovianly-condition
fear is to let them be exposed
to small things and then
nothing bad happens to them
and that how the fears subside.
So I'm totally fine with being
really explicit on the syllabus.
We're gonna cover these things, of course,
let people know before they join.
But if in the course of daily teaching,
you say we're about to look
at something that shows this,
that, or the other thing, content warning,
you're actually hurting the
very people you wanna help.
- Can I respond to that?
- Of course.
- So, first, I don't understand
how the warning about The Bronx
could be the kind of thing
that we're talking about.
I actually think that
that's probably a really problematic thing
to say to your students.
- Yeah, it would be, that's right.
- And I don't think
that there's anybody who's
been requesting that.
That these are the kinds of
things that we're talking about.
I also, I take issue with this idea
that you're helping students
by not giving them a content warning.
If you think about the sort of...
What you're talking about is therapy.
It's a treatment that happens
in a therapeutic setting
and I don't think that
it's up to a professor
to tell someone that what's
best for them in their treatment
and wherever they're in their development
to listen to something.
- Can I just ask a question?
The normal model of an accommodation is,
somebody notifies you that
they need an accommodation,
they describe it,
and if it's a medically
required accommodation then
the Americans with Disabilities Act
requires you to do something about it.
But you're talking about
something slightly different, right?
You're talking about
as it were anticipating
that there might be a
need for an accommodation
in every class, is that right?
- Yeah.
- In any class,
where any topic that might produce this.
Why isn't it a better model just to ask,
get people to ask for accommodation?
- Well I think we need to shift the burden
from people from marginalized communities
and forcing them to sort
of come forward in the way
that we know will stigmatize them,
in a way that we know
puts them in harms way
or makes them have to be vulnerable
when we already know what their needs are.
And this a situation,
as the system is made to benefit
people who have privilege in our society.
And it's that way because
someone made that choice.
Why aren't we shifting that?
Why aren't we questioning that
that's the way that it's set up?
- Jeannie.
- Yes, so I'm a teacher of
many topics that students,
and all people really,
find very difficult.
Like I teach criminal law and family law.
We deal with rape,
and abortion, homicide, divorce,
very emotionally-charged,
morally-charged topics.
And I agree with Viviana
that in the beginning,
it makes sense to say,
"Hey, you're taking this class,
"this is a class that's
gonna be really horrifying,"
in terms of the kinds of problems,
this is the drama of
what it means to be human
and it involves problems
that lots of people,
including those people in this very room.
And it's not just about sexual assault.
I know it from my from
10 years of teaching,
that there are people,
usually when I'm teaching criminal law,
who have all kinds of
things touch their lives.
Whether it's family members
who have been to prison,
or people who've been racially profiled,
or people who've had
law enforcement officers
in their families who've been kill,
or people who've had relatives executed,
and had the death penalty,
and it just goes on and on.
It is not clear to people
in the room, looking around,
that these people are there,
but they're always there,
year after year, when you
find out from students
as they tell you their specific
connection to the course,
you now come to expect that every year,
it is something you should assume.
That there are people in the room
who have experienced all of these things.
My disagreement with
Viviana comes from the idea
that this is just about
marginalized people
because what I've heard, year after year,
is it's not just from the
marginalized perspective,
that people feel that they
want a content warning
and trauma, and talk about their trauma.
It is now people from
all kinds of experiences
who want that content warning,
so I do not believe
this a problem of
marginalized communities.
I think it's a problem of our culture,
where people want to feel
like you are signaling to them
that you care with sensitivity and respect
about the sensitive experiences,
the difficult experiences
they have been through.
I believe a teacher can do that,
by signaling at the beginning,
as I'm sure Professor Haidt
does, that these are heavy,
difficult issues, we're all
going to confront them together
and obviously, any student...
People can miss class for any reason.
They don't need to have a special reason.
They can miss class because
they didn't feel like coming,
they can miss class because their sick,
they miss class because the
class is about police brutality
and they don't wanna be there that day.
They can do that if they want.
But the bottom line, is I do think that,
the idea of signaling as
you approach each topic,
oh, this one might be
especially traumatic,
or this one might set
you off, or this one.
I think that is very bad idea.
First of all, it's unequal.
There are many, many topics
that have this potential,
for many, many people.
And so, in terms of the effectiveness
of relieving people's suffering
as they sit in your class,
I have grave doubts,
about whether a specific content warning
about any given topic is at all effective.
And I think that it's
really a much better thing
to be upfront in the beginning
about the common encounter
that we're all gonna have together
with very, very difficult topics,
and if you can't do it in a setting like,
say a law school classroom,
where in the world in
society can you do it?
- I have no difficulty
with content warnings,
or trigger warnings, whether
they're general or particular.
I do accept Jeannie's point and Jon's too,
that I think there are certain classes
where it makes sense
to have content warning
and content discussion upfront.
More interested in the
background principle
that actually frame that.
And one's certainly ought
to say in certain classes,
and maybe in general, on campus that,
look, you are here to
learn how to come to terms
with ideas that are
intellectually difficult,
but also morally difficult.
Difficult ideas, difficult
topics, disconcerting ideas,
ideas that are going to challenge you,
and certainly uncomfortable debates,
and if you don't understand that,
you don't understand what
you're doing in the classroom.
And everybody has an
obligation, if they can,
if it's not an inhumane
imposition to remain present,
in the face of those difficulties.
Somebody once defined civility as
remaining present in the face of radical,
deep disagreement,
radical, deep discomfort.
But the other side of that,
so that's one of what's
happening in a classroom,
on campus, in the study of law,
is that you are preparing yourself
for a lifetime of professional dealing
with difficult topics. But
the other side of it is
that you deal with those
topics as a professional,
that is the obligation of civility
that Anthony mentioned and obligations
that you are learning
how to conduct yourself
in relation to other people
who have sensitivities
and who have traumas that
need to be respected.
And so that we have a insistence
that these two principles
compliment each other,
a principle of very strong
civility and sensitivity,
both in part of teacher and the students
in their dealings with one another,
and an awareness on behalf
of everybody concerned
that coming to terms with difficult ideas,
disconcerting ideas, and
uncomfortable debates,
is the name of the game.
That is what we are training people to do.
- I think Viviana wanted to say something,
did you, no?
I'm not gonna, no.
- You can go ahead.
- If Jon wants to say something,
you're thinking about it,
let Jon begin and then we'll let you in
afterwards.
- Yeah, yeah.
- So I think what we're seeing here,
and what I've seen a lot
in the last six months,
is gigantic generational divide.
