>> good afternoon. welcome to the cato institute. my name is john simples, vice president here at cato. i like to begin with an overview of our event today and we shall first hear from our author, keith whittington, about his new book speaking freely. then we have comments from the adjutant scholar and finally we shall have time for questions and answers for our panelists. when you say a word about the question and answer. and we will be taking questions via twitter so direct your queries to # cato one a. # cato 18. you should have received a piece of paper with on it and in any

case that is # cato 18 and we look forward to your questions here here at the auditorium or online. if you do not wish to use twitter please give the carter paper when you checked in and we will check those later. a few words by way of introduction. the cato institute is a public policy research organization and i think tank dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government free market and peace. those who work here see themselves as working within a long tradition of individualism and limited government a political philosophy sometimes called classical liberalism and in other places just called liberalism. the rights of the individual matter to us. for example, we wanted freedom of speech and the topic of our firm today. we can be thankful that freedom

of speech does enjoy support in the united states and not least because of the strong protections for speech recognized in the first amendment of the constitution. as the constitution says quote assault make no law preventing freedom of speech unquote. many outside the university and some inside today wonder whether freedom of speech is endangered on campus and communities of scholars depend on the free exchange for abuse and we are happy to have here at cato keith whittington his new book speaking freely while universities must defend free speech addresses the foundation in the reality of freedom of speech at american universities. words of introduction for keith -- he is william nelson cromwell in the department of politics at princeton university. he is the author of the current

book speak freely as well as constitutional construction, divided powers in constitutional meaning and constitutional interpretation in the sexual meeting with the judicial review and a third book political foundations of judicial supremacy in the present in the spring court and the constitutional leadership in us history. this work has made professor whittington along with the late justice antonin scalia a major exponent of a leading school of constitutional institutions with public meaning over journalism. that sounds esoteric but trust me it's a very big deal. he is written several other elderly works in american constitution. he's a very ambitious fellow and one of which is repugnant laws judicial review and accept congress from the founding to

the present and the second one is the idea of democracy in america from the american revolution to the gilded age. i have known keith for many years and is a delight to have you here. >> thank you for having me. thank you for coming out. i don't -- bear with me and i don't have policy prescription today but i want to talk principles and they are principles that matter not only on college campuses but in american society more generally and i think we can think about campus free-speech as a particular microcosm of larger problems that confront us living in democracy more broadly and these particular principles have some particular importance for those of us who spend a lot of time at college campus but ultimately have importance for all of us working in a liberal democracy more generally. this book was a bit of an interruption to things i was

otherwise working on and some of those aren't about to be performing at this point but have been sitting on my desk for quite a while and they got delayed a little bit in order to work on this book. i did find myself increasingly disturbed over the last few years and few months. really disturbed by a lot of things but particular relevance to the moment to survive seemingly endless stream of events on college campuses in particular the themes reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of what universities do and what they are for. not a week goes by in days sometimes go by during the academic year and some are a bit of a respite but hardly a week goes by in which there aren't news reports of disruption in this invitations and demands for safe spaces on college campuses and calls for firing

controversial faculty and death threats against faculty and public policy is sometime designed to hollow out what universities do. some of these threats come from on-campus those are often threats from the blood but also plenty of thoughts that come from the political right and most of us come from off campus. in all those cases the common thread is fundamental intolerance or disagreement on campus but also disagreements in our civil society more generally and an unwillingness to accept controversy and controversial ideas. the tendency sometimes and it's misguided to want to blame this particular generation for many of these problems and the phrase snowflake generation is often tossed around characterized this generation of students as particularly sensitive and particularly incapable of dealing with disagreements and

intolerance. like i said, this is a misguided way of thinking about what our problems are that are confronting us and also a misguided way of thinking about this particular generation of students. toleration for disagreement and respect for liberty of others are persistent challenges and not only in american society but in western democracy more generally and if you look at survey research focused on people's tolerance free-speech and civil liberties for example with at this point we have good studies going back decades we find this has been a constant recurring problem of people saying in the abstract they like free-speech but when you confront them with particular examples of speech they find unpleasant they very quickly back up and say except for that. the content of what it is they make exceptions for the specific speech find disagreeable has

varied over time and varied across political spectrum so that different people have different views about what exactly it is that they regard as intolerable but it is generally true crossman history that the abstract principle of free speech is often deeply qualified in the moments when we see particular episodes of people trying to exercise free speech. in that instance today students are no different of generations or the american populace more generally. what we're seeing on campus is reflected fundamental features about the nature of living in a democracy and recurring challenges about living in democracies. they give us a good reason why we need to try to think carefully what our commitments are and what the pistols to guide us and it's important that we constantly reaffirm those values. even in the face of controversy and disagreement and sometimes very unpleasant examples of a particular speech we have to tolerate and deal with.

