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FIRE's free speech index is hardly definitive. It asks students about how they feel, not about actual, verifiable support from the school. The survey uses quest

FIRE's free speech index is hardly definitive. It asks students about how they feel, not about actual, verifiable support from the school. The survey uses questions like "Would you be opposed to a speaker with x view coming to campus to speak" and then base the results on how the students responded, not based on whether or not the school actually restricted students' speech. Additionally, disinvitations are measured as well despite not being examples of student speech being censored. Harvard clearly scored poorly but it seems like they only scored poorly because the students aren't ok with viewpoints that are non-inclusive or borderline hate speech. It has nothing to do with the school's policies or positions on free speech and what is or isn't allowed.

haberman 3y ago
The survey does not ask "Would you be opposed...?" It asks: > Student groups often invite speakers to campus to express their views on a range of topics. Regardless of your own views on the topic, should your school ALLOW or NOT ALLOW a speaker on campus who promotes the following idea? Someone who truly supports free speech would say "ALLOW" even if they themselves personally disagree with the speech. Students at Harvard apparently do not. Additionally, the survey asks students whether they support suppressing speech via deplatforming or violence, and whether they believe that the administration would defend the rights of speakers when controversy arises. The questions can be found on page 76 of this PDF: https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/2023/09/CFSR%202024_final_updated.pdf https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/2023/09/CFSR%202... > Additionally, disinvitations are measured as well despite not being examples of student speech being censored. A second ago you said that free speech covers the Westboro Baptist Church coming on campus. Now it only applies to students? If someone is being disinvited, presumably someone invited them to begin with, whether students or faculty.
- dpkonofa 3y ago
  How is that in any way materially different from my point? The survey still isn't about what actions any of the schools have taken or whether the schools' policies allow for free speech. That makes it completely irrelevant in a discussion about whether the President of the school was committed to free speech. The survey asks students their opinions. FIRE actually has a separate tracker for disinvitations and, based on population sizes and breakdowns by political lean, conservatives request more disinvitations than should be expected for the population of students that consider themselves conservatives. >A second ago you said that Yes... and I also said that, as someone else pointed out also, it was irrelevant to a private university that is allowed to remove anyone from campus that it wants. Allowing Westboro to stay on campus shows that their policies on free speech extend to objectionable speech regardless of what ideology is stating it. That's not the same thing as students choosing not to invite or hear views from people whose views are readily available on the internet nor is it the same thing as student opinions overriding the actual actions of schools.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >The survey still isn't about what actions any of the schools have taken or whether the schools' policies allow for free speech. That makes it completely irrelevant in a discussion about whether the President of the school was committed to free speech. The survey asks students their opinions. In cases like this though, perception is probably closer to reality than actual activity. For instance, I think it's pretty fair to say that society is pretty against robberies. If you did a survey asking how comfortable people are with robbing people[1], I think most people would answer "Very uncomfortable". However, if you look at FBI crime statistics[2], you see that majority of robberies don't result in arrests. If we were applying your logic, we'd conclude that clearly society/the police don't have a policy of catching robbers. [1] For the purposes of this argument, we can further presume we're robbing a Bad Person (eg. anti-abortion protesters if you're a liberal) to get past any ethical considerations [2] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/clearances https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
    - dpkonofa 3y ago
      >If we were applying your logic, we'd conclude that clearly society/the police don't have a policy of catching robbers. No we wouldn't. My logic is that we'd have stats regarding how many crimes were documented, whether they were solved or not. And, as you've shown, we do. No police department will have a 100% closure rate but that doesn't mean at all what you're claiming should be the conclusion based on that fact. The conclusion would be to look at how many cases of free speech issues were reported and what was done as a result. Transparency is what's needed, not misleading and inappropriately applied surveys.
      - haberman 3y ago
        If there is a climate where people expect that exercise of free speech will result in retaliation, then people will self-censor before there can even be an incident to report. This phenomenon is known as a Chilling Effect. This is why people's beliefs about whether speech is properly protected or not are relevant. If people don't believe that free speech is protected, speech can effectively be curtailed even with few actual incidents.

haberman 3y ago

The survey does not ask "Would you be opposed...?" It asks: > Student groups often invite speakers to campus to express their views on a range of topics. Regardless of your own views on the topic, should your school ALLOW or NOT ALLOW a speaker on campus who promotes the following idea? Someone who truly supports free speech would say "ALLOW" even if they themselves personally disagree with the speech. Students at Harvard apparently do not. Additionally, the survey asks students whether they support suppressing speech via deplatforming or violence, and whether they believe that the administration would defend the rights of speakers when controversy arises. The questions can be found on page 76 of this PDF: https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/2023/09/CFSR%202024_final_updated.pdf https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/2023/09/CFSR%202... > Additionally, disinvitations are measured as well despite not being examples of student speech being censored. A second ago you said that free speech covers the Westboro Baptist Church coming on campus. Now it only applies to students? If someone is being disinvited, presumably someone invited them to begin with, whether students or faculty.

dpkonofa 3y ago
How is that in any way materially different from my point? The survey still isn't about what actions any of the schools have taken or whether the schools' policies allow for free speech. That makes it completely irrelevant in a discussion about whether the President of the school was committed to free speech. The survey asks students their opinions. FIRE actually has a separate tracker for disinvitations and, based on population sizes and breakdowns by political lean, conservatives request more disinvitations than should be expected for the population of students that consider themselves conservatives. >A second ago you said that Yes... and I also said that, as someone else pointed out also, it was irrelevant to a private university that is allowed to remove anyone from campus that it wants. Allowing Westboro to stay on campus shows that their policies on free speech extend to objectionable speech regardless of what ideology is stating it. That's not the same thing as students choosing not to invite or hear views from people whose views are readily available on the internet nor is it the same thing as student opinions overriding the actual actions of schools.
- gruez 3y ago
  >The survey still isn't about what actions any of the schools have taken or whether the schools' policies allow for free speech. That makes it completely irrelevant in a discussion about whether the President of the school was committed to free speech. The survey asks students their opinions. In cases like this though, perception is probably closer to reality than actual activity. For instance, I think it's pretty fair to say that society is pretty against robberies. If you did a survey asking how comfortable people are with robbing people[1], I think most people would answer "Very uncomfortable". However, if you look at FBI crime statistics[2], you see that majority of robberies don't result in arrests. If we were applying your logic, we'd conclude that clearly society/the police don't have a policy of catching robbers. [1] For the purposes of this argument, we can further presume we're robbing a Bad Person (eg. anti-abortion protesters if you're a liberal) to get past any ethical considerations [2] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/clearances https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
  - dpkonofa 3y ago
    >If we were applying your logic, we'd conclude that clearly society/the police don't have a policy of catching robbers. No we wouldn't. My logic is that we'd have stats regarding how many crimes were documented, whether they were solved or not. And, as you've shown, we do. No police department will have a 100% closure rate but that doesn't mean at all what you're claiming should be the conclusion based on that fact. The conclusion would be to look at how many cases of free speech issues were reported and what was done as a result. Transparency is what's needed, not misleading and inappropriately applied surveys.
    - haberman 3y ago
      If there is a climate where people expect that exercise of free speech will result in retaliation, then people will self-censor before there can even be an incident to report. This phenomenon is known as a Chilling Effect. This is why people's beliefs about whether speech is properly protected or not are relevant. If people don't believe that free speech is protected, speech can effectively be curtailed even with few actual incidents.