Free Speech Isn't an Academic Value

Part I of II

On multiple occasions, I've seen people here gripe about collegians being unable, on campus, to say whatever suits them. Just as parents draw a line about what of their guidance is open for debate, college students face constraints on what they can and cannot say in an academic context. To wit, the experience and insights I impart to my kids aren't by them things to question. When they have the life experience, intellectual knowledge and acuity to make their own marks in the world and not depend on the ones I've made for their sufficiency, I will have achieved my goal of raising them, and at that point all of my input will for them be reduced to suggestion status, whereupon they become free to conduct their affairs as they see fit, free to express themselves as they desire, and free to raise their own kids as I raised them or differently.

The same concept applies in higher education settings. When students reach the point that they have original ideas that withstand rigorous scrutiny, the discipuli will have then earned the right to speak freely on topics that capture their interest and that fall within the scope of their expertise. Until then, however, they need to sit down, take notes and, where/when fitting, ask intelligent questions.


Freedom of speech is not an academic value. Accuracy of speech is an academic value; completeness of speech is an academic value; relevance of speech is an academic value. Each of these values is directly related to the goal of academic inquiry: getting a matters of fact and inference right. The operative commonplace is "following the evidence wherever it leads." One can’t do that if one's sources are suspect or nonexistent; one can’t do that if one only considers evidence favorable to one's preferred predicates; one can’t do that if one's evidence is far afield and hasn’t been persuasively connected to the instant matter of fact.

Nor can one follow the evidence wherever it leads if what guides one be a desire that inquiry reach a conclusion sympathetic to one's political views. If free speech is not an academic value because it is not the value guiding inquiry, free political speech becomes antithetical to inquiry: it skews inquiry in advance, one achieves one's end from the get-go.

Speech is political if, when answering questions, one believes it is one's task to answer normatively rather than dialectically. Any number of topics taken up in a classroom will contain moral and political issues, issues like discrimination, inequality, institutional racism. Those issues should be studied, analyzed, and historicized, but they shouldn’t, in the classroom, be debated with a view to forming and prosecuting a remedial agenda.

The academic interrogation of an issue leads to comprehension of its complexity; it does not (nor should it) lead to joining a party or marching down Main Street. That is what I mean by saying that the issue shouldn’t be taken normatively; taking it that way would require following its paths and byways to the point where one embarks upon a course of action; taking it academically requires that one stop short of action and remain in the realm of deliberation so long as the academic context is in session; action, if it comes, comes later or after class.

(continued due to character limit)

Part II of II

Consider the Middlebury College example that obtained a good deal of news coverage. The facts are well known. The controversial sociologist Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, was invited by the American Enterprise Institute Club to speak at Middlebury about his 2013 book Coming Apart. The event. co-sponsored by the political science department and one of its members, Allison Stanger, was scheduled to engage Murray in dialogue after his talk. That never happened, because as soon as Murray rose to speak student protesters turned their backs on him and incessantly serial-chanted slogans like "Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Charles Murray go away" and "Your message is hatred; we will not tolerate it." After 20 minutes, a university administrator announced the event's relocation to where Murray would lecture, followed by he and Professor Stanger engaging in live-streamed banter. That happened, and as Murray and Stanger exited the new venue, they were harassed and assaulted; Stanger suffered a neck injury and spent a short time in a hospital.


What happened there? Well, according to many commentators, something disturbing and dangerous happened. That is the suggestion of an article headline in The Atlantic: "A Violent Attack on Free Speech at Middlebury." But whose free speech was attacked? If you’re thinking someone's 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Amendment rights were violated, think again; no government or government agency prevented Murray from speaking. If you’re thinking 1st Amendment values like the value of a free exchange of ideas were disregarded, well, they weren't because that was never the student group's goal to begin with, and it was their show (after they took it away from the AEI club). And if it is what the Middlebury administration wanted, as President Laurie L. Patton claimed, then it was incumbent on the school's administration to, from square one, have takes steps necessary to effect that outcome.

