Q1: Who is free to speak? academic freedom

Transcription

1 Dean s List Celebration March 8, 2017 Kris Bartanen Dean of the University Good afternoon and welcome to this celebration. As you know, the Dean s List is the roster of students from Spring 2016 and Fall 2016 who earned grade point averages in the top 10% of the undergraduate class for each of those semesters. To qualify, a student must have three or more graded units, no incomplete grades for the semester, and no withdrawal from an academic course. The minimum grade point average for each semester varies as it is determined by the top ten percent of the undergraduate class. For 2016, it took a 3.89 for Spring and a 3.85 for Fall to earn Dean s List honors. Congratulations on the hard work and talent that has brought you here today. Because you are intellectual leaders on this campus, and will be leaders in your paths beyond this campus, I want to share some thoughts with you today that go to the heart of our intellectual enterprise. I ll start by sharing some historical background. In July of 2013, I visited the presidential library and estate of the United States 32nd President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. On the grounds was this contemporary sculpture by Edwina Sandys, granddaughter of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, FDR s contemporary and counterpart during World War II. It was installed in 2007, in what is now called Freedom Court, flanked by bronze busts of Roosevelt and Churchill. The sculpture recalls two well-known Roosevelt speeches: his 1 st Inaugural Address and his 1941 State of the Union Address. In the first inaugural, delivered on March 4, years ago last Saturday the new President opened by urging his audience, in the depth of the Great Depression, to remember that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. He said: I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. 1

2 Eight years later, as the world was increasingly entrenched in war, Roosevelt returned to the topic of fear in his January 6, 1941 State of the Union Address. He concluded that speech by defining four essential human freedoms: Freedom of speech and freedom of religion; Freedom from want and freedom from fear. These freedoms soon became shorthand for the United States goals in entering World War II, and for key components of Roosevelt s domestic program, the New Deal. Later, they came to be hailed, as well, as foundational commitments for the establishment of the United Nations. Edwina Sandys created the Hyde Park sculpture from eight panels of the Berlin Wall, the barrier that was erected by the German Democratic Republic (Communist East Germany) to prevent further emigration and defection from East Germany that had marked the post-world War II period. The Berlin Wall, as you know, separated West Berlin from both East Berlin and from the surrounding East Germany, from 1961 to As you also likely know, the Berlin Wall formally known as the Anti-Fascist Protective Wall was a key symbol of the Cold War period. 2

3 When liberalization in the Eastern Bloc countries and continuing civil unrest in East Germany pushed the GDR in 1989 to allow its citizens to visit West Berlin and West Germany, people from both West and East celebrated by climbing the wall and taking away chips of it, until the GDR brought in heavy equipment to bring down what remained. In fact, the 2007 Hyde Park sculpture, entitled BreakFree, is an outtake of a parallel sculpture Sandys created in 1990 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the site where Winston Churchill s delivered what came to be known as his famous Iron Curtain address. Invited by Westminster to receive an honorary degree, Churchill (ousted from office in a recent election) was accompanied by President Harry Truman to Fulton, where also on March 4, this time in 1946, 71 years ago last Saturday Churchill urged tighter bonds between Britain and the U.S. He said: A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies.... From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Churchill did not invent the phrase iron curtain, but he certainly raised its salience. Stalin called the speech warmongering, and many consider this speech to be the kick-off for the Cold War. You can see in this photograph of the Fulton sculpture entitled BreakThrough the eleven-foot high cut-outs of the Hyde Park sculpture. 3

4 BREAKTHROUGH is a monumental historic sculpture by artist Edwina Sandys, granddaughter of Winston Churchill, created from 8 Berlin Wall panels in 1990 and installed at the Churchill Memorial Museum at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. But, this really is not a speech about walls you can reflect on that topic on your own time but, rather, is a reflection on this particular juxtaposition. I took this picture, from this angle, because it struck me at the time as especially important: Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom from Fear; two important freedoms; two striking prepositions. We live, study, and work right there, on the point of the base of that sculpture. For example, in our bias-hate response protocol, we say: Freedom of expression on this campus means equally that we shall not seek to limit individuals First Amendment right to express their views and that we shall reject conduct that hinders in any way the right of all to pursue their educational goals in a safe and respectful environment. The questions this juxtaposition poses today are, perhaps, even more vital to address than ever before. In the time I have remaining, we won t answer all the questions, but my charge to you today is to carry them with you for further consideration: Q1: Who is free to speak? (Who has freedom of speech?) On the Puget Sound campus, academic freedom is the right of all members of the academic community to study, discuss, investigate, teach, conduct research, publish, or administer freely as appropriate to their respective roles and responsibilities. It is the obligation of all members of the university 4

