>> up next here on c-span, a conversation on liberal arts education and freedom of speech on college campuses. we'll hear from professors from princeton university, gettysburg college, and university of chicago. >> goon, ladies and gentlemen. welcome back to our conference on a worthy life, finding meaning in america. the robert jifra class of 1982 conference of the james madison program of american ideals and institutions here at princeton university. mr. george: and the final panel for the day addresses issues having to do with liberal arts education and the search for truth. we have a very distinguished group of panelists to address the question. i want to begin, though, with a bit of personal testimony of my wn and really an expression of

gratitude. e will be discussing pathologies, undeniable pathologies that exist in american higher education these days. ompromising of -- compromising of academic education. the lack of viewpoint diversity. the phenomenon of trying to win debates by labeling other people haters. t -- bigots or those pathologies are undeniable. they exist. they are very widespread. many people in the academy across the political spectrum not only recognize them but recognize that they present an urgent problem and truly a stanford ovost of university recently in a public letter called that threat the threat from within the you

university -- within the university. saying no threat to higher education come interesting outside the universities is the equal of the threat inside the universities stemming from a certain kind of ill liberalism. a lack of viewpoint diversity among faculty and students. a tendency to group think and unwillingness to question established orthodoxies or permit discussions of key issues to go forward. some of you perhaps read the op-ed piece in the "wall street journal" by the self-described left wing president of the university in connecticut calling for of all things not something i personally favor but interesting that he would make the proposal, affirmative action for conservatives. in american higher education. and his reason is the need to have viewpoints across the

spectrum represented for earning to take place. i said i wanted to begin with an expression of gratitude. that's gratitude to my home university, princeton university, which is sponsoring our conference here today. the james madison program is a program of princeton university. this program has flourished at princeton for 17 years now. i'm enormously grateful to my colleagues and to suck skessive presidents at princeton university who have not only permitted our program to live but indeed to flourish. i am now completing my 31st very happy year at princeton university. [applause] mr. george: thank you. perhaps not all my colleagues would cheer, but i would like to think that some would. i entered this university fresh out of graduate school in the fall of 1985, and i was out of

the closet as a questioner, a denier of the local gods. a questioner of the established campus orthodoxies on political and moral questions from the very beginning. ut princeton did not deny me a position at the university because of that. in fact, i was hired. i was granted tenure. i was promoted. i was installed in the chair of jurisprudence and permitted to establish the james madison program in american ideals and institutions. so whatever is to be said about the pathologies afflicting american higher education, whatever we will say, and without claiming my university is or is near perfection, i do feel a profound sense of gratitude, especially in view of what i know people who are far superior to me in their scholarship and ability and

achievements have suffered at other institutions around the country. i think we'll be hearing a bit about that in the presentations. to discuss these vital issues, we have assembled an outstanding panel and i will introduce them all right now in the order in which they will speak. a ph.d. craiutu, graduate of this university, professor of political science at indiana university at bloomington, where he also directs the detocqueville program associated with the political theory and policy aalcy. allen gel zorks one of our nation's most distinguished historians, is director of civil war era studies and professor of history at gettysburg college in pennsylvania. his work on lincoln and the civil war is simply unsurpassed and has been acknowledged for

its excellence with prize after prize, after prize. indeed lincoln prize, after lincoln prize, after lincoln prize. we're delighted to have allen back. he has been a fellow and visiting professor in the madison program here at princeton. zena hits -- hitz, also a ph.d. graduate of our university is a tutor at st. john's college and teaches across the liberal arts there, as all tutors at st. john's college do. she writes in defense of intellectual activity, the pursuit of truth, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake as against the defense of the intellectual life on purely instrumental grounds for economic or political reasons. and she was in 2010-2011 also a visiting fellow at the james madison program. and then finally the

distinguished scholar in whose honor we have convened this nference, leon kass, the scholar at the american enterprise institute and professor emeritus in the committee on social thought at the university of chicago. leon will bat cleanup. i will first recognize professor aurelian craiutu. be mr. craiutu: i'm very honored to be on this panel. thanks for inviting me to join the other panelists. since its lace lathe in the day and gone through several passengers, i thought i should entertain you with a nice story which has a theoretical part and a juicier part which is the second part. every spring semester like many in the audience i teach justice on liberty which is a book that defends vigorously freedom of

thought and freedom of speech against the tyranny of public opinion and undo government interference. this is one of the books that should be on the mandatory reading list for all those who care about liberal education and can still read. i should add the complex 19th century sentences written for 19th century leaders, our students today i'm not so sure can master that amplet in this wonderful book we're reminded we should listen to those who disagree with us and give us, the readers in the 21st century, a few compelling reasons for doing so. first, he tells us that our opponents are invaluable because they can sharpen our arguments and can point out possible flaws in our own arguments, claims, or beliefs. second, he reminds us of the peculiar quote evil of silencing the expression of any opinion by doing so he warns us we rob the

existing generation as well as posterity in general of the opportunity to test their beliefs and correct them if necessary. and this is what he writes, if the opinion is write, he wrote, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth. if wrong, they lose the clearer perception and livelyier impression of truth produced by he collision with error. moreover, we can never be really sure that the opinion that we're endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion. and quote, even if we were sure that, he added, stifling it would be an evil steal. this is because all silencing of dissenting or allegedly disturbing or threatening views is an arrogant assumption of infallibility on our part. and a failure to take any precautions against our own fal

usual views. a failure to take precautions against our own fality. on liberty, as you well know, is widely taught in our universities today and here at princeton university as well. and many of our colleagues seem to like the ideas of the book in theory. but what about applying them into practice, i would ask? do they still guide themselves by mills' recommendations? do they live up to the recommendations? i don't want to imply anything and i do not pretend that these are rhetorical questions. i do not pretend that. what i would like to do is to answer them by telling you a small storery, hopefully a relevant one for the panel on liberal education. it is about the recent lecture given by charles murray from the american enterprise institute on april 11 at indiana university in bloomington a month after the now unfortunately famous lecture he had previously tried to give

and had successfully given in the end at middlebury college where the person who invited him was beaten and suffered a concussion. the middlebury event is well-known and has been widely discussed in the media. the bloomington lecture is less known, but i think it can teach us something important about liberal education today. in particular, about free speech and pluralism and disagreement. i think it also -- it can also remind us that taking free speech, disagreement, and pluralism seriously is not such an easy task as they would want us to believe. quite the contrary, i'm afraid. murray was invited so here are the few details. he was invited to speak in bloomington about the 2016 elections as the author of coming apart, a book that he published sh published in 2012. the invitation was extended by a small group of students, two students to be precise, that formed a very small american

enterprise institute chapter on campus, an informal group not registered with the university on the bloomington campus. the main sponsor of the talk was the american enterprise institute and the small program that i have the honor of directing at indiana chose to co-sponsor it without offering a monetary compensation. the reason for doing so is that this past semester like everyone else in the country we have struggled to come to terns and to -- terms and to understand the results of the 2016 elections. to this effect in collaboration with the provost office and sernts on representative government led by the former representative lee hamilton, we have organized a series of lectures and round tables that sought to shed light on the increasing ideological polarization in our society and now campuses. we began in february with bill kristol, who was here earlier, who spoke about american politics in the age of trump.

