A couple of college professors apparently have decided that only THEIR speech is needed on campus.
The conclusion comes from the fact that two Arizona State University profs, Richard Amesbury and Catherine O’Donnell, have written that “free speech concerns yield too much to the ‘right wing’ and that free speech should not be given the protection currently afforded by universities and colleges.”
According to an analysis by constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, they “argue that free speech may be harming higher education by fostering ‘unworthy’ ideas.”
Turley, who has testified on constitutional issues multiple times before Congress, noted he’s marked before how “academics are now leading an anti-free speech movement on campuses that challenges the centrality (or even the necessity) of free speech protections in higher education.”
Amesbury and O’Donnell wrote in Chronicle of Higher Education an article headlined, “Dear Administrators: Enough with the Free Speech Rhetoric! It Concedes Too Much to the Right-Wing Agenda.”
While Turley said his concern is the “erosion” of speech rights on campuses, the professors “seem to worry that there is still too much protection for opposing views. Worse yet, they suggest that the free speech objections are often part of a right-wing funded agenda.”
They fret that colleges “aspire to a diversity of opinions.”
“They insist that higher education is about finding truth and that means that false ideas are inimical to our mission as educators. Indeed, they question the need for ‘intellectual diversity,’” Turley explained.
The professors, in fact, charged that “not all opinions are equally valid. Efforts to ‘democratize’ opinion are antithetical to the role colleges play in educating the public and informing democratic debate.”
They explained, “Answering questions requires the vetting of opinions. As some opinions are found wanting, the range of opinion deserving of continued consideration narrows.”
Turley noted there already is evidence of faculties “purged” of conservative and libertarian professors.
“For example, last year, the Harvard Crimson noted that the university had virtually eliminated Republicans from most departments but that the lack of diversity was not a problem. Now, a new survey conducted by the Harvard Crimson shows that more than three-quarters of Harvard Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty respondents identify as ‘liberal’ or ‘very liberal.’ Only 2.5% identified as ‘conservative,’ and only 0.4% as ‘very conservative,’” he wrote.
He said, “Even with this purging of departments, Amesbury and O’Donnell still worry that intellectual diversity could be maintained as a goal in higher education. They are not alone in this view. As we have previously discussed, some professors reject the notion that campuses should protect the free speech rights of those who are … well … wrong.”
He added, “Of course, many of these academics would be outraged if conservatives were to take hold of faculties and start to exclude their views as ‘unworthy.’ Indeed, that was once the response to far left professors like critical legal scholars and socialists. Now, however, the left has control of these departments and has declared opposing views to be unworthy of protection.”
O’Donnell told Turley, after the commentary appeared, that instead of pursuing “all-encompassing” speech forums, universities should play a “limited role as places of scholarship, learning and teaching.”
“We argue that ‘free speech’ and ‘intellectual diversity’ – exactly because one is so easily chastised for questioning them – have become gates through which unexamined orthodoxies, buoyed by government or donor influence, enter universities and take root,” she wrote.
Turley remained “skeptical.”
“O’Donnell explains that ‘[t]his means that rather than seeking to be an all-encompassing speech forum, universities should instead embrace their limited role as places of scholarship, learning, and teaching, with the pursuit of truth at their core.’”
“This is a common defense against academic diversity. No one is seriously questioning the role of universities as places of scholarship or learning. The issue is the dramatic reduction of conservative, libertarian, or even dissenting faculty at many schools,” he said.
