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MIT faculty adopts “Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom”

• RickJWagner 4y ago
  The value of a degree from MIT has just gone up considerably, IMHO. The value of a degree from Stanford, on the other hand, has recently trended towards 'participation trophy'.
• sfusato 4y ago
  Here's some "Academic Freedom" from MIT: All staff and faculty who work in the United States must either be vaccinated against Covid-19 (including all doses in a primary series plus one booster when eligible) or have received an exemption by MIT. https://hr.mit.edu/covid19/vaccination-requirement https://hr.mit.edu/covid19/vaccination-requirement
• agluszak 4y ago
  For people outside the US, what's the context?
  • congulio 4y ago
    Here is some context: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/us/dorian-abbot-mit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/us/dorian-abbot-mit.html
    • malshe 4y ago
      I attended his talk which was hosted by Princeton later. It was a very informative and totally stayed on point. MIT’s loss I guess.
  • scaramanga 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • nxm 4y ago
      Or, in many other countless examples, people got canned for saying something that goes against the mainstream media. The usual pro-censorship “safe space” crowd doesn’t want to anyone else to say anything the censors disagree with.
    • int_19h 4y ago
      Of the people who authored or voted for this statement, whom would you consider abject racists or Nazis (or something else that, in your opinion, justifies them getting canceled)?
    • barry-cotter 4y ago
      Ah yes, Nazis like the Chrstiakises[1]. Or maybe Nazis like Klaus Fiedler[2]? [1] Professor Nicholas Christakis lives at Yale, where he presides over one of its undergraduate colleges. His wife Erika, a lecturer in early childhood education, shares that duty. They reside among students and are responsible for shaping residential life. And before Halloween, some students complained to them that Yale administrators were offering heavy-handed advice on what Halloween costumes to avoid. Erika Christakis reflected on the frustrations of the students, drew on her scholarship and career experience, and composed an email inviting the community to think about the controversy through an intellectual lens that few if any had considered. Her message was a model of relevant, thoughtful, civil engagement. For her trouble, a faction of students are now trying to get the couple removed from their residential positions, which is to say, censured and ousted from their home on campus. Hundreds of Yale students are attacking them, some with hateful insults, shouted epithets, and a campaign of public shaming. In doing so, they have shown an illiberal streak that flows from flaws in their well-intentioned ideology. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new-intolerance-of-student-activism-at-yale/414810/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new... [2] The editor in chief of one of the world's most prestigious psychology journals, Perspectives on Psychological Science, resigned on Tuesday after the board of directors of the journal's publisher demanded he step aside—or be fired—for soliciting academic criticism of a black psychologist. The editor, the prominent German psychologist Klaus Fiedler, stirred up controversy by agreeing to publish trenchant critiques of a 2020 article by Steven Roberts, a black psychologist at Stanford University, who had argued, among other things, that "color-blind leadership" promotes "structural inequality." https://freebeacon.com/campus/prestigious-psychology-journal-demands-editor-resign-for-soliciting-criticism-of-black-psychologist/ https://freebeacon.com/campus/prestigious-psychology-journal...
  • version_five 4y ago
    Academic freedom is basically a fundamental tenet of the university system. But the usual crowd thinks their agenda trumps fundamental principles of free society and only wants certain views to get any airtime, which places limits on academic enquiry. It's the modern equivalent of disallowing any research that conflicts with the bible, for example. People like the sister commentor (now flagged/dead) that think anyone with a view different than their own is a Nazi want to insert themselves into what should be free inquiry, and have devised all sorts of mental gymnastics to explain why constraining thought is actually a good thing. University administrators who only care about preserving their power and want to take the most risk adverse path get onboard, and faculty get held hostage by an entitled minority that thinks their agenda is more important than anything else. (When the agenda is really just power anyway, not the causes they use as wedge issues) And so the faculty has symbolically signed a statement that shouldn't need to exist, saying their business is their business and they should be left unmolested to free enquiry. And a few culture warriors call it culture war bullshit to try and give it the usual smug dismissal treatment that's the only form of rhetoric they know because they don't actually have a point
    • thewanderer1983 4y ago
      >It's the modern equivalent of disallowing any research that conflicts with the bible, for example. It's ideology being put above all else. It can be religious or non-religious. You don't need to look much further than Stalin's Russia. Lysenkoism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism?wprov=sfla1 ) was the nonsense hoops that academics had to jump in order to align with the Ideology of the Russian state. Those who aligned their work efforts to the ideology were rewarded, promoted and those who didn't ended up much worse. We don't have this extreme level here in Western countries, but we are starting to see the seeds of it. It's nice to see MIT standing up against this. Stanford seems to be all for ideology.