yes, he did mention that name during his talk. next, we organized a round table on of all things civility in moderation with a group of philosophers and political theorists. and we thought that a discussion of charles murray's ideas from coming apart would be a good fit for our series since his 2012 analysis highlighted several events that led to the vicktry of donald trump in 2016. murray caught indeed early on a zite guys, speed of the age that others seem to have missed and seems to have been exploited rerentlessly -- relentlessly by the media. this year he's been invited to speak on many campuses from middlebury to columbia and we're happy to work with students again, the two very brave students, to join our efforts and bring him to bloomington for free.

we had no doubt that the controversial nature of his previous work, the bell curve, described by his critics as would and misogynist bring strong points. there were claims linging success to cognitive intelligence or possible link between them and race and genetics. some judged this claim to be plausible if still controversial. others accused it of racism. but few if any of the serious academic critics treated it as hate speech. worthy of being censored. maybe worthy of being discarded but certainly worthedy of being discussed. it was seen as a claim based on data, perhaps true, perhaps false, which must be taken into account and verified for their accuracy. yet we invited murray to speak not about the bell curve but

about the coming apart. this is what really interested us. while we were concerned about all that, we were also aware that major scholars on the left, and as colonel west, roberto unger at harvard had been teaching this semester, coming apart. the book that interest us at harvard university this semester, this was one of the only five books on the required reading for their course on american democracy. i checked. there were only five. along with of course, democracy in america. the next american nation, democracy matters, and the left alternative, and unger and west, the future of american progressivism. and coming apart by charles murray. so we thought if harvard's people can digest charles murray's coming apart, so should people in the middle of the country could do it.

furthermore, only a couple of weeks before murray's talk at indiana, in the same room where he spoke in the beautifully furnished president's hall, "washington post" columnist deon urged our students to try to understand and listen to those whose values they do not share generally. he called especially on his friends on the left to try to develop empathy for cause that is might have motivated people to vote for donald trump on the right. there's too much elitism, he suggested, that divides the country into bubbles. think or thin. and prevents understanding dialogue and debate. it is time to end this elitism and treat the middle america as something other than the flyover country between the two coasts. between new york and l.a. and now follow the juicy details you have been waiting for. the announcements of murray's lectures was met with strong criticism and dismay by most

faculty members and greater students. a good number were in humanities and i should add in the english department. the critics implied that merely listening to a controversial speaker like murray would amount to endorsing his views. that is according to them racist views and miss songnies views that can have no place on any discussion on campus. an open letter, always an open letter so that more people can sign it, was drafted at the initiative of two students from my own department that challenged exercise their right to free speech, which is wonderful, and challenged the university's decision to offer a platform to an allegedly racist writer and promoter of white nationalism. the signatories of the letter, more than 100 last time i checked, perhaps 200 by now, believed that providing a platform to charles murray was unwise. here are their words, and i beg you to pay attention to that. i quote, we're strong believers

in academic freedom and speech. we do not advocate for blanket censorship of controversial views by state institutions nor by private actors. for that reason we respect the right of charles murray sponsors, i.e. myself and others, to extend to him an invitation to speak at indiana university. at the same time, public universities and institutions within them also have a responsibility tookt judicial when providing venues for speakers, particularly in the present climate of racial tension. in this case, we believe that providing a platform to charles murray is highly irresponsible and detrimental to our university community. and in a perfect logic, after declaring its commitment to free speech, the open letter asked the university to disinvite charles murray. it was followed by questions about the legality of the invitations, which hi to answer at the request of the chairman

of the faculty counsell and a complaint was blodged with the bloomington faculty council. a few wanted to know about the format of the lecture claiming it was inappropriate since it did not allow for a debate or question and answer period. it did have a question and answer here as you'll see in a moment. others claimed that charles murray's scholarship was shabby, reprehensible and frankly loathsome and he was a charlton or provocateur, something like anne coal tore. the implication was his place was not in an academic setting a. respectable one like bloomington, in spite of the fact that murray earned his ph.d. from m.i.t. and authored more than 10 books today, to be precise 12. and some of which were published by major presses. even murray's latest work coming apart they blamed builds upon the same discredited evidence discussed and used in "the bell curve." a >> others spoke with indignation

about the damaging decisions to invite to campus an author who promoted hate speech or incited albeit vie variously to hate crimes and who discredited i.u. and my own department. his despicable ideas do not deserve to be debated because they are racist, sexist, demeaning women, and threatening in general. if you think i'm exaggerating. let's listen to what they actually said. murray' views are not just one side of an interesting debate. they are vial and wrong, someone wrote. they are also being indorsed and disseminated in some form from the highest office in the country right now and from many members of the congress. it is an intimidating and frightening environment for many of us in this speaker brings that chilling effect home. a student actually said this. i am for free speech but i am against giving people platforms to speak whose work isn't up to

the academic expectation of indiana university. plus it's hate speech, she said. indiana lecture was not canceled, as the signatories asked the provost to do and the provost backed us and went on with massive police protection offered by the police department of my university. they worked very hard to make sure that the violence that had previously occurred at middlebury would not be repeated at indiana, and it was not. the venue for the talk was carefully selected and the number of free tickets distributed was limited to 150, which did not prevent the protestors to acguire about 80 tickets and burn them so the room was only 2/3 fool. the protestors mobilized and they had the right to do so to express their disagreement. they encouraged students to get their tickets, as i said, and burn them afterwards so the room would be close to empty. so out of 150, we filled about

80 seats. outside the lecture hall mobilized by the english graduate solidarity coalition, students exercised their right to free speech. they shouted slogans like charles murray go away, and there was an even better one, forgive me, funk, charles murray. what we really need to do is to make charles murray irrelevant again like he's always been. another claimed she was not interested in listening to someone who would normalize white supremacy. you shouldn't give him a platform and i won't listen. quote-unquote. one man banked on a -- banged on a metal pot outside the lecture room and made a big noise. the noise was audible inside the room. distracting the speaker at times. while the professors were voicing their -- protestors were voicing their opposition outside. inside we discussed some of the reasons why white american in the middle of the country voted for trump. murray brought up a few issues

such as inequality that should have been of interest his critics on the left. he invited his audience to take his famous bubble quiz, which i invited, going the bubble quiz news hour, to take torques see how thick or thin your bubble is. i did take it and i have to shamefully confess that nigh minumber is very low, 12, so my bubble is very thick. he also talked about exclusive zip codes in which people live and how they contribute to the fragmentation of america. murray's 30-minute lecture was followed by 30 minute discussion, moderated by a brave undergraduate, one of the two who had the courage to invite murray. each was given a pen and paper and invited to ask quea. there was no censorship, only an uninhabited conversation, punctuated by touches of humor and the banging on the metal tin outside of the room. not everyone agreed with murray.

