>> that afternoon. welcome to the cato institute. my name is john samples here and vice president here at cato. i'd like to begin with an overview of our event today.

we shall first hear from our author, keith whittington, about his new book "speak freely." then we shall have some comments from ilya somin and then finally some time for questions and answers for a panelist. we will be taking questions via twitter and direct your queries to #cato one day. you should've received a a piece of paper on it in any case we look forward to your questions either here at the auditorium or online. if you do not wish to use twitter, a we will collect those later. a few more words by way of introduction. the cato institute is a public

policy research organization. free-market in peace. those who work here see themselves as working within a long tradition of individualism and limited government. that is a political philosophy sometimes called classical liberalism in other places just called liberalism. the rights of the individual matter for us. for example we have long defended freedom of beach, the topic of our forum today. we can be thankful in the united states not least because of the strong protection for speech recognized in the first amendment of the constitution. as the constitution says, congress shall make no law in the freedom of speech, unquote. many outside the university and some insight today wonder whether freedom of speech is

endangered on campus are communities of scholars depend on free exchange of views. we are happy to have here keith whittington, whose new book, "speak freely: why universities must defend free speech" addresses the foundation and the reality of freedom of speech at american universities. keith whittington is willie nelson cornell professor of politics and the department of politics at princeton university. he is the author of the current hook "speak freely" as well as constitutional construction and constitutional interpretation meaning original intent to judicial review and the third book, foundations of supremacy, the presidency of the supreme court and constitutional leadership in u.s. history. this work has made professor

whittington along with the late justice antonin scalia and major exponent of the leading school of const duchenne interpretation public meaning original is on. that sounds pretty esoteric, but trust me it's a very big deal. he's written several other scholarly works federalism politics and the presidency, my completing two new books is a very ambitious fellow. one of which is repugnant laws judicial review and act of congress from the founding to the president and the second one is the idea of democracy in america from the american revolution to the gilded age. i've known key for many years and i'm delighted to have you here. >> thanks for having me and thanks for coming out. i don't bear with me policy prescription. on a talk about principles.

they matter not only a cause which campuses, but american society more generally. we can think about this free speech as a particular microcosm of larger problems that confront us living in democracies more broadly. these particular principles have some particular importance for those of us who spend a lot of time in college campuses, but also a lot of importance for all of us working in a liberal democracy more generally. this was a bit of an interruption to things i've otherwise work on and some of these books that actually aren't forthcoming at this point had been sitting on my desk for quite a while and it got delayed a little bit in order to work on this book. i did find myself increasingly disturbed over the last few years in few month.

of particular relevance to the moment, a seemingly endless string of event on college campuses in particular does seem to reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of what the universities do and what they are for. really not a week goes by, even days sometimes go by during the academic year. but hardly a week goes by in which there are news reports of disruption for speakers, his imitations of speakers, demands for safe spaces on college campuses, cause for firing controversial, death threats against faculty in public policy sometimes to hollow out the universities do. some of these threats come from on campus and those are often threats from the political left. there were also plenty of threats that come from the political right and most of those come from off campus.

in all these cases, the common threat is a fundamental intolerance of disagreement. disagreements on campus, but also in our civil society more generally and an unwillingness to accept controversy and controversial ideas. there is a tendency sometimes, which i think is misguided to want to blame this particular generation for these problems. the snowflake generation is often tossed around in to characterize this generation of students is particularly sensitive, incapable of dealing with disagreement and intolerance. like i said, this is a missed guided way of thinking about what our problems are confronting us and also a misguided way of thinking about this particular generation of students. toleration for disagreements and respect for liberty of others are persistent challenges. not only in american society but western liberal democracies more

generally. if you look at survey research focused on people's tolerance for free speech. good studies going back decades. we find this has been a constant recurring problem of people saying in the abstract they like free speech. when you confront them with examples of speech they find unpleasant, they say except for that. the content of what it is, the specific speech people find disagreeable has varied over time. it's varied across spectrums and what it is that they regard as intolerable. it is genuinely been true that the abstract free speech is very easy qualified in the moment when we see episodes of people trying to exercise free speech. no different than the students a generation ago or indeed of the

american populace more generally. what we see on campus therefore reflects the fundamental features about liberal democracies and recurring challenges about living in democracies and give us reason to think through carefully what our commitments are, what the principle is in it's important that we constantly reaffirmed those liberal values even in the face of controversy disagreement and sometimes very unpleasant examples of particular speech that we have to deal with. also, the snowflake generation way of thinking about this problem underestimates the ideological opposition to free speech, which also exists on college campuses but also off college campuses. some people oppose free speech not simply because they find particular thing is controversial, but because they are hostile.

