WASHINGTON – At a time when speaker disinvitations are making headlines, colleges and universities would serve the interests of intellectual discourse and robust discussion by helping students understand the value of engaging political and other perspectives different from their own on campus, panelists said Tuesday at a Bipartisan Policy Center forum dedicated to the topic.
In the panel discussion titled “Protesting the Podium: Campus Disinvitations” –presented by the center’s Campus Free Expression Project and moderated by project director Dr. Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill – four academics agreed that attacks on a speaker’s character rather than his or her views works against civic discourse, finding common ground on challenging issues and advancing a dynamic democracy.
“Argument is the fundamental basis of free speech” and in academic settings should focus on challenging views rather than the character of the one expressing them, said Dr. Harvey C. Mansfield, who teaches political philosophy and is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University.
A combination of technological advances, a contentious political climate and perhaps child-rearing contribute to uncivil discourse and unwillingness to tolerate free speech rights of others, particularly as it relates to guest speakers on campuses, said Dr. Matthew J. Dickinson, a political science professor at Middlebury College and a former governmental studies fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“The worry I have is it has gone beyond simply disinviting a commencement speaker. It’s seeping into how we teach classes,” said Dickinson.
He wonders if at some point he will be “hauled in” and his academic freedom threatened because a student complains that information taught is personally unsettling or harmful.
“Tenure may no longer even be a protection,” he said.