5 academic community to protect and assure these rights within the governing framework of the institution. (Faculty Code, Chapter I) Constitutional freedom of speech is broader, but both constitutional freedom and academic freedom have boundaries. For example, there are laws regarding defamation, which occurs when a person makes a publication of a statement that damages the reputation or character of another person. There are two kinds of defamation: Libel is the written "publication" of a defamatory statement, and can include publication on radio, audio or video. Slander involves the oral publication of a defamatory remark that is heard by another, and includes hand gestures or verbal communication that is not recorded. [ accessed 3/6/2017] Fighting words (words that incite violence) and hate speech (speech which attacks a person or group on the basis of protected attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation) are also constrained by laws, regulations, case law, and codes of behavior. For example, your Student Integrity Code provides that Civility is the hallmark of this community; hostility has no place in open and honest learning. A balance is required between freedom of expression and freedom from threats to safety.... The university community espouses no single correct way to engage in intellectual inquiry, no set body of beliefs to which all must subscribe, and no restrictions on the free expression of ideas. Equally however, it rejects the development of an environment that hinders in any way the rights of individuals to pursue their educational goals. The university does not tolerate language or actions that threaten specific harm to individuals or groups. In short, we are always working to balance freedom of speech with freedom from harm, living on that pointed corner of juxtaposition. The balancing act raises some additional questions: Q2: Who is fearful of speaking? I hear two themes of student concern (and, sometimes faculty and staff as well), in response to this question. Campus Climate Survey results show that persons who hold Conservative political views, or who openly practice their religious faiths are, at times, afraid to speak on our liberal-leaning campus, in the less-churched region of the Pacific Northwest. Students have written to request greater representation of more conservative voices among guest lecturers or other events. At the same time, students from historically underrepresented populations whether by racial identity, or gender expression, or other protected class express fear of speaking up about questions, perceptions, or issues important to them. And the fear, or silencing at whatever point in the spectrum of beliefs and values occurs less on this campus by way of outright expression of disagreement what I ve heard called our overt Northwest niceness norms kick-in but by way of undercurrents such as eye-rolling, dismissive shoulder shrugging, and other non-verbal reactions that say your question, or your voice, is not welcome here. I think we can do better in sustaining freedom of expression and freedom from fear. Q3: How does speech create fear? Professor Sam Liao of the Philosophy Department reminded us last week at the campus forum on freedom of expression that, as outlined by what is known as Speech Act Theory [J. L. Austin, John Searle], when we speak we are not only putting forward content (a locutionary act), but also engaging in a behavior (an illocutionary act) in his example, when I say I m sorry there is content and I m also performing an act of apology. Further, there is the effect of my speech (the perlocutionary act), in this case you may forgive me (or not). While some speech such as an overt threat can certainly create fear by its 5

6 content; the dimensions of the illocutionary and perlocutionary acts strike me as where problematic micro-aggressions rest. We can fall back to well, I didn t mean... or I didn t understand... or I didn t intend to... but our verbal or non-verbal acts have effects or impacts, and we need to be conscious and responsible for those dimensions of our behavior as well. If we had more time, we could also talk about how argument fallacies or outright lies also create fear the acceptance of those, across the political spectrum, scares me but we ll leave that for another day. One more question. Q4: How can speech reduce fear? I believe both what we speak about and how we speak have potential to reduce fear. For example, this campus did a good thing on October 24, 2016 and kudos to Professor Seth Weinberger for arranging by hosting Mr. Noel J. Francisco, a conservative attorney who has argued and won several landmark cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Some of the cases he argues involve religious freedom particularly, and his talk was called Religious Freedom, Executive Power, and the Supreme Court. We become stronger intellectuals by listening beyond our comfort zones and debating a range of ideas. I trust that, in part, your willingness to speak, listen, and engage across a range of ideas has contributed to the academic achievements that have brought you here today. By counterexample, students at Middlebury College last Thursday missed an opportunity when they violently protested and shut down a talk by a conservative social scientist, injured the faculty member who was to moderate the event, and stomped on his car as the speaker attempted to leave campus. They made a choice that I hope we never have to address at Puget Sound. Each of us also gets to choose how we speak. Some of you have heard me say this before, including at Matriculation: We need to develop our skills as able advocates, capable of engaging in well-evidenced argumentation. When we do so, even when we disagree mightily, we respect one another as rationale beings beings capable of persuasion and being persuaded, thoughtfully. Not coerced by fear, or silenced by verbal or nonverbal aggression, but respected as persons who can delineate the of and the from ; persons who can balance expression and safety; students who take the time to reflect, to consider the importance of our connections with one another, and who live bravely and confidently at the juxtapositions of important freedoms. Congratulations on your work in that regard. Puget Sound is proud of your academic achievements and the intellectual promise of your futures. 6