me -- what is important for me is for every child to receive a quality arts education. it gives kids the skills to not understand other ideas, but develop their own voice and interact with different types of people around the world. >> voices from the states on c-span. coming up next on c-span, q&a with political science professor allison stanger followed by washington journal live at 7:00 with your phone calls and a look at today's headlines. ♪ this week on q&a, allison stanger, professor of political science at middlebury college in

vermont is talking about the reaction of students to author charles murray appearing on campus. professor stan charles murray were physically attacked after the attack -- bitterly attacked after the speech. -- physically attacked after the speech. prof. stanger: what happened to me? the story has been retold many times. invited charles murray, rather controversial figure, libertarian scholar, to campus. he wasause they knew controversial, they invited me to ask three or four questions. >> this was back in march? prof. stanger: the event was on march 2 and there was a run-up to the event were tensions rose

and rose that it was ripped -- whipped into a frenzy. some students organized a shutdown of the speech that was successful. we went to a whipped remote loco simulcast the event. that is where you got the incident where i was injured outside the lecture hall. >> middle bury college is where? prof. stanger: middle bury college is in the green mountains of vermont, the champlain valley. in some sense, you can explain the reaction because it is almost a bubble within a bubble. every mobile arts campus is something of a bubble because -- every liberal arts campus is something of a bubble.

the context is important to understand what transpired. >> how many students? 50, sotanger: 20 to fairly small. >> i found the number $63,000 online but said that is what tuition and room and board cost for a year. prof. stanger: we make a real effort to try and make the experience available to as many capable young people as possible. there are significant numbers of students at middle bury on full financial aid, but an enormous amount paid that number. >> with did you get your education? prof. stanger: and that my education in two places. one was a small liberal arts college outside of chicago. i went there for three years and was a math major. i ran out of math classes to take my senior year. requirement that

made me take electives and other topics. and then i transferred. >> your city is what? prof. stanger: fort wayne. >> did you get a masters and then a phd? prof. stanger: i am a living taking some time to figure out exactly what interests you and why. i did an undergraduate degree in mathematics and science. then i did economics. various studies at harvard university, followed by a phd in political science at harvard. this trajectory -- these questions that really have answers about mathematics, to unanswerable questions which come from humanities. i embraced both of those in my

thinking and in my teaching. >> how long have you been at middlebury college? went directly i after graduate school, 25 years. there you at middlebury semester? prof. stanger: no, not the issue because i am on sabbatical. i am a resident at the numeric foundation. >> what does that do? prof. stanger: it is a think tank in washington that will enable me to finish my book provides a great environment for me to do that. >> when you are at middlebury, would you teach? prof. stanger: i'm training international relations, but i have an interest in a variety of fields. american foreign-policy, the political development of western europe. a new course called the politics of virtual realities. i am leaving some things out,

but that covers the main courses. >> what is your view of your relationship with students for these 25 years? prof. stanger: i love my students. and i think they love me back. broker.ing as an honest student groups asked me to interview charles murray, but then two weeks later, interviewed edward snowden. i'm equal opportunity. yeah, i have been very happy at middlebury because i do teaching, research, and writing. but with the teaching, i am absolutely sure at the end of the day that i have made a difference in the world because there is nothing like opening up someone's mind. that is what teaching is all about. did the students protest edward snowden at all? prof. stanger: no. >> why is that, you think? prof. stanger: it is pretty

straightforward. most college campuses are leaning left. and then those terms left and right don't mean anything today, but they are voting democratic. republican scholar is controversial to them. which is unfortunate because the republican party is the other major party and the united what it is.that is is very important, even though my students know i am a democrat, it is all the more important to engage with someone like charles murray because it shows that i agree with free and fair speech. ethnicoked up the population in vermont and found

that there are 2.5% african americans in the state and in the city of middle bury -- in the city -- and in the city middlebury. what does that do for the topic you are discussing? prof. stanger: fairmont is one of the whitest -- vermont is one of the whitest states in the union. and middlebury is bringing in students from a vast array of different backgrounds, students of color. they come to vermont and they feel out of place. an institution has to try to make them feel like this is their institution, too. that is the heart of what is going on here. it is really easy to paint it as a picture of conservatives versus students of color, but really what is taking place is wheree a situation american values are at stake.

