National Free Speech News & Commentary

Matt Taibbi and Racket Staff
Racket News

Excerpt: In his new “FOIA Files” writeup of the 1,400 pages of Freedom of Information documents Racket received from the University of California, Irvine, James Rushmore highlights an extraordinary Academic Advisory Board meeting, convened at the height of the pandemic in December, 2020.

In it, UC faculty members are so angry about academics defying Covid-19 consensus, they start to re-think academic freedom.

Josh Moody
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Vanderbilt University chancellor Daniel Diermeier has emerged as a strong advocate for institutional neutrality in recent years, arguing that institutions often go beyond their core mission when they strike stances on public issues. He expounded on those views in an interview with Inside Higher Ed in which he discussed the growing number of institutions that have adopted institutional neutrality and how tensions in the Middle East and related protests on campuses are driving university leaders to rethink how they engage on contentious issues at home and abroad.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/opinion/hamas-colleges-free-speech.html?unlocked_article_code=1.T04.MQMi.lC3J1RNGPlWu&smid=url-share

John K. Wilson
Academe Blog

Excerpt: The temptation to regulate free speech in the name of a higher good is a constant danger on the left, and the right. Too often, we ignore how centrist administrators and thinkers endorse censorship too easily, and how much power they hold. I think the greatest threats to campus free speech today come from right-wing legislators and wealthy donors seeking to suppress dissent and anxious administrators willing to silence controversial figures on the left or the right. But even well-intentioned arguments by leftists, conservatives, and centrists alike in defense of censorship help weaken the defense of free expression at a time when we need to make it stronger.

Joseph De Avila
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: Amy Wax, the Ivy League law professor suspended for making racist, sexist and inflammatory comments, stands to lose half a million dollars from her punishment.

Wax said she doesn’t regret the remarks that led to her reprimand. She is considering taking legal action, she said.

Greg Lukianoff
The Eternally Radical Idea

Excerpt: Well, folks, I’ve got some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that The Coddling of the American Mind Movie
will be available on AppleTV, Google Play, and other streaming platforms beginning today!

The first bit of bad news (yeah, sorry, there’s more than just one thing) is that Cancel Culture has worsened in the last year since the release of “Canceling.” As Rikki and I detail in the book, Cancel Culture is the measurable uptick, beginning around 2014 and ramping up in 2017, of campaigns to get people fired, expelled, deplatformed, or otherwise punished for speech that is — or would be — protected by the First Amendment.