i think also the snowflake generation way of thinking about this problem strands meets and ideological position with free speech and off college campuses. there are some people who oppose free-speech not because they're overly delicate or because they find particular things controversial but simply because they're hostile and fundamental values. i think it's a small minority even on college campuses but they are in important segment of the american population and we should be trying to articulate what commitments are for democracy and more generally in order to help persuade people that that is on a path that we ought to be going down but instead we ought to be going down the path of liberal

tolerance and reason and deliberation about the things we disagree with. the concert to my book it ultimately shows how free-speech is tied to the core mission of the modern university. it's not just the case that we are legally advised because we happen to have a u.s. constitution that has first amendment in it and first amendment constrained public universities as state actors but also true for those of us who value universities and those of us who have campus community value free speech and those of us living in the democracy should value free speech because they are important to expose and because they are valuable not only is because some judge will tell us we have to but that requires thinking about the mission of the university and fundamentally what i understand it's a variation about how exactly they pursue this mission across the american landscape is the university generally committed to the dissemination of knowledge. it's particularly critical in a free debate are necessary to generating and mitigating

knowledge. it's dispensable if you think the university is primarily there in order to indoctrinate the simply convey things that we think we already know but think we are pushing the boundaries of human knowledge that we need room for experimentation unconventional thinking and for mistakes to be made. it is particularly important that as they fill their mission are tolerant with a wide range of views on campus intolerant of people saying things that are controversial and even things we think are quite mistaken. there are other reasons for supporting the speech often in other kinds of environments. for example, free-speech and particularly important to make a democratic process work that you can't evaluate the performance of government officials and not sure they need to be free to

give your criticism and some of those concerns are less critical thinking specifically about the university setting but in a university environment the speech is particularly valuable for those connected to what universities are for. using this for a long time lots of people reckon is this and understood this court connection between free-speech and universities. a man who was the first president of johns hopkins university and told his board of trustees when he assumed that presidency at the tail end of the construction that the institution we are about to organize should not be worthy of the name of the university if it were to be devoted to any other purpose than the discovery of the truth. it would be ignorable in the extreme resources being given by the founder of our sections should be limited to the maintenance of the differences are perverted to the use of promotion of political strife. as a spirit of the university should be that of intellectual freedom and the pursuit of truth and the broad charity towards those who we differ opinion is certain parts and preferences that should have no control over

the teachers and should not be appearing in the official work of the university. this one a mental precept that the connection between the mission of the university and the truth seeking institution and the importance of free speech and disagreement in order to advance our mission has been essential to how we understand the nature of modern universes. we haven't always been perfect and how we try to implement that we have not believed preceded those pencils and it's been a long struggle to try to realize and appreciate those pencils and we need to affirm those pistols today as well. the book tries to lay out liberal case for the speech and a true seeking institution i won't rehearsed assignments but particularly note that the key points are one, the only way to gain the knowledge is to test the arguments and that we may have things we take on faith but we truly want to believe and know that they are correct and stand up to criticism we need to see them stand up to criticism

and see them tested. that is what universities are committed to is that testing to see about how they modify or reject accepted and the only way to do that is to tolerate a great deal of disagreement. secondly, in the context of controversial speech we have also learned as americans across a long period of time that we can't trust any potential sensor to suppress the favored speech. that is true in the university environment but also true in american politics more generally. we may be able to identify particular speeches that ought to be suppressed we may have good reason for being that but as soon as we empower someone with a general power of speech because it's disfavor but we will soon find all kinds of speech will be suppressed including speech we think is important and that is not necessarily point to be the case once you empowered someone who

is suppress controversial speech. it's priced nicely comfortable because they disagree about the value of that particular speech. [inaudible] with those principles in mind we are better positioned to think through particular controversies that they arise and i try to work through some of the controversies that we see college campuses of late. we are likely to make mistakes in thinking about this controversies and we don't start with thinking about first principles and the point that should be getting us in general. we started thinking about specific kinds of controversy and scandals that arise we might start thinking about what the university of operations which is what we ought to have in the freedom pursue scholarship and teaching with guard only to professional standards and the pursuit of truth and without regard to social and medical pressures so the very core of what university does is allow for scholarly to teach students

in an excellent tax in particular we develop the concept of academic freedom precisely in order to protect that core area of the university activity. this isn't the freedom to say anything in a classroom. for example or even anything in publications but the freedom to push the boundaries of human knowledge. but even beyond that aspect of university college campuses are also vibrant intellectual committees in which debate over ideas extends well beyond basic enterprise of research and teaching. they have long been places report matters of public concern can be discussed for students can engage in controversial ideas and great deal would be lost if colleges were nothing but research and teaching. universities then need free-speech as well as academic freedom if they're going to truly serve the function and be a home of intellectual context more generally. this is recognized for example by federal circuit court in the 1970s when the university tried to close a literary magazine of the university officials said published things

that were tasteless and inappropriate. federal judges decided that the historical role of the university and expressing opinions which may well not make favored with the majority of society and serving as a vanguard in the fight for freedom of expression and opinion. sometimes you have to tolerate things that you regard as tasteless and inappropriate or offensive and even dangerous. precisely because universities are trying to make space for those to test out new ideas and sometimes for people to make mistakes and sometimes even for people to be outrageous and offensive. recognizing the role of the university is meant to universities las vegas to form numerous groups on their own and given them equal access to resources to explore their own interest and concern.