fortunately, that's a small minority even on college campuses, but an important segment of the population in american college campuses in general and we should try to articulate what the commitments are more generally in order to help persuade people that is not a path going down, but we ought to be going down the path about things we disagree with. showing free speech intimately tied to the core mission of a modern day. not just in case we are legally obliged we happen to have the u.s. constitution that has a first amendment in it and the first amendment public universities that state that there is, but also those of us who value universities that are members of campus community should also value campus free speech and those of us living in liberal democracy should value

free speech because they were important principles and they are valuable. not just because some judge is going to tell us we have to. it's not what the mission of the university is. as i understand but modern universities are committed to, despite the fact of the variation of how they pursue this mission across the american landscape, and they are generally committed to the production and dissemination of knowledge, which are free speech is critical to that function of universities. free inquiry and open debate are necessary to generating and communicating knowledge. so if you think the university is primarily they are in order to indoctrinate students, if universities are there to convey things they think we are ready now. if they think we are pushing boundaries of human knowledge, we need room for experimentation, unconventional inking and mistakes to be made. universities are going to fulfill their missions are quite

tolerant of the wide range of views on campus and intolerant of people saying things that are controversial in things we think are in fact mistakes. there were other reasons for supporting free speech and other kinds of environment for example free speech is particularly important to make a democratic process work and you can't evaluate the performance of government officials unless you're free to give vent to hear criticism. some of those concerns are less critical of thinking specifically about a university setting. a university environment is valuable for things connect it to what universities are for. we've seen this for a long period of time. lots of people understood the connection between free speech and universities. daniel gillman who was the first president at johns hopkins university told his board of

trustees the tail end of reconstruction. the institution we are about to organize would not be worthy of the name of the university if it were to be devoted to any other purpose and discovering promulgation of the true and the resources being given by the founder should be limited to the maintenance of the differences converted to the use of promotion to political strife. as the spirit of the university should be that of intellectual freedom and across charity towards those of whom have a differing opinion should have control and not be apparent in the official work at the university. the connection between the mission of the university and free speech and tolerance of disagreement on university campuses to advance the mission has been essential to how we've understood the nature of universities. we haven't always been perfect in how we implement that.

there's been a long period of struggle to realize and appreciate what those principles are enemy to affirm those principles today as well. the book tries to lay out free speech and a seeking institution. just to note that the key points are one that the only way to gain true knowledge is to test if their arguments. though we may have things we take, but if we want to believe them and know them they are correct and can stand up to criticism, we need to see them stand up to criticism and see them tested and that's what universities are committed to this to see just how true they are and whether or not they need to be modified, reject good or accepted. the only way to see that is inquiry. secondly in the contracts of controversial speech, americans across a long period of time say they can't help it needs sensor.

that is true in the environment, but also true in american politics more generally. we may identify speech that we think ought to be suppressed and they have good reason for thinking that. as soon as we empower somebody with a general power to suppress speech because it does favorable we will soon find all kinds of speech would be suppressed including what we think is important. once you've empowered somebody to suppress controversial speech, precisely because people disagree about the value of that particular speech. they have to be extraordinarily cautious about trying to empower people or government officials to suppress speech that they find particularly disagreeable. we are better positioned to think through controversies that arise and i try to walk through the controversies we've seen on college campuses of late.

we are likely making mistakes if we don't start rethinking about the first principles and what is guiding us in general. specific kinds of controversies and scandals that arise and we might start rethinking about the heart of the university operations, which is what we are to have enriched back to the freedom to pursue scholarship and teaching with regard to professional standards in pursuit of truth and without regard to social and political pressure. the core of what the university does this allow for scholarly research and we develop academic freedom precisely in order to protect the core area of university of committee. this is in the freedom to say anything in the classroom or even anything in publication, but the freedom to push the boundaries of human knowledge. even beyond the poor aspect of what universities do, college campuses are vibrant intellectual community is in which debate over ideas go