and i must say i'm not necessarily in agreement with him, either, but the questions and answers were civil and constructive. murray turned out to espouse centrist view, believe it or no. as it was demonstrated by an article published in the "new york times." the conservatives must have been surprised by his guaranteed universal basic incomes. one tense moment occurred after the conclusion of the lecture when it was time for murray to exit the building. no fewer than 12 police cars were parked behind the building, une but even with that it wasn't easy for the police to escort murray out of the lecture building. protestors had to be removed off the ground. in the end no one was arrested and no significant violence. indiana did better than middlebury. the only unpleasant thing was after the lecture my office door was vandalized by a group, entitled, students against iolence.

they painted an anti-racist message on the door that said no complicity with racism that my daughter has been very keen to see, but they deleted it. they cleaned it. and glued the lock, which is the new technique, with super glue. they also posted a post online that claimed the event. so we can could all know who they are. it was anonymous, however. i also received threat you calls on my office phone after which the police disconnected it and my department assigned me a new undisclosed temporary office. the fact i published two books on moderation of all things counted for nothing in the eyes of the protestors and some my colleagues who criticized me for my role in co-sponsoring murray's lecture. i was declared guilty by them because i tooded food for free speech and pluralism of ideas. i did nothing heroic. i lived in communist romania for

27 years of my life so i felt i could stand up for free speech in a free country. i was accused of complicity with his views simply because along with others i was instrumental in organizing a public lecture that discussed the fragmentation of our society and proposed a few remedies for our social problems. i was declared guilty of tarnishing the reputation by completion who never read a single page of murray and never attended a single event organized by the detocqueville program. we brought people from the left and right. we brought other people, jonathan israel, bill kristol, and others. here's the interesting thing for our panel. murray's lectures destined our commitment to free speech and anne show many of us believe in free speech only if they agree with their positions. they are ready to censor views with which they disagree and

find deplorable, dangerous, or demeaning. they are ready to silence ideas that they find dangerous and that threaten their safe bubbles. and they are ready to discuss stability and engage in which hunts against -- witch-hunts against those who they find disagreeable. one said i be denied a pay raise for 10 years for having invited murray. if some my colleagues failed the free speech test, i was pleased to discover that my undergraduates passed it with flying colors. that's the reason of hope for us today. a sophomore studying law and public policy said this, i can't create effective policy if i refuse to read and listen to opinions of people i disagree with. another one, my student, it was an interesting contrast. dr. murray nuanced analysis of america's kohl tur divergency inside the building versus the protestors uninformed, and

intelligent intellectual chance reverberating outside. the members of the outside community also passed the free speech test when asked by the local people whether are you right to invite murry. they all agreed, yes, it was right to do so. but murray's lecture did much more than show free speech on campus. while disagreement is normal and inevident nibble our open societies, it must be accompanied by relines on real facts, balance, moderation, and civility. it reminded us we should never think ourselves as infal usual, moral authorities entitled to exclude those who disagree with us. that we're never allowed to pigeonhole people. call names. we should avoid seeing the world in black and white. we should never make any pronouncements before we get all our facts available right. examining them critically and listen to different interpretations. that's why i think as mill put

it, dirty habit of correcting and completing our own opinions by collecting them with all others should be a habit that we should cultivate in our liberal arts education. we should listen to everything that could be brought against our position and this is the only way you can be sure our positions are right. and mill said this, if opponents of all important truth do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skillful devil's advocate can conjure up. as you any cannonization after new state there is a devil's advocate procedure. i think we should apply that in our universities as well. these wise words were written 150 years ago at what would mills say if he were alive today. what he would have said about this. he would i'm pretty sure encourage our administrators to make chapter 2 of liberty mandatory reading for all

incoming students and existing faculty. that's beyond doubt. he would also have been keptical of recent calls for trigger warning and safe spaces. such spaces do not exist and cannot exist and we should not try to create them artificially on our campuses. when we suppress speech, we disagree w. we become less able to defend freedom and our own views. our democracy and liberal education should not allow us to pick and choose which viewpoints and ideas we're allowed to hear. we should not merely tolerate views with which we find ourselves in disagreement. our academic community depends on vibrant engagement with ideas and especially with ideas and viewpoints which we think for better or worse are wrong, flawed, or dangerous. that free engagement reminds us at the very heart of liberal education and we should honor it if we profess to serve liberal education. thank you very much. [applause]

ms. hitz: i also want to offer my thanks to the madison staff. to robby, brad, betsy for organizing this wonderful conference. i'm honored to be part of this panel and especially happy to be celebrating leon cass, who models in so many ways what it means to be a teach of liberal arts. so i want to admit that since i returned to teach at st. john's college a couple years ago, it's also where i was an undergraduate that's why i say return, i have been sometimes overwhelmed by a sense of my own inadequacy to follow in the work of my teachers. and this might seem like awkward oversharing, but i think it's interesting for a couple reasons that's why i bring it up.

on the one hand i think the sense of inadequatecy is sort of an outgrowth of my enormous gratitude for my education and to all of the teachers who made it possible and leon was one briefly as a graduate student and others are present. and i can formulate this gratitude in the following way. i arrived at st. john's as a 17-year-old. and i was met where i was with all of my moral, intellectual, and personal defects. and offered on a kind of trust the awesome responsibility for a serious and free inquiry. and for a life of that kind. that's the source of my gratitude. now, st. john's like many colleges operate in a kind of tradition of democratic liberal arts through the great books,

and one of the benefits about 100 years old, it draws on older traditions, but the specific democratic space part of it is about 100 years old, one of the benefits of a tradition is that an individual does not need to rely on his or her own talents, reinvent the wheel in each classroom or speaking at each conference, but can rely on the habits and structures that are passed on from those who have taught and learned before us. so in these brief remarks, and i will be brief, i want to try to articulate as best i can the type of learning i think is currently threatened with something like extinction. to be clear i think there's a general way in which liberal education is being pushed into the margins, and shrink in airous ways -- in various ways.

i think shrinking movement, this contraction, threatens two special and dear to my heart aspects of it. i'm going to refer to these as the breast of liberal arts education, they be extended to anyone and everyone, and the depths of liberal arts education, that is that it goes to the deepest heart of what it means to be a human being. so first some account that the breadth of liberal arts education. the education i received as an undergraduate and which i now try to pass on to my students assumes that a student is an adult. capable of taking responsibility for his or her own learning. and also so on the one hand assumes responsibility, on the other hand, that the student is naturally motivated or even driven from within to pursue fundamental questions in a serious way. that's my contrast with viewing

a student as the potential subject of correct opinions or consumer whose experience must be constantly managed. these are other images of the student implicit in some of our educational practices. no, by contrast we assume this responsibility and this motivation. this motivation and responsibility that are assumed or offered on trust, they are not necessarily rooted in intellectual aptitude. they are not rooted in being achievement oriented or a future leader. they are not rooted in being be male or white or conservative or christian or american. it is a human responsibility and a human motivation. it is on the grounds of our common humanity that we gather in our little classrooms at st. john's and elsewhere to discuss

philosophy, literature, mystery, or math and science in fundamental ways. it is on the grounds of our common humanity that we're able to have real conversations regardless of our ethnic or national backgrounds. regardless of our sex or genter identity. regardless of our political outlook, religious background, or lack of one. an education in the common pursuit, that is the shared and collaborative pursuit, of fundamental questions is something a human being needs, desires, and flourishes under. it prepares a liberal education like this prepares many people or lucrative and prestigious careers. it prepares more people for nault and imaginative modes of reflex and ways of being even in the midst of disappointment and abject failure. it does not build the bridges in an artificial way between disparate groups.