for example when virginia commonwealth university tried to ban the gay alliance of students in the 1970s again university officials fought taught that organization was promoting what it regarded as a sickening idea and again federal circuit court had to point out that student association asked to see objectives for their part of higher education and useful for the preparation of later life for citizens who will live in american democracy for people will disagree about basic commitments and basic values. they should be home for students to experience that disagreement and learn how to work their way through it. recognizing this role for universities for robust public debate meant for example that there should be a robust space for protest on college campuses. students and others to be able to express their views about matters of public concern and should be able to express those in a way that makes sense to them and can attract attention. it is inappropriate for protest

to take the form of interfering with the ability of others to pursue their own activities on the college campus. willing speakers to be able to make it with willing audiences. members of the campus committee should want to be able to hear ideas and ought to be able to hear the ideas that they want to hear ultimately. disruption tearing down the signs and without papers are all efforts to squash medication and shut down the change of ideas on campus. didn't have a right to your speech they find appalling or unpersuasive or to take up countering such speech with arguments of their own and they need not engage with what they might regard as, for example, based on several topics that some suicide, but they do not have privilege of insisting that no one else be allowed to treat those questions is uncivil or unresolved. they cannot claim to be serious about trying to create an environment open to inquiry and. the pursuit of the truth if it cannot tolerate the air of controversy or and discomforting ideas. faculties in this raiders do not have the courage of their

convictions that they cannot tolerate having their students hear from speakers that the university officials themselves think are obnoxious or mistaken. it also implies responsibility on the part of inviting speakers and the discussion on college campuses. the faculty hired by university are evaluated by their peers in the quality of their work and their ability to display expectations and understanding of the subject. outside speakers are brought to campus for different reason. there brought to discuss public affairs and not expected to meet the same standards. their contribution to the intellectual committee are different than what faculty contribute but hopefully their contributions are still real and ultimately valuable. if a student wants to hear kid rock or robert rice or michael moore universities should have the courage of their convictions and allow students to hear and evaluate their arguments to matter how badly flawed or morally bankrupt they believe those arguments ultimately are.

the goal of bringing such figures to campus should be to enlighten and not merely to provoke. student should want to hear from the vast representative of serious ideas that are worth their time and attention. no doubt students will have a somewhat different ideas about what is worth their time and attention that i do for example they should take seriously their own responsibility by seeking knowledge and not just pushing boundaries. when we were making decisions about who to invite to campus to speak the goal should neither be to stack the deck with our closest allies in order to struggle in the most extreme topics but the goal should be to make available to campus trinity thoughtful representatives of serious ideas. to break free speech is easy if it never seems challenging. it's easy to listen to pleasing ideas and affirmations of her own police system but it's much harder to learn how to tolerate what we disagree and if we find it repugnant or dangerous. we should, weber, who learned not only tolerate those disagreements but seek them out.

it is through controversy and contestation that we can make progress often in the most unexpected ways. let me end by noting the university sometimes should 16 intellectual communities to advance the advancement of dissemination of knowledge. john stuart mill are worried that a society to comfortable in his own convictions would retreat into dogmatism. despite their own on the university must strive to screen out bad ideas but it was also strive to bring to campus those who will question not merely a firm wisdom. community scholars is not to become in the advancement of knowledge is perceived scholars cannot be complacent in their studies and blind to their own deficiencies and biases. university should be striving to nurture intellectual diversity on their own campuses. with training, hiring and promoting scholars to make their home on college campuses universities should demand rigor and professional commitment but there should also be an openness to new ideas and skepticism and

intellectual curiosity. if universities are to operate in the outer boundaries of our state in knowledge and push those boundaries further outward they must be places where you unorthodox controversial, disturbing ideas can be raised in scrutinize. students are to prepare themselves to critically engage the wide range of perspective, they will encounter after the world across their lifetimes they must learn to grapple with and critically examine ideas they find difficult and offensive. more than a century universities have committed to the mission of those advancing and disseminating knowledge and recognize that the prearranged exchange of ideas were essential to the realization of that mission. they have often sue that mission perfectly sometimes needed to be called to account to better appreciate and work to realize their own ideals but recognizing and respecting principles the speech is difficult and challenging but there is no alternative that we are dedicated to pursuit of truth in the pursuit of truth is the noble information of the modern university. thank you.

[applause] >> thank you, keith. very good. i like to remind you that if you would like to ask a question the # cato one a you could send via twitter and please let us know and someone will pick it up for you. our comment today is a professor of law at george mason university and engine scholar at the cato institute and his research focuses on one constitutional law and the study of popular political anticipation and impatience to a constitutional democracy. he's the other of democracy and political ignorance by smaller government and from 2016 another book the grasping hands in the new limits of eminent domain from the second edition

originally 2015 and in paperback 2016 and co-author of the conspiracy against obamacare and the conspiracy in the healthcare and eminent domain. democracy has been translated into italian in japanese. mentioning the conspiracy he regularly contributes to leading venues and writes regularly for law and politics blogs which is now affiliated with a magazine and previously as you probably know previously with "the washington post" and then a at the top rated law and economics journal and earned his ba from amherst which, again, we could get insights about what amherst was like in those days and political ma from harvard and a jd from yield law.