• AustinDev 4y ago
  Let's see how this pans out but, if I were a student and deciding between MIT or Standford I'd likely choose MIT if Standford didn't have the equivalent of this. However, I don't have much faith in this actually happening or being implemented without carveouts or exceptions.
  • lofatdairy 4y ago
    I honestly don't think statements like these mean that much, nor do I think speech policing quite takes the form people expect. Columbia's president Lee Bollinger is well known as being a free speech advocate and scholar, but Columbia usually strikes people as having a more social-justice sort of climate (if I'm not mistaken Latinx as a term originates from Columbia). Usually, I believe that undergrads are typically the source of protest and these sort of policies. These policies really just indicate whether the university will formalize student demands, but de jure doesn't really do much when you'll still have tenured faculty doing their own thing and students protesting regardless. Additionally, I don't know if many students will share your convictions. Chicago has long had a free-speech policy, but even though they're probably the most academically serious/legitimate institution alongside Princeton and Caltech, I think their usnews ranking has done more for their applications than free speech. Still a good thing, but I'd think it'd be more meaningful if MIT brought back stallman
    • version_five 4y ago
      > undergrads Anecdotal only - when I was in university (20 years ago) a lot of the student protest stuff was coming from the student equivalent of professional politicians. They were undergrad mostly (a few grad students) but usually had been in university for like 8 years and were ideologically motivated to stick around pursuing political aims, rather than just be there to advocate for their fellow students. I was marginally involved in student government, and there was a big difference between the (majority) that were there to make sure their faculty/department got representation, and those that were trying to co-opt student government for some broader political aim. Unfortunately, there is rarely enough of an opposing force on these people, and inevitably they have an outsized influence. So I wouldn't really think of it as undergrads as a whole, more like some 30 years old taking 1/4 course load and pushing their politics.
• deleted 4y ago
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• cs702 4y ago
  The bigger question is, will MIT's administrators support this too? And an even bigger question is, will professors and administrators at other elite schools follow MIT's example?
  • alwayslikethis 4y ago
    We need an equivalent to the "secession of the plebs" in universities as a way to protest against this kind of administrator tyranny. The administrators alone are useless and don't produce anything of value.
    • cdot2 4y ago
      Except the students largely do not support freedom of expression. The issue is administrators bowing to student outcry.
      • alwayslikethis 4y ago
        Are you sure? I think while there are a lot of vocal "woke" students, there is still a large but less vocal group of students who would support freedom of expression when given a chance to do so.
      • jojobas 4y ago
        Given the amount of demand for MIT they can afford to shed the students that don't support freedom of expression (then again, MIT is not Oberlin so I doubt there are many pro-censorship student).
        • alwayslikethis 4y ago
          Yeah. If there aren't enough top American students, there would be a lot more foreign students who would cherish their freedoms more, having experienced the consequences of the lack of freedom in their home country such as China, Russia, or Iran.
    • ShredKazoo 4y ago
• pannSun 4y ago
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      • autarch 4y ago
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        • pannSun 4y ago
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          • dang 4y ago
            We've banned this account because it has been using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of which ideology you like/dislike. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
• NotYourLawyer 4y ago
  Fantastic news. FIRE is a great organization.
• desireco42 4y ago
  Sound like virtue signaling to me. I wish this works out. I was watching Funky Town mix and thinking how much freedom and joy we lost from those times to now. Things are seriously messed up. We have fantastic computers, but we have app stores to "protect us" from software. People stopped building software for fun (mostly), now you can't even buy software, you have to subscribe...
• neilv 4y ago
  Potential risk... MIT already seemed to have much more narrow-experience libertarians than other schools I've been around. If the bulk of the prestigious schools are perceived as "woke", are the angriest opposition to that going to disproportionately go to the prestigious schools perceived as "non-woke"? Even if a school is more re-embracing a traditional university marketplace of ideas and collegial dialogue, while also learning to be much better than in the past wrt treating people fairly and being open to everyone... will there ironically be disproportionate applications (and admission) of students who're especially resistant to those aspirations? Analogues that might be familiar from recent years: anonymous forums attracting the worst behavior, and "free speech" claimed as a battle cry by those who don't seem to have the lofty ideals behind that. (To be clear, I think some of what I called "the angriest opposition" should be in a university marketplace of ideas. And that, ideally, their thinking evolves during a college journey, at the same time that their input helps evolve everyone else's thinking. The risk I'm concerned about is whether there will be so much "the angriest opposition" that it breaks the marketplace.)
