Speech

When pro-Hamas activists at the University of Michigan tried to silence Israeli Doctor Nadav Davidovitch’s lecture, Dr. Belinda Needham, the school’s Chair of the Department of Epidemiology, refused to cave to the pressure. In the name of “health equity and justice,” students demanded Davidovitch be disinvited, saying his appearance would be tantamount to an endorsement of “deliberate genocidal actions.” Instead of giving in to the cancel-culture mob, Needham upheld the principles of free speech and academic freedom by ensuring the event went on as planned. At a time when viewpoint diversity is increasingly under attack at colleges and universities, it is crucial to recognize those who are willing to stand firm. When you sign the petition at right, NTC will add your name to a letter telling Dr. Belinda Needham “THANK YOU for staying true to the stated values of the University of Michigan and supporting freedom of speech!” The letter demanding Davidovitch’s lecture be canceled received more than 220 signatures — let’s dwarf that number with hundreds more names of Americans from coast-to-coast who stand in support of free speech and against cancel culture! [Photo credit: Mike Morland, University of Michigan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons]

Update (6-7-2022):  NTC advocates rallied to support Shaprio and emailed Georgetown Law Dean William Treanor asking him to accept Ilya Shapiro’s apology and uphold Georgetown’s policy on freedom of speech.  Sadly, Georgetown fell short of its own stated policies about free speech. After Georgtown Law’s “investigation” into Shapiro’s tweet they allowed him to stay on faculty, but made it clear that they could monitor his social media. Following that, Shapiro joined the Manhattan Institute as their Director of Constitutional Studies.  On January 21, constitutional law scholar and expert on the Supreme Court Ilya Shapiro was announced by Georgetown Law as executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. Shapiro’s role was set to begin on February 1 — until a tweet about President Biden’s insistence that his next SCOTUS pick will be a black woman. “Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is solid prog & v smart. Even has identity politics benefit of being first Asian (Indian) American,” Shapiro tweeted on January 26. “But alas doesn’t fit into the latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman.” Shapiro deleted the tweet and apologized. Soon thereafter, Georgetown’s Black Law Students Association demanded that Shapiro’s job offer be rescinded. More generally, Shapiro was expressing a sentiment shared by an overwhelming majority of Americans, 76% of whom want Biden to consider “all possible nominees” for the highest court according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on January 30, rather than play identity politics and further politicize what should be an objective body. And as Dan McLaughlin framed it in National Review: “Ilya’s use of the words ‘lesser black woman’ in this context was not the ideal way of phrasing this critique, but then, Twitter is fast-moving, space-constrained, and has no edit function, so it is hardly unusual to see things phrased there awkwardly.” Contrast this with Georgetown’s handling of Georgetown professor Carol Christine Fair, who wrote in 2018 that all “entitled white” Republicans supporting the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme court deserved to be killed: “All of them deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps,” she declared. “Bonus: we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine? Yes.” Georgetown’s response to inquiries about Ms. Fair? “Our policy does not prohibit speech based on the person presenting ideas or the content of those ideas, even when those ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable,” the university said in a statement to Fox News. “While faculty members may exercise freedom of speech, we expect that their classrooms and interaction with students be free of bias and geared toward thoughtful, respectful dialogue.” Georgetown’s Human Resources Policy Manual states that “it is not the proper role of a university to insulate individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. Deliberation or debate may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or ill conceived. It is for the individual members of the University community, not for the University as an institution, to judge the value of ideas, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting those arguments and ideas that they oppose.” In the case of Ilya Shapiro, Georgetown Law will show whether these are genuine values or simply hollow words.

Update (04/11/22): Following pressure from NTC advocates, The Emory Free Speech Forum officially received a charter from the university. “The Emory Free Speech Forum is immensely grateful to the New Tolerance Campaign advocates for your support and action on our behalf.” —Emory Free Speech Forum Treasurer Cory Conley Thank you to the many New Tolerance Campaign grassroots advocates who made this victory possible! Emory University is crystal clear on their stated values. Their Respect for Open Expression policy declares the school is “committed to an environment where open expression of ideas is valued, promoted, and encouraged,” and vows to “not deny recognition to an organization because of disagreement with its mission or the viewpoints that it represents.” In the case of the Emory Free Speech Forum, it is upholding neither. The Emory Free Speech Forum is a student-led group “devoted to fostering critical discourse and open dialogue surrounding important issues in law and society.” In October, the organization was rebuffed in its application for formal chartering by the Emory Law Student Bar Association (SBA), which cited concerns that the group and its proposed topics of discussion could cause “harm.” The SBA also worried that chartering the Emory Free Speech forum would “likely give rise to a precarious environment — one where the conversation might very easily devolve,” and said it was “hesitant to issue a charter when there are no apparent safeguards in place to prevent potential and real harm that could result from these discussions.” No other campus organizations are required to have “safeguards” in order to be chartered. In the absence of a formal charter by the university, the Emory Free Speech Forum is prevented from reserving university space for meetings, denied access to university funds, and omitted from benefits enjoyed by other university student groups.   [photo: Emory University School of Law [CC BY-SA 4.0] / Wikimedia Commons]