come back. [applause] >> i'd like to start by thanking the cato institute for organizing this event in congratulating keith on his outstanding book on currently in extremely timely topics which one might even say has been made great again my recent events though as he will explain in the book it's been an important topic for many years and not entirely a new issue by any means. normally when i serve as a commentator on a book i regard as my job to have points of disagreement and take issue with some of the things the other says. in this case, i agree with about 95% or even more than what he says in the book so it's tough to do that but instead the first part of my presentation i will

by his argument in a number of ways and suggest in some ways problems that he identifies maybe even worse suggested it is. it will in fact take to a limited degree some of his analysis of the problem of faculty hiring and here i think free-speech principles are still important but it may be more difficult to apply them in other settings and more difficult than case + in the book. finally, at the end of my presentation i will talk briefly about what we should do about this problem and how we can strengthen protection for free speech on campus. keith, both in the book and in his presentation he explained quite eloquently the nature of the problem and why we should be concerned about it and in some ways there is more reason for concern that perhaps suggests. one reason is if you develop a kind of ideological orthodoxy on campus or in particular

departments or parts of the university this problem is solved reinforcing. when you group of people are ideologically homogenous and research people it shows at harvard they feed on each other and become even more extreme over time and more intolerant of opposing views and i think we have seen this happen in some academic fields and also in some campuses and it is pernicious in that once you get started down this path. ...

according to surveys of course when people hide their dissenting views that makes it seem like there is more of a consent than there actually is and it reduces the quality of debate. and this phenomenon feeds on itself in most of the other inheritance. that makes it more of an incentive for you to hide yours as well. you don't want to be the only one that sticks out as saying the emperor has no close or that some orthodoxy should be questioned. it also varies between different campuses. far from it. but this clearly is.

without polarization and hatred. in many surveys taken in recent years we have data indicating that hostility towards supporters of the opposite political party is a stronger. and more deep in unity. thirty to 40% of people would be angry. if an member of the family. who said they would be angry or unhappy if someone in their family member -- married someone of a different religion. the more we feel hostility other things equal.

the more difficult it is. and so forth. we see this phenomenon in both the right and the last --dash left. this manifests itself more often in the form of attempt. where they could predominantly go that way. the rise of trip. and how trump thinks about that. how could can we possibly be doing that. what the action represents.

given that things he said. the pc west. what the political right in american society. it is not actually serious. they don't tolerate the speech on campus. from racism and sexism and other prejudices. the rise in term.

not even asking the question of who started it. what they do to reinforce his position as well. not only on campus. these are forces. coming together. it might to be even worse. not suppressed speech.

when it comes the area of faculty hiring. whether they meet. if you see a candidate for a position in the geography department. no matter how good his qualifications. he is a flat earth and dizziness. if they have a world war ii historian. and being an indicator in that particular field. keith said the way we address this is we should leave the

promotion decisions to experts in the field rather than say bureaucrats decide things. who are qualified in the relevant vent field. even for such people. and holiday -- holocaust denial. it really is an indicator. where they simply don't like or disagree with the viewpoint. and we know both from some studies. offer from a great deal of evidence that often in some discipline scholars don't do a good job.

and which contributes to the ideological factors. it can be self perpetuating if you don't hire people with consenting views than the faculty in your particular department will become more and more homogenous over time. and more and more unthinkable to hire people who disagree. it is not my claim that the underrepresentation there are number of other factors as well. i think it is a contributing factor and one that is relatively difficult to break because we can't simply say we have to drop the fine line between cases or expanding for expanding a viewpoint is really an indicator in cases

where we have a perfectly legitimate mission to debate. because the people doing the hiring don't like his ideas. and often those people who are guilty of making this mistake are in fact other faculty members is not primarily the fault of the bureaucrats or politicians or other kind of forces. i don't think there is any other easy solution to this problem other than for people to be more aware of it. and then need to chat their own thinking. and if your own department is ideologically homogenous for whatever reason. maybe you want to make more use of outside experts to help evaluate the candidates. this is already done to some extent.

what can we do to alleviate this problem they offer some while take it recommendations. such as enforcing free speech on campus. also when students are outside people try to the spec suspect that. needs to be punished. and some campuses have handled these sorts of situations better than others. also, the university whole panel independence. certainly not suggesting that that should always be done.

they should at least had some significant proportion of their events and the very last couple of minutes of my talk i would like to talk about what can the advocates of free speech do to promote their cause better. since they are the group that is often not always but most victimized by campus policies you should be an intellectually serious group of people. it someone as easily dismissed as a blowhard. when you decide who to event -- invite on campus. you should make sure that you should not be inviting people simply because they anger or

offend the other side. you should not to be inviting people who are basically provocateurs and had little of anything with substance. if the only virtue of your potential speaker is that he will track some headlines and he will and now i the people on the other side. that means it's probably a bad speaker. they should not be met with violence. and the school should not suppress their speech. it is not an indicator that it's actually a valuable contribution to intellectual discourse. what you should be doing at least potentially can appeal to those who don't already agree with their viewpoints. if you look at the history of how different minority groups have succeeded in promoting