If you were to ask me, "What would those steps be?" I don’t know, but it’s not my job to know; it’s the job of Middlebury administrators, and they failed to do it. In its account of the affair, Inside Higher Ed reports that "College officials said the size and intensity of the protest surprised them." Really? What planet were they living on? Didn’t they read the job description when they signed up?

Some Middlebury faculty and many outside observers blamed the students for the debacle, and there is no doubt that their actions and ideas were pedestrian enough to merit them the moniker "whipping boy." When an earnest representative of the AEI Club told the students that he looked forward to hearing their opinions, one of them immediately corrected him: "These are truths." In other words, you and Charles Murray have opinions, but we are in possession of the truth, and it is a waste of our time to listen to views we have already rejected and know to be worthless. Now that’s a nice brew of arrogance and ignorance, which, in combination with the obstructionism that followed, explains why the students got such a bad press.

They are obnoxious, self-righteous, self-preening, shallow, short-sighted, intolerant, and generally impossible, which means that they are students, doing what students do. What they don’t do is police themselves or respect the institution’s protocols or temper their youthful enthusiasm with a dash of mature wisdom. That, again, is what college administrations are supposed to do and it's what they are paid to do. Pillorying the students while muttering about the decline of civility and truth-seeking in a radical PC culture makes good copy for radio, TV, and newspaper pundits; however, it misses the point, which is not some piously invoked abstraction about free speech or democratic rational debate, but something much smaller and more practically consequential: the obligation of college and university administrators to know what they are supposed to do and then to actually do it.

End of OP.

This is a very disturbing thesis from you, from the point of view of someone who cherishes free speech.

Xelor, if I may, on what basis would you consider Freedom of Speech and Expression to have any value whatsoever? If it has not value to you on an academic campus, and you would be against defending it on a campus, where would you ardently raise a defense of Free Speech?

Felis Leo said:

Xelor, if I may, on what basis would you consider Freedom of Speech and Expression to have any value whatsoever? If it has not value to you on an academic campus, and you would be against defending it on a campus, where would you ardently raise a defense of Free Speech?

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That is an excellent question.

Felis Leo said:

Xelor, if I may, on what basis would you consider Freedom of Speech and Expression to have any value whatsoever? If it has not value to you on an academic campus, and you would be against defending it on a campus, where would you ardently raise a defense of Free Speech?

Harshaw said:

That is an excellent question.

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Red:

• I would defend anyone's right to speak freely about past, present and future policies and laws of the federal government and holders of federal government offices.
• I object to the federal government enacting policies and laws that constrain nearly all formulations of expression of ideas.
• I ascribe to the legal principle of "refined incorporation."

Xelor said:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
-- U.S. Constitution, 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Amendment​

Red:

• I would defend anyone's right to speak freely about past, present and future policies and laws of the federal government and holders of federal government offices.
• I object to the federal government enacting policies and laws that constrain nearly all formulations of expression of ideas.
• I ascribe to the legal principle of "refined incorporation."

Click to expand...

So you don't believe in the civic virtues of free speech, and free inquiry, and have a strictly legal interpretation of it?

You have no objection to the Heckler's Veto?

Harshaw said:

So you don't believe in the civic virtues of free speech, and free inquiry, and have a strictly legal interpretation of it?

You have no objection to the Heckler's Veto?

Click to expand...

• Did you misunderstand the the topic of this thread?
• Did you not read so far as the third paragraph of part one of the OP?

I was quite clear:The remainder of part one expounds upon the above ideas. Did you read it?


As for the notion of freedom of speech as a civic virtue, well, that's beyond the scope of the thread -- I deliberately chose a narrower topic than free speech's civic virtue. I'll offer only the following with regard to the intersection of free speech, academia and civic virtue.