beyond the enterprise of research and teaching. they funded places were important matters of concern can be discussed and students can engage controversial ideas with nothing to research and teaching. universities then need free speech as well as academic freedom if they're going to truly serve their function in the home of intellectual contest more generally. this is recognized by a federal circuit court in the 1970s when the university of mississippi tried to close a literary magazine that officials publish things that were tasteless and inappropriate. the judges synthesize to the campus administrators the historical role of the university in expressing opinions which may well not make favor with society and serving as a vanguard in the fight for freedom of expression and opinion. sometimes you have to tolerate things to regard as inappropriate or offensive and

even dangerous precisely because universities are trying to make people who disagree and test out new ideas and sometimes for people to make mistakes and sometimes for people to be outrageous and offensive. recognizing the role of the universe these, the universities have allowed to form numerous groups on the ground and give them equal access to resources to explore their own concerns. the virginia commonwealth university tried to ban the a alliance, they thought that organization was promoting what it regarded a thickening of ideas in the federal circuit court had to point out the student association with the political, social and legal objectives are part of higher education in useful for the preparation later in life for citizens who are going to live in in american democracy in which people disagree about basic commitments and freedoms

and values in the university should be home for students who experience that disagreement to learn how to work their way through it. recognizing this role for robust public debate has meant there should be a robust base on college campuses presents another's express their views about matters of public concern. they should express those in a way that make sense to them and can attract attention. to take the form of interfering with others to pursue their own committees on a college campus. willing speaker should communicate with willing audiences. members of the campus community should want to be able to hear ideas and they got to hear the ideas that they want to hear alternately. disruptions, tearing down signs, throwing out papers are all efforts to communications and shut down the free exchange of ideas and campuses. students have a right to ignore speech they find appalling or persuasive with arguments of

their own. they need to engage with what they might regard as unsettled topics that some students said. they did not have the privilege that no one else be allowed to treat those questions as unsettled or unresolved. the college campus cannot claim to be serious about trying to create an environment with inquiry in pursuit of the truth is they cannot tolerate the airing of controversial and discomforting ideas. administrators do not have the courage of their conviction in hear from speakers to university officials themselves incurred noxious are mistaken. it implies responsibility to host discussions on college campuses. the faculty hired by the university or value weighted by their peers for their scholarly work and to meet disciplinary expect patience. outside speakers are brought to campus for different reasons. they discuss public affairs and are not expected to meet the same standards.

they are different than what faculty contributes but hopefully contributions are still real and ultimately viable. if they want to hear peter navarro or kid rock or robert reisch or michael moore come the university should have the courage and allow students to hear it if i read their arguments matter how badly flawed morally bankrupt universities or other students ultimately are. the goal should be to enlighten and not merely to provoke. students should want to hear the best representative of serious ideas that are worth their time and attention. note that students will have somewhat different ideas about what it's worth your time and attention than i do, for example. they should take the responsibility to advance the mission of the university and not just pushing boundaries. making decisions about whom to invite, they should neither be the allies to sprinkle in the

most extreme products. goal should be thoughtful representatives of serious ideas. the speech number seems very challenging. it's easy to listen to pleasing ideas and affirmation in much more difficult with those whom we disagree and find a preposterous, repugnant or even dangerous. we should however learn not only to tolerate those disagreements but to seek them out for his through controversies and contestation that we can often be in the most unexpected ways. let me end by noting the university struggles to the intellectual communities with knowledge themselves. john stuart mill worried that a closed society too comfortable in its own conviction despite their own aspiration, the universities and a comfortable intellectual bubble.

they must screen out bad ideas that bring to campus does the question and not affirm in the community of scholars is not to become lethargic and the events that knowledge is to perceive scholars cannot be complacent in their studies and blind to their own deficiencies. the university should be striving to nurture their own campuses when training, hiring and promoting scholars to make college campuses university should demand rigor and accomplishment, but also be an openness to new ideas and a spirit of skepticism and intellectual curiosity. if the universities are too offered at the outer boundaries and push those boundaries further outward, there must be places where new unorthodox controversial ideas can be raised and scrutinized. students prepare themselves to engage the wide range of problems they will encounter out in the world across their lifetime, they must learn to grapple with and examine ideas

they find difficult and offensive. the university has committed themselves to disseminating knowledge and have recognized the free ranging exchange of ideas is essential to the realization of that mission. they have sometimes needed to be called to account to appreciate and work to realize their own ideals or recognize and respect the principles of free speech is difficult and challenging. but there's no alternative but there's no alternative we have dedicated pursuit of truth and the pursuit of truth is a noble important mission of modern university. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. very good. i would like to remind you that if you would like to ask a question, the hashtag kato onea is for you send it. please let us know when someone will pick it up for you.

