Here's an interesting piece from @kewhittington on extramural speech by academics. Should it be protected? If so, on grounds of academic freedom or free speech? And should the nature of the speech make a difference?
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
It's an easy call for me: with very few exceptions, controversial extramural speech should not cost a faculty member his or her job. And in fact, that's a protection I would extend to almost all employees, for reasons I gesture to here:
Consider all the things tied up with your employment in America: your income, your healthcare, your access to credit, and in many cases, your housing/child custody/social safety net, etc.
Important stuff, and not the sort of things that you should lose for political speech.
Important stuff, and not the sort of things that you should lose for political speech.
Anyway, getting back to Keith's paper: the flip side is that while he's correct about universities being a fragile ecosystem, that can cut against his argument as well. China shops are fragile ecosystems, which is why we generally try to keep bulls out of them.
Bret Weinstein and Marc Lamont Hill are the easy cases, all things considered. Someone like Jason Jorjani is somewhat more difficult. How well do you think a department would function with someone like him in it? What about the classroom?
nj.com/essex/index.ss…
nj.com/essex/index.ss…
I don't know what the solution is. Even though I come down solidly on Keith's side of the argument, it's a tricky position to maintain when your goal is a well functioning space for research, instruction, and the dissemination of expertise to the public.