Anthony started this section
by talking about how civility
does not mean that you--
- I'm of the very, very old generation
in case you're wondering.
(everyone laughing)
- Born before 1980 is the key.
- Yes, yes.
- Those born before 1980 generally think,
as Jeremy just said,
you're here to learn to
come to terms with ideas
that might be upsetting, disconcerting.
Anthony said civility means, of course,
you shouldn't be insulting
and you shouldn't be
afraid of being attacked,
but you don't have a right to
expect you won't encounter.
So, this is the view of most
people born before 1980.
This is more the classic
liberal tradition,
this is John Stuart Mill, we
know that we are imperfect,
we know are biased and prone
to post-talk reasoning,
we need opposition to help us learn,
to help us grow, we need that.
Now what happened in America after 1980,
we had a string of child
murders and abductions,
we had cable TV, we had milk cartons,
we had a real crime wave too.
American child rearing norms
changed radically in the early '80s,
and so kids born after,
had much, much less time unsupervised,
kids born before then,
had a lot of time in their
childhood unsupervised.
If they got into trouble with each other,
someone calls you a stupid idiot,
you either call them a stupid
idiot back or you punch them.
(audience laughs)
But now, for those born
after 1980, in general,
there's always an adult around,
always an authority that you go to,
and so what we're seeing
much more since 2000 or so,
is that undergraduates in particular,
comes outta high school,
where they've been protected,
where they have never had,
there is zero tolerance for
bullying, which is a good thing,
but there's what's
called moral dependency.
People born after 1980
are much likely to be in a
state of moral dependency,
if somebody's done something to me,
I won't deal with it myself,
I will get an adult authority,
a bureaucratic authority,
the diversity department,
something, to punish the
person who did this to me.
And this makes it impossible to teach.
This makes it impossible to
have an intellectual community
because everybody's afraid.
If I say something wrong,
somebody in the class
is gonna call in a drone strike on me.
(everyone laughs)
- I think Viviana,
and Jeannie, both, and maybe even Jeremy
knows about some of
the remote generations,
have something to say about this.
Viviana, then Jeannie.
- So I think that it's really important
to make a distinction between
instances of discomfort
and systemic oppression.
So when we're talking
about systemic oppression,
we're talking about when
society's laws, customs,
practices are set up in
a way to discriminate
and treat unjustly a
certain group of people.
Instances of discomfort is a
time when my feelings were hurt
but the thing that was said
to me, or what was done to me,
isn't something that
reinforces systemic oppression.
These are two different things.
And I think that it's important to realize
that despite the fact
that I feel like the other side is
sort of co-opting this idea of
being offended and oppressed.
It isn't true, only people
who have been systemically
oppressed can make that claim,
in a way that it's reflective
of injustice in our society.
And I think the importance
of bringing that up
is because what you're talking about,
I feel like the attempt is to make us,
students who are asking
for these accommodations,
students who are asking for
accountability, seem weak.
And I resent that,
I don't think that it is a weakness
to aspire for a society where
we don't hurt each other
and I think that
what we're talking about is impact
and accountability for that impact.
In fact in our safe spaces,
we talk about assuming best intentions
but also owning your impact and I think
that what we're asking of our professors,
of our universities,
of the classroom space,
is that people do this,
that they own their impact.
That if they said something
that reinforces our unjust society,
the way it's set up,
something that reflects
systemic oppression,
that that impact is owned,
that that person is accountable
for what they've said.
And I think that that actually
encourages free speech,
and encourages this discourse
and it just makes accessible for everyone.
We're talking about, in reality,
this debate isn't about free speech,
it's about how do we make sure
that voices that have been silenced,
are actually listened to now.
We're here, we're demanding
that we be treated fairly,
that we not be treated unjustly,
and we're letting you know,
these are the ways in which
you systemically hurt me.
- I'm sorry.
The click of, slips happen.
(audience laughs)
So if we go back to the 1970s,
the military had terrible race problems,
it was a extremely racist place.
Corporations had a lot of sexism,
racism problems, and universities,
I presume were better places
than to be in the military.
Universities are very progressive,
very concerned about race
and gender issues that,
oppression, marginalization issues.
Over the 30 years after that,
the Army has very largely
solved it's racism problem,
it's a much more equal place,
much higher a satisfaction
among black sergeants
and black officers.
So they've made a lot of progress.
Corporate America's
made a lot of progress,
but as far as I can tell,
many people are saying
that the universities
have not made progress,
or are getting worse.
And this is what I don't understand.
So you're saying that,
universities such as NYU,
are so systemically racist
and oppressive, that
these means are necessary
to hold the professors accountable.
So can you just explain what
do you mean when say that
these places are so racist and oppressive?
These universities have
been trying really hard
for a long time, what is
it that they haven't done?
- It's sort of undeniable
that these institutions
were not built for us.
- Sure.
- And when I say,
for us, I thinking broadly about
members of marginalized communities.
- That's fine, yeah.
- People who are low income,
people of color, LGBTQIA people,
people with disabilities.
These intuitions were
sort of built in a way
to perpetuate systems that are racist.
This is undeniable.
- Undeniable, okay.
- And what I'm saying,
is that there's a
difference between saying,
oh hey, it's great that you're here,
I'm gonna put you on my pamphlet
and show everybody how diverse I am,
and actually making sure that
that classroom is a safe place for me,
a place where I have the same opportunity
as students who have
privilege to just sit there
and be able to learn
and not have to fending off
constantly all of these,
violent acts that are thrown my way, and--
- Violent, is there violence?
- I mean that violence is not just limited
to physical things.
- Right, right.
- And I thought
that you would take issue with that,
with that notion.
- Yeah, I think
that that's called concept creep.
- Yeah--
- So...
I hope you've--
- I think that's,
that's good for now.
- You've made your point.
Jeannie wanted to say something,
Jeremy wanted to say something.
Then I'm gonna move
this along a little bit.
- I just think there is
some amount of parsing
and separation of certain concepts
that really needs to happen here.
So, I am a teacher
who focuses in my teaching very
much on systemic oppression.
I would say, that is the primary approach
that I take in teaching
criminal law and family law.
However, I do not believe
that content warnings are
anything like responsive
to the problem of systemic oppression.
In fact they are piecemeal,
they're band aids,
they're acts that say,
oh, we acknowledge that
this thing might be painful.
That's not the way to deal
with systemic oppression.
The way to deal with systemic oppression
is to talk about it in its
fullness, in its horror,
in the way in which it hurts.
And I believe that, to
say, this is a warning,
it does nothing to actually
put forward the idea
that we need to confront these things,
we need to have conflict
about these things.
