Tls and panamerica, and its a total delight to discuss the issue of free speech which never seems to go away. As i edit a literary magazine, i thought id begin things with a literary angle. In britain he wrote the polemic against [inaudible] and in it he said this which has continued to resound, give me the liberty to know, to utter and to argue freely according to conscience above all liberties. But before we get mistyeyed though, he also said this those which otherwise come forth, if they be found mischievous and libelous, the executionist will become the remedy to follow. He was the godfather of i believe in Free Expression but, which has been active as a brigade ever since. As were going to discuss over the next 50 minutes, free speech is never in practice absolute. The question before us today is how much it should be championed over other rights, especially in universities. And those rights might include the right not to be offended, but also the right to live free from abuse and intolerance, to live safely and happily. This week berkeley hosted ben shapiro and and had to tighten security and offer counseling to those traumatized by his presence. Were deeply concerned about the impact some speakers may have on individuals sense of safety and belonging. No one should be made to feel threatened or harassed simply because of who they are or what they believe. This week, too, harvard disinvited Chelsea Manning as a visiting fellow at its institute of politic, evidence that harvard is not a place where ambiguities cannot be cutsed, or is it a place cannot be discussed. And in august 2016 the dean of students in chicago sent a letter to incoming freshmen and said this our commitment to Academic Freedom means we do not support socalled trigger warnings, we do not counsel [inaudible] speakers, and we do not condone the creation of safe spaces where individuals can retreat from perspectives of opinions of their own. How far should we prioritize the need for safety and security within universities. I once gave a talk and was asking students as an event about trigger warnings and what member of the faculty talks about the impocket of teaching impocket of teaching shakespeare, and when i left, there was a discussion that trigger warnings had not been prefaced by a trigger warning. [laughter] and so we do need to try and find a way, i think, as a society how we preserve safe spaces, how important they are. So were going to consider is there a risk of safe spaces of becoming segregated spaces, to help present all of that, im joined by two people and hopefully a third who will silently enter as the debate continues, but theyre all eminently qualified to discuss this. Jolani cole, one of the great jobs surely in all of journalism, his most recent book is the substance of hope hello hi. Hes also a professor at columbia journalism school. Michelle goldberg is an author and as of tomorrow, i think, a columnist at the new york times. So congratulations to her. Her first book was called kingdom coming the rise of christian nationalism. And next was called the means of reproduction sex, power and the future. Of the world, so shes unafraid of tackling pretty substantial toppingics, and alongside her is the executive director of panamerica, hugely Important Organization including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as well as serving as Deputy Assistant secretary of state for international organizations. She also writes for lots of people as well. So our speakers will talk over some of the issues, and at the end well take questions and observations from you. One thing youll note despite everyone looking so youthful and lovely, none of us are currently students at u. S. Universities, so if there are students with their other than sense of with their own sense of what safe spaces are like, please insert at the end. Lets start by my asking the panel, do we believe is free speech significantly under threat on campuses or more broadly . First like to say good afternoon and thank you for the invitation. I am a, once upon a time, a brooklynite, now a harlemite, but i come back down to visit every so often, and im very happy to be here with you all today. Sure, i think free speech is under threat. I dont think its under threat on College Campuses. I think the preeminent threat to free speech in this country resides at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. And weve seen this is not just kind of rhetorical, this is not simply playing to people who i feel might be in my same leftprogressive sliver of the universe. I think objectively weve not seen a president referring to the media as the, quote, enemies of the people, kind of retrofitting antique, stalinist language into 21st century demagoguic presidency. And for us to actually grapple with what that means, the daily drip, drip, drip of political assaults against the press, i think, is something that we should be very concerned with. And i think when we look at the way in which this conversation about free speech on campuses is held, very often what ive noticed about the kind of reactionary movements is that they tend to drape their agendas in the virtues of democracy. And what i mean by that is saying that you are upholding one principle of democracy, but you are actually seeking to dismantle another fundamental principle of it. I think the example that stands out to me most notably is the kind of voter suppression, excuse me, Voter Integrity Commission [laughter] they have now in which they are allegedly attempting to make sure that our votes, our elections are untainted but having no concern for the number of people who are fining it much more difficult to actually participate in democracy through voting. I think the same thing happens with free speech, that when we are looking at the conversation around free speech, it is not that is actually a standin for a much more nefarious set of concerns that would not garner public attention in the way that saying free speech would. And as a quick example of that, its worth noting that the recent spate of neonazi events and farright wing events have been billed as free speech events. And it should also be noted that we saw lots of people who were in