The question of what civic virtues U.S. citizens must manifest to maintain the republic and to enable its flourishing, indeed weighed in the Founders' minds. They recognized that good government derived from citizens' moral character and intellectual abilities, on the polity's having certain qualities of heart and mind. While institutional arrangements were employed to minimize reliance upon such character and abilities as much as possible, the Founders didn't construe themselves as eliminating those qualities, as an examination of The Federalist shows. Further, the Founders expected the institutional arrangements themselves to contribute to fostering certain civic virtues, yet it's not the case that such formal, structural provisions were expected to be solely sufficient to engender good citizens. Instead, the Founders left to the states (where it was already being undertaken), not the federal government, the bulk of the responsibility of forming character. Public education, in particular, is one means by which the states at the time of the Founding sought to cultivate good citizens for U.S. republican government.

That's as much as I will, in this thread, to say about the confluence of the First and civic virtue. By all means, however, feel free to create a thread on that topic. If you do, I'd point you to Glendon: Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse.

Xelor said:

• Did you misunderstand the the topic of this thread?
• Did you not read so far as the third paragraph of part one of the OP?

I was quite clear:

Freedom of speech is not an academic value. Accuracy of speech is an academic value; completeness of speech is an academic value; relevance of speech is an academic value. Each of these values is directly related to the goal of academic inquiry: getting a matters of fact and inference right. The operative commonplace is "following the evidence wherever it leads." One can’t do that if one's sources are suspect or nonexistent; one can’t do that if one only considers evidence favorable to one's preferred predicates.​

The remainder of part one expounds upon the above ideas. Did you read it?

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I read it. It doesn't speak to my question.

I was responding to what you said you do believe in.

As for the notion of freedom of speech as a civic virtue, well, that's beyond the scope of the thread -- I deliberately chose a narrower topic than free speech's civic virtue. I'll offer only the following with regard to the intersection of free speech, academia and civic virtue.

The question of what civic virtues U.S. citizens must manifest to maintain the republic and to enable its flourishing, indeed weighed in the Founders' minds. They recognized that good government derived from citizens' moral character and intellectual abilities, on the polity's having certain qualities of heart and mind. While institutional arrangements were employed to minimize reliance upon such character and abilities as much as possible, the Founders didn't construe themselves as eliminating those qualities, as an examination of The Federalist shows. Further, the Founders expected the institutional arrangements themselves to contribute to fostering certain civic virtues, yet it's not the case that such formal, structural provisions were expected to be solely sufficient to engender good citizens. Instead, the Founders left to the states (where it was already being undertaken), not the federal government, the bulk of the responsibility of forming character. Public education, in particular, is one means by which the states at the time of the Founding sought to cultivate good citizens for U.S. republican government.

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This is a WHOLE lot of words to say absolutely NOTHING coherent and intelligible as pertains what I actually asked you, and that seems to be your norm. You don't want to be pinned down to anything, so you put up a vague wall of words that can mean anything, because it means nothing.

In other worse, this is a smokescreen full of intentional gibberish.

In any case, pertinent to the "narrow" scope of your OP, you did not answer this question:

Do you have no objections to the Heckler's Veto? I would like a simple answer, please. Everything you said indicates you don't.

Good post by Xelar! Good question (re: Heckler's Veto) from Harshaw.

Like many others, I have been subject to a lot of political correctness from both the left and right. People don't want to hear what I have to say. And sometimes it's better just to shut up. Which then means I have caved into the pressure to keep a certain opinion away from the discourse.

I recall a Canadian situation where a liberal celebrity debated an academic racist about the superiority of certain races. The academic had all sorts of evidence to support his perspective; the celebrity had the crowd cheering at certain points and booing at certain points. In terms of proffering arguments and rebuttals based on facts and logic, the racist won hands down.

How should academic institutions handle "emotional" crowds when trying to display a sense of a fairness to both sides, even when one side has a reprehensible argument?

TDGonDP said:

Good post by Xelar! Good question (re: Heckler's Veto) from Harshaw.

Like many others, I have been subject to a lot of political correctness from both the left and right. People don't want to hear what I have to say. And sometimes it's better just to shut up. Which then means I have caved into the pressure to keep a certain opinion away from the discourse.