our comment today is ilya somin at george mason university and adjunct scholar here at the cato institute. research focuses on constitutional law, property law in the study of popular political participation and implications for constitutional democracy. he is the author of democracy, why smaller government is smarter, in 2016. another book in the city of new london and in the mid-domain from a second edition originally 2015. he is co-author of a conspiracy against obamacare and also eminent domain, a comparative bid, coeditor of that. it has been translated into italian and japanese. maybe you can tell us whether it's made a difference there. mentioning the conspiracy, in

leading venues he writes regularly for the politics blog, which is now affiliated with the magazine and was previously as you probably now affiliated by the "washington post." he's been a coeditor of the supreme court economic review, a top-rated law and economics journal. he earned his ba, which maybe we could get some insights to what it was like in those days and an m.a. from harvard and a jd from yale law. we look forward to your comments. [applause] >> i would like to start by thanking the cato institute for organizing the event in congratulating keith unannounced and invoke on an extremely timely topic which one i'd even

say has been made great event as keith explains in the book it's been a very important topic for many years, so it's not entirely a new issue by any means. normally when i serve as a commentator, i regard as my job to find the points of disagreement and take issue with some of the things the author says. in this case, i agree with 95% or even more of what keith says in the book, so it may be somewhat tough to do that. in the first heart of my presentation i'm going to amplify the argument in a number of ways in suggested some ways that they identify even worse than he suggests that it is. i will in fact take issue to a limited degree with some of keith's analysis of the problem of faculty hiring. here i think free speech principles ours so important, but it may be more difficult to apply them than other settings

on campus and more in the book. finally at the end of my presentation i'll talk briefly about what can we do about this problem and how can we strengthen protection for free speech on campus. in the presentation he explains quite eloquently the nature of the problem and why we should be concerned about it. in some ways there's even more reason for concern that perhaps keith suggests one reason is that if you develop a kind of ideological orthodoxy on campus or in particular department, this problem is self reinforcing. when you have a group of people who are ideologically homogenous, research by people at harvard shows that they feed on each other. they become even more extreme over time and more intolerant of opposing views and i think we have seen this happen in some academic fields.

also in some campuses in the lakes as well and it is pernicious and once you get started down this path, it is difficult to stop. closely related is the phenomenon of what the economist teamwork calls preference qualification. if you think that the expression of certain views you have is dangerous, it will lead to social sanctions and it will damage their career. you are likely to hide those views and we see some of this on some scholars also among sums units on campus as well according to surveys. when people hide their dissenting views that makes it seem there is more of a consensus than there actually is and reduces the quality of debate and this phenomenon to some extent feeds on itself in most of the inherent to their viewpoint are hiding their true preferences. that makes it more than an incentive for to hide yours as

well. you don't want to be the only one that sticks out for that sum orthodoxy should be questioned. i think the extent to which there is a problem between different academic discipline in different campuses. certainly not suggesting that all campus are completely homogenous, far from it. but this clearly is a problem in some field and on campuses. another fracture in recent years is the growth of ideological and partisan polarization and hatred. in many surveys taken in recent years, we have data indicating that hostility towards supporters of the opposite political party is stronger and more deeply rooted in racial or ethnic or religious hostility. for example, recent data survey

recommends 30% to 40% of people would be angry or unhappy if a relative of theirs married a member of the opposing political party. this is far higher than the percentage who say they would be unhappy if a member of their family married to somebody from another race or ethnicity is even higher than the number that would be angry or unhappy if someone in the family married a member of a different religion. strikingly and obviously the more we feel hostility to other ideologies and the more difficult it is to tolerate speech and apply free-speech principles and so forth in both the right and the left growing hostility on the other side. obviously on campus this manifests itself more often in the form to right of center speech in the fact that on most

campuses, not all but most the political left is in a relatively dominant position, but this is not to say the right would be any better in situations where they could predominate similarly. i think the rise of trump actually makes this problem worse. during the 2016 election i wrote a blog post entitled how trump strengthens the forces of political correctness. it seems strange how he could possibly be doing a given that he's actually been fomenting against political correct ms. and many people say that what his election represents is a backlash against it. the way you strength and said is given the things he says in the way that he says them, he reinforces the perception that the only alternative to their viewpoint is racism, sexism, xenophobia and prejudice and has the most prominent representative of the political