And that's what I...
It's not a systemic solution,
to focus on individual trauma,
or trauma as a member of a group.
I wanna take into account Viviana's idea
that discourse is about
trauma, being traumatized,
belong to certain groups
that are marginalized,
they do not belong to other groups
that we consider not marginalized.
I do not believe that
ideas belong to any groups.
I think that all arguments are flipable
and when you see arguments
move across a culture,
that is just called cultural influence.
If today, conservatives are talking about,
say, negative comments
about Justice Scalia as traumatizing,
I do not believe that is
co-optation primarily.
I believe it is influence
through cultural concepts
of what it means to object to something,
what it means to say, I don't like this.
Today the way you do that, is to say,
it hurts me in this
specific psychological way,
I feel traumatized.
And so it's not just
marginalized students,
it's not just Asian-American students,
it's not just women who are doing it,
it is everyone who now
couches their objections,
political and otherwise in
terms of the language of trauma.
And I think that this is very important
in a time when we are having
a lot of serious conversations
about sexual assaults,
sexual violence, and sexual harassment,
because the concept of
a hostile environment,
which is very central to the
concept of sexual harassment,
is now very much linked to the idea
that you traumatize
someone by doing something
that is harassing or violent
and given that we now have this concept,
as Viviana mentioned, verbal
acts are considered harassing.
That's one of the ways in
which you can harass someone.
So then when you say something
verbal in a classroom,
people can say that that
creates a hostile environment
and that I am traumatized.
Now these are developments
that are happening
because we have expansion
of the idea of violence,
just as the debate between Jonathan
and Viviana just revealed.
But it's also,
we have to just watch that,
we can't just let it actually slide
into absolutely everything
that people feel objections to.
We can take seriously,
violence and harassment
without actually letting it completely
slide to the point where
something that I disagree with,
or something that actually
I find oppressive,
because it's an argument
that I find oppressive,
that that's an act of violence.
I don't think that
that's the way forward for a university
that values real debate
about very contested ideas.
- I think I agree with that.
There has to be place where,
if there is disagreement
about systemic oppression,
where if there is disagreement
about justice and injustice,
there has to be a place where
that disagreement can
be played out in open
and civil debate among
professional people.
There has to be such a place.
Now university is a peculiar institution,
law school is even more
peculiar institution.
'Cause we devote ourselves
to talking through these
issues about disagreement
and conflict and so we commit
ourselves to acknowledging
that people will have
views other than our own
and because the stakes are so high,
because of what these views are about,
we are acknowledging
that people are going to be disconcerted
and made to feel uncomfortable
by these debates.
You can't run a university without that,
you can't run a university
simply as a reinforcement society.
People have to learn to
listen to opposing voices,
they need to learn how
to listen respectfully,
and respond respectfully to
the voices of those who have
experienced systematic oppression.
They need to be able to learn
how to criticize such voices
and to respond to criticism,
and that's part of the deal
or the bargain of coming to a university
and that, as I said,
has to be complimented by
the most stringent
duties of respectfulness
and civility in relation to that.
But you can't do it any other way.
- So, Jeannie,
you brought up the idea
of a hostile environment
and you were worried if we turned
any disagreement to an
occasion for someone to claim
that the environment is made hostile
that we won't be able
to talk about anything.
How could we corral in the
notion of hostile environment
as it relates to the classroom?
And then we can move out to
the wider campus in a minute.
But how you think we should, I mean,
is it a relevant notion?
How is it a relevant notion
in relation to teaching and learning?
- I think it's very difficult
once the gates are open,
but that challenge is
something we're up to.
We have to actually heed that challenge,
understand what it is,
because, yes, can you say,
I felt distressed in class and
that affected my ability to learn
and because it affected
my ability to learn,
it's now a hostile environment for me
because what happened in class
made me feel distressed or traumatized.
Is that a series of steps
that we can all follow?
Of course it is.
But at some point, you have
some substantive conception,
it can't be just up to any individual
to say that subjectively what they feel
is equal to a hostile environment.
There's gotta be some kind
of substance of conception
that we have together as a community
and these conversations, like
the ones Viviana is having
with us and with her peers.
They're important for us to work out
what that substance of conception will be
and so at some point, there's
gonna be a place where we say,
yes, it's a hostile environment
because there verbal things that occurred
and that is a hostile environment,
it effects your ability to learn
and to have an equal
education at your university.
But I think that it is very hard
when we rely so much on
the concept of trauma,
to explain what makes
a hostile environment
because trauma, is by
definition, psychological
and subjective and we
need to kind of delink
the hostile environment concept
from this trauma concept
that is growing so much over
the years to almost engulf it.
- I'd like, as I just said,
I'd like to move out a little bit
from now beyond the classroom,
the campuses is part of the
world of the university as well
and we have, you already mentioned,
or you adverted to something
that I will now mention explicitly.
Which is the complaint of two professors
at our colleague institution at Georgetown
about a criticism mounted
among the faculty by a
member of the faculty
against the dean's decision
to speak only approvingly
of Justice Scalia
when his death was announced.
And a couple of days later,
one of the professor there pointed out
that he had been made to feel
uncomfortable by the fact
that the dean has spoken
as if everybody on campus
had the same positive
view of Justice Scalia
and so he articulated
some of his criticisms.
I read the email, in my judgment,
it was a reasonable discussion,
by a reasonable person,
of his disagreement of with that view.
Two members of the faculty,
who self-identified conservative members,
said that they thought this
was cruel to speak in this way,
within, they said a few
hours, but is in fact,
a couple of days of the
death of Justice Scalia.
So that was an observation,
that was sort of a moral
observation this was cruel,
but they also went on to say
that because this professor
had spoken in this way,
he had made it difficult
for conservatives students,
supporters of Justice Scalia,
to feel okay in his classroom.
Now, that put in mind
of another important campus freedom case
over the last few years.
When the University of
Illinois withdrew an offer
to a man called Professor
Salaita who had made,
I think what even he would agree,
where intemperate remarks on,
he might have thought they were justified,
but they were certainly
intemperate remarks on Facebook
about Israeli behavior in
the Palestinian territories.
He's of Palestinian ancestry.
And so the university
withdrew an offer to him
and he'd already resigned
from his other job
so that put him in a difficult position
as the university has
admitted to the extent
of having to spend two million
dollars compensating him,
and his lawyers, and their lawyers.
But one of the complaints
they made, again,
was the same complaint.
If this guy comes to our campus,
students who are supportive of Israel,
will not feel comfortable
in his classroom.