I recall a Canadian situation where a liberal celebrity debated an academic racist about the superiority of certain races. The academic had all sorts of evidence to support his perspective; the celebrity had the crowd cheering at certain points and booing at certain points. In terms of proffering arguments and rebuttals based on facts and logic, the racist won hands down.

How should academic institutions handle "emotional" crowds when trying to display a sense of a fairness to both sides, even when one side has a reprehensible argument?

Click to expand...

I'm of the mind that academic institutions don't need to be "fair" to "both sides." They need only be "fair" to the side that puts forth the most cogent/sound position. Quite simply, the fact that something crosses one's mind to say doesn't make that thought worthy of, "in the public square," as it were, being heard.

Of course, there's plenty of reason to, in the classroom, consider the strengths and weaknesses of various stances. There, considering them is part of the scholastic process. That, however, is a very different thing from publicly airing one's absurd notions and occupying everyone else's time with it.

If one has a novel notion, by all means, fully develop it, completely and dialectically present it, and subject to the rigorous scrutiny of others who, like oneself, are extremely well versed on the matter. As I noted in my OP:

TDGonDP said:

Good post by Xelar!

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Thank you.

Xelor said:

I'm of the mind that academic institutions don't need to be "fair" to "both sides." They need only be "fair" to the side that puts forth the most cogent/sound position. Quite simply, the fact that something crosses one's mind to say doesn't make that thought worthy of, "in the public square," as it were, being heard.

Of course, there's plenty of reason to, in the classroom, consider the strengths and weaknesses of various stances. There, considering them is part of the scholastic process. That, however, is a very different thing from publicly airing one's absurd notions and occupying everyone else's time with it.

If one has a novel notion, by all means, fully develop it, completely and dialectically present it, and subject to the rigorous scrutiny of others who, like oneself, are extremely well versed on the matter. As I noted in my OP:

When students reach the point that they have original ideas that withstand rigorous scrutiny, the discipuli will have then earned the right to speak freely on topics that capture their interest and that fall within the scope of their expertise. Until then, however, they need to sit down, take notes and, where/when fitting, ask intelligent questions.​

Click to expand...

I have to be in agreement with all of what you say here. But how do we stop the "heckler's veto", especially in a forum that is supposed to foster an intelligent exchange of opposing ideas?

Forcing students to sit down, take notes, and wait for someone to tell them they are mature to participate intelligently in the discussion might be asking for a bit too much.

We live in a culture where we believe we are right in our understanding of facts, our perspectives, and our opinions. We are smart; people with differing opinions are fools. Heckling is a manifestation of this culture. Its primary intent is to shut the other side down from speaking in the first place. If one is so much smarter than "the other", then heckling can be completely justified.

Part I of III

Harshaw said:

So you don't believe in the civic virtues of free speech, and free inquiry, and have a strictly legal interpretation of it?

You have no objection to the Heckler's Veto?

Click to expand...

TDGonDP said:

I have to be in agreement with all of what you say here. But how do we stop the "heckler's veto", especially in a forum that is supposed to foster an intelligent exchange of opposing ideas?

Forcing students to sit down, take notes, and wait for someone to tell them they are mature to participate intelligently in the discussion might be asking for a bit too much.

We live in a culture where we believe we are right in our understanding of facts, our perspectives, and our opinions. We are smart; people with differing opinions are fools. Heckling is a manifestation of this culture. Its primary intent is to shut the other side down from speaking in the first place. If one is so much smarter than "the other", then heckling can be completely justified.

Click to expand...

Red:
As goes abating the so-called Heckler's Veto, the central question is what is the nature of the organization exercising the veto power. In the introduction of the essay Harshaw linked we find that the veto was "exercised" by the state.

• People/groups arrested.
• People/groups denied permits.
• A mayor setting up a roadblock.
• City officials delaying the implementation of a policy.
• Police ordering the dispersal of peaceful protestors.