that kind of part of the world, part of the ideological spectrum defending milo ya knop lis on the grounds of free speech whether it was racism or sexism or xenophobia, antiimmigrant bias, any of these things that he was promulgating with his speeches. Those things were being defended under the name of free speech as opposed to the other kind of subsequent issues concern. Should he be excluded from making those types of often stupid as well as inflammatory comments . I think that, like, the virtue of democracy is that everyone has the right to be stupid in their own term and publicly, and i think the stupidity is its own indictment. Yeah. That notwithstanding, i dont think thats what the concern was. Because when he began making statements that people were uncomfortable with about child molestation, all of a sudden that became something that was indefensible. They left the issue of the principle of free speech, but in theory, they should have been out there saying, well, milo has the right to talk about things that a make us uncomfortable, and well defend his right to do that, but the opposite is what happened. Do you blame trump for how free speech ideas have been wrongly articulated on campus . Do you think we [inaudible] from the head down as a society . I think hes made it worse. We did a report that we issued last fall, just about a year ago, called diversity and inclusion, free speech at u. S. Universities, documenting these rising techs and pressures between the drive to make the campus a more inclusive, equal environment open to all students from all kinds of backgrounds, making sure they really can learn and feel comfortable and accommodated at the university but also arguing that those changes in that necessary evolution of the university should not and must not come at the expense of robust protections for free speech and Academic Freedom. Its our view that the two sides of this debate too often talk past each other, and those who are demanding more inclusivity and social change and those who are defending free speech need to come together and come together. So i think really . Thats my, i think do you have an issue . Racism and sex schism, i think people who are concerned are not going to come together in promulgating [applause] i dont disagree with you, but you pointed this out. Not all people cloak themselves in the language of free speech come in peace. And i think what has happened especially over the last few months is this, you know, those who are advancing whether its a racist or a sexist or an antigay agenda, calling themselves and claiming the mantel of free speech advocacy at berkeley which is really about a particular political agenda, i think the danger there that we see is a rising generation of students who are becoming alienated from the concept of free speech because a they see it being invoked only to protect ideas and speech on the other side. I think thats a real risk. What were trying to point out is that free speech is for all of us. You know, you need free speech if youre going to challenge the administration, if youre going to challenge a professor. You fend on those protections in order you depend on those protections to insert your views. So weve got to reclaim free speech as a treasured value, you know, not belonging to the right or the left, but to all of us. Thats the angle we come from. Michelle, do you think this is a new, is it a new problem, a new issue, do you feel . These things flare up from time to time, but were in a specific i think the dynamic has become particularly toxic with you have this dynamic, and i dont know how you break out of it, because there is, on the one hand, this generation gap about free speech as a first principle or an absolute value, right . I think that there are a lot of people younger than me who think that safety or inclusion or diversity or tolerance are more important than, you know, letting the nazis march on scoping key, for example, which was the kind of civil lib arertarian libertarian tradition that i grew up in. And i wonder if part of the reason some of them think that is because fascism really does seem closer than it ever has before. And so, you know, it was one thing to make an argument that we should let the nazis march when you couldnt imagine that somebody whos only a couple of steps removed from them would be in the white house. You know, now i think the theres a reason that people are much more alarmed about the mainstreaming of these ideas and that people feel such an intense need to kind of hold the line on what is acceptable. Because part of what steve bannon and the rest of the right doing very consciously is trying to expand the realm of what can be said in public and decent society, right . Thats what he means when he says politics are downstream from culture. But i think were in a really bad place where for a lot of really alienated young men the site where you can be transgressive, where you can kind of throw off the norms of Polite Society where you dont have to second guess everything you say, you can be your true self, if they feel like thats the right and i think that thats something that, you know, people like Milo Yiannopoulos are very good at playing on and that kind of, you know, University Culture becomes the culture of tiptoeing around things and strictures and watching your words and, you know, i think that inasmuch as the right is able to be the kind of swaggering rule breaker, its going to, i think its going to keep attracting a lot of these alienated young men. And then the more they push, the more people, the more kind of response they get from, you know, from the kind of trigger warning left or whatever. The more they feel. Again, i dont think its not right when they say were the new punk rock, but i think theyre getting some kind of [inaudible] is what youre saying. Yes. If you pander to what they believe a stereotype is, then it does their work for them. You want to hold the line against fascists, do you invite them in and argue them, or do you push them out . Seems to me to be one of the questions here. What would do you think, jelani . I think there are a couple of things kind of implicit in this and kind to have other side of