their rights and creating a better image for them in the relevant society is at behaving at in a serious way. and outreach for those who don't already agree. this is how the civil rights movement succeeded. more recently the gay rights movement and they should take a lesson from those examples rather than from others of that. they would do well to also oppose threats of free speech. they should condemn thing like trumps encouragement. if you condemn that from your own side of the political spectrum you are more credible when you condemn them on the other side. so more can be said on these topics but for now i conclude and i very in a very much look

forward to discussion. thank you. thank you very much. could someone please get that particular question. if you have a paper i would go to twitter also. thank you very much. let me begin by saying that i think we have actually talked about about this issue. is it the case as far as you can tell that the issues about free speech he mentioned some actually are anti- free speech does seem to correlate highly with that the entire universe but parts of the university.

and here i would say one way to think about this would be you're more likely to have those points of view if you are a postmodern kind of department this is the notion that all now or -- all knowledge is power and then strictly contrary to your vision of the university. the question i am asked. these are new they seem to be most glamorous. doesn't that suggest to what extent does it subscribe the more general issue. or are they in fact

important. if you read the chronicle of higher education seems to be the department of english. the same kind of idea. the question as to what extent has the notion gotten into the faculty that everything is about power and truth is just a veneer for power and therefore your conception and ideal of the university is held by some but really not by the dominant group. so either of you can answer to this. this goes to some degree to the concern that i'm underselling the problem that actually exists on campus. it may be true to some degree. my instinct is in general to counsel and not to panic into be relatively optimistic about what things can do. it may will be that the best way of selling the book is to tell you it's a crisis. you should panic.

i do think it's a genuine problem. and moreover i think it's true that some of the tendencies that you highlight are certainly not randomly distributed across the university. you don't find equal numbers of students and faculty the views that are quite liberal and hostile to the value of free speech and the tolerance of opposing viewpoints that you might find in some other departments. in part. we in college campuses.

in western civilization. they are articulated by that. and optimistic that will be true. there are a small minority that are hostile but they exist. they would remain a small minority. that is important for the outside world to know. but also those of us that are on college campuses. they are very loud. in should be treated as such.

that's either already committed or are persuadable. to appreciate the importance of civil discourse. and i do think it is possible to overestimate this. it is also true that for every time you see that. there are dozens or even hundreds of instances where the right of center speaker. without any problems or disruptions so you can regard that glass is half full or half empty. that said and some departments and in some universities there is a serious problem i think it is growing over time and

therefore it should be dealt with were possible before it becomes a crisis. on the faculty side in terms of ideological discrimination. it is much worse in some departments and others. the social sciences or the hard sciences. and it probably is true that they were post modern society. it is partly for the reason you mentioned. but partly because these fields and the influence of these kind of ideologies they lack intellectual rigor on the less rigor you have the easier you have just fall prey to your purchases. it's even easier when they do not. so once a department or a field has been heavily

captured by this kind of approach it's not easy to figure out what to do with it. what i you would want to do ideally we can gradually had one back. tomorrow serious economic discourse. it would require violating the autonomy in the field. so once the problem goes beyond the certain point. it is somewhat less severe in those fields. it's more political. the law and economics and so forth. so for their we can address the problem without having to resort -- resort to drastic means. is the problem of free speech crisis or a crisis of identity and higher education.

maybe the marketplace of ideas just doesn't work as well anymore because the universities and students see their mission as more about credentials and yes of -- less about discovering truth. the question kinda mixes with a couple of things. the view that the politics might be particular important on campus. and that may run afoul of this court commitment but also the universities might be perceived as a consumer driven credentialing service in which case the pursuit of truth is the truth is not very important either. that what you should be encouraging them to do is the ability of students to move smoothly through the process and get the credentials that will set them on the road to higher incomes and perfect verbally nothing that will put

dirt on the brand. and then quashing controversy may very will be in your interest. i think they think exactly that. the worst thing that could happen is something says something controversial. we can gradual -- credential good students. i think in the long term what makes it valuable including valuable for those who are going through them and getting degrees from them is that they are learning something. and part of what they are learning is that ability to think seriously and carefully. if we suppress that in the name of credentialing than at the end of the day the

credentials are working to get out are not going to be seen as particularly valuable and worth defending. so i think it is an important one. recently the economist published a book called the case against education where they argue that we invest too much and in higher education where often people either learn relatively little or very little that is useful to their future lives. there is a lot of waste there. there is something to it. but i am skeptical to the threat of free speech and inquiry if you look at the people trying to suppress that. they do in fact care politically.

the problem is not that they are different. and that they see as hostile. it needs to be suppressed. the problem of free speech is largely separate from that one. >> what role do rising costs play. we have this incident just recently where a student group i believe in florida was asked to pay these additional security costs is is a big issue. i think it's becoming a very big issue. they are taking very seriously the need for some events. in the universities are trying to figure how to grapple with that expense and one way of dealing with that is to push

the expense up on the students which well have the consequence of effectively suppressing that. as can be it is going to be a challenge for the universities to figure out how to navigate that current situation i think the correct answer cannot be we're gonna tell you this. they're just too expensive. in particular because that is can occur in very particular ways. in a way and that is relatively neutral across the range of speakers and they need to deal with in part by trying to address the security needs of a different perspective. they don't necessarily take for granted and can be externally disruptive.