For some reason and despite the succinctness and clarity of their presentation, neither you nor Hershaw seem able to comprehend my post 6 remarks, which, taken in concert with the example I presented in Part II of my OP, make it very easy to accurately infer my position re: the "Heckler's Veto."

It's not as though I evaded the questions I answered. I didn't response to Hershaw's subsequent inquiry about the "Heckler's Veto" because the content (explicit and linked) had already provided my position -- with regard to both the positive aspects O'Neil and Kalven noted and the normative aspect Haiman suggested -- on that matter.


Blue:
What forum had you in mind when you wrote the "blue" remark? Last I checked, baccalaureate programs are didactic not disputativelty deliberative and definitely not democratic.

There are, of course, plenty of instances in which amongst peers there occur exchanges of thought of the nature you suggest, but by what hubris does a bachelor's degree candidate construe himself a peer of an invited lecturer? There's a reason none of the students were invited to be the lecturer: they have yet demonstrate they have anything of note to say and warrants others becoming aware of the underlying substance of their ideas. That's as it should be; it's why they are students and not lecturers, professors, instructors, etc. Individual baccalaureate candidates may see come their time "in the sun" as someone having something worthy of being heard, but, for the most part, their tenure as undergrads isn't it.

I don't particularly concur with Murray's ideas. Nonetheless, it's merely clear to me that those students weren't offering any substantive refutation of his thoughts, and since they weren't, they too weren't in any way comporting themselves as peers of his. All they were doing is airing their disdain for him and making it hard, nigh impossible, for him to express his thoughts, but, based on the reporting to which I linked, they had nothing of critical merit to say in contravention of his ideas.

• If one has a legitimate and coherent challenge/criticism to offer, by all means present it. If all one's got to say is "I don't concur with or like what you have to say," well, sit down, shut up and wait until one is polled about one's stance. In a poll, why one has arrived at one's position isn't what's solicited, but the status of one's stance is, and that makes that moment the appropriate time to express it.

(continued due to character limit)

Part II of III

Harshaw said:

So you don't believe in the civic virtues of free speech, and free inquiry, and have a strictly legal interpretation of it?

You have no objection to the Heckler's Veto?

Click to expand...

TDGonDP said:

I have to be in agreement with all of what you say here. But how do we stop the "heckler's veto", especially in a forum that is supposed to foster an intelligent exchange of opposing ideas?

Forcing students to sit down, take notes, and wait for someone to tell them they are mature to participate intelligently in the discussion might be asking for a bit too much.

We live in a culture where we believe we are right in our understanding of facts, our perspectives, and our opinions. We are smart; people with differing opinions are fools. Heckling is a manifestation of this culture. Its primary intent is to shut the other side down from speaking in the first place. If one is so much smarter than "the other", then heckling can be completely justified.

Click to expand...

Pink:
It doesn't take too much to know whether one is "mature" (admittedly given the context you've pursued, poor diction on my part) enough to participate intelligently in a discussion. Upon achieving the appropriate level of intellectual development, one should have the sagacity to know whether one is or isn't very well informed (to say nothing of aptly temperamented) on a given matter, particularly upon seeing the rigor of another's thoughts on the same matter. How hard it is for one to know one hasn't any substantive rebuttal to another's remarks?

To wit, in another thread, a member tacitly deigned to denigrate me by condescendingly asking if I was aware of Robert Putnam's ideas as presented in Bowling Alone. I was aware of the text, and I proceeded to present a resounding criticism of that book and its ideas. Did the other member, in response, defend the ideas to which he'd hewn? Nope. All I got was "radio silence." Why? The other member didn't well enough know what he was talking about to defend his position. All he knew was some few snippets about Putnam's book and so he tossed it out there. It probably never occurred to him that someone here might actually be well enough read/trained in economics to take on the topic with the level of rigor needed to, on substantive merit, refute Putnam's BS.