  • turzmo 4y ago
    I don’t think so. Unlike online forums, people attend MIT for considerations far more important to them than politics. MIT students are also typically less politically minded than other top schools
    • neilv 4y ago
      Both your points seem true to me. But the hypothetical effect I'm wondering about isn't as much due t the typical students, as to the disproportionate number of "angriest opposition" individuals who did select because "non-woke" was a big factor in their decision. So, imagine typical students being non-political, but still a lot of students who are political, and specifically on the side of really stamping-out anything they perceive as woke (or not according to market principles, or oppressing generational-wealth white males, or whatever). And maybe not enough people around who are able and willing to engage them with counterpoints. To the extent that political action does happen, that sounds to me like it could push MIT culture in a bad direction.
• tekla 4y ago
  Amazing, every single university should adopt this to defend basic liberalism.
  • nxm 4y ago
    Scary that this even needs to be stated. Universities are supposed to be places of dialogue and disagreement, but too many students these days are “offended” by speech they don’t agree with and administrations cave in
• mgamache 4y ago
  There's little chance this will ever be supported by the administrative class at MIT or any other institution. By expanding protected speech it limits their power. They have fewer punitive options and less dominion over campus activities.
• rippercushions 4y ago
  Looks promising, but let's see how this is interpreted in practice: we unfortunately live in a world where the statement "I like Harry Potter" can be weaponized into the "direct threats, harassment" excluded from freedom of expression. (Why? Because JK Rowling doesn't think transwomen are real women, so if you support her writing, you are clearly denying that that trans people have the right to exist.)
  • hyperbovine 4y ago
    I smell a straw man. Please show me a specific incident where "I like Harry Potter" led to the speaker getting cancelled.
    • bell-cot 4y ago
      "can be weaponized" - not "has been" - is a pretty big disclaimer. Threats & harassment are (sadly) quite common on-line. And "speaker getting cancelled"is your criteria, not rippercushions'. In any case, a "Looks promising, ... in practice." sounds like a pretty reasonable reaction, these days.
    • rippercushions 4y ago
      That claim is a strawman of your invention, but here's the backstory on Rowling, complete with a long list of Hollywood celebrities including Harry Potter stars dissociating themselves from her: https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk...
      • comex 4y ago
        That is about J.K. Rowling, not about someone who said “I like Harry Potter”.
        • rippercushions 4y ago
          No, it's also about everybody associated in any way with Rowling, who were also forced into servile apologies to avoid getting cancelled themselves.
• empathy_m 4y ago
  While I've been happy to see the MIT Free Speech Alliance come alive I'm disappointed that their web site doesn't list a specific set of current or past free speech issues and the advocacy they would have adopted for each. Key people involved in some issues might include e.g. * The MIT Chinese Student and Scholar Association, its funding sources, and its key advocacy areas * Richard Lindzen (climate views) * Joi Ito (Epstein, OpenAg) * Ted Postol (missile defense) * Richard Stallman I can think of a bunch more.
  • photochemsyn 4y ago
    Aaron Swartz? > "A much-anticipated report on MIT’s actions in relation to the case of Aaron Swartz, a young computer programmer and Internet activist who committed suicide in January, finds no wrongdoing on MIT’s part." https://news.mit.edu/2013/mit-releases-swartz-report-0730 https://news.mit.edu/2013/mit-releases-swartz-report-0730
  • affinepplan 4y ago
    Stallman wasn't exactly just a free speech issue.... he was sexually harassing students.
    • ta8903 4y ago
      From what I recall it was more that some people (not sure if they were students) were feeling harassed by his behaviour.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    • Manuel_D 4y ago
      No, he made some far fetched statements that people (rightly) objected to. But since the consequences were not satisfying to some, he was falsely accused of sexual harassment on account of his views. Yes, saying that minors should be able to consent to sex with adults is something that a lot of people, including myself, are disturbed to hear. That said, calling this sexual harassment is unambiguously a false accusation.
• Slackwise 4y ago
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  • joshuamcginnis 4y ago
    Two things can be true at once: you can abhor the beliefs of others and support their right to express those beliefs. This is because limiting the expression of beliefs will inevitably cause broader global harm to a society as a whole down the road.
    • Slackwise 4y ago
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      • overrun11 4y ago
        > "Coincidentally", they never support LGBT rights in any of their work. I wonder why that is. Why would a free-speech advocacy group support LGBT rights? They "coincidentally" don't support nuclear disarmament or tax reform either. > They're an entirely right-wing organization pretending to be unbiased. Their actions speak for themselves. Actions like condemning UNC for denying Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure or suing Florida over the Stop Woke Act?
    • pluto_modadic 4y ago
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  • ohCh6zos 4y ago
    > just trying to use the first amendment to allow for hate speech against LGBT and anything that is coincidentally progressive. Free speech covers all of that. To be free speech it must.