This are remarks made by professors
which are held against
them, outside the classroom,
which are held against them
because it will produce an
atmosphere in the classroom
that will make it impossible
for students with certain views to learn.
It struck me that that was
an interesting, in one case,
it was conservatives objecting,
other case, it was people
objecting in the name of Israel.
These are different cases,
but they do have this
interesting structure
that people are complaining
that there's a pedagogical reason
why professors should be
silent about these things,
and I wonder what you
think of that, Jeremy.
- Well it seems to me
that if you just state it in that form,
it's got to be rejected.
The whole point of coming to a classroom,
in many cases is
that you're going to be
discomforted by what you hear,
where you're gonna have to make
an uncomfortable adjustment
to what you believe,
you're gonna have to develop
your views in various ways
in response to stuff you
wish you hadn't heard,
but are going to have to hear.
So, that degree of discomfort,
then somebody says they
wanna be shielded from that,
then they are, in a way,
not understanding,
or showing that they're indifferent
to the tough difficult business
of mutual adjustment of views
that a classroom involves.
I don't see why we should
move from the fact that,
yes, you will certainly
be made uncomfortable
when you hear my views
about Justice Scalia,
or you'll certainly be made uncomfortable
when you hear my views about
what's happening in Gaza.
The whole point of such
views being to shake up
certain degrees of complacency.
I don't see why we make the move,
which you've very
quickly in your comments,
that this would lead to
learning difficulties.
It will lead to different quality
of experience in learning,
but the notion that this
takes a young person
and makes it impossible her
to hear, or for him to listen,
for him to respond or to criticize.
In a place, I guess go back to the scene
like a broken record,
in a place whose raison d'etre
is to allow us to engage
with opposing views
and learn how to respectfully disagree,
respectfully criticize,
and respectfully adjust.
- Good, so, talked about these cases,
these sort of cases
where the suggestion is
that something said by a
professor either in her writing
or somewhat on Facebook or somewhere,
might be inappropriate
thing for them to say
because knowing that they have those views
might make it difficult for a student.
I'm wondering if anyone has any sympathy
for that line of thought.
- You go.
- Okay.
So I think we need to understand
what's going on on campus
against the larger background
of rising political polarization,
began in congress in the '90s,
some political scientist said
it hasn't reached the mass level.
But in the last 10 years, we
have major mass polarization.
People on the left and people on the right
really dislike each other
a lot more than they
did 15 or 20 year ago.
So that's going on, people come
to campus, at the same time,
the faculty have gone from
leaning left in the '90s
to being almost entirely left by 2005.
So, there use to be some diversity,
this use to be the sort of place
that Jeremy's talking about.
When I was in grad school,
there was that sort of place.
But now in the social sciences,
humanities, and law faculty,
it's five to one, 10 to one,
15 to 20 to one sometimes.
So, we have to see what's happening
as part of almost like
a electromagnetic field
that gets stronger and
stronger, it's ripping us apart,
and so political warfare by other means,
comes into the classroom and on campus.
And if a professor expresses an opinion,
that has any political valence,
whichever side they're on,
now the conservatives perceive
that since the campus is
overwhelmingly liberal,
overwhelmingly on the left,
and the two professors,
they are the only two
conservatives at Georgetown
out of a faculty more than 100.
So they might of overreacted,
but they are feeling aggrieved.
They are feeling there
is a hostile climate,
and so they are correct.
And what happens,
is sociologists who've written
about victimhood culture,
it begins on the left, but
over time, as they say here,
"in so far as they share
a social environment,
"the same conditions
that lead the aggrieved
"to a tactic against their adversaries
"comes to be used on the right as well."
So everybody takes on this vocabulary of,
I'm traumatized, I'm a
victim, and at that point,
this kind of platonic ideal
that Jeremy's talking
about ceases to exist.
I think it ceased to exist
sometime in the last couple of years.
- So does anybody have any sympathy
with that line of argument?
- With which?
- With the argument that
Jon was criticizing.
In other words, in two
cases, two universities,
somebody made this argument
and I'm getting the sense
that it doesn't get much uptake here,
does it get any uptake at all?
- Well I think it's
important to clarify that,
at least the students that I work with,
we're not asking
for these difficult
conversations not to be had.
In fact, I think a big part
of what also makes us feel
like we're being silenced or
erased is in the classroom
when a professor will gloss
over an issue of race,
or gender, or something
complicated in a case
or something that we're talking about.
Erasure is also part of the things
that we are trying to fight against.
So I think it's really
important to clarify
that we not against free speech,
and we're not against these
difficult conversations,
I think that there's a difference between
us asking for accountability
and us asking for total silence.
- So, when you ask for
accountability, what does that mean?
- I think it means that if
a professor, or a person,
or a student, or anybody says something,
that they maybe had the best
intention when they said it
but, they didn't realize
it had this negative impact
on another person, that own
it, that they learn from it,
that we grow, and understand
the ways in which we can hurt each other.
I think that these particular instances,
it's really hard if
you're trying to ask me to
sort of a bright line
about what things are okay
and what are not,
I certainly have some
ideas on what are the,
the not okay side, but--
(Jeremy coughs)
- Just a little bit--
- What?
- Just a little bit on
this accountability.
- Yes, yes.
- Yeah, yeah,
of course, go ahead.
- Because Viviana,
you're absolutely right,
that professors particularly
have to be accountable
for everything they do,
everything they say in the classroom.
That doesn't mean to say
that they should silence
themselves, it means to say,
they should be self-conscious,
they should be aware,
and if something is
difficult, or controversial,
and it is making people
feel uncomfortable,
they should be prepared
to give an account on why,
nevertheless, it was necessary to say it.
And you would include
that under the heading
of accountability, right?
- Yeah, and then we can
respond to that as well.
It's a conversation.
- So you can respond
to that as well.
Yes, indeed.
- But just to be clear though,
What's needed is an atmosphere
in which someone can,
civilly call someone to account.
That is say, I think you
just glossed over it, right?
- Yeah.
- You said that people
should own the consequences of what,
but if they don't know
what the consequences are,
they can't own them.
So part of it needs to be,
is about creating an atmosphere
in which people can ask for the account.
- Yeah--
- So accountability
is a matter of being called to account
and having an atmosphere
in which you will give an account
if you're called to an account.
Right, great.
Yes, Jeannie?
- Accountability has a
lot of different meanings
and one of them is one
that Viviana brought out,
but another one often is discipline.
- Yes.