right in american society today makes it easy for people to feel that the political right is not intellectually serious. they don't actually have ideas for the jury and could miss a very little will be lost if we in fact don't tolerate speech on campus and indeed that may be the only way to prevent the rise of racism, sexism and other prejudices of which trump is associated. some people argue that the politically correct themselves for the rise of trump that represents a reaction and in this presentation i'm not in during the question of who started it. all i'm saying is what trump does reinforces political correctness and to some extent what they do reinforces his position as well. this problem has become a cycle which made the situation worse not only on campus, but

certainly on campus in particular. these forces coming together, ideological polarization, the rise of trump, qualification and so forth all make the problem in some ways even worse. now throughout most of the book, he argues and i agree that what we need to do on campuses apply free-speech principles, not suppress speech simply based on its content or viewpoint or defensiveness and the like, but recognize that we may not be able to completely do that when it comes to the area of hiring. noted in his presentation, when faculty are hired, they have to be judged by disciplinary standards, whether the quality of their work is up to snuff in various ways and at least in some cases this may involve judging the substance of their viewpoint.

for example, if you see a candidate for geography department whose an exponent, no matter how good his qualifications are in other respects, the fact that -- is going to be a dealbreaker. if you hire a world war ii historian and it turns out he's a holocaust denier, no matter what the quality of his other qualifications come you probably can't hire that person being a holocaust denier is in another dolphin indicator affectional incompetent in that particular field. the way we address this is we showed that the disciplinary hiring decisions and promotion decisions to experts in the field, rather than save the aircraft are politicians decide things into a large extent i agree that we want people judging faculty candidates who are qualified in the relevant field. however, even for such people it

is often difficult to draw the line between situations like holocaust denial works on any particular viewpoint really is an indicator of professional incompetence versus other cases where we simply don't like or disagree with the viewpoint founded by the scholar and we know from studies which have systematic data and also from a great deal of and total evidence that often in some disciplines callers don't do a good job of drawing a distinction between these two things and so you get ideological discrimination in hiring, which is a quite significant phenomenon, which contributes to the ideological homogenate eddie and the other factor is that i mentioned earlier. this can be self-perpetuating if you don't higher people with this use, then the faculty in

your particular department will become more and more homogenous overtime and will become more and more unthinkable to hire people to disagree. it is not my claim that the underrepresentation of academia is so revered and discrimination in hiring. far from it. ..

>> and your own department is the margin margin as you want to make more use out of back on -- outside experts to help evaluate the candidate with faculty hiring decisions that usually don't make that special effort to get diversity with the outside referees it is desirable to do that more often. so what can we do to alleviate this problem so with those well taken recommendations such as in foreseeing free-speech rules on campus and when students are outside people try to disrupt

speakers or use violence it needs to be punished and in some cases to handle these situations better than others and i mentioned earlier already to promote nondiscrimination and hiring weighing universities hold politically controversial subjects they should try to have that ideologically balanced panel not suggesting that should always be done there should be more homogenous but in proportion of their events. and the very last couple of minutes of my talk i would like to talk about the advocates of free speech in particular the libertarians on campus that is

often what is most victimized by campus policies. the biggest recommendation is that you should be an intellectually serious group of people not to describe as strong earlier to be highly tolerant yourself if you decide to to invite on campus you should be sure you are not inviting people simply because they anger or offend the other side or should not invite the t3 of world who are provocative don't have anything of substance to say if your potential speaker is that you will attract headlines and

t3 will say something stupid and that means it is a bad speaker they should not be met with violence and the school should not suppress their speech but that is not an indicator is a valuable contribution to intellectual discourse. what they should be doing is inviting people who have a valuable contribution to make or at least potentially can appeal to those who don't already agree with their viewpoint. if you look at the history of minority groups have succeeded in promoting their rights creating a better image in a relevant society by engaging in outreach this is how the civil rights movement exceeded or the gay rights movement and there are other examples and campus conservatives should take a

lesson from those rather than t3 and others that the conservative libertarian groups would be well to wrestle free speech from the rights as well as the left in them things like trumps encouragement of violence during the 2016 presidential campaign you are more credible if you condemn them on the other side. so more can be said on this but for now i conclude and i look forward i look forward to discussion. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. if you have a paper i will also go to twitter.