• karaterobot 4y ago
  It seemed to me like the actual problem was not intolerance of free expression per se, but rather that the administration had adopted a position of submission with respect to student activism. As soon as students raised a hue and cry over some issue — any issue — the administrators just rolled over, as though they were not actually in charge of the institutions they nominally oversaw. Frankly, as though they were terrified of their own students. The loss of academic freedom follows from that, but only as a consequence of the administration losing their grip and being unable (or unwilling) to sustain it. Others in this thread are, I think, safely predicting that this declaration will turn out to be toothless — if so, I think the explanation will be that you can't drive from the back seat.
  • xwowsersx 4y ago
    Right. The fact that the administration, like so many others, has simply given the loudest radical students carte blanche — is definitely crucial to understand and to acknowledge. I am encouraged though to see language in this statement that they won't disallow speech even if it "may be harmful to some." I feel like this is a direct blow to the safetyism and "words are violence" that has taken over some college campuses. They seem to be preemptively taking the legs out of attempts to quash speech by claiming it's "harmful."
    • skissane 4y ago
      > The fact that the administration, like so many others, has simply given the loudest radical students carte blanche I don’t think it is purely about how loud and radical some students are, it is also about how they align with the pre-existing ideological dispositions of the average university bureaucrat. Imagine, hypothetically, that the loudest and most radical students on campus were right-leaning rather than left-leaning: somehow, I doubt the same university administrators would be so quick to give in to their demands.
      • version_five 4y ago
        I disagree. Bureaucracy as an institution is psychopathic and only cares about power. If the establishment was right wing (as it had been in the past and still is in some places) the bureaucrats would line up behind it. It's about power, institutional power, not about ideology.
• commandlinefan 4y ago
  Wow, this is shocking in 2022 - could the tide be turning?
• adolph 4y ago
  It’s content moderation all the way down. The statement acknowledges there is no freedom in speech but the status quo. The bounds of content moderation are set by enforcement not statement. The driver of enforcement is power. For so long as any org protects its prestige it will serve whatever interests threaten prestige and thus wield power. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
• devwastaken 4y ago
  Freedom of expression, as long as it doesn't make MIT look bad. Remember, this is a corp. Anything they say is marketing.
• deleted 4y ago
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• causality0 4y ago
  Good. Regimentation is the death of innovation.
• crackercrews 4y ago
  > We cannot prohibit speech that some experience as offensive or injurious. They are giving credence to the idea that words can injure. I would have rather seen this phrased as "that some believe to be offensive or injurious". But I imagine this sentence was heavily negotiated.
  • TylerE 4y ago
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    • crackercrews 4y ago
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      • TylerE 4y ago
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        • notjoemama 4y ago
          Good point. There is a degree of injury and I would have, prior to several years ago, assumed the general public at large to understand the difference. Given that social engineering has steered empathy into being weaponized politically, I now unfortunately think this is either explicitly codified or roundly dismissed. Gradations of judgement left entirely to those offended whether present or not is an untenable society. Which, may actually be the intention. My perspective comes from having listen to a talk from Alan Watts on false virtue.
        • P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
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          • polygamous_bat 4y ago
            Gatekeeping abuse is something I did not expect to see here today. Suffering is suffering, and we should aim to end it, not categorize in greater and lesser pains and categorically claim people with "lesser pains" are "pushing agendas" and should "stay the f*k out" or whatnot. As someone who has experienced both, I can provide my anecdata to say that words hurt. Maybe they're not the same type of pain, but they do. If you are a victim of verbal and mental abuse, do not let the above comment convince you that your suffering is somewhat lesser and thus not worthy of empathy.
• photochemsyn 4y ago
  If you want to freak out the MIT administration and see just how much 'freedom of expression' is allowed, then start a movement to open-source / free-license all of MIT's patents and other intellectual property (all of which were funded at least in part with taxpayer dollars). That's a lot more significant - and at the heart of what's gone wrong with American academics, i.e. the corporatization and privatization of public resources that's erased long-standing traditions of open sharing of research results - than any of this social justice warrior hysteria stuff that the media likes to talk about. Really, try to get Lex Fridman, noted MIT-based podcaster/Twitterer, to invite on a guest to discuss the corporatization of the university system - and the related exclusive licensing of MIT patents - in the United States, in which institutions like MIT and the University of California have played a leading role.
  • slillibri 4y ago
    MIT is a private land grant university, not a public university.
    • kevingadd 4y ago
      According to https://president.mit.edu/speeches-writing/federal-funding-priorities-and-mits-budget https://president.mit.edu/speeches-writing/federal-funding-p... "we rely on federal funding for 66% of our campus research support"
    • notjoemama 4y ago
      MIT receives federal funding though. https://president.mit.edu/speeches-writing/federal-funding-priorities-and-mits-budget https://president.mit.edu/speeches-writing/federal-funding-p...