Point: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing to possess when one hopes to bring it to bear against another having far more knowledge of the same subject. That point should be obvious to any and all undergrads, yet at Middlebury, it apparently was not evident to the kids who heckled Murray.

(continued due to character limit)

Part III of III

Harshaw said:

So you don't believe in the civic virtues of free speech, and free inquiry, and have a strictly legal interpretation of it?

You have no objection to the Heckler's Veto?

Click to expand...

TDGonDP said:

I have to be in agreement with all of what you say here. But how do we stop the "heckler's veto", especially in a forum that is supposed to foster an intelligent exchange of opposing ideas?

Forcing students to sit down, take notes, and wait for someone to tell them they are mature to participate intelligently in the discussion might be asking for a bit too much.

We live in a culture where we believe we are right in our understanding of facts, our perspectives, and our opinions. We are smart; people with differing opinions are fools. Heckling is a manifestation of this culture. Its primary intent is to shut the other side down from speaking in the first place. If one is so much smarter than "the other", then heckling can be completely justified.

Click to expand...

Tan:
It's fine that one so believe, provided one also possesses very strong logical thinking/expression skills, until one confronts a host of contravening, superior, and/or new information that calls into question one's beliefs.


Teal:
I dare say that few folks are smart enough to contain their expressions to fitting times, places and within the limits of their intellect, and even fewer are well informed. The problem with that is that only folks who are smart recognize their limits and the vast majority of folks who aren't well informed think they are.


Brown:
I'd say that folks who lack and cannot present sound/cogent cases for their opinions are fools. Merely having a different view doesn't usually make one a fool (though for some heterodox views, it does). Having a view that lacks strong founding (inductive or deductive, but not abductive) that one cannot well present strongly suggests one is a fool, at least with regard to the view in question.

Repeatedly, I see on here, just was was witnessed with those Middlebury students, folks who apparently think that because they literally can utter some few words about a matter, they should thus do so and have a right to do so. Well, legally, sure, they have do. But is their right thus an academic value? Hell, no! It's a legal right, not an academic value.

And one needn't take my word for that. Just ask yourself what educator ever said, "Feel free to say whatever dumbass thought that comes into your mind." No academic I know of ever said that. What they said is, if you have intelligent questions, by all means ask them. Schools are wonderful places for obtaining knowledge and learning how to think rigorously, logically. They are not places for people to get their rant on...even though to a point, administrations will tolerate students, undergrads doing so. (Grad students generally don't have time for ranting....they're too busy trying to absorb the knowledge their betters are attempting to impart to them.)

And what, in the day by day life of the majority of people, does academic value matter? Other than to other academics who seem to think they are superior than those not in involved in academia, it has no value at all.

Xelor said:

Part I of III




Red:
As goes abating the so-called Heckler's Veto, the central question is what is the nature of the organization exercising the veto power. In the introduction of the essay Harshaw linked we find that the veto was "exercised" by the state.

• People/groups arrested.
• People/groups denied permits.
• A mayor setting up a roadblock.
• City officials delaying the implementation of a policy.
• Police ordering the dispersal of peaceful protestors.

Click to expand...

You only read the opening paragraph. The article is about:

In each of these instances the underlying question was the
same. That question, perhaps one of the most difficult to be faced
by our society, was: To what extent shall the actions of a hostile
audience be allowed to interfere with the exercise of constitutional
rights? The issue has usually arisen when an unpopular minority
has insisted upon exercising its rights in spite of the probable opposition
of the majority of the community.

Click to expand...

You didn't read past the first paragaph, or you simply ignored what the article was really about, and how it relates to "academic freedom" and free speech on campuses This is exactly what it's about. (And by the way, First Amendment concerns ARE triggered when the administrations of state universities take action to stifle speech).

Or, you're simply purposely mischaracterizing the article.

For some reason and despite the succinctness and clarity of their presentation

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There is NEVER anything "succinct" or "clear" about your posts, and that's by design, as I've pointed out.

You still haven't answered the question. All you did here is dodge it yet again with your standard vague wall of words.