thank you very much also send your question to twitter but i i will start my posing a question to keith about this issue that isn't the case as far as you can tell the issues of free speech you mention some are actually anti-liberal and free speech doesn't that correlate highly not with only the entire university that particular department? one way? one way to think about this is you are more likely you are a postmodern department and an english department this is the notion all knowledge is power

therefore it is directly contrary to your vision of the university so the not the most glamorous but also department that administrators are reluctant that administrators are reluctant. but given all of that and that is what i have described then to what event does it show they are small and marginalized? if you read the chronicle of higher education seems to be the department of english with the same kinds of ideas so to what extent has the notion got into the faculty everything is about power and truth is that near so

that for therefore your conception is held by some but not by the dominant group? >> and to discuss to some degree i am underselling the problem that exists on campus today which may be true to some degree my instinct is in general not to panic and to be relatively optimistic about what we can do but it may well be the best way to sell the book it is a crisis that you should panic and way to solve the problem is to buy the book so let me say that. but i do think it is a a genuine problem and moreover it is true that these tendencies that you highlight are not randomly distributed across university. i don't find equal number of students and faculty with the

chemistry department who is quite hostile to the value of free speech with opposing viewpoints and others on campus so there are people on campus doing that one reason i was motivated to write the book because we on college campuses are fighting the internal battle of what the future will look like and those ideas that will be heard on college campuses in the future and it is important to be liberal ideas the same kinds of ideas articulated by university leadership and more but i am optimistic that will be

true it is true now and will be in the future there is a small minority of student faculty that is quite hostile but they should be countered in part that they remain a small minority that is important for the outside world to know that these very loud voices are loud also a relatively small group and should be treated as such with a broader group of students that they are already committed to liberal values and we should be appealing to them with civil discourse connected is not my

claim we should panic. i do think i do think it is possible to overestimate it varies a lot by department and university that for every time you see a speaker disrupted there are hundreds of instances that we can speak without problem or disruption you can look at half-full or half-empty but that said in some departments in universities there is a serious problem and in some ways it is growing over time and should be dealt with where possible before it becomes a a crisis and i also do agree on the faculty side with ideological discrimination is much worse and some departments than others the general rule it is worse than the humanities or the hard sciences and probably

is true that those fields have a large presence partly for the reason that you mentioned of the ideology itself partly of suppression and also the influence of the ideologies lacked intellectual rigor and the less you have the easier it is to fall to your prejudice. so once a department has been heavily captured by this approach is not easy to figure out what to do with it ideally you want to hire those methodologies to be less margin is with more serious intellectual discourse but this will require the autonomy of the faculty someone the problem goes

to a certain point it is difficult to deal with. but it is somewhat less severe it is more important with political discourse and social science and therefore we are addressing the problem without having to resort to drastic means. >> to the twitter feed is it a problem of free speech crisis or identity of higher education? it just doesn't work as well anymore because the mission is less about discovering truth. >> that is a real concern. so that does mix the things that

is important but politics that could be important on campus may run afoul of this commitment in the pursuit of truth but also universities might be perceived as a consumer driven service for the pursuit of truth really what you should encourage across campuses is students to move smoothly through the process to set them on the road to higher income and preferably nothing to put dirt on the brand so that controversy could be in your interest so senior administrators think exactly

that. the worst thing that can happen if somebody said something controversial because it hurts the brain after public attention i think that self-defeating makes universities valuable is that they are learning something and part of that is the ability to grapple with ideas and to think independently. and at the end of the day not be seen as particularly valuable. >> recently the economist was the case against education to invest in too much of higher education is useful to their

future lives and that i'm skeptical that free speech on campus comes primarily from this direction if you look at people trying to suppress they are not only care about it would be in different or rather the people that do care be recently with those left-wing critics so the problem is that they have the truth with those pernicious ideas and they need to be suppressed so we with multiple different problems on campus but

it is largely separate from that >> those rolls in free speech is group was asked to pay a security cost. >> universities are certain to take very seriously and that is expensive and how to grapple to deal with that that is off on the students with the consequence to suppress the speech that could take place and it is a challenge universities to figure out how to navigate that current situation not that we will tell you that because it is just to spend that will cut

in a particular way so diversity the university is very cautious in a way that is relatively neutral and they need to deal with to address those security needs from a different perspective that i don't i don't necessarily take for granted to be on the campus and therefore higher police with no long-term consequences. >> if we agree free speech should be suspended and we draw the line that everyone to move in their preferred direction? what about you that is common

that you do hear that quite often? >> is somewhat powerful metaphor in some context and then to start off but now they are increased the recognizing one -- weapon rising in the way to justify not only shutting down and and the speech that we think of that could be dangerous so this is something the u.s. constitution has struggled most

of those that we were articulating in the 20th century 20th century and that 19th century narrative was one i was relatively easy to suppress that speech on the claim and we should not trust those officials that was necessary and across we me made a gradual march to draw the line as narrowly as possible and now we've gotten to a reasonably good place and culturally we have to come into the defense.