there is no long-term consequences. you need to try to create a campus in which that type of thing is discouraged in the first place. if we agree that it can be directed there. how do we draw the line. what about the view that we hear that seems to be fairly common that speech itself calls violence. is that correct that you do hear that quite often. this is the ultimate softening of the line. it's a somewhat powerful metaphor in some contexts they start operably be a metaphor. in a more liberal way. not only shutting down speech. but maybe using actual violence for that.

and should be rejected and we should reemphasize that there's a difference. between speech and violence. in terms of the first point whether you draw the line exactly is that this is something that has struggled with for a century most of the people on the claim that was potentially dangerous. the lesson we learn from the is that we should not trust the government officials they would put it much too widely. and far more speech than was actually necessary. across the last century we've made a gradual march towards trying to tighten up the restrictions.

in order to draw the line as nearly as possible. it comes to the defense of the basic legal position i largely agree. with any rule or legal docs. but as keith mentioned we have decades of constitutional law and decisions. where there is direct insight let of violence. i mother's -- by means other than the oppression. they are committed to protecting speech and can simply make use of these legal

doctrines. there may be some details which had to be tweaked a little bit. overall there is a well to protect freedom of speech you can generally find a way while simultaneously preventing violence. i would add further that one of the better ways of doing that is through deterrence. if you committed to punishing people. you should see less of that sort of activity to begin with and therefore your security cost might actually be lowered in the way eerily prevented is not by having lots of armed guards over the place. the people that engage in violence if there staff they will be fired. if there outside they will be turned over to the police. and prosecutors so this may not deter a small number of highly motivated terrorists or whatever but most campus

interests ruptures are not people who are really willing to suffer the norm with enormous costs. in this kind of people are determined. these tendencies of intolerance utterance will hurt the students after they graduate and enter the real world problems do not get resolved with violence, it raises the question why isn't there more resistance or unhappiness about all of these things from the students and can you give us some insight about how students view of these kinds of things are they in different in the comment suggests that it's harming their education and it may very will be harming the students involved. i'm a little bit optimistic that i think students and campus administrators and faculty are having their eyes opened a little bit.

as to what the situation might be like on college campuses if you don't push back on some of these. and i think students themselves are starting to appreciate that they prefer to be on the college campus which is possible for people to disagree with one another. possible for them to say they are controversial. without disruptions and having it be shut down. i think the students themselves are beginning to push back on this and embrace more of the values. i think it's a very important one to arm them with a better understanding of those principles in commitments and why we have them and what the implications might be i think it's also important to remind students that that is in some ways the silent majority. there is a very noisy noisy minority of students. it's easy for them to start thinking all of the students think this way.

in thinking that we shouldn't behave that way. and campuses have made some progress on things like binge drinking for example. and not all of your peers behave in those particular ways. you do not had to emulate them or follow along. i think the same thing has to be true in the speech contexts as well. i basically agree. also reinforced his caution from his talk. we should overgeneralize about students and paint them with a broad brush. there is a wide diversity of attitudes among students. and only a small minority of students engage in violence or support such activity but that minority can have that proportionate clout. i do think while students and others had come to pay

attention sort of the visible and forcible destruction of speakers. i think they may be more likely to be oblivious of subtle problems like the issue of discrimination there is violence going on. decisions are made calmly and normally behind closed doors but the result is you do end up with a great deal of ideological and the number of academics fields. it may not be primarily the response of the students to try to combat this. it is first and foremost at of faculty administrators. if more students were aware of the problem and spoke up about it that would help at the margin also. to try to address us. >> think you very much. everybody is coming up with great questions now. this is for all panelists as

it relates to the university situation. should hate speech be tolerated. and they may threaten the rights of minorities. i have to say i'm a seventh we are can have another book forum and she has a book on this very topic. please keep your eyes on the website. and sign up and come back on may 7 and we will we will talk about this further. but for now. there is a section in my book on hate speech. there is a lot of people thinking about it. it's a serious problem that calls for some serious thinking in part because the conflicts here are real. there is some real genuine tensions in the values that we want to recognize. briefly then we should be very

cautious about the label heat -- they can fly under that label and it's often clear what exactly people are talking about when they want to use the label and sometimes it sweeps very broadly and sometimes it sweeps much more narrowly and i think we should be particularly cautious about it sweeping broadly. when they talk about hate speech but they really are wanting to suppress our ideas. and that they think might lead to particular kind of social and political consequences. the universities are all about hearing controversial ideas skeptically examining them. and expressing the disagreements. not simply suppressing and censoring them. on the one hand we want to emphasize the universities or the inclusive communities that we want the people with a wide range of views and experiences

that is critically important. what you're getting is you are getting an environment where people are willing to think seriously about difficult ideas. we don't want to accidentally or on purpose design a speech code that will try to suppress the latter even as its train. i largely agree. i understand some of the motivation for the precious. if you want -- right publicly. you will get hate e-mail and the like. people say ugly into somatic and other kinds of things. i do understand how it can be painful to kind of hear that stuff. in some cases i want to suppress these people and lock them up. that should be resisted for a

couple of reasons. people who say hateful things do have a right to freedom of speech for inherent reasons. it's part of the freedom that we should all enjoy. we cannot trust the government officials or most cases authority to draw the line in the right place. you will get the experience that actually some european countries had had with a ban racist speech. but then you still have the fd neil fascist party winning 13% of the vote in the german election. what they do as they have symbols which are slightly different from the officially banned nazi symbols. and they engage in rhetoric which is just slightly different.