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • Manuel_D 4y ago
    Parents are, by their very nature, open source. You can browse the patent office records and view all filed patents. It's their use that's regulated.
• agalunar 4y ago
  I've seen instances of wealthy or powerful individuals publicly calling for private platforms to deregulate speech not because of a dedication to the ideals of free speech (the ostensible reason) but as a tactic to achieve some political goal, e.g. in order to promote confusion about anthropogenic climate change to benefit the fossil fuel industry. I've also seen instances of individuals defending free speech because they hold unpopular (or sometimes even hurtful) opinions and want to be taken seriously, or want a megaphone – both of which they are free to demand but which no one is obligated to give them. I signed the MIT Free Speech Alliance's petition and signed up for its newsletter because I agree with the aims of the movement, but I had the impression that some of the alumni leading the alliance have political motives, or are less angry about the loss of freedom at universities [1] than they are about the social opinions of the rising generation, which worries me somewhat. [1] which IMO ought to be the paragons of free speech.
  • AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    The next twist of free speech is trying to distinguish between "real" speech and shills (and worse, bots). If you allow free speech on your platform, do you allow freedom of dishonest speech? Do you allow freedom of automated speech? If you do, you won't have a platform that humans care about.
  • martin82 4y ago
    I have seen very very good arguments that climate change is happening, but human's impact on it is most likely miniscule. If this is the indeed the truth, then the trillions we currently invest in "reversing man made climate change" would be better invested in "preparing for the inevitable". Even if powerful people rally for free speech in order to achieve an (maybe evil) political goal, THATS OBVIOUSLY BETTER THAN using censorship to achieve a (probably evil) political goal. I find it unbelievable that this is such a hard concept to grasp. If powerful people use free speech to spread nonsense, then just present your counter arguments, god damnit. I know that it "takes more time to refute bullshit than to produce bullshit", sadly, that's just how it is. The bitcoin community has spent more than 12 years now to refute bullshit and people still fall for all the debunked FUD. This just means that we need a better tool to refute bullshit faster and more efficiently. Wikipedia was a good first try, but of course since it succumbed to the woke mind virus, it is no longer viable. There is a civilisation altering opportunity here to produce a new tool like it. I don't know how such a tool would look like.
• varenc 4y ago
  The original statement was proposed in a September report by the Ad Hoc working group on free expression. The report is much more interesting since goes into quite a bit of detail on MIT's current de facto policies and proposes real steps for moving forward. The cancelled 2021 lecture by Dorian Abbot is discussed. Their recommendation #6 explicitly says that "Rescinding an invitation to deliver protected speech, as defined and explained in this report, conflicts with freedom of expression." . Their full report, including the original proposed statement and their recommendations, is here: https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/2022-09_Final_Report_of_the_Ad_Hoc_Working_Group_on_Free_Expression.pdf https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/report... And here's final ratified statement which had only minor edits: https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/20221221_MIT_Statement_on_Freedom_of_Expression_and_Academic_Freedom.pdf https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/report... Also there's this note at the bottom of the final statement suggesting more clarity on how this manifests itself as policy could be coming: "Note: A motion is pending before the Faculty to refer the statement to a committee that would edit the statement for clarity."
• hexane360 4y ago
  Can anyone say what this section means in practice?: >A commitment to free expression includes hearing and hosting speakers, including those whose views or opinions may not be shared by many members of the MIT community and may be harmful to some. This commitment includes the freedom to criticize and peacefully protest speakers to whom one may object, but it does not extend to suppressing or restricting such speakers from expressing their views. I'm interested in hearing how the process for selecting speakers currently works, as well as how the signatories would like it to be changed. If a single faculty member wishes to invite a speaker, does that give that speaker the right to talk in an official capacity? What if a speaker has no support on campus? Are they entitled to be hosted by MIT? If not, are they being 'restricted from expressing their views'?
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • SteveDR 4y ago
    > I'm interested in hearing how the process for selecting speakers currently works, as well as how the signatories would like it to be changed. I think any student or faculty member can invite a speaker. The policy is about when it’s acceptable for the university to step in and say that an event (or protest) can’t happen. > If a single faculty member wishes to invite a speaker, does that give that speaker the right to talk in an official capacity? I think that currently a speaking event can be canceled on the basis that the speaker promotes harmful ideas. The signatories want to remove this from the list of acceptable reasons for cancelling an event that someone wants to happen.
• TeaDrunk 4y ago
  On one hand I'm all for free speech and I believe it's important to be able to civilly disagree with things. On the other hand, how do we avoid nazi-at-the-bar problems?
  • tacitusarc 4y ago
    I think there are two fundamental approaches to the highly objectionable views questions. Either: ensure the space is free of nazis by removing the Nazis from the space, or: ensure the space is free of Nazis by convincing people not to be Nazis. The first requires no engagement, the second requires engagement. The first has guaranteed results, the second is uncertain.
