Freedom of Speech: Why We NEED Academic Freedom

Freedom of Speech: Why We NEED Academic Freedom - Learn Liberty

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8 жыл бұрын

What are the threats to free speech and free inquiry on college campuses today? Learn more: lrnlbty.co/1izBCmC
Academic Freedom-the ability to freely pursue knowledge and inquiry on campus-is under attack, and it’s important for students to push back.
This is video explains why academic freedom matters. Academic freedom means the right of everyone in the academic community to pursue truth and wisdom, and to reach conclusions according to his or her own rights. Harvard students' Op-Ed is symptomatic of much broader trends across academia in recent decades. We've seen speech administrations establishing speech codes to tell students what they're allowed to say.
And free speech zones to tell them where they're allowed to say it. This justification is usually to create a safe space for learning, but advocates forget that a fundamental way to learn is to encounter ideas with which you disagree. Encountering an argument you oppose will either shift your thinking, or broaden and deepen your understanding of your own beliefs.
Either way, such encounters foster learning and critical thinking. And they help you to grow. But too many people on campus seem afraid to hear opinions that with which they disagree or which they find offensive. Lectures and panel discussions are getting cancelled or disrupted because some students have found the speakers objectionable.
This includes speakers from across the political spectrum. Including Condoleezza Rice, Janet Napolitano, Charles Murray, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christine Lagarde, George Will, and even the Chancellor of the University of California to name just a few. Such intolerance is harmful because it undermines the fundamental constitutional and moral right to speak your mind with intellectual honestly.
But it's especially harmful on college campuses, where it suffocates the pursuit of truth that necessarily relies upon vibrant debate and varied research in order to breathe. You can't have free inquiry if some groups have been empowered to bully others into thinking like them. As the famous educator, Alexander Meiklejohn, wrote, to be afraid of an idea, any idea, is to be unfit for self-government.
People who support free speech and open inquiry need to speak out and organize in order to save the principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech, which should be at the heart of any University. It's time for a new free speech movement.
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LEARN MORE:
“The Doctrine of Academic Freedom” (article): The Harvard Crimson article referenced in the beginning of the video. www.thecrimson.com/column/the-...
Free speech and its relation to self-government, Chapter I: The rulers and the ruled (digital book): Quoted by Professor Downs. uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collecti...
“The Coddling of the American Mind” (article): The effects of campus censorship on education and students’ well-being. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/a...
“Academic Freedom: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and How To Tell the Difference” (paper): Don Downs explains more about academic freedom. www.popecenter.org/acrobat/Aca...
Free Speech On Demand program & Academic Freedom landing page: lrnlbty.co/1izBCmC
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Пікірлер: 59

@juliuszimmermann9096 8 жыл бұрын

Professor Downs is the man! I took his last class before he retired on the principles of criminal law and crime in general. He was a great teacher!

@hag12100 8 жыл бұрын

You don't have the right not to be offended in a free society. Granted, one shouldn't be offending people, but if we ban free speech, we're not free...we would be a authoritarian state.

@nilma99 8 жыл бұрын

+hag12100 : So you're saying: We (citizens of the United States) don't have a "right" not to be offended, but we do have a "right" to free speech, hmm? However, we shouldn't offend people - even if they be authoritarians, right?

@mikeblain9973 8 жыл бұрын

+nilma99 The right of free speech is about tolerance. It means allowing speech even if it might offend (ie. it is the right to offend). Nobody needs the "right" to say something perfectly agreeable to everyone.

@nilma99 8 жыл бұрын

+Mike Blain : Thanks for you reply. I confess that I don't understand, in this context, you're meaning of the words "right, tolerance & allowing." Example; if you were free speeching (on campus) and somebody exercised their alleged "right" by demanding that you "shut-up" (via whispering or screaming), you would respond how?

@mikeblain9973 8 жыл бұрын

nilma99 In a country with right to free speech, there can be no "right" to demand another persons silence. They conflict directly. But in a theocracy for example, people are restricted on anti-religious comment, therefore they don't have free speech. Free speech is based on property rights. For example, it does not mean I have to put up with someone coming into my living room and saying something I don't want to hear. But in a public area, anybody can say anything. Being publicly offensive and extreme, they would have to be some kind of idiot, but there is no law against being an idiot.

@nilma99 8 жыл бұрын

+Mike Blain : I'm not saying that person has a right to silence you, but a right to "speak" it. I was curious about how you would demonstrate "tolerance and allowing" and whether you would accept his "right" to speech. Q: Would you tolerate or allow a visitor in your home to say anything he wants with impunity? Would you have a right to re-dress? Tolerate & allow?? I don't understand.

@fullthrottlewrx 8 жыл бұрын

Free speech is also important in giving you the ability to see what someone is really like - if people cannot freely express their values how would we be able to spot dangerous people? Limiting speech is like walking into the jungle with glasses that make lions invisible... no thanks, I'd rather have the ability to see the predators!

@angelaharvey4499 3 жыл бұрын

Absolutely agree that we need academic freedom and freedom of speech, without which all our other freedoms will be lost.