It's not as though I evaded the questions I answered. I didn't response to Hershaw's subsequent inquiry about the "Heckler's Veto" because the content (explicit and linked) had already provided my position -- with regard to both the positive aspects O'Neil and Kalven noted and the normative aspect Haiman suggested -- on that matter.

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Bull****. It's a simple question that you simply refuse to answer.

By the way, you tip your hand here, because if one has connect dots between posts and ferret out an "answer" by "context" between posts, as you say should be done here, then you're not giving a "succinct" or "clear" answer.

That's fine, Xelor. You don't have to answer the question. You don't have to give direct, clear answers and take a real, definable position on anything. But conclusions may be fairly drawn from your refusal to do so. I'll just note that for the umpteenth time.

holbritter said:

And what, in the day by day life of the majority of people, does academic value matter? Other than to other academics who seem to think they are superior than those not in involved in academia, it has no value at all.

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Red:
Well, in the days of of one's life as a student, I dare say it daily matters.

As for the majority of people, I have no idea. I know only that on forums like DP, there seems periodically to be some kvetching about impositions on free speech in academic settings. For such posters, it seems to have some significance. Given the nature of much that I've read on DP, I doubt there are many academics here.


Blue:
Rarely, if ever, have I encountered an academic who thinks s/he is superior to anyone. Far more commonly have I come by academics who know their comprehension of their discipline vastly outstrips that of all others but their peers. But that's not a matter of their construing themselves as superior as individuals to other individuals; it's their recognition that few others have bothered to develop the breadth and depth of knowledge in a given field and its adjacent disciplines. That, of course, doesn't alter the fact of there being insecure individuals (Vs) who construe that academics (Cs) think them (the Vs) inferior, nor does knowing that to be so incite Cs to attempt disabusing Vs of their misconceptions about what Vs think and don't think for the core issue is the Vs' insecurity, not what the Os don't think of them.

Xelor said:

Red:
Well, in the days of of one's life as a student, I dare say it daily matters.

As for the majority of people, I have no idea. I know only that on forums like DP, there seems periodically to be some kvetching about impositions on free speech in academic settings. For such posters, it seems to have some significance. Given the nature of much that I've read on DP, I doubt there are many academics here.


Blue:
Rarely, if ever, have I encountered an academic who thinks s/he is superior to anyone. Far more commonly have I come by academics who know their comprehension of their discipline vastly outstrips that of all others but their peers. But that's not a matter of their construing themselves as superior as individuals to other individuals; it's their recognition that few others have bothered to develop the breadth and depth of knowledge in a given field and its adjacent disciplines. That, of course, doesn't alter the fact of there being insecure individuals (Vs) who construe that academics (Cs) think them (the Vs) inferior, nor does knowing that to be so incite Cs to attempt disabusing Vs of their misconceptions about what Vs think and don't think for the core issue is the Vs' insecurity, not what the Os don't think of them.

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:bravo: You are the master of word salad.

Green: Hint....that is because you are an academic.

holbritter said:

Green: Hint....that is because you are an academic.

Click to expand...

I have stated in multiple posts, including my introduction of myself, that I am not an academic. I am a retired management consulting principal.

Part I of VII

Off Topic:
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Part II of VII


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Part III of VII

• 
  [*=1]1963 -- Edwards v. South Carolina --> A group of peaceful protesters was convicted of breaching the peace after failing to follow police orders to disperse. To justify their actions, police cited their fears that a group of onlookers they classified as “possible trouble makers” would cause a disturbance. Justice Stewart, writing for the majority, emphasized the peaceful nature of the demonstration and struck down the convictions using Justice Douglas’s exact language from Terminiello.
  [*=1]1965 -- Cox v. Louisiana --> A group of students protesting segregation and discrimination marched to a local courthouse, where they listened to a speech the sheriff deemed “inflammatory” because it led to “muttering” and “grumbling” amongst a group of onlookers. The demonstrators refused to leave, and the following day, Mr. Cox, the march's leader, was arrested and charged with breach of the peace.
  