    • jacquesm 4y ago
      If there are enough of them the Nazis may end up removing you. The idea is to reduce the spread of Nazism not only by convincing those that have already been corrupted but also to limit their ability to do the same to others. Without that second component it's a losing battle, new converts will be made faster than you can convince existing ones to drop their mental garbage.
      • ironmagma 4y ago
        There's no law that says Nazism will spread until it is stopped any more than there is a law that says Anti-nazism will spread until it is stopped. There is probably a maximum mass that can sustain such a dumb ideology.
        • ggm 4y ago
          Yes, probably a continental landmass the size of Russia, or the USA represents its physical limit. Philip Dick presented a couple of dystopia visions of it, not all of which have been filmed yet. Yevgeny Zamyatin another. Although more correctly a totalitarian police state, than Lindbergh's or Henry Ford's vision of judenrein.
        • 4y ago
• dagmx 4y ago
  I’d be curious how they handle two things: 1. Repercussions for harmful or bigoted speech, as well as escalation of responses. For example what if a person or group is being bullied but it’s claimed under free expression? What recourse is allowed within the realms of their free expression? What happens when things escalate between parties beyond just words but physical harm? 2. Similarly how do they stop majority dominance and snowballing into group think? E.g if there are way more men or women in a program and they use their larger numbers to amplify their freedom of expression in a way that affects the others. That then risks reducing the number of the minority demographic as they slowly get pushed out, leading to largely heterogeneous programs. I’m sure, or at least hopeful, that they cover it because it would be a ridiculous omission. However balance is tricky. It’s why I typically don’t like using “free” as a descriptor often for freedom to do stuff. Society has tons and tons of limitations and absolute freedom of speech has never really been a thing, nor do I think it can/should be, because speech can have so many extreme consequences.
  • stale2002 4y ago
    > For example what if a person or group is being bullied but it’s claimed under free expression? What recourse is allowed within the realms of their free expression? What happens when things escalate between parties beyond just words but physical harm? Easy. Deal with it in exactly the same way the government does. All of these edge cases, and situations, and "where is the line?" Are all questions that have been discussed for centuries, in well published court cases that have gone to the supreme court. I think the supreme court has done a good job, over the decades, of deciding what the line is for acceptable speech or not. As such, other groups/platforms/large organizations should aspire to limit themselves to the same limits and actions that the government does, even though they are not the government. > absolute freedom of speech has never really been a thing It's not, but the best guideline we have, are what the courts have decided, IMO. If the speech is legal, then allow it. If it's not, then disallow it. Or if some currently legal speech is so horrible that you think it should be disallowed, then go through the normal legal process, of making a law, and subject it to the appeals process, constitutional review, and all the checks and balances that go along with making speech illegal.
  • 78124781 4y ago
• pgayed 4y ago
  > Making room for the full range of thought and expression is not an end in itself. It is. And it ought to be. The version being espoused here is conditional or contingent free expression. It doesn't mean much. In this form, expression is permitted only to the extent it is “enlarging understanding and uncovering truth.” Is this the (sole) purpose of expression?
  • librish 4y ago
    There is almost no one who's actually for completely unchecked freedom of speech, so it's all a matter of deciding where along your sliding scale you draw the line. Would you suggest that things like murder threats or libel should be legal? Otherwise you're advocating for conditional or contingent free expression too.
    • pgayed 4y ago
      That depends. Would suggesting they be legal be legal?
      • Niksko 4y ago
        > Would suggesting they be legal be legal? Have you encountered situations where ethicists and absolutist free speech advocates have encountered any legal problems for exploring concepts such as this? You can make slippery slope arguments if you like, but they're somewhat analogous to the very idea you're defending. You're allowed to make meta arguments about curtailing absolute free speech being dangerous, why would someone else not be able to make a meta argument about allowing death threats? They're both equally removed from reality.
        • pgayed 4y ago
          I have had discussions with individuals who maintain that entertaining (and giving airtime to) certain ideas itself constitutes harm.