therefore they are able to propagate their ideas anyway if you respond to these kind of present of a much more robust and severe censorship regime out there. it will be in a lot of ideas that are not racism. and therefore in the vast majority. even though it does mean that we will suffer some pain. with the federal civil rights statutes. this question is for either panelist. you may have a better sense

than i do. i'm not truly an expert i think there had been some problems with broad interpretation of what counts of sexual harassment. which in some cases you and of suppressing speech. i'm not sure it has been as much of a problem with title six. these overbroad interpretations should be cut back one of the few good things that they are doing as they are in fact taking a look at this and probably will cut back some of the guidance memo that was issued. i think this sort of phenomenon accounts to a very small proportion. there are other aspects of it. such as at dealing with sexual assault cases.

they do contribute to the free speech problem on campus. as a fairly modest contribution. i want to combine a couple of other questions. is driven by that. it is exported by welcomed minorities. what can we do about it and the second question connected to that is does this explain why there are so few students been expelled or banned the banning of outsiders. i think the risk of avoiding administrators.

they're they are willing to act in ways. it's very common. they get picked up by that public media. and then administrators think the best way of dealing with that is some other faculty has said something noncommercial. is to fire them as soon as possible. is often a function of risk advertisements. they are intrinsically motivated or concerned. their vision of what universities ought to be doing is to have a brand that parents find it very comfortable. and that controversial speakers on campus or students

run contrary to the image. and i think it's important then for parents and alumni and donors to understand what the universities actually are to exist and that they not be pursuing a brand in which everything looks pretty shiny. and willing to have controversy and willing to disagree with one another. the administrator's respect those values and try to promote them. it's hard for them to do it on their own. we really need to create a larger culture that insists on that as well. i think it's easy to blame administrators and sometimes they really do deserve the blame. there's actually a lot of variation in their behavior. they have actually taken it pretty strong. in favor of freedom of the speech. uc berkeley they have ensured

that people can speak up there. the dean of the uc berkeley law school i very prominent legal scholar has been very outspoken. he has co-authored a book about the subject. therefore i think there is a variation here. and we should try to build on that good at the elements into the extent that people are risk adverse. there is risk in allowing speech suppression as well. i think we can work on in that way. i would not like to try to achieve a situation where we have really big risk takers as college administrators i think there is good reason for administrators particularly a

well-established university to not be people who are constantly taking huge risks because they are administering big constitutions that have a lot of moving parts in a good high-ranking administrator has to be aware of that. vocal and free-speech matters. i think that's important that you have university leadership that understands and appreciates that. when particular controversies arise. it makes a difference on a college campus if you have administrators willing to stand up for that. my co-author howard gilman who is now the chancellor at uc irvine is the co-author on the free-speech book. always been a very good and trying to incite these issues and trying to speak out on them as well. there is a perfectly good book and it takes more of a common-law angle than mine does. if you have some extra money you should buy theirs.

especially if you haven't interest in constitutional law. there is a question that goes to suggested many people have. you make the point in the book that there has been a number of different crisis at various times and donors and then sometimes at various points and even today conservatives are outsiders have some effect on free speech. is it the case that really there is no crisis of the free-speech this is just something where a relatively few very extreme provocateurs have caused these kind of events and then it's all been played out by the conservative press and individuals and so on. and in a tv channel may be. there is nothing really care. as not all politics of the left but all politics of the right. what he think.

i think that both things could be true. there are people that want to play it up. and they try to play up and exploit these problems on occasion by being provocative on campus in a way that is perhaps nicely designed. i will put people on campus in a bad light. i think that's true. it's also true that some of these things are just much more visible than they might have once been. when charles murray was shouted down for example it was recorded in the video went viral. that may make it look like it's happening a lot more often than millie in fact it does. it also makes it feel like it's happening a lot more often than it used to happen.