it reveals common ground. like all serious work with others, especially others different from us, it breaks through or shatters our imagined superiority to others. that's my account of the breadth of liberal arts education as is currently threatened. to see something about what i mean by the depth of it it will help to look at. so things that are threatening liberal education. liberal education is threatened among 10 million things you could say, i'm going to focus on a couple, by a shortsighted concern with immediate economic payoff. this relies on two false assumptions. one that contributing to the economy is the point of human life. not a point but the point. and secondly, that broader forms of human excellence of mind and imagination have no economic

value. that's the second false assumption. liberal education is also threatened by the politicizing of everything. the best desperate attempt to feel that somehow our intellectual work ought to produce social and political results. that otherwise is useless or pointless or self-indulgent. both of these threats, that is both economic anti-political -- and the political, result from seeing the value of human beings exclusively as a matter of social and economic worth. this means on the one hand that we diminish or ignore the dignity of the human being. the sense that a human being has value beyond any social, economic, or political purpose. on the other hand, and this point is in honor of leon, without the liberal arts, we're abandoned to the realm of fantasy where human beings operate without limitations.

that is to say, i think we overvalue social and political goods in part because we imagine we're capable of a total transformation of political and social life. we imagine we have the fantasy that through economic politics and social science we can overcome the inherent shortcomings of human life or human life with others. as i have indicated, i don't believe that the liberal arts are justified by their contribution to citizenship and political life. i think they are justified by what they do for human beings as such. nonetheless, i do believe that the loss of the liberal arts' described them in their depths and in their breadth will hasten the eroding of our political community. in part because healthy politics allows that there are things beyond politics. but it is also because without common ground, without common

durel, common activities in which -- culture, common tivities in which we honor others and work with them, without these things we're eaten alive by our differences. i don't think anyone can doubt that some such movement of being eaten alive by our differences is already under way and manifest in our common life. if all this is right, it is a matter of enormous urgency to fight, preserve, and promote the liberal arts in their depths and in their breadth. it is, i think, an urgency at the moment beyond other political and social urgencies. but if my remarks are on right track is also suggests something as to how we might fight for the liberal arts. that is not fighting for them as whites, as conservatives, as christians, but fighting from common ground, the common ground

revealed by these types of studies. so we must reach out to people that are different from us, politically and religiously, especially who value this mode of education, and there are many such people. i think we all know. and we should fight, i think, or our mixed institutions, our politically and religiously mixed institutions. in other words, our secular institutions, especially. because it's in these institutions that the human character of this kind of education is revealed in a special way. that is it's general -- it's general character, it's human character. and only in such i.n.s. tukeses where anyone and anyone might turn up and be met where they were that the bonds of common culture might be forged that are -- our political communities so desperately need. those are my remarks. thank you. [applause]

mr. guelzo: there was a concrete mason in the neighborhood who was well-known for his love of children who, on occasion, he was out doing some repairs to his front sidewalk, poured new concrete, did a very fine job of it, until some children came along and began playing in it. greatly upset him. he lost it completely. yelling at them. you kids get off my concrete. people were puzzled by this. we thought you loved children so much. he said i do.

but in the abtract -- abstract. ot the concrete. i want to talk for a few minutes about the concrete. cause as our first two speaksers have manifestly indicated, these are not happy times in liberate arts education. let me -- liberal arts education. let me draw your attention to few aspects of that which belong more in the concrete than the abstract. one is management of finances. the income figures on american colleges and universities the previous financial year were down 2%. his while the market rose 13%.

out of the 40 biggest endowments of american colleges and universities, 35 of them eclined. four in 10 private colleges and three in 10 public colleges or universities missed their nrollment and tuition goals. moodies investors services expects that the closure rate of small colleges will triple by the end of this year. these problems are entirely aside from the abysmal press generated by student and faculty behavior such as we have heard about today. the ny minds of americans,

face of american higher education has become that of patricia click at the university of missouri. face contorted with anger calling to silence inquirery. but -- inquiry. but it is a pattern repeated at yale, claremont, berkeley, middle burrry, and most recently at bethune-cookman and notre dame. it reinforces the perception that these institutions inhabit b habit a kind of cloud coo coo land. that these colleges and universities have become lands of hoax as in the example most recently of st. olaf's college in which all boundaries between reality and fantasy have disappeared. yet almost nothing happens to

change this. spiral evertinue to upward, as do fees. and room and board. there is a continued pressure and demand for access to these very same institutions. generated by the perception that college is still the ticket, perhaps the only remaining ticket, to middle class success and comfort. and there is a diminishing sense of accountability. diminishing because for one thing colleges are increasingly managed by insular professional bureaucracies who answer to no one. oh, yes, there are faculty meetings. oh, yes, there are faculty committees. oh, yes, there are faculty consultations.

they amount in many contexts to little more than high school student counsel. these bureaucracies are themselves unwilling to hallenge faculty or students because they are in large measure composed of upwardly mobile careerists whose chief goal in life is to keep their noses clean. and lastly, faculty also share responsibility for the diminishing of accountability. as faculties and especially faculty departments develop into self-sealing tanks of critical liberal specially in arts departments, the acting out of rage at their own cultural unimportance becomes the most

significant public activity. the liberal arts might be the key to renewal. in these institutions. for in the liberal arts historically considered, we possess a treasury of wisdom and theue which reaches back to classical past, back, in fact, .o the law codes of moses forward to the literature of the naissance, to the conviction of the reformation, to the enlightenment of the 18th century. there are deep wells of reflection available for

renewal. and indeed they can act that way for, as dr. johnson reminded us, when cultures or polities depart or break down the answer to that departure and that break down is to reoccur to first principles. that is the source of renewal. and it is in the liberal arts that we find that deep bank of irst principles. but these have not been working for us. they have not been performing the work of renewal for 150 years. why? in? -- why? one is because of the dominance of the evolutionary trope which

is, in fact, the fundamental trope that defines our culture today. what i mean by that is that in and within the evolutionary trope there are no first principles to reoccur to. there is only ceaseless change or ut point, direction, tailofs. change which we're obliged to adapt to or perish. it is no wonder that the decline of the influence of liberal arts education begins with the rise of the evolutionary trope. and which is demonstrated most signally at harvard in the decade after the civil war. and which then from there set the pattern for the rest of american higher education.

