Trustee Responsibility Free Speech

Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: The roundtable discussion, hosted by North Carolina representative Gregory Murphy, reinforced the GOP’s argument that colleges and universities across the country have become liberal bastions that do not welcome intellectual diversity.

In addition to Jordan and YAF, the panel consisted of representatives from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the Jefferson Council for the University of Virginia, Speech First and the Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA), all right-leaning groups. Representative Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, and Representative Burgess Owens of Utah—both Republicans—joined Murphy.

Kathryn Palmer
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: For months, East Tennessee State University’s art museum displayed without issue a provocative piece of art depicting a conservative politician as a fascist. But in the last two weeks, the exhibit—which closed as scheduled on Dec. 6—became mired in controversy after Republican lawmakers took note and began calling for its removal in late November.

In response, on Dec. 2, ETSU’s Reece Museum introduced a content warning and started requiring viewers to sign a waiver before entering the exhibit, “Evolution” by Joel Gibbs, which shows U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson in front of swastikas morphing into crosses. The move drew the ire of free speech groups.

Radley Balko
The Watch, Substack

Excerpt: Donald Trump has never had much tolerance for the free press. Throughout his first term he demanded we “open up the libel laws” to make it easier to sue journalists for unflattering coverage — which, more than anything else, reveals that he doesn’t really understand how any of this works.

Jack Grove
Times Higher Education

Excerpt: More than three-quarters of university staff feel academic freedom of speech is more restricted in their country than it was 10 years ago, a major survey has found.

This sense that free speech on campus has been chilled is particularly strong in the US, where 83 per cent of respondents felt this was the case, and in psychology (80 per cent) and clinical health (89 per cent), where sex and gender issues loom large.

Yascha Mounk
Persuasion

Excerpt: Cass Sunstein is an American legal scholar and the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University. Sunstein was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under Barack Obama, and is considered to be the most widely cited legal scholar in the United States. Sunstein is the author, with Richard Thaler, of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, The World According to Star Wars, and Campus Free Speech: A Pocket Guide.

In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Cass Sunstein discuss his “law of group polarization” and how it contributes to today’s factionalism; how echo chambers work (and why social media makes them worse); and whether meeting the challenge of misinformation requires new government regulations.

Roger Pielke Jr.
American Enterprise Institute

Faculty in U.S. universities overwhelmingly hold views on the political left. That probably won’t be news to most THB readers. Today’s post documents just how extreme today’s left-leaning ideological uniformity has become among professors and shows that in the past, across disciplines faculty were much more politically diverse.