@watchdealer11 8 жыл бұрын

The notion that anything, including your "right" to not be offended or "right" to some form of asinine justice trumps free expression is as insane as the notion that the earth is flat. This is a disgusting ideology but unlike them, I don't want to censor it. :)

@MikeM8891 8 жыл бұрын

+watchdealer11 And I believe bring attention to any disgusting ideology is the best way of dispelling it. People don't have to be geniuses to see how absurd bad ideas are, especially when they are put under any scrutiny in a public place.

@Dydreth 8 жыл бұрын

The fact that this video even needs to be made is an indication of a huge problem and is frightening.

@greob 8 жыл бұрын

So much truth and wisdom. This is the kind of things that infuriates me all the time. And that's also why I have utter contempt for current judiciary and legislative systems.

@bigred2989 8 жыл бұрын

I find it shocking when I hear stories of people who get upset when they hear "triggering" speech or words. It's like having to deal with someone who has an allergy, but it's for something they hear. If you have panic attacks when the subjects of sexual assault and homosexuality come up, I suggest you get help coping with your issue, or find another place to learn. People shouldn't be allowed to censor the world around them, intellectually nerf it, because they don't like a certain subject.

@yungbananaclip2822 8 жыл бұрын

Honestly though if you've been sexually assaulted or raped, and someone's talking about something like that in detail, it can "trigger" memories of said assault

@bigred2989 8 жыл бұрын

I am aware of things like that, but isn't it unfair to censor speech because someone essentially has a speech allergy? And couldn't people start petitioning that the entire campus not talk about certain subjects. IIRC a college in Washington almost did this.

@yungbananaclip2822 8 жыл бұрын

I'm not saying it should be censored it should just be advised that that's something that can cause people mental anguish, basically make people more aware it's a thing

@nilma99 8 жыл бұрын

+the Pecha gamer : Honestly though, so what? Unfortunate as it is, the victim need's to cope & overcome.

@nilma99 8 жыл бұрын

+the Pecha gamer : If I did have such knowledge which is obvious (to you), that I don't, then what? Do you think the world would then be different? Is this problem a problem of knowledge? Of lack empathy/sympathy?

@ClovisJacob 8 жыл бұрын

I think you guys should leave the source of the information (ideas, graphs, charts, quotes, etc) in the description of the video. Sometimes I spend a lot of time researching for this data so I can decide about its liability, It would be great help if you put the links to the sources in the description. Thanks!

@jasond1500 8 жыл бұрын

"...Is to be unfit for self-government" Yeah, there's your problem, most people who object to even hearing ideas are usually the same people who want government to provide for all their wants and needs, rather than having the freedom to get those things on their own.

@SolesOfPassion 7 жыл бұрын

Thank you for this great presentation!

@Kumaryoku 8 жыл бұрын

I agree with the sentiment of this video. But I see this, at least partly, being caused by the commercialization of colleges. This lead to students being regarded as customers rather than the students they are. The other threat it harbors is the need to attract third-party funds, censoring research indirectly.

@LearnLiberty 8 жыл бұрын

+A Ton If students are paying money for a service/experience, do you think they should be treated as customers? If pressure from customers force firms to innovate and deliver a better product (in the market place), why is the customer pressure creating problematic results in higher ed? What do you think is an alternative solution?

@nilma99 8 жыл бұрын

+Learn Liberty : This would be accurate IF student were paying, however, dem days are long gone.

@cristian-si1gb 8 жыл бұрын

+Learn Liberty Because education is more like a necessity, than a service. You see, the private institutions have absolutely no reason to lower their prices or offer better "services" for their "costumers" because they offer something their "client" simply *can't live without*. This applies to both education and healthcare. Major private institutions seek constantly to destroy their competition in order to secure the market for themselves, eliminating competition. This is the reason why things like medicine, medical attention and education are far cheaper in Europe, than in America with objectively better quality.

@johnisaacfelipe6357 7 жыл бұрын

+cristi1990an education and medicine isn't objectively better in europe well at least post secondary education. American universities are still the best institutions of higher learning. the problem with the obsurd pricing of education is the direct result of government policy. watch learn liberty video about it.

@bunnysunnymew 8 жыл бұрын

I agree with this

@pamcornejo9383 8 жыл бұрын

Nicely worded.

@recynd77 8 жыл бұрын

Why are people still going into deep debt to send their kids to these indoctrination factories? What is it going to take?

@adrift-at-c 8 жыл бұрын

+recynd77 High paying jobs that don't require any technical knowledge whatsoever?

@johnver523 8 жыл бұрын

What do you call the ideology on academic freedom? Its suffix is -ism. :(

@johnisaacfelipe6357 7 жыл бұрын

libertarianism? classical liberalism?

@solaireofastora3 8 жыл бұрын

People just need to look up the definition of the word. That's easy.

@JokerReaperComedy 8 жыл бұрын

So, anyone wants to organize this campaign for free speech in collages? Anyone?

@nilma99 8 жыл бұрын

Does an individual have any degree of responsibility for what he says? in public? in private? Does speaking the truth or lying have any relevance?

@nilma99 8 жыл бұрын

+Revelat0r- So, if I say something nasty about your mom and you whoop my ass, I didn't have it coming, is that right? And, in your expressed opinion, your said "action" of physical aggression would be entirely a different category than my "action" of physical speech, is that your position?

@nilma99 8 жыл бұрын

+Revelat0r- "One is harmful physically, the other is emotionally" But you seem to be saying: one has no right to the former yet does have the right to the latter, have I stated your position accurately?