>> and with any doctrine with those legal cases and two separate bills cases with those that are not cited in violence that can be prevented to suppress speech and to simply make use of doctrine and with that speech you can generally find a way while simultaneously preventing violence. further and if you credibly commit to punishing people who disrupt acres that activity to

begin with. and then to make therefore sample with those engaging in violence and to be suspended on -- expelled -- expelled or suspended if they are outsiders they will be turned over to the police and prosecutors. not deter the highly motivated terrorists but with those campus disruptors. >> and that intolerance for the students so that raises the

question so much insight how many students view these things. >> i i am a little bit optimistic and with the campus administrators and faculty are having their eyes open so you don't push back on these. and those that prefer to be on a college campus as they they say things it is controversial.

and to have that be shut down as they push back and embrace and to arm them with a better understanding of thoseth a bettr understanding of those principles and why we have the man to mandy implications of what they might be. and that is the silent majority and it is easy for students to start thinking we shouldn't behave that way. and campus and made progress but in fact not all of the piers behave in this particular way. you do not have to emulate or follow along just because you

everybody is doing it. the same thing is true we should emphasize not everybody is doing and it's okay to push back. >> and to reinforce nausea from the top we should not overgeneralize with that diversity to engage in and to have disproportionate and while to come to pay attention to that forcible destruction and to be olivia to the issue and if there is violence going on and to be

seemingly normally behind closed doors but that is a a great deal of ideological homogeneity but it may not be primarily in a responsive students but if more students were aware of the problem and we spoke up about it that would help to address this. >> this is for all panels should hate speech be tolerated? with racial and religious or otherwise and may threaten the rights of minorities and on may 7 co book forum so keep your

eyes on the website and come back and we will talk about this further. >> there is a section in my book on a lot of people are thinking about it is a serious problem and the conflicts here are real with those values to recognize. so we should be cautious with a huge number of things that can fly under that label it is clear what people are talking about and sometimes it sweeps very broadly and we should be very cautious talking about hate

speech they are really wanting to suppress that they find disagreeable that could be two particular time clients of consequences. they are all about controversial ideas to express disagreement not just to censor them. and those communities with those wide range of experiences that is critically important for what you are getting at a college campus the environment where people are looking to think seriously of those ideas we don't want to accidentally or on purpose design a a speech code to suppress letter as it

advances the former. >> again i largely agree. i understand that patient you write publicly for open borders as i do he will get hate email from people saying anti- somatic things so i do understand i do understand how it can be painful to see that. then to have that to suppress and lock them up. and even those who say hateful things the right to speech is the inherent reason and as it explains every day we cannot trust government officials or university authorities but then

you get that experience man racist speech with that neofascist party how do they operate? they have symbols that are slightly different from the officially began symbol of the nazi to engage in rhetoric that is different than to propagate their ideas. the more broadly that pretty soon you have a much more robust and censorship regime out there to ban a lot of ideas that are

not racism in the narrows'. and therefore in the vast majority way to prevent this is not to send go down the path of censorship in the first place although it does mean we will suffer from those who are racist you not -- neo-nazi. >> that the civil rights statutes like title vi and title mind if you see google solutions lung -- legal solution? >> i'm not truly an expert in this field that we have written about this but there has been problems of broad interpretation of sexual harassment you and up suppressing speech i could be

wrong about that but my general sense these overbroad interpretation should be cap back that they are taking a look at this with those guidance memos in the obama administration at the same time this sort of phenomenon accounts for those three speech problems on campus there are other aspects would be insufficient to process.