that pattern, and this is the second reason why the liberal arts have failed to act as a source of renewal, is because of the adoption across american higher education of the ger ic model of -- german mass institutions in service to the state. mass institutions dominated by professional vocational educational goals and instruction. and promoted in the name of efficiency. first by the state bureaucracies of the 19th century, but also in the american context by progressives for whom efficiency was the name of the social and political game. nen the third reason why the liberal -- then the third reason eighty liberal arts have not

been successful in producing renewal, is the assertion in the name of that efficiency and as a function of those bureaucracies of governmental oversight. into the smallest aspects of college life. we're most likely today to think of that kind of intervention in the terms of title 9 letters, that at least has been the most sensational aspect of them, but they really extend much earlier and to much more, shall we say, small scale points. i remember particularly in 2011 when we were notified by means of a dear colleague letter from the department of education that we were now obliged to offer a fourth hour. the idea of course had been that n a college curriculum courses

generally offered as three credit hours. however, the department of education had grown anxious that these three credit hours were not entailing any other kind of academic effort, so the mandate went forth that we should be obliged to document a fourth hour composed of who knows what. when i was first apprised of this by the provost at our college, i was have to admit a little uncharitably on my part i thought perhaps he was suffering from a bit of over anxiety. but when i correspondented with the president of the american association of university professors, he assured me that yes, in fact, this mandate was being sent out quite broadly. i don't know that it's been enforced quite vigorously, but the idea that a single bureaucratic letter emit interested the department of education could completely --

emitted from the department of education could completely rewrite the expectations and sill bus is staggering and yet there it is because in large measure whether we call ourselves public or private institutions none of us could survive without public funding and public furneding can be removed cue -- funding can be removed quite easily and readily. that threat, not the reality of it, just the threat alone, is sufficient to send administrators fleaing -- fleeing in the direction of faculty with memos and directives. the result has been that the liberal arts have been made into an entertainment apen damage -- appendage to college and university curriculums. oh, yes, there is still an english major.

there is still a history major. there is still other majors that we define as the liberal arts, but they are there on suffrage rather than because there is a recognition that they provide a significant aspect of our cultural life. they are the entertainment that is provided to a college education. liberal arts, faculties themselves cooperate in their own humiliation by attempting to i am tate -- imitate scientific professionalism and thus become de facto vocational exercises themselves. english departments cease to see their mission as the training of a lit ral -- literate graduating body and see themselves as the training of english professors

getting ready for graduate school. history departments, do not see themselves as providing an education in depth concerning human past, but as training we deplore the vocational is asian of education, but then liberal arts departments and turn around and do exactly the same thing in imitation. and the result is often that we become collections of self-perpetuating societies, furious at our own self marginalization and happy to seek ways of tweaking the noses of the culture at large. can this change?

can liberal arts teachers, departments, and programs resume their role of cultural renewal? perhaps, but here are some of the things that i think must happen. we must separate liberal arts education from vocational studies. we must admit that that was a mistake, an institutional mistake, made in the 19th century. this does not mean that liberal arts institutions thus separated out will be besieged by hordes of willing applicants, but that is a price that we will have to pay. we need, secondly, to transfer

the hiring of faculty members out of faculty departments. i am not sure this is an alternative that will produce a positive result because if they pass in the hands of bureaucrats, the results may be worse. but i do know that what we have now as the present regime of hiring tends only to self- perpetuation and navel-gazing. the third thing is that new or newly configured liberal arts programs and institutions must link themselves to existing agencies outside academe to ensure accountability. now, the great question, of course, is, will this happen? for it to happen, we must

overcome three major obstacles. one is public incredulity. renewal of the culture is not what customers of public or private colleges and universities want today. that is not why students come to colleges and universities, to tell them that what they are being educated for his cultural renewal will draw in most instances the blank asked upstairs. secondly, there will be professional resistance, because this arrangement of liberal arts education is not what faculties are acculturated to expect, either by their own training or by the lives within their guilds.

thirdly, as a barrier, we must admit that this kind of reconfiguration is not what outside agencies are prepared to pay for, to their shame. what will happen then? i expect at least three things. one is that we shall see over the next several years the continued trend of mergers and closures. this, of course, has already begun. we have seen some very significant examples of this. more significant examples are coming. we will see, secondly, further government intrusion. sometimes it will be well intentioned, intrusion designed to reverse the course of previous intrusions, but it

still will be operating on the basis and the assumption that the intrusion is justified and legitimate. and i expect that what will happen will be more alienation, more vocationalism. do we believe in this thing called the liberal arts? do we believe that we live by more than bread alone? do we believe that the stories we have told ourselves from the days of the ringing plains of windy troy, are we really great spirits to follow knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost

bard of human thought? only if we are will we see such renewal. will the tide and ill consequences be reversed, and will we be able to move into broader, sunnier uplands of truth and wisdom? thank you very much. [applause] >> these are really wonderful presentations. i had a very long say yesterday and my orders were that i would join panel not with prepared remarks, but to offer comments and in the interest of having a full discussion back and forth. i do not want to join the party

of dismay and particularly pick up on the evils of that we are facing. i think the first presentation -- the first and the last presentation presented, i think a diagnosis, very powerful diagnosis that my own spirit as you will see is more aligned with xena's, but i have one insight on the question of the current crisis about speech. the university of chicago, where i spent most of my teaching career, has been a pretty good place in these respects. president zimmer had a good -- fine statement in defense of freedom of speech, though he couldn't quite bring

quite bring himself to say its ultimate justification was that it was necessary for the pursuit of the truth. the climate of the university of chicago is based and knowledge creation, and why you need freedom of speech to create knowledge i am not quite sure. but still, the climate is better than in most places, though i have to say the usual suspects on the faculty protested the letter that the dean of students sent the students, and there has been a lot of pushback from the faculty and from a lot of the students who think certain opinions are beyond pale. a faculty committee was appointed to establish principles and procedures for disruptions of discourse on campus. and the committee has recently reported, and in fact i think the faculty senate is debating today these recommendations. statement was quite good, quite good. there was the obligatory

paragraph about the importance of civility and respect, etc., this on the way to defend unpopular opinions, and then there was a sentence -- it went something like this. a restrictive, hostile, and unwelcoming environment is bad for learning or bad for the community, and then the parallel, whereas a rich -- opposite of restrictive in the sense of narrow -- friendly, opposite to hostile, and what do you think you found in place of unwelcoming? what? [indiscernible] inclusive. instead of welcoming, to which you would say all opinions are

welcome, the current thinking is the opinions belong to people because they belong to groups, and the groups have to have their opinions included. and the consequence of this -- i had a kind of illumination here. if that is what you think is the basis of people's opinions, then it is perfectly clear why you cannot attack somebody's opinion because the attack on their opinion is to be understood as an attack on their identity. and this is in a way the legacy of a kind of tribalist thinking about the university and its student body, which it is partly the culture, it is partly the

government intrusions here, but it is going to be very hard to produce a kind of climate in the university which sees itself as a group of truth seekers if in fact we have adopted the post- modern view that the truth is a social creation and each group is entitled to live by their own, and god forbid you should attack somebody's truth because it is by definition, disrespectful of their person and their being. that i think is worth calling attention to and paying some attention to. second point i would make is i think the politicization of the areersity and its causes up oversubscribed. one cause among the students which is not sufficiently commented on, there is nothing going on for those students that feeds their souls and to which