michelles point is that there is the very real we know this, that democracy can be undermined democratically. And so to kind of use the kind of threadbare at this point comparison but unfortunately still relevant, were talking about hitler being elected and not seizing power. So the idea of how we combat these fascist movements, i dont think that we have a full picture of what antidemocracy looks like. We can only conceptualize it, or in some ways we can only conceptualize it as a kind of robust and laissezfaire almost approach to free speech. But someone who has studied the history of race in this country can tell you very easily that there is a whole antidemocratic tradition in this country that was enhanced by the First Amendment. And what i mean by that is simply this in 1915 when birth of a nation was released, w. E. 3w6789 due boys and the naacp and William Monroe trotter, the civil rights leader, all of them wanted this film to not be shown. And within the naacp even, which was a fledgling organization then just a few years old, there was an internal debate saying do we really want censorship . This was not a abstract, academic question. Because birth of a nation was directly responsible for the rebirth of the ku klux klan x. This is not a, you know, should i be able to say this, it is directly related to these sources about lynching black people. And saying that when you have a hire hierarchical society, even Civil Liberties can be deployed in ways that reinforce that hierarchy. If we wanted to know the history of this country, we would know that. If we were willing to look at the history of this country, that would be apparent to us. And so when were saying, you know, are you in favor of the First Amendment, of course you are. But i also think that are we in favor of Everything Else that contributes to what we call a healthy democracy. So to answer your point, when they saw charlottesville, the city of charlottesville requested, tried everything they could to prevent that gathering from happening. And they said this is not a matter of free speech, this is a matter of intimidating the public, and these people are really interested in creating a violent atmosphere and so on. And they were knocked down, i think, three times in court. And the aclu defended the right of these farright groups to organize. And then once they got together, they did exactly what one would have expected, which is that they gathered around a church with a bunch of people inside, and they all had torches. And so anyone, again if we had an inkling of understanding about how antidemocratic the history of this country has been especially around matters of race, knew this is exactly where Something Like this would lead. All im saying is we should be mindful of an array of threats to democracy, not a singular one. I guess the question that follows [applause] do you trust young people as a whole on campuses or society as a whole to effectively selfregulate this . Sometimes you have to take absolute steps to limit freedoms because you cant trust society to regulate itself. Michelle, do you think thats possible with students . Should they be free to at least make these judgments themselves . Thats a good question, and i guess it kind of depends on what sort of judgment youre talking about, right . Like, should they be able to keep speakers that they dont like off their campus, should they be able to make certain demands of their professors. I mean, im sympathetic to professors ive spoken to who feel like they have to walk on egg shells in front of their students, who feel worried that theyre going to say the wrong thing and be brought up on a title ix complaint, you know . I think, you know, i had a lot of criticisms of laura [inaudible] book, but it was still kind of a cos caesque thing she had to go through. Heres something i dont trust, i dont trust that any kind of speech restrictions that we decide to allow against the right will only be used against the right. I mean, particularly when the left is not in power in this country, you know . And so and its actually true that weve, a lot of the, a lot of the examples of kind of really campus crackdowns on free speech, they dont get as much attention but theres, you know, a scholar you hear about leftwing scholars all the time who either lose their jobs for saying something intemperate about, you know, trump or white people. I mean, basically Tucker Carlson on fox news, you know, because he doesnt want to write about trump making deals with democrats, this is what he airs, you know . When hes not talking about dirty gypsies, hes talking about, you know, somebody said something at east tennessee, whatever, lets rile up the whole country in response. And so, again, my fear is that once you start temp rising them porrizing about free speech, it becomes harder to demand its an absolute the idea of safe spaces inherently is difficult for people who want to explore all sorts of ideas, even to reject them, that the unwanted and maybe its a price worth paying, you end up with institutions where risk is completely removed from the equation. So intellectually, there is a price to pay here. I think, you know, some versions of safe space are really just another term for freedom of association is. Of course you have the right to get together with a group of people who agree with you on who to vote for or who share your values or love a certain author, whatever might bring you together, you know, with a group of likeminded people for a meal, for a meeting. Thats different from declaring a whole campus or even a whole dormitory or dining hall a safe space and saying an alternative set of ideas is unwelcome there. Yeah, we have laws that protect people against harassment and threats, and i think thats very important. If people are being targeted, if theyre [audio difficulty] the environment where they live, they cant learn. Thats not a Healthy University environment. I think its the responsibility of the university to protect students against that. You know, but at the same time, you know, being an open space for all ideas. So i think the university can create the opportunity for safe spaces, students can find those spaces. You should know when yo