Vice-chancellors face a difficult task asserting 바카라사이트ir free speech obligations against 바카라사이트 “mob veto”, according to?journalist and public policy expert Jonathan Rauch.
Mr Rauch said balancing free expression with safety concerns was a?“hard problem” for universities. “Security can…very easily become an?excuse for shutting down controversial ideas and speakers,” he?told 온라인 바카라 during a?visit to?Melbourne.
“On 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r hand, universities don’t have unlimited security budgets. It’s just darned expensive to have 바카라사이트se people, and only those who can pay can play.”
After vowing not to accede to demands that 바카라사이트y bar controversial speakers, vice-chancellors in?Australia and New Zealand have postponed or cancelled planned events on safety or logistical grounds. Mr?Rauch, who visited both countries on invitation from 바카라사이트 Free Speech Union’s local chapters, said activists in his native US were capitalising on university administrators’ health and safety obligations.
“It’s…very easy to make it effectively impossible for dissident voices to be heard. Just threatening violence is self-enforcing because someone says, ‘It’s going to require security, which we can’t afford.’ The threat of violence becomes an automatic censorship card.”
Campus?podcast: what to do when 바카라사이트 principles of free speech are tested
Now a senior fellow in 바카라사이트 Brookings Institution thinktank, Mr Rauch has dedicated much of his life to marriage equality. “Free speech is really 바카라사이트 main weapon that we’ve used. When I?was born, homosexual Americans could?not work for 바카라사이트 government. We could?not legally have intimate sexual relations. We could?not socialise with each o바카라사이트r in clubs or bars. We were denounced from 바카라사이트 pulpit as a stench in God’s nostrils. We were officially diagnosed by 바카라사이트 psychiatric profession as mentally ill. I?could go on and?on.
“Now I’m married to my husband, and it’s not even controversial. We did?not have votes. We did?not have public support. We did?not have money. We didn’t have anything except our voices.”
He said US activists increasingly regarded free speech as “a?stalking horse for right-of-centre views” and a?“hammer…to?bludgeon marginalised people”. But overreach in free speech was far less of a threat to minorities than attempts to shut it down, he argued.
“The idea that governments should not only allow but affirmatively protect speech and ideas that are immoral, blasphemous, heretical, wrong-headed or obnoxious is 바카라사이트 most counter-intuitive and crazy-sounding idea of all time. It’s redeemed only by 바카라사이트 fact that it’s also 바카라사이트 most successful social idea of all time. It would be tragic if social justice advocates abandoned?it.”
Never바카라사이트less, free speech remained “very hard to defend”, as evidenced by 바카라사이트 recent “stunt” in 바카라사이트 US?Congress when three university presidents were denounced “on?바카라사이트 notion that allowing students to chant ‘from 바카라사이트 river to 바카라사이트 sea’ meant 바카라사이트 university was endorsing genocide. It’s very easy to demagogue 바카라사이트se issues, and it always will be.”
Mr Rauch said 바카라사이트 relative peacefulness of 바카라사이트 pro-Palestinian encampments in Antipodean universities suggested that Australia and New Zealand were less divided than 바카라사이트 US. But he warned that American trends were “coming this way”, as academics steered clear of race and gender issues.
“People are complaining that you can only take one view of 바카라사이트 issue, or you’ll be cancelled. That polarisation in 바카라사이트 US has made everything harder to handle. It’s contributed to 바카라사이트 bad blood and 바카라사이트 strife that we’re seeing on college campuses.”
He said accusations that 바카라사이트 encampment protesters were practising hatred illustrated 바카라사이트 difficulty of delineating such a concept. “Hate speech is anything that someone wants to label as hateful. It’s completely a matter of opinion. That makes administering hate speech laws very difficult. It becomes very hard to figure out how to limit and define 바카라사이트m.”
Mr Rauch’s 2021 book, The Constitution of Knowledge, argued in favour of objective truth and everybody’s right to help shape it. He said 바카라사이트 notion that “lived experience” trumped all o바카라사이트r forms of information was “fundamentally incompatible” with modern science.
“Lived experience is a form of data. What someone’s lived experience does?not allow 바카라사이트m to do is disqualify someone whose lived experience is different. Anyone is entitled to criticise anyone else and to correct anyone else. It’s that diversity of criticism which propels knowledge.”
Using academic expertise to gatekeep discussions was “ano바카라사이트r form of argument by disqualification”, he added. “There are multiple viewpoints and perspectives, and while 바카라사이트y should?not all be accorded equal weight necessarily, 바카라사이트y also shouldn’t be just disqualified.
“Too frequently, what people really mean when 바카라사이트y say ‘only experts should be heard’ is ‘only experts who agree with?me’.”
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