they can give their passions. and, therefore, into that void, come all of the controversies of the day and they take over. if one had a campus where what was going on in the classroom was in fact meaningful to students, about the things that matter to them, they would be much less seduction into these kinds of controversies, and the english department faculty could do what it wants. but the students would go to the places where they could read the books that mattered to them. so i think this is on the way to the third point, which is to say, yes, we can complain about the politicization of the university, but the problem is with what we are offering. and professor grasso has given a wonderful but very depressing

analysis of why we are in that circumstance. and here i would like to take a small difference with him. i am not sure that the way to describe what one wants, at least today in liberal education, should be put in terms of renewal of a culture or the handing-down of the treasures of our heritage. i think, given where we are today, the starting point should interestingly be just intrusively be the enduring questions of young people starting out in life, to find them where they are rather than to try to hand them something to begin with that they do not know that they need or want.

to begin really with -- and i mean really begin, i am not talking about degree granting programs but initiation to a college experience in which, even if a small collection of faculty members say we designed the following introductory course for freshmen, take it if you would like. and the question of the course might be for openers, what is a good human being and a good citizen? and you do not simply ask their opinions but you put forward a series of texts to agitate that question, and by the end of the year they will have met in literature a collection of exemplary individuals from achilles and odysseus to socrates to moses to jesus to huck finn. you go through -- you present

you go through -- you present readings which put the the readings which put the alternatives before them and you proceed not so much to know about these books from the outside, but to use these books to think with about questions will that you can legitimate for the students because you know in a way they really are interested. in they have just left home, they are joining the big world, they have been filled with all kind of nonsense. the opinions they have are superficial and skimpy, but if you treat them as if they really care about they things that the things they ought to care about and ask them the questions you suspect they would like to have asked and you discuss the books in the spirit of which you would like those questions pursued, then you are treating them not so much as heirs of a tradition but in the spirit in which xena spoke, that you are guessing as

young adults with a lifetime before them and probably not very far away from the big questions, including questions about love and marriage, including questions about the nature of citizenship, freedom, justice, about war and peace, you can create the kinds of courses by totally ignoring what is going on around you, do not argue with them, present the alternatives, and certainly in our experience in chicago, you built it and they come. and we even produced a kind of

undergraduate major -- we used the great books, but the fundamental thing was a question, not understood as a verbal interrogative but a species of desire and which one wants to know but does not know and is willing to invest the effort to pursue that question. and i think -- it might have been a time when a different way was appropriate, but i think now if one is going to catch these young people before they are in a way corrupted by the vocationalism of the university, show them that this can be a safe place in the true sense, namely a place where the things that are dearest to their heart can be discussed openly, in a climate of respect, searching, and with a kind of sense that all of us, even if we are going to wind up disagreeing, are fundamentally interested in something called a truer and better understanding of the

indispensable to our humanity. i do not know whether we could started up again. you build up these programs and you leave, and the terms like times rush and everything to waste, you build it up and they tear it down. but i think for people to care about these things, fight the battles in public, make sure people will come to your campuses can speak, that the real work is to find a couple of partners where you are located on a campus and try to ask yourself, how could we enlist these young people at the start and what would be an enlightening in the deep and broader sense that what they want up doing and the rest of their careers will be vastly enriching to their life?

how much of a change one can bring about this way? i am not hopeful. i do not see, given the grip of the current way of teaching these things has on the curriculum, i don't see any other way unless one lines up st. john's or the university of dallas or thomas aquinas some of these other places where the faculty has actually asked itself the question, which is to say no one asks the question, what do we think these young people need to know to venture into the world? if you cannot get the institution to do that, find a couple colleagues and do it and do a few things. and i suspect that these things will be popular and it will begin to make a stir and a ripple in the surroundings. [applause]

>> we will now move to q&a. leon, i want to say that i think your statment is indeed an epiphany. the statement we put out entitled "freedom of expression, democracy, and truth seeking," there was a sentence in which we said that for liberal learning to take place, people need to be willing to expose themselves to challenge, to have challenged their deepest, most cherished,

and we added the words "even identify-forming beliefs," unless people are willing to do that, unless they know that is the essence of liberal learning they will experience criticism of their ideas or opinions or beliefs as personal attacks on them. and then that blocks the enterprise of education right at the beginning. you never get the horse out of the starting point. it cannot proceed unless students and faculty members, unless there is an ethos in the institution that communicates to everyone concerned the understanding that part of the exercise here, central to the exercise here is challenging even our deepest, most cherished identity-forming beliefs. and that comes out of the concrete experience, not just an

idea that cornell and i came up with. it came out of our concrete experience of doing exactly what you recommended, the two of us deciding we are going to teach a course together in which we asked the great questions and enlist the assistance of the great writers, from sophocles and plato and st. augustine up to c.s. lewis and martin luther king. ask the great questions, and enlist the assistance of the great thinkers in the enterprise which will be an enterprise in which we subject each other's opinions and arguments to scrutiny, we subject our students' arguments to scrutiny, we encourage our students to subject our arguments to scrutiny with in the end goal of each of us becoming our best critic by internalizing the process to the point at which we can do better than any

interlocutor the job of interrogating our own beliefs. and our experience here has been that the effects of that go far beyond a particular classroom in which we have 18 students. in order to make it a seminar we had to limit it to 18, we had to exclude the vast majority of people. and yet our willingness to do that in a very public way sent the very message that i think is at the core of your epiphany. i just want to reinforce what you said to everybody, there is no need to wait around for some external force to act on the universities. we can just decide we are going to do this in our own small way, begin the process of doing it. ok, end of sermon. we have hands up and i first have the pleasure of recognizing

sarah cass. ms. cass: so as some of you may know, i also went into the family business, but in a different way. many years ago, struck by the notion that public schools were in effect designed to prevent education, i joined the then nascent revolution called charter schools and opened the first charter public high school in boston. at the time, anybody in the public educational establishment who saw me or heard of this would, if they saw me cross the street, we were against the tide and now i am happy to say 20 some odd years later, charter schools are not only mainstream, but they have not only performed revolutions for young people, but have been really singularly responsible for attracting talent into the teaching of young people.