- By the university, or
by the the law school,
often you say, I want to
hold the person accountable
by having them punished
or having them disciplined
and that's where the
experience of, for example,
myself and my colleagues,
we have had the experience
of publishing things,
expressing views critical
of, say, Title IX policies
and being told we had created
a hostile environment,
as opposed to, we
disagree with your views,
and here's why you are wrong.
And when someone says hostile environment,
what that means is, you should
be disciplined, and punished,
and potentially suspended
from your teaching duties
or kicked out of the university.
It's just a different
form of accountability.
And I think that that is, the
best form of accountability
is someone actually
scrutinizing what you say
and telling you why you are misguided,
why you are incorrect, why
you should change your view,
be persuaded to hold a different one.
That's accountability.
But the hostile environment thing,
which sometimes people
think is accountability,
'cause your holding people responsible,
that actually has the opposite effect.
It's that accountable,
because it just says,
let's not have this conversation,
'cause that's out of bounds.
- Right, but there will be occasions
when some degree of discipline
might be appropriate.
I remember, and I won't
go into the details,
but I was at Columbia Law School
when somebody produced a
first year criminal law exam,
which by any account was an
abuse of professorial authority.
And the dean mentioned to this person,
this was in inappropriate
exam to have given.
And suddenly, Nadine
Strossen was brought in
and the American Civil Liberties Union
as though any attempt
by the dean to assess
the way the examination functioned
had been performed was inappropriate.
I don't you can rule out
that there are some things
that professors do in their classrooms,
there are some insensitivity
that professors repeatedly show,
that might require
intervention of something more
than a free speech sense of accountability
that I was talking about earlier.
- Jon.
- So accountability
sounds like a great idea.
But I think we need to see
how this plays out in practice
from the perspective of professors
who are trying to teach a course.
So I'll share with you this story
that made me so passionate
about this topic.
I was teaching a course
here at NYU two years ago,
and I showed a research
video showing an experiment
that I'd done 15 years early
at the University of Virginia.
There's a conversation
between two students.
As part of trying to persuade
each other on something,
one of them makes an argument
about whether gay marriage,
and gay sex are moral issues or not
and he's saying they're not
and to respond to another student's point,
he says, if I were to see it happening,
and he says he would not like
to witness two men having sex,
but it's perfectly okay to the fact
that I don't like it,
doesn't make it wrong.
So by the time the lecture's over.
Now this is a video I showed
of two undergraduates
having a conversation.
By the time the lecture was over,
one student had emailed the
dean about my homophobia,
and it lead to a kind,
basically it brought the
course to a standstill
over the next week.
I thought, for sure, the student
had simply not understood
that the student in the video
was actually pro gay rights.
But, it turned out, that
she had understood it,
it's the fact that it
made her uncomfortable
that somebody expressed
a personal discomfort,
a personal dislike of
seeing two men having sex,
this was homophobia and
I had to be punished.
And so, she bullied me into an apology,
I finally apologized because
the course was as a standstill,
but she didn't like my apology,
so she filled charges against me
in the equal opportunity
office here at NYU.
Now, there's no way I
would have been convicted,
but I lost several weeks of my life.
There was social media
campaign against me,
I was called homophobia
in all kinds of blogs,
and the press and I'm
incredibly anti-homophobia.
But this is the thing,
this is why you see these headlines now.
I'm a liberal professor and
my liberal students scare me,
because your intentions
don't matter anymore.
Did the most sensitive student
in the class feel unsafe?
If so, you're accountable.
And so what's happening,
in the last two years,
ask your professors about this,
what's happening is
we're ditching anything
that could trigger that
most sensitive student.
I don't show any videos anymore.
I don't tell jokes.
I skip topics, you can call it erasure,
but I call it the reaction
to hyper-accountability
by vindictive guardians as what
they see as the moral order.
So, as far as I'm concerned, again,
that university that
Jeremy is talking about.
I don't think that exists
anymore in this country.
- Jeannie, I'm gonna suggest,
that I'm gonna let Jeannie say something,
and then I'm gonna suggest we,
I haven't gotten through,
I've got a lot more things
we might have talked about,
but inevitably, since this is a campus
and we are in class together,
this is probably one of the central things
that you want to talk about,
but if you want to raise
issues about, for example,
disinvitation of off-campus speakers,
which is not about the
classroom, not about professor,
you're more than welcome to do so,
that's another topic in this area.
But I'd like Jeannie just to help us.
Turn towards the conversation.
- Yeah, Jonathan, I to
have heard from a lot
of my fellow colleagues
about how they have changed
their course materials
over the last several years
as these issues have become more salient,
I have teachers who are basically
taking their contract
course, or whatever course
and basically whitewashing
it of any controversial cases
or articles and I hear you to be saying
you engaged in a similar--
- I've done it,
everyone's doing it.
- Endeavor, and I guess my comment is,
that I don't think we should do that.
I don't think
that we should be understanding
the students to want that,
and I think that we
should be taking seriously
claims like the one Viviana made
that what they want is opposite of that.
What they want is those
kinds of hot materials
to be in the course and addressed openly
and with the acknowledgement of conflict.
So, what I would say is,
with respect, maybe, please,
don't do that anymore.
- Don't do what?
- And I don't want
my colleagues to do that anymore.
I want those topics to be taught
and we should just confront the challenge
and, yes, maybe we will be
called racist, or homophobes
as a result of trying to teach
about racism and homophobia.
Maybe that will happen.
But I think the majority of students
will also understand that
that is not actually true.
And I think we have to have
a little bit more trust
in the process of reason
in our student bodies,
and it's not actually gonna happen
that all of us are gonna be kicked out,
off campus as sexual harassers,
if each of us actually stands up
to this cultural development.
And I think that taking a course
and not teaching these
controversial materials,
is not standing up to it.
I think we really need to stand and say,
we believe in this, we believe in
teaching about things
like systemic oppression,
and the only way to do that
is actually to really talk about it.
And it's gonna be controversial,
it's gonna be scary,
and it's gonna be scary for each of us,
the teachers and the students.
We're all as risk.
And I think that we just
need to have the courage,
and do it.
- Very good.
- Good, all right,
let's have the courage.
(everyone laughs)
- There are microphones
available, if you raise your hand,
a microphone will somehow
magically approach you.
Here, there's people
on this side, at least,
I can't see anybody over there yet.
One in the front.
Why don't we start there,
and we'll move forward
- [Michelle] Hi.
- Hi.
- [Michelle] So, should I say my name?
- If you want to.
(everyone laughs)
- Okay (laughs)
- Just a sec,
you don't have to say your
name, but if you do that's fine.
- Okay, my name is Michelle.