i think their particular elements of it. i think it's true that there are genuine problems on some college campuses. there are places within universities that are very hostile to free speech. they have a very particular problem in their own immediate campus culture. and it's important to address those problems when they arise. i think it's constantly important to try to push back against those that are advocating the other side. where exactly should we draw the line legally on suppressing speech we might think that's dangerous. if you do not fight the fights on the college campus now with students al and pat faculty now. don't be surprise ten or 20 years from now. you don't see courts making decisions that move that line and don't embrace the view that hate speech is not

constantly protected. the debates we are seen on college campuses now could be a debate in the real line down the road. i can i largely agree. it is true that there are sort of right wing provocateurs and in some case for the very purpose of generating a violent reaction in colder speaks in a campus. that's actually bad for her brand name where it's not as good as it would be. and then she can promote it on twitter. you should realize that this is what she wants. and therefore even aside from free speech principles it's not in the interest of your movement to violently disrupt or it's better that it doesn't happen. at the same time disruption is not limited to these cases

there had been a case involving west wing figures. speakers representing the aclu. there are enough to cases involving people who cannot be placed in the same category more subtle problems of ideological discrimination. other such matters that are quite significant. and therefore while it's important not to paint with a broad brush i and think it's at the end of civilization taking over. it's also important not to go to the opposite extreme and say there really is no problem. except whatever has been been jammed up by some right wing provocateurs. a couple of questions about high schools. we saw a really large march

here in washington. it featured several high school students exercising free speech and political participation rates. to what extent do you think on the student side of things that issues about freedom of speech and tolerance when the students arrive i don't know if you teach freshman at princeton or not. in high schools freedom of speech is not very protected or taught. or there is a fair amount of control of speech. are there the issues that are really crucial here. students arrive with a set of experiences and expectations based on what they've seen growing up including what they've seen in the particular institutional environment.

in it's natural for them to carry that over to the university environment. and those schools somewhat improperly or not as a free-speech oriented although they do have some free-speech rights and secondary schools. and part of what's important as we orient students to campus and bring them into college campuses is to get them to appreciate that they're not small children anymore. that they are not in the same kind of institutional educational environment that they once were in. and that they have broader rights of free speech. free speech as can be is can be valued and protected. in a way that they might not had been familiar with and they should understand what they're getting into. the whole issue of free speech in high school and the way students lives are managed in high school and earlier in

school. and there is somewhat of a return on this. if you think about what happens in the average high school is your time is highly regimented by the school authorities if to go to the classes that they say you have to go to. and you get taught a state-mandated curriculum which in many states include some elements of indoctrination. and some of this is inevitable given the age and relative immaturity of the students and at least quite a lot of schools. things had been getting worse. and don't have a complete answer to this in my own mind. i think the problem bears serious consideration not just or even primarily because of the impact on free speech and college campuses i think there is a broader problem that is

caused by having this sort of mod of education. what role does student education education and training on free speech and civil debate. what role does all of that plate and better educating the students on the civil debate in dealing with some of these issues to colleges and universities do they do enough of this now. this kind of education. i think colleges have taken for granted that students had it investment. the students understood what they are getting into. and coming into an educational environment in which they will be tested in their ideas will be pushed and exposed to unsettling ideas. and universities should not have taken that for granted. we should recognize that they don't necessarily understand what they're getting into. they aren't necessarily been socialized and educated into

what it would mean to be a responsible member of the campus community in a productive and contributing member of that community. i think it is needed more self-consciously to try to explain to students including prospective students only do they have really great gyms and nice --dash make nice dorms and also they haven't really controversial people on campus exploring ideas and really seriously. you should expect your ideas to be tested. if you believe that you regard as very dear to you you should recognize that somewhere on the college campus there are people who question does the beliefs and don't hold them dearly. and you should expect that you encounter those people when you get to a college campus. it's important to explain to the larger society that that is what universities are. and that's what makes them great.

if you're coming to college you should expect to encounter some unsettling ideas. they mentioned preference multiplication. it occurred to me immediately for the first time that there is actually a phrase for the it's called that it's called knowing what's good for you. it actually exists at many campuses. this has been great. i would like to think our speakers today keith whittington ten. thank you for coming and i would like to invite you to go upstairs to the second floor now for our traditional lunch after the event. thank you very much. [applause]. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] former fbi director james cummings new book the higher loyalty is set to release on tuesday april 17. the washington post, new york times and other media outlets had reported on the contents this past week. the washington post quotes of the book as same with regard to the trump administration what is happening now is not normal it is not fake news it is not okay. the post also reports that mr. cumming calls attorney general sessions both overwhelmed and overmatched by the job.

the former fbi director writes about president trump that i had one perspective on the behavior i saw which while a disturbing and disturbing and violating basic norms of ethical leadership may fall short of being illegal. the book reviewer. writes about her loyalty. those are the toxic consequences of line and that effects of choosing loyalty to an individual over truth in the rule of law. the republican national committee has set up a website to refute that former allegations. they write james comey wants to betray himself as a nonpartisan by the book voice rather than a politically motivated washington insider. a higher loyalty is already a bestseller and will be widely available in bookstores on

tuesday april 17. watch for coverage of the book on book tv. they tape hundreds of author programs throughout the country all year long. here is a look at some of the events covering this week. to hear jenna bush hager. tuesday we will have to politics and prose bookstore in washington dc for that 20th anniversary of that book publisher. bradley graham. james simon. this strained relationship. for that presidential library where the former press secretary for first lady nancy reagan will recall the perfect

-- of the professional life. as a look at some of the event's book tv will be covered in this week. many of these events are open to the public look for them to air in the near future on book tv. .. .. >> on the other hand, we're book printers. we've grown to be book printers as well. the interesting -- the reason why i i say it's a good question is because aside from being book publishers, aside from being book printers,