          • 4y ago
• vlovich123 4y ago
  Was reading the policy document when this “innocuous” paragraph struck me. Am I misunderstanding something? > Regarding freedom of teaching, faculty do not have total discretion over their course content. For example, a class titled “Beginning Chinese” cannot be taught as an advanced calculus class. And department heads would be within their rights to consider faculty members’ expertise in the process of making or adjusting teaching assignments. Working within our standard administrative structures such as curriculum planning committees, faculty generally should be able to teach the scholarly content they wish. Academic freedom does not give faculty members the unfettered right to advocate political beliefs in their classrooms that are irrelevant to the course content. Such political expression should be grounded in the faculty member’s expertise, relevant to the subject matter, and consistent with both sound pedagogical principles and the achievement of learning objectives. The exercise of academic freedom with respect to research, publication, and teaching takes place in a context of scholarly rigor. Evaluating the strength of arguments and the quality of ideas is intrinsic to research and education processes. Aside from cases where evidence of invidious discrimination exists, faculty members cannot claim that the denial of tenure based on a professional assessment of the faculty member’s scholarship constitutes censorship. Nor can a student receiving a less than desired grade in a class claim that wrong answers are a form of protected speech. Though faculty and researchers have a good deal of freedom, that freedom is exercised in an academic context in which disciplinary competence and professional judgment are crucial to knowledge production and education.19 Freedom of intramural expression means that faculty members should be able to speak their minds about their own institution and its policies. MIT strongly values this freedom Isn’t this saying “stay in your lane and only express political views if it’s relevant to your academic discipline”. An engineering professor might have a thing or two to say about copyright but since their academic profession isn’t law, they’re not allowed to opine on it? A biology professor might not agree with climate policy of the current administration and that means they can’t speak their opinion because they’re not a climatologist nor a political scientist? Isn’t academic freedom supposed to be the opportunity to mix in thoughts from outside the field so that blind spots can be examined? Stratifying and isolating freedom of speech in this manner would seem to encourage intellectual isolation. Not something I’d want to see from an institution that’s supposed to be educating the next generation of great thinkers who aren’t bound by conventional thinking. Of course, I probably just misunderstood what this is saying. I didn’t go to MIT and I never did do well in English class.
• 2bitencryption 4y ago
  I always come back to this exchange between the Yale administrator and the protesting students: Prof: I stand behind free speech; yes, I do. Student 2: Well then that sorry doesn't mean anything. Student 3: Even when it's offensive? Prof (addressing Stud 3): Even when it's offensive. Especially if it's offensive. Even if- Stud 3: Even when it denigrates me? Prof: Even when it denigrates you, even though I don't agree with the content of the speech. I have the same objections to the speech that you do. The same ones. Stud 2 (interrupting): But it doesn't submit(?) afflict to you- Stud 1 (interrupting): But what about the swastika- Prof (cont'd): But, I defend the right for people to speak their mind. Stud 3: So when the IAC (Intercultural Affairs Council) sends out an email saying... Prof: So who gets to decide what's offensive? Who gets to decide guys? Stud 2: When it hurts me! Stud 1: When it's offensive to me! Prof: What if everybody says, "I'm hurt"? Does that mean everyone else has to stop speaking? Student 4: But that's not what was happening! Stud 1: No! Because you don't- No, but you don't under- Prof: Hold on. So I agree with the content of your speech. I am as against racism as you are. I am as against social inequality as you are. I have spent my life addressing these issues, even some of the students in my class can speak out to this, but that is different than the freedom of speech. The right to defend people to say whatever they want including you! Including your right to write what you want and speak to me; which I will also defend. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3s5wz2/yale_administrators_responds_to_safe_space_hands/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3s5wz2/yale_adminis...
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  • SpeedilyDamage 4y ago
    Professor seems to forget that freedom of expression includes the freedom of association. You’re free to say awful things, and <private university> is free to not want their name associated with yours. These freedoms always seem to extend just far enough to protect the person who offends, but never the reaction to the offense. I guess being offended is too offensive?
• peanutcrisis 4y ago
  The YouTube channel [0] for the Stanford Academic Freedom Conference is a relevant watch. While this conference has been incredibly and unjustly demonized by the media, I'd still urge people to watch it. Despite my disagreement with the political views of some of the panelists, they do bring up sensible points pertaining to free speech in academia, and the threat it's presently facing. [0] https://www.youtube.com/@stanfordcli/videos https://www.youtube.com/@stanfordcli/videos
• carrionpigeon 4y ago
  I think the main strength of this activist movement in academia is that it operates through fear. In an environment where much depends on word of mouth and personal reputation, people could lose their entire careers for violating new, rapidly transforming cultural mores. So, they self-censor, and some voice support for the activists to avoid becoming a target themselves. (Cue the 60-year-old professors who have never used Twitter putting pronouns in their email signatures and adding '#BLM' messages on their personal websites.[1]) The overall effect is that a minority can extract the obedience of a majority. Public statements like this will have little effect unless they are actively enforced. This means that violators must be officially sanctioned by administrators, who are often their peers. It's clear to me that most academics (including myself, I'm ashamed to admit) are cowards who will bend their public positions, even on academic matters, in favor of whoever wields the greatest power. Not until activists are met with stern opposition and loss of prestige will people stop currying favor with them. If, though, I am wrong in my assessment and most academics and students, rather than a dominant minority, wholly believe that offensive utterances must be punished and unsavory research banned, I think there isn't much left to do. Any official action, let alone the posted public statement, will only galvanize people to seek out more aggressive policies and oust those that oppose them. There are real stakes in this conflict, and right now, activists in academia (hard sciences) are pushing in my view really significant policy proposals. From MIT geophysical sciences department: 1. Penalize (during peer review) research that doesn't cite black authors. 2. Implement diversity boards that have final say in hiring and tenure decisions. (They need not have field expertise.) From several Broad Institute faculty and post-docs: 1. Restrict publication of genetic research in white populations until genetic sampling of other populations around the world reach parity. 2. Ban white researchers from conducting genetic research in populations in non-white countries. 3. Ban genetic research that can be stigmatizing to designated vulnerable populations (e.g. genetic component of educational attainment, the genetic architecture of autism, etc.). [1] For clarity, these two relate to first-hand examples of professors making statements solely out of fear of not being able to attract students their labs/departments.