My question is for Viviana
because you seem to be
fighting the hardest
for marginalized groups
and I don't think anyone's disagreeing
with the points your making,
but how would you draw the
line between trigger warnings
and a very sensitive
individual or group who decides
to obstruct the greater
learning environment
just because they were
triggered or made uncomfortable
by something that
happened in the classroom.
Especially, since like, as
Professor Suk has brought up,
a lot of students go into these classes,
knowing that there might
be emotional content
because they're discussing
very, very sensitive law maybe
and they get class syllabi,
so how much of that accountability
would fall to the student
who's taking the class
and knowingly sitting in on this content
and how much of it would
fall to the professor
who has to teach around
maybe like a very sensitive individual
instead of trying to
teach the entire course?
- Viviana.
- So do think it's
important to think also,
while it is scary to think,
oh I might offend someone
and be called out about it
and what will that say
about me and my reputation?
It's actually scarier to
be that person, right?
Who could be impacted
and who is being impacted
everyday of their life
because of an identity
that they hold.
I think that, I feel this idea of
obstructing learning in the classroom,
we have to be careful with that.
I think often times in classrooms,
when we sort of call something out
or question something that was said
as like maybe you didn't realize
that this has these implications.
I don't think that that's
obstructing learning,
I think that it's bringing us into
that uncomfortable conversation
that we really do need to have
in order to not erase these experiences.
And I think that,
there is a responsibility of the professor
to balance that with what they want teach
but I feel there's just
this constant burden
on people from marginalized communities,
to continue to evoke that,
that we always have to
be calling things out,
we always have to be the ones
making note of when something went wrong
because if we don't do it,
then there's this complicitness
of that was okay to say.
If that's viewed as obstructing learning,
I don't think we should
apologize for that.
That's part of this process.
Is that people who didn't
have to think about that
because they hold a
certain kind of privilege,
now they have to.
And I think that professors
should learn to manage that,
they should learn to invite that
and they should learn to make
that a part of their teaching.
- Yes, yes.
- [Michelle] Am I allowed
to respond to that?
- Yes, sure, go ahead.
- [Michelle] Okay, I think there's--
- You need
the microphone though
- I think there's a very
distinct different
between educating people
with historical privilege
about the experiences
that historically marginalized
groups have been through,
and obstructing learning
just because a small group of individuals
are made extremely
uncomfortable by a certain thing
that happened in class.
So like with Professor Haidt example,
there's this one girl who
thought he was homophobic
because he showed that video in class.
But instead of bringing it up to him--
- Right.
- [Michelle] And turning
it into a discussion,
she assumed the very worst of him,
went straight to the dean, got
charges pressed against him.
So where would you draw the line?
How would you balance that?
Because right now,
the balance doesn't seem to
be in the professor's favor.
- Correct.
- These line drawing and
putting me in a position
to sort of be a referee
on when it was okay,
when it wasn't okay, is not
something I'm comfortable with,
but I do think that, assuming,
students who have experienced trauma,
who have been through
these difficult things,
we need to start not assuming that,
we need start believing them.
And listening to their experiences,
and listening to times when they're hurt
and giving validity to those experiences,
not just dismissing it as
oh, you didn't give me
the benefit of the doubt.
Giving people the benefit of the doubt
can sometimes be pretty difficult.
It's important but,
we have to not just label
people as too sensitive,
but instead listen to them,
because there is a reason
that their voices aren't being heard,
there is a reason that
they're considered a minority,
or like a small group.
We have to listen to them.
- I'd just like to add, just one point.
I think Viviana's point
about giving the benefit of the doubt
is absolutely crucial here.
Diversity is hard,
we're coming together with
people who are different from us,
especially moral and political
diverse is really hard.
So one that I would suggest,
I'm starting to suggest
wherever I get the chance,
is let's rethink
what's the summer reading
list for new students,
let's rethink what are
the shared experiences
and rather than, most
summer reading lists are
recent books about racism and
colonialism, and inequality.
Rather that starting with
that sort of training
to be upset about privilege,
why don't we require John
Stewart Mill, "On Liberty",
Dale Carnegie, "How to Win
Friends & Influence People",
"The Sermon on the Mount",
and "The Dhammapada."
- [Jeremy] Who's the dinosaur now?
(everyone laughs)
- But if we would start by recognizing,
yeah, we need to have these
difficult conversations,
and they can only be had
if we all give each other
the benefit of the doubt,
and we don't naturally do that.
It's really, really hard.
This has to be a shared project
to recognize we're all
incredibly self-righteous,
moralistic, well, curse word there.
And so yes, we have to give each other
the benefit of the doubt.
And this is what has disappeared.
The idea is accuse first, and
then social media after that.
So, if you feel marginalized,
if you think someone has done
something, talk to the person,
don't bring in the adult reinforcements.
- Yes.
- Hi, I have so many thoughts
from this excellent panel,
but I guess speaking about language,
which was brought up a couple of times,
I wonder if we could address a little bit
using the language of
disability in this context
because as we were all talking,
I thought about there
was a big controversy
here on campus to do with
political issue last semester
with a visiting professor
as you were saying,
and was nothing to do with disability,
that was nothing to do with people,
as far as I understood it,
people feeling personally hurt,
but it was a political issue
that people wanted to engage in.
And so I wonder if by using the label,
like we say of trauma,
and then using the label of disability,
there's a lot of issues
in that, first of all,
can kind of stigmatize a group of people
saying you have disability
that might not feel like
they have a disability,
and second of all,
kind of eliminates the ability
to have larger conversations.
- Well, I think this is
very important to bring up,
especially since this event
was billed as the Milbank Tweed Forum.
- Right.
- And about campus speech
and I at teach at a school
where we've been dealing
with a Milbank controversy
in the last few days.
- You should describe it,
I don't think most people know about it.
- Yeah, sure, I'll describe it.
- We don't follow in great detail
everything that goes on at
Harvard. (everyone laughs)
- Right, right.
So Milbank Tweed gives
money to Harvard Law School,
like hundreds of thousands every year
for all student events.
So this law school just
doles out the money
to all of the student groups.
And Justice for Palestine, a
student group, held an event,
that really was asking
the question whether,
there was an exception to free speech
for pro-Palestinian views
being expressed on campus.
So in other words, do we
believe in free speech
until someone wants to express
a pro-Palestinian view.
That was the event itself and
when they advertised the event
as required by saying generously
supported by Milbank Tweed,
turned out Milbank Tweed
really did not want that association
and so they asked
that the law school ask
the student organizations
to not advertise it that way,
and then as a result of
whatever conversations followed,
Milbank Tweed decided not to
fund any more student events,
but rather to move their funding over
to other ways to support
Harvard Law School,
because of this problem of political views
being associated with
their company, their firm.
