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14 Mar, 5 tweets, 3 min read
This entire piece from @BerkowitzPeter is deeply confused, but this section in particular begs the question.

realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/…
@michelleinbklyn cites two Arkansas bills, as Berkowitz notes. But then why refer to them as "the proposal", as if they were a single legislative act? Only the 1619 Ban was abandoned. The CRT ban, which is much broader and more ambitious, is (last I checked) still live.
I've read a dozen different defenses of these bills in the last two weeks. They all make the same cluster of bad arguments and I'm not going to rehash why all over again. You can read my take here.

arcdigital.media/supporters-of-…
And if you don't trust me, here's @JoeatFIRE, legislative director over at @TheFIREorg.

thefire.org/legislative-ef…
Simply put: To the extent these bills affect public colleges/universities, they are unconstitutional. Public K-12 is a different story, but even there I'd urge extreme caution. The language in these bills is so sloppy and vaguely worded that abuse is inevitable.

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More from @JeffreyASachs

Jeffrey Sachs Profile picture
14 Mar
An important piece from @samk_harris. The “CRT” bans being proposed in state legislatures are unconstitutional and a threat to free speech. Harris is no fan of the Left, but she knows far better than most what’s at stake here.
Though I continue to be skeptical about the Nevada lawsuit. Much turns on whether classmate ridicule constitutes compelled speech. That seems like a dangerous step.
One last thing. A plea, really. Don’t call it “indoctrination” when what you mean is “education about a controversial topic”. K-12 is filled with bald assertions by teachers: “The cause of WWII was this”, “The impact of slavery was that.” It is also filled with lessons...
Read 5 tweets
Jeffrey Sachs Profile picture
12 Mar
On the Georgetown adjuncts: You can (and should!) fire a prof for engaging in discriminatory behavior. But what about for expressing an idea that makes students believe, reasonably or otherwise, that the prof engages in discriminatory behavior?
This has come up too many times to count, but obviously the closest case is Amy Wax. One way of thinking about it: Can a prof do her job if her students believe she is biased? If not, should she keep her job?
Like I said, that’s one way of thinking about things. But probably not the right way. After all, a lot of conservative students think they’re discriminated against by liberal profs, and given sone faculty speech, I understand why. But that’s no basis for hiring/firing decisions.
Read 6 tweets
Jeffrey Sachs Profile picture
11 Mar
If you can look past the fact I speak in long, meandering, and grammatically questionable sentences, this interview with @seanilling more or less explains why I am so worried about our free speech discourse right now.

vox.com/policy-and-pol…
As I described at @ArcDigi, there is a legislative war being waged on academic freedom/free speech right now. Even if you dislike "woke" speech or critical race theory, you should be able to appreciate the danger we are in.

arcdigital.media/the-new-war-on…
Supporters of these bills will try to persuade you that the danger is overblown. Do not listen to them.

arcdigital.media/supporters-of-…
Read 5 tweets
Jeffrey Sachs Profile picture
10 Mar
Assuming this is true (I don’t know if it is/is not, that’s irrelevant), this is a good example of unconstitutional compelled speech. There’s no need to invent new laws to deal with it. Existing law and court precedent like Barnette is more than capable.
Ah, I see from some of the replies that this is the Clark case in Nevada. I wrote a bit about it in one of my recent Arc pieces. It’s a lot more complicated than Ramaswamy’s tweet suggests — which makes sense, since it’s just a tweet.
Schools can have a good, constitutional reason to compel speech. The point of Barnette (powerfully described by Sean’s Shiffren) is that this speech should not interfere with the intellectual autonomy of students as thinking agents.

scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewconten…
Read 7 tweets
Jeffrey Sachs Profile picture
9 Mar
Yeah, the “There was no ban!” thing just doesn’t wash. It’s reasonable to shrug your shoulders at the Seuss estate’s decision, but what eBay and public libraries are doing is (for different reasons) something else entirely.
Yes, it’s essential to be precise on this point. AFAIK, Chicago has only suspended some Seuss books for review. The only place they’ve been outright removed is Portsmouth, VA, though I expect there will be others.

And for what it’s worth, I’m actually less concerned about eBay’s actions than I am with the libraries thing. Slap a content warning on them if you must. Alert parents to the images. But you don’t mess with the public’s access to public things in public spaces.
Read 10 tweets
Jeffrey Sachs Profile picture
27 Feb
I can't tell if Rufo is misinformed or simply using words differently that I do, but honestly who cares? I'm just going to post two bills below. I'll supply a few prompts, but you read them and make up your own mind.
First, Arkansas HB 1218, a bill entitle... You know what? The title is way too long for a single tweet. Here's a screenshot instead.

arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/FTPDocum…
Read the bill carefully. Note what is covered and what is not. It does carve out exceptions (Sec 1.f), but pay close attention to their limits.

Now ask yourself, were this bill to pass, could a professor endorse race-based affirmative action in the classroom?
Read 8 tweets

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