and i have to say in listening to this panel, i must say that while i agree with you, robbie and dad, that there are things one can do within existing and institutions, listening to this panel it strikes me that what is called for is a kind of for is a kind of disruption and that just as what we know in the early 1990's was a monopoly of public education for venting the education of young people and we assumed there was a market for a different kind of education. you see their appetite for the kind of real question and thoughtfulness that these institutions of higher learning seem to be categorically preventing, i wonder if there would be a way given the kinds of technologies we have today that do not have to confine learning to the illustrious

places of higher learning, or to walls and all, whether there might be kind of a disruption that would bring the most thoughtful educators to reach that market of desirous young people? and i think the last thing i would add is a point of evidence is that so many of the most talented graduate students end up not going to become professors, but to join think tanks. there was one such think tank that sponsored this talk at your university. institutions are out there that are not necessarily of higher learning, but stand for these principles such deceptions, and ia would like to know what you think about that. spirit of those remarks, and there are a lot of things that could be done outside a formal university setting. it could be a temporary inhnology silicates that ways people who are much more tech savvy, people like adam

ise, will know about that still opaque to me. but i know from my personal experience what a difference within university the creation of programs and institutes that really are based on the model of liberal learning that our panelists are promoting, just what an impact they can have. and there are people here today who are the founders and directors of programs around the country. my guess is there are probably 15 or 20 people here who are .eaders paul with his program at arizona state university. i think those are very important within university. i will give it over to the panelists to cs they have reflections on what may be done outside university, what sort of disruptive work could be done.

to clarify, i was not suggesting -- [indiscernible] i was not suggesting that it's be instant -- that it be instead of. that in fact the institutions of higher learning -- or that liberal education -- >> point taken, and i agree. one thing that i hope supporters of higher education or is -- higher education, financial supporters, one thing i hope they take heart at is it is important not to write off the universities when you see the kinds of things that happen at missouri and at yale and that middlebury, people can become disgusted and give up on the projects. i think that think tanks are doing marvelous work.

we cannot give up on our students. our students are at the university. what supporters of american higher education need to do is willrt initiatives that live up to the highest ideals of liberal learning in universities, while also supporting think tanks and other initiatives outside the universities. any comment? dad, you have a comment? [laughter] >> this might be a generational thing. partly generational in the sense that i am really ignorant and unimaginative about real of theion in education

sort that i care about. it seems to me, yes, you could it seems to me, yes, you could >> i don't think we've come to see the push back. you'll see some closures. the first sign. i'm not sure that this can indefinitely without there being a call for something what weferent from have. i can learn a lot with online.ive things the experience of living learning together and talking half a night about the things you reading and talking during the day and for kind of one on one possibilities to face possibilities that virtual learning just at see, doesn'tcan

makes me think you can find things to do that will help people get more than what they getting. that whole panel for, it's face to face and contact, people knowing student. not only knowing a subject but face ande to read a produce a conversation, not just the professor who's 24 hours a day online but with the the room. what do you think about so and so.

overr great books subscribe. there's a lot of factory who share the vision of liberal arts. have our challenge. i'm sympathetic to the vision here.ted it's related to depth and breath. question of privilege from an institution that has the financial resources to do this. -- it's global humanity. i wonder if any of you have on how a global humanities curriculum might work is this curricular chaos. does it all depend it has to be done. thoughts on global humanities given the comments

beeneferences that have europeans.de towards >> that's for you. >> let me first of all say one thing i was talking with bill crystal this morning. had influx at st. johns as universities have all over the world. especially china and other parts africa.and those students have brought in a vitality enthusiasm and brilliance to this kind of study. sometimes the american students don't have. think in that sense, global humanities makes a lot of sense to me. is, it seems to me there are a lot of people in different parts of the world who are interested in this kind of the study of fundamental its own sake and

looking at the pounce foundation -- foundation of things. in that sense it sounds great. in terms of rounding out the worry,lum, i think the is how it's going to be done. there's all kinds of wonderful rich material from nonwestern cultures that raises these same fundamental questions. implicit what i was saying, these are human questions and not just ours here and now.

you can draw people from the culture to do this with some seriousness. without i think the danger would be that you end up disavowing the human the books if you that you have to include us on a laundry list as many different cultures on your curriculum as possible. that's helpful. me.ertainly helpful to

>> yes there's something valuable in broadening our students horizons. theong as we avoid temptations and superficiality of making mascots out nonwestern thinkers or nonwestern traditions. those of us as you know, who taught in political theory, had islamic, medieval islamic for years. to the great benefit of our students. i think that is a small example one particular field of how this can be done and done well without superficiality and tokenism and so forth. traditions arern concerned, i personally get must admitf a kick i out of exposing my students to on thought of mahatma gandhi

abortion and sexual morality. ony should learn especially what gandhi had to say on issues like that. professor story. ellen. of questions for i have no idea why you be more in the administrative class of the universities than the faculty. yesterday'skind of dragon. faculty.ogical the power i think has shifted decisively. in favor of administration. not sure there's -- i don't there's my more reason for confidence.

too harsh on american vocationalism. i agree with you that we need to remember that the liberal arts free from first place the immediate need to make a living. but we also have to say desire on thehat part of our students because goingeal and it's not anywhere. >> allen. >> perhaps i should say that i'm not at all optimistic of the capacities of the administrative events. reflecting on living with a product of the current of doing things. i don't think that moving away move intois going to

a new area of improvement. there's a problem of self-perpetsituation and exclusion. places.een this in many manyreference to individuals. i have seen many search theittees make decisions on decision we prefer to be made. about academic potential. about a dedication to the life of the mind. political considerations. not so much let's theseomeone who has political -- let's make sure we hasot hire someone who these political convictions.

no recourse that prevents that from happening, then that is what motivates me to say, should we be looking in in terms of how we populate faculties. not mistake me. offer.no guarantee to what do i have is a lifetime of unpleasant experiences watching searchay out in committee after search committee. only an example with prominent ivyery league institution. for positionidate was excluded in terms bordering horror because prior to under graduate education, living in child ofthe missionaries, he had taught

and committed unspeakable act of folly of resume.that on his i was part of another committee people were being considered for program.hip the applicant who was under on the resumeted that they have been the recipient of a grant from the bradley foundation. immediately, protest was registered. we could not have someone like that. fellowshipng in this program. one outite those two as of many more. have a dysfunctional system ourhow we populate

departments. i would consider the floor to be open for suggestions about how isredo. what we do have dysfunctional. >> yes, professor. munoz, notre dame. letting students vote with their feet. been successful. if that's a long term winning strategy. specific question, can real liberal education take the university of captured by modern notion of politicsand identity that are pervasive in the humanity. don't we have to fight that fight directly? minorityy worried by students because these are students that get told their certain identities and

segregated. are very students that get left out of these alternative programs. don't we have to confront that on? >> yes. [laughter] can we propose to do this? do this? propose to towards increase

publicis to begin with practice. public spirited impulse to make it possible for members of the community who do not highere privileges of education. that we might have early inthe road very action programs. the railnly gone off accentuating these kind of by starting special programs, special houses, special dormitories. sorts of things.

anecdote. in chicago when i was a student there, there was history of western civilization. was the capstone course. of of the capstone courses hutchens college, 14 course curriculum. teach, 14 years later. there were alternative courses.ion russian civilization, chinese civilization, south asian civilization. during the early time there, was a proposal -- these were rigorous programs required the languages and culture and so on. veryhere was a proposal early in my time there to start african-american studies

program. with no language requirement. these -- it was denied and this was a black studies program. studiesot a black program, it was a civilization program. i idea ofon is, what civilization do you have that that description that does not come with a study of the ofndational things civilization. i want to complain to the dean. mine.iend of i said why are we doing this? aren't. we don't worry. we're doing this to show solidarity to our black students. taken't expect anybody to it. that's almost 30 years ago. lots of mistakes have been made.