And I think that this is important
because Jeremy mentioned,
the special nature of a university,
what it is we're here to do,
to have political as well as
other kinds of disagreements
and to really have those
debates and to search for truth,
and produce knowledge about those things,
but the university can't
exist without funding
from non-university institutions
such as corporations
and private firms
and so I think there is an
issue here about politics.
In a vacuum and in an ideal world,
we would love it to be
that all political views,
or at least most of them,
of course, one can imagine,
that the community could
decide there're some view
that are so beyond the pale,
that we don't actually
have to provide a forum
for their expression and debate.
But by and large,
we want to have a place
where a whole range, a large,
an enormous range of
political views can exist
and be expressed and be disagreed with
but I think it's always
a perennial problem
when it's not just the university.
We exist here because of
funding from other parties
who have certain views
that they don't want prominently displayed
or prominently expressed and so,
I think it's something
that's very difficult
because we have our community norms,
but we also have our existence.
How do we go on,
if we don't have the support
from either the students,
or the alumni, or the parties
that actually give us the
funds to just run the school.
And I think it's always a compromise.
I do not have the position
that this is, you know,
we are pure, and so we have
to act like we're pure,
it is a compromise.
- Jeremy.
- It is a compromise,
but if there's a discipline upon students,
and if there's a discipline
upon professors to play their part
in this ideal of a place
where disagreements can be raised
even when it's uncomfortable
for the professor to
have to deal with them
or it's uncomfortable for
students, then we have to impose,
and it sounds like a
recipe for bankruptcy,
(man laughs)
we have to impose that
discipline on donors too.
They have to understand
it's a university you're contributing to,
not a political party.
It's a university you're contributing,
do you know what a university is?
(man laughs)
We wanna say it more
diplomatically than that
when there are millions at stake.
But just as we say that to governments
who fund public universities,
or governments that are giving grants
for research at public universities,
so we have to say it to
private donors as well.
Remember the nature of the institution
that you're funding here.
This is going to be an institution
where hard things will be
said, difficult topics raised,
and uncomfortable debates take place.
- Yes, yes, you've got a
microphone, so you get to speak.
(group laughs)
- Got the conch.
- [Student] Hi, I had a
question for Professor Haidt
relating to your anecdote.
- Haidt.
- Haidt?
- Haidt.
- Yes, Haidt.
- Yeah, Haidt, sorry.
I understand why going to the dean
and filing a complaint against you was,
I understand why prospect of
official censure was worrisome
and something you objected
to, but you also mentioned
that this caught on on social media,
that a lot of people were calling you
homophobic on social media,
and that seemed to also be something
that you found objectionable.
And that was somewhat confusing to me
from a free speech, freedom
of expression perspective,
although I understand
why you would take issue
with people saying things
about you that aren't true.
It's seems like what you're describing
is one person forming an
opinion, expressing it,
other people joining that
opinion, and also expressing it.
So I was wondering if unpack
for me exactly what the,
again, not the school
potentially censuring you,
but the social media.
- Sorry, I'm sorry, I don't
understand the contradiction.
I never said that they don't
have a right to say anything,
I didn't like it,
I didn't like having my
reputation dragged through the mud
for when I thought I was innocent,
but there's no free speech issue here.
I don't understand.
- So, maybe
I misunderstood you,
it seemed to me like you were describing
that as one of number of bad outcomes
that you think followed from this.
An objectionable outcome
from a freedom of expression perspective.
Not that you said they
didn't have a right to do it,
but it seemed to me
lumped in with the idea
that you might face official censure
was the fact that a number of people
formed bad opinions about you
and repeated them on social media.
- Right, so the issue we were
discussing here with Viviana
was the issue of accountability.
And accountability sounds
like a good idea in practice,
some of my colleagues have a
lot of faith in the system.
(Anthony chuckles)
And it is true, I also, you know, again,
there was no way I was gonna be convicted
but the process is the punishment.
If professors know that
they will not be fired,
they will not be convicted, but, yet,
anytime a student is offended,
there will be a social
media campaign against them,
they will lose weeks of their work,
they'll have to defend themselves,
people will be crawling through
everything they've ever written.
It takes a lot of, we're all really busy.
And if I know that at any moment,
I can lose a month of my life,
I'm gonna scrub my syllabus clean.
I just don't have the time.
So it's not a free speech issue here.
It's what are the dynamics on campus?
And if we think the classrooms
are suppose to be safe spaces
in which professors
must be held accountable
if they violate that safety,
that is not a place that I want to teach.
- So, Viviana mentioned
that she was talking about
students being held accountable too.
That is, students have
responsibilities in all this.
And I think it is worth saying
about the world of social media,
that we haven't yet
developed, what I think,
would be appropriate
norms of responsibility.
People pick up accusations
and run with them
on the basis of one person
telling them something,
and doing no research at all
into whether it's right or not.
And mounting a campaign to hound someone,
on the basis of misinformation
is irresponsible.
Now it doesn't mean it should be banned,
it doesn't mean there
should be laws against it.
Part of, this is back to John
Stuart Mill, who like Jon,
I'm a big fan of, (chuckles)
part of it is about the
responsibility of the society
to develop a culture
in which we allow each other to say things
and that means we don't penalize people
for saying things we don't like
unless we have established for sure
that they've said them and
that they have the moral
significance that we're claiming.
And I'm afraid that
that does not look like
the world of the web to me.
- Right.
- Can I also say--
- Yes.
- That there is
an alternative to wiping
your syllabus clean.
We can also listen to students,
listen to the things that
hurt them, upset them,
and not just that things
that are oppressive.
You can learn to how to
talk about these issues,
we're putting out all
kind of, groups put out
all kinds of information on
what language is appropriate,
what things you can say,
what things will strike
them this and that way.
This information is out there,
you can also learn that.
- But that would not
protect you.
If you watch the video
of what happened to Dean
Spellman, at Claremont KcKenna,
if you read the transcript,
a student wrote an essay
decrying privilege,
insists phobia at Claremont McKenna.
Transphobia, I'm sorry.
At Claremont McKenna, and
this dean reached out to her.
And you read the transcript
of what the dean said,
and it was clear, she was
really trying to help,
she was concerned about her.
And the student, in her initial article,
basically talked about the
idea that there's this mold,
there's this typical
prototype at Claremont McKenna
and it's white, and heterosexual male.