  The Court deemed the sheriff's fear of violence to be unfounded given the lack of evidence that the onlookers were becoming violent; however, the Court went further, proclaiming that the police could not justify shutting down a peaceful protest based on fears of a violent reaction from onlookers, even if those fears were justified, because “constitutional rights may not be denied simply because of hostility to their assertion or exercise.” The Court overturned the conviction on the grounds that “Louisiana infringed appellant’s rights of free speech and free assembly.”
  [*=1]1966 -- Brown v. Louisiana (the HV's first appearance as an express concept) --> The defendants had been charged with breaching the peace, this time because of a silent protest in a segregated public library.
  
  Again, the Court decided the peace had not been breached, and that even if the peaceful protest had led to a disruptive reaction from onlookers, “we would have to hold that the [breach of the peace] statute cannot constitutionally be applied to punish [defendants’] actions in the circumstances of this case.”
  
  Footnote one laid out the HV doctrine as established to that point and referred explicitly to the problem of the HV: “Participants in an orderly demonstration in a public place are not chargeable with the danger, unprovoked except by the fact of the constitutionally protected demonstration itself, that their critics might react with disorder or violence.”[SUP]1[/SUP] The footnote was inspired by Harry Kalven’s 1965 book The Negro and the First Amendment, in which Kalven argued that “f the police can silence the speaker, the law in effect acknowledges a veto power in hecklers who can, by being hostile enough, get the law to silence any speaker of whom they do not approve.” Kalven referred to police availing themselves of notions of ostensibly iminent counter-protester gravamen leading to their acting to abate civil rights protests. Kalven’s recognition of the significance of this public veto and its potential suppressive impact on unpopular viewpoints underscores the HV doctrine’s importance as a guarantor of rights whose expression finds little abiding popular sentiment.
  

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Part IV of VII

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  [*=1]1992 -- Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement --> The Nationalist Movement challenged the constitutionality of Forsyth County’s assembly and parade ordinance, which required groups using public spaces to pay for their own protection if the costs of providing protection exceeded normal bounds. The county had established the fee following a pair of rallies which attracted many demonstrators and counter-demonstrators and resulted in $670K in police protection costs.
  
  Justice Blackmun remarked that groups “wishing to express views unpopular with bottle throwers, for example, may have to pay more for their permit.” The Court dismissed the county’s argument that the ordinance was justifiable on the grounds of maintaining order and went on to say that, just as speech could not be punished because it offended a hostile audience, neither could it be financially burdened on those grounds. In essence, the case expanded unpopular speech's protection from government actions which had the effect of suppressing said speech.
  [*=1]1997 -- Reno v. American Civil Liberties --> Expanded the HV doctrine beyond matters involving protests to embrace a broader scope of controversial speech.
  
  In his majority opinion, Justice Stevens wrote that the provisions in question “confer broad powers of censorship, in the form of a ‘HV,’ upon any opponent of indecent speech who might simply log on and inform the would-be discoursers that his 17 year-old child . . . would be present....A critical element of the HV [doctrine] is the obligation of the state not to allow public opposition to shut down a speaker,” regardless of the exact form which such public opposition might take."
  [*=1]2014 -- Glasson v. City of Louisville (civil) --> The appellant, peacefully displaying a sign critical of the president, began to attract negative attention from onlookers who “grumbled and muttered threats.” An officer monitoring the situation testified that the group was “hollering” and, concerned for Glasson’s safety, he destroyed her sign after she refused to do so herself.
  
  The court noted that the only threat to public safety in this case was the onlookers, and that the police had demonstrated a “shocking disregard” for both Glasson’s free speech rights and her right to “have her person and property protected by the state from violence at the hands of persons in disagreement with her ideas.” State actors are not only required to refrain from enforcing a heckler’s veto, but to protect those exercising their constitutional rights from violent hecklers as long as doing so would not subject those actors to an unreasonably high risk of violent injury or retaliation.

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