now underon is how the presence circumstances, when administratorry scared to death of being called sexist, homophobe to somehow lead against classification of people by groups, especially when there's this huge pressure to that we have diversity and intellectual diversity. it seems to me the way around -- if you can figure out a way to it, fine. but the alternative is to look students as if they don't have the identities that the asinistrators see them having. but see them as young human beings. which is what the whole idea of pushing for integration in the about.ng was all it's the whole idea of america

is all about. if you got suggestions, if suggestions, he should have them. think it's hard egyptians or ethiopian, were studied. properly.ere studied with the languages. with a serious attention to history. without the superficiality and the token. tern as russian civilization or chinese civilization. wouldn't that be how it's perceived? i'm ambivalent about the circulation study. it's very important to there's different ways in the world to negotiating

about a human being. not have a monopoly on humanity. of thesentroduction nonwestern sources or programs, a way to fix our weaker condition. it wasn't to begin with an attack on the west but was an expansion that nothing that human beings have seriously built is allen to us. it.hould try to understand that still seems right to me. i agree with that. go back to eric's comment, a global literature course? you've got a good book that you helped tole can be understand. put in the course. but it addresses the question the course to talk about. politicale islamic -- philosophers.

note inught i heard a the question that wasn't addressed. maybe i was wrong. aboutk one of my concerns this type of discussion is that variousrd about difficultieties with university student. we forget basic principle with any kind of community. where.e to meet people that.ed to say politicized inme a particular way. person by person, student by student. we have to meet these people where they are. offer them something better

in ar than coming at them spirit of confrontation. that's all i wanted to say. that may have been a misunderstanding of the question. i wanted to put that out there. asked what the other teem people comment -- two people comment on this question. >> it's simple raising a question to be discussed. how seriously should we think among the various might deployat we ofdefense and justification liberal education. how much do we want to suggest that there's a benedict option ast has to be considered well. what brings to my mind.

in fahrenheit 451, in a culture books. there are little bands of people who memorize because they can't page.to the memorize shakespeare. , --o [indiscernible] [laughter] upon bradbury's tale as a cautionary one. offmetimes wonder how for a we are from that. distance.ood is that not a kind of benedict option. saying i'm advocating

that arem suggesting there multiplicities and strategies that we can pursue. of them?ne are there others such as eric as described. others such as john represents. whathere others such as professor kass has described. in our owneach capacity, generate support for endeavors? werean we resist those who silenced thought. to those whopeal what we do.support oft are the multiplicity strategies. if we think of there's one to this. how can we develop the multiplicity of solutions? whether it be think tanks or

be the heroic band. i don't know. we perhaps me that could take intelligent step by identifying what the multiplicity of those possibilities are. of giving a word encouragement direction and thinking through for each of them. >> i wonder why doe with call it multiversity? not if that's the case. the danger implicit of his question, we get offered global education and students will be a variety of options they don't understand. time.k language takes .earning french takes time language is to teach. of everyday to acquire abc putting everything together. in a university. we want to bring the plurality

under the guiding vision of something. the guiding vision is very difficult. mostly is that, this is a global, indiana has global and international studies in case you're wondering. global is not enough. you need to have global and international. the students -- it's like a buffet. chinese buffet. nice. you pick up a little bit here and there and add a little bit food.ian expert.k you're an we lose a sense university. they will not be able to bring whatder the guiding vision essence. enjoyed thish conference and especially this

panel. i with leon, have been persuaded begint's important to where the student is. knowing problem is is.e the student university experience, i'm a university professor. i can teach and have taught the undergraduates, school of medicine, school of public health. areas in thehese undergraduate i was teaching in writing seminar. teaching,lth i was mental disorder and mental health. medical school i was teaching regular psychiatry course. the real issues in helping them was toore broad with find out why they were already

theired by purposefulness. that thing that brought them there. were vocationally committed. seminar, they were vocationally committed to writing. the problem is they couldn't write. you had to teach them the affect andbetween effect. various kinds of things. that, they were all very surprised and very grateful that toebody had taken the time talk about their grammar not simply the broad idea, which is idea most of the time. in the school of medicine, the issue is, i spoke about briefly yesterday, these young people, men and women have struggled very hard to get into the medical school the hurdles are

high. they're now tremendous internal competition with themselves and with their others. ultimately develop a true commitment. of want -- process of wanting to become a doctor. them isrtant thing with stop saying,o please tell me what the answer will be. what the questions will be in exams. i'll memorize the answer. questions.n are big think in terms of what kinds of openness would happen to make you possible to of it.me out in the school of public health as i told you yesterday. withse they're working victims and see people standing

in the way of public health problems as being the enemy and they being the champions. tend to openly fight about the west. they wonder if the west isn't the enemy. means with leon, that i agree, stop where they are. as developmental perspective would then make you realize that be, the problem that we're working with, we're all people, begin too early.

workingd be with sarah with kids in middle school and school. i think john hopkins had a supporting me. john hopkins is doing pretty good. >> are you suggesting that you that are things controversial? [laughter] >> i do think in doing things, you got punching bag -- frantically.

maybe we in the universities in some ofttending our time, some our time to the our school education that kids are getting. i believe our kids are coming to medical school and college without the high school to get.n that we used many of these people -- you can

have those high school teachers you just have another depression. those with were great high teachers. those kinds of causes -- my education in history for example school, was a four year course. at 13 years old, it began sensencient history with of spectacle of history. by the time we've gone through four years. we saw history as process. it as motivation and historynd american course. got you to be prepared for college. now today, we're trying fit teachers in high school and college, are not doing their job. we should attend and

commit more of a high school about how wealk ought to be preparing them for us. [applause] >> we are going to go live now to capitol hill for meeting of internetessional caucus advisory committee to easier rules to make it for foreign police agencies to access social media information citizens. live coverage here on c-span. if -- this caucus is the support of the cochairs from the house side, concentrationman bob goodland and senatorman anna patrick leahy. a couple of housekeeping things before we begin. we are live streaming this event online. audio and video will be

the nete shortly after caucus.org. follow us onto twitter and use the hashtag border warrants. before we begin, we will be our next event balancing privacy security and and fisa 702 this friday at noon in this room. here this see you all friday. without further adieu, i like to this over to cary, she was formally at the department of justice. be moderating this event today. joiningu very much for us. for joiningeryone us today. we welcome our audience of staff members here with us today on capitol hill.

thanks to c-span for bringing wideriscussion to a audience. the congressional internet caucus has assembled a panel of to discuss the legal, policy and privacy issues involved. cross board data request and court order. introduce the panelist. they are full bios are on on the congressional internet caucus website. each of them have experience in academia and civil society and issues related to capitol hill. first to my left is richard downing, who is currently the assistant attorney general in the criminal division of the united states department justice. is jen dascal,t associate professional of law at university. next is