And so this dean used the word mold,
she did use the world mold, she said,
"I'm sorry that some people
"don't seem to fit into
our CMC mold, but."
And it was clear she was
really being helpful,
but she used the word mold,
and she was crucified for it.
You can find it on the web.
It's basically a Maoist shame circle,
where they're taunting her,
they're reducing her to tears
for her incredible insensitivity.
So listening to students
will not protect you.
The new regime is if anyone is offended,
you have committed an act of
aggression, microaggression,
but it's an aggression nonetheless,
even a form of violence.
And so, this is where we are.
Listening will not protect you.
- Hi, excuse me, loud.
My name's Ely, just one quick comment.
I work on China, I'm an expert,
I work in U.S.-Asia Law
Institute over here.
It was very clear to draw
a distinction between
what we see now and the
cultural revolution.
Does not seem like the same thing.
(room laughs)
So, just as that was
that one comment.
Now, I just want to zoom in
on one really tiny point.
So, to me, the way that you'll talk about
the kinds of aggressions or comments
that cause difficulty in classroom.
So it reflects a kind of theory of tort.
Say, you harm me, we want to
account for what that harm is,
somebody is harmed.
And so, my question is this,
how much of this debate
can be boiled down to
how large you conceive of that harm being.
There are other things
being talked about as well,
we've mentioned politics,
we've mentioned other issues,
but how much of the
conversation's specifically about
what is or isn't said in classroom
can be boiled down to that?
And just to add one little piece to this,
in my experience,
or at least in situations
where I've seen this come up,
spaces when I was a student recently,
it seems to be most
significantly demonstrated
in classroom situations where this is
an inadvertent error, speech,
something that is kinda
admitted by everybody
as being really not terribly good,
or coming off wrong, like mold.
But which causes
a rather substantial
amount of disagreement
about how that should be treated.
So, thank you.
- So, are you asking for
a response for the review
of the tort laws?
- Yeah, I would love to hear,
just in general, feelings on
how much of this disagreement
is due to specific debate
over how large this harm
as opposed to any other influences.
- An earlier question raised the issue
about disability and suggested,
asked us why to say we are
focusing on that notion
rather than just the shared
notion of disagreement.
And it has to be that we begin
our discussion of this matter
by thinking about a
range of possibilities.
A traumatized response at
one end can't be ruled out,
can't be denied, and if
that's a possibility,
we have to disability
frameworks to think about it.
But most cases, it seems to me
it'll be well short of that.
And some cases, and this is
where the most recent
questioner's question arises,
Ely's question arises,
that there will be great disputes
as to whether people are magnifying
or exaggerating the extent of their harm.
It's seems to me this
was obviously the case
in Justice Scalia example from Georgetown.
Probably being done for
political and cynical reasons.
So people have to be sometimes
in a position to call
and question the degree of
harm that's being asserted.
It's the most delicate
and difficult thing to do,
because people say, "Are
you telling me how I feel?"
No, but I'm really wondering
whether you were really traumatized
within a disability framework
by somebody saying something
bad about Justice Scalia.
So, I don't think there's
gonna be any way of avoiding
some discussion of how one actually feels
and how grave the harm is.
Certainly sometimes we will be saying
there are certain forms of discomfort,
like simply being offended by a view,
as opposed to being,
for example, silenced,
or reduced to an inability
to function, or traumatized.
We might want to be able to
point to differences of quality
as well as differences of
quantity of the types of things.
But this has to be fair
game for discussion as well,
like everything else is.
- Right, yes.
- Hi, so I'm thinking
about this in terms of,
when you think about accommodations,
I'm thinking about it in terms of
costs and benefits of granting
someone an accommodation.
So in the example of the curbs,
the reason we have curbs,
when it rains, the water gets
diverted into the drainage,
or the reason we don't install elevators
into every building into New York City,
even though it would benefit some people,
is that we think the costs are high.
So, I guess my question
on the benefits side,
Professor Waldron, I want to
direct this question to you.
You say that granting
these accommodations,
or I guess to everyone,
maybe granting these accommodations,
and having trigger warnings is in some way
gonna diminish the benefits
of a free exchange of ideas at the school
and the kind of diverse opinions
that exist in the university.
And I guess my question is,
just as empirical point,
how do you measure the diversity
and the benefits of the
university as it exists today?
Is there actual, do these
conversations actually take place?
Is there a lot of intellectual diversity
at universities and then,
as a follow on, why not,
would maybe non-university
options for providing
that kind of dialogue, so I'm
thinking like Khan Academy,
I'm thinking of like blogs,
or OpenCourseWare from MIT,
why can't that just provide
the intellectual discourse
we need in society, and
then just allow colleges
and universities to be fun places?
(everyone laughs)
Like in social, I mean,
really what they are,
which is like social signaling
tools and credentialing.
(audience laughs)
(alarm ringing)
- Professor Waldron,
this is a free debate.
So you're free to answer that question.
(everyone laughs)
- All right, there may be
somebody on the platform
who thinks trigger warnings are too costly
in terms of the university's aspirations,
I'm not that person.
But it does seem to me,
that one of the things
that Jon Haidt has brought up
is whether the image of the university
that my view are being predicated on
and some of the other
people's views on the platform
are being predicated on, is
a non-reality now anyways.
There isn't a great deal
of confrontation of ideas,
there isn't a great deal of genuine
uncomfortable debate taking
place, and maybe that's right,
I don't think in certain
courses, you can preclude it,
I think it's very important in law school
that it always remains
open, and as new forms
of systematic social
injustice are discovered
and new claims about
systematic injustice are made,
you can't tell when that
will trigger a debate
and that needs to take place.
I don't think it's inappropriate
to have content warnings
in cases where it's a
reasonable person would predict,
that it's possibly people
may be deeply, deeply upset.
That as part of their duty
to conduct themselves as
a responsible student,
they may need to prepare themselves,
or they may need to think very carefully
about whether they want to
attend this class or not.
I have no problem with that.
Very, very hard to quantify,
the balance of costs on either side.
But, I remain a staunch
believer in the fact
that a university and a
campus, so the university
and the adjacent speaking
around on the campus,
is a place, is one of the few places,
where we have organized civil discourse
on the most uncomfortable topics.
So we try to organize our
responsibilities of respect,
sensitivity, and civility
to that aspiration.
We don't try to organize the respect,
sensitivity and civility
purely for it's own sake.
- And I hope that we have managed to live,
at least in this room, up to
that image of the university
should be doing as a
space for free expression.
Thank you all very much for coming.
(audience applauds)
Thank you very much
to the panelists.