>> that is where i i land as well. >> so what extent is censorship with those risk aversion hostility what can they do about it and those that will be expelled or banning outsiders those risk administrators are part of the problem but they are willing to interact in ways they should be doing in a a

controversial way that the administrators think that's the best way is to fire them as soon as possible. and often those to be intrinsically motivated that their vision of what universities ought to be doing to have a sterling brand (find comfortable and they ran contrary to that image and it is important to understand what they are to insist they not be pursuing a brand and that they

are intellectually serious and willing to disagree with one another and those administrators respect to those values it's hard for them to do it on their own behalf to a day larger culture and insist on that as well. >> it's easy to blame administrators but it's also to remember there is a lot of variation in their behavior like university of chicago taking a freestanding on free speech see it as a bastion from the left but to make sure that people can speak and the dean of the uc berkeley a very prominent left of center legal scholar has co-authored a book so therefore

there is variation we should build on that good development for those that are risk-averse and that doesn't create a good public image for the school and to achieve with really big risktakers but there is good reason for the administrators and well-established universities for those that are not taking huge risks. and through a good high ranking administrator to be aware of that. and with free-speech matters.

then with that controversy arrives. arrives. administrators are willing to stand up for that sometimes my co-author is the with the chancellor at irvine is the co-author with free-speech book. but if they are inciting these issues to speak out there is a perfectly good book. >> if you have some extra money you should buy there's and they are very good about that. >> this goes to a suspicion and at various points to have that

effect on speech there is no crisis it is just something where a relatively few extreme provocative guest have been played out by the press and individuals? so there is nothing really here. it isn't all politics of the left foot on the right? >> i think simultaneously people can play that up and they are and they have their reasons to exploit these problems on occasion to be provocative and to generate to put people in

campus on a also that so campus on a bad a bad light i think that's true but also that some of these things are just more visible so when charles murray was shouted down what god attention is it went viral and that would not have been true. so we are much more aware than we used to be and make it look like it's happening a lot more often also makes it feel like happening a lot more often that used to happen. but there are genuine problems in college campuses places and universities in universities that are hostile to free speech where when they have a particular problem and it's

important to address those problems when they arrived it's important to address those problems when they arrive and to push back against those that are advocating so where exactly should we draw the line legally it could be dangerous or where do we draw the line on hate speech? with students and faculty pushing back and don't be surprised to or 20 years from now courts will make the decision to move that line don't embrace that view or constitutional law looks very different so that debate could be a foreshadowing down the road >> i agree it is true there are right wing propagate her for the

purpose to generate a violent reaction if somebody gives a speech without a hitch that is bad for here are not as good if it is disrupted then she can promote that on twitter. and so this is realize what she wants aside from the free-speech principles it is not in your interest to violently disrupt. but at the same time it isn't limited to the tee3 of the world even though west figures like the famous political philosopher representing the aclu. there are enough cases involving those that cannot be placed in the same category that there are

more subtle problems of ideological discrimination and it is quite a while it's important not to paint with a broad brush we don't have the gulags on campus also not to go to the opposite extreme and then as with the purpose to get more retweet. >> this weekend we saw large march in washington and to exercise the speech but those issues of tolerance and to teach

those freshmen but when they do arrive because in high schools and a fair amount of controls. and issues before the university that really are not crucial. and including that environment and it is natural for them to carryover into the university environment. with those free-speech rights. and part of what is important orienting students to campus and

what they once ran and and that free speech it would be protected and that they should understand what they are getting into. >> with the free-speech high school the way the lights are managed and perhaps requires a whole book and then with the average high school it is highly regimented if you go to the classes you have to say you with a state-mandated curriculum that

includes some elements of indoctrination this is inevitable sound needs to be seriously thought and some is getting worse and we don't have a complete answer and if i did i i did i could not sketch that all out but was the impact of free-speech college campuses these are caused by having this model of education. >> with education and training what role does that play to educate the civil debate?

with that education and college is taken for granted with investment free-speech those that understood what they are getting into coming into an educational environment to be tested to push to unsettling ideas and we should recognize they don't understand what they are getting into anybody knows what it means to be a responsible member. but that self consciously tried to blame the students but also

controversial people on campus and if you come to college campuses you should expect your ideas to be tested if they are dear to you with unquestioned beliefs there are those that question and that is fine. so i think it is important to explain to especially incoming students that that is what universities are and that is what makes him great. they may night be right for everybody but you should expect to encounter some unsettling ideas. >> i agree. >> you mentioned preference falsification, a powerful idea in social science.

it occurred to me immediately there is a phrase for that, knowing what is good for you. it exists on many campuses. this is great. i want to thank our speakers, i would like to thank you for coming and i would like to invite you to go upstairs to the second floor for our traditional lunch after the event. thanks very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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