  • 8note 4y ago
    These don't seem like particularly new restrictions, vs past ones around communists. The proper left wing still doesn't exist in american academia or society ... Citing black authors would be much easier if historically black academics were allowed to become academics, write papers, etc. These are forcing functions against prior suck.
• maaand 4y ago
  One has to create such ceremony and procedures, when you can't say No.
• dang 4y ago
  Related: Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32893842 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32893842 - Sept 2022 (116 comments)
• avodonosov 4y ago
  Is that a response to some specific events?
• gnull 4y ago
  Does it mean I could go there, question wokeness and not be fired/expelled for it?
• gesetgsetgset 4y ago
  I'm not a racist, but... I'm all for free speech, but...
• ryzvonusef 4y ago
  As some one who lives under a blasphemy culture, I think American greatly take for granted their freedoms of speech, and it boggles me that this is not a corner stone of the American Left. While I could link to hundreds of example, this one example (out of hundreds) that occurred at a university is example of offense culture taken to extreme and weaponized: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_of_Mashal_Khan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_of_Mashal_Khan Just the implication of possible offense caused this incident. Sure, the main culprits had other ideas, but the mob was there purely due to supposed offense. If you dare, you are welcome to look [1] the videos of the incident, it's horrifying. And as a proxy, you can also guess just how guarded and buffered speech here is, and yet such events happen. This is a slippery slope, and just because this happened for a few decades in the West doesn't mean it can't happen at all. And it's not the just the left, January 6 has shown that the American right are threat vector also.. ---- [1]:https://twitter.com/search?q=Mashal+Khan+until%3A2017-04-14+since%3A2017-04-13&f=video https://twitter.com/search?q=Mashal+Khan+until%3A2017-04-14+... Needless to remind you, it contains some NSFL material, I only linked because I think some education of reality is in order. This is the extreme end for the tolerance to offense.
  • notSupplied 4y ago
    Thank you for sharing this. I remember a while back there was a major social justice controversy at Basecamp which started with a senior exec using some insensitive language. An employee then shared the “pyramid of hate” with “biased attitudes” at the bottom and…you guessed it, “genocide” at the top. This annoyed me at the time. I thought what you described is the perfect antidote to that argument, with “speech policing” at one end and “mob lynching” at the other, or even worse.
  • notSupplied 4y ago
    One thing Americans do not have much experience with, is how the exercise policing speech eventually becomes the exercise of policing coded speech. People will always get around speech rules by speaking in code. China has probably some of the richest history of speech suppression followed by very clever subversive speech. The most recent example being the use of empty white sheets of paper to get around censorship algorithms. So the censors now must police coded speech as well, and this is where things get extremely dangerous. Because one can take great liberties in defining what contains encoded wrong speak. You already see this in the left's frequent accusation of something being a "dog whistle" for something else. During the cultural revolution, people were persecuted by the metaphors supposedly hidden within their speech. A setting sun? That's code for the downfall of Mao, who was frequently compared to the sun.
• motoboi 4y ago
  I suppose MIT now needs a supreme court, as they need to decide what is outside the scope of the first amendment.
• psychphysic 4y ago
  What's this got to do with financial independence and retiring early? /S I believe criticism of the way UK university's responded to quite unacceptable intimidation of people like Kathleen Stock[0] was a catalyst. Shocking it's taken this long. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/05/kathleen-stock-interview-university-sussex-transgender-headlines-2021 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/05/kathleen-sto...
  • oldnetguy 4y ago
    Or this https://fox23maine.com/news/local/usm-students-reach-agreement-after-professor-says-only-two-biological-sexes-exist https://fox23maine.com/news/local/usm-students-reach-agreeme...
    • psychphysic 4y ago
      How bizarre! Any idea what the details of the deal was?