and they don't belong to a particular party, or a particular identity group. they belong to all americans. and i think that is at the heart of this issue we are discussing. but i would not want to downplay was expressedat through those protests and through the shutdown because emotions are real and need to be validated, but the most important part is ok, you feel that way, but what do we need to do about it so that it is different? how can we move this forward and make it a better place for you? from my perspective, it is not about shutting down speech, or banning certain speakers from campus. it is about talking together about how we make the environment a place where everybody belongs. >> how often have you met someone who teaches at middlebury who is conservative? prof. stanger: that is -- you

know, it is not that many. >> have you ever met anybody? prof. stanger: oh, of course. and they are some of my great friends because they are so interesting to talk to. i myself at middlebury benefited norma's -- benefited enormously from talking to people there. there were professors you could disagree profoundly, but that interaction was so important for my own personal development that to be available to other people. * charles murray talked about the bell curve. i want to run this. dick and i heard about this and it was one of the cases where he said, yeah, that is a wonderful title. >> what does it mean. bell.looks like a

it is a phenomenon that you see in all kinds of things in nature , whether it is tight, weight, or iq. you get most people in the middle and a few people on each end, and the book is about the people on each end. >> how much did you not about this when he was slated to come to middlebury? prof. stanger: i know about the whole bell curve controversy. symposium that abouther critics write the book, and i used it in a first year seminar on first constitutional democracy. provoked students and a fan made them angry. but then, i said, where does it say that?

and then they realized they liked the bottom line of the argument, but they needed to focus on what chain in that logical reasoning, or set of assumptions that is problematic for them? that is an incredibly useful exercise. so you take that kind of initial shock, if you will, and channel it into reason discussion, and i think everybody learned something. before young about came today, or about the incident back in march, i saw some reference to the southern poverty law center and a description of charles murray, and one of the reasons why the students reacted the way they did. we got on their website, and i want to read you the beginning of what they say. charles murray, a fellow at the american enterprise institute has become one of the most influential social scientist in america, using racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to argue that social

inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and latino communities, women, and the poor. ,nd he goes on to say about him according to murray, disadvantaged groups are disadvantaged because on average, they cannot compete with white men, who are intellectually, psychologically, and morally superior. the totales elimination of the welfare state, affirmative action, and the department of education are green, they cannot overcome the inmate efficiencies. my question to you is, is that accurately per train charles murray? portrayingaccurately charles murray. prof. stanger: absolutely not. the frightening thing about that website is that in the run-up to his appearance on campus, you had faculty and students alike taking what you read to me, and said, this bed cannot speak

your, even though you can't substantiate some of those assertions. if you go and look at those quotes in context, he is often saying the opposite of what they are saying he is saying. so, it was a terrible situation that i think led to what happened, that people did not think for themselves, didn't read for themselves in the didn't just come in here what he before drawingt conclusions about his character and past work, but it was like something you could not control because people just kept reading that website and send that was all they had to know. we had faculty at middlebury college who had openly admitted they had never rituals murray, but because of the website, this is all you needed to know to know that you could be a righteous human being. >> i wonder and 25 seconds of

the footage at middlebury protests so people can get a sense of what it was like. before we do though, where was this room? how big of a room wasn't? -- how big of a room was it? prof. stanger: i think it could fit 300. it is the same place two weeks later in which i interviewed edward snowden. and the format of the evening, how did that come about? prof. stanger: it was restricted to students only, so you have to have a middlebury id to be admitted into the lecture hall. ,here were outside agitators but they were not inside the lecture hall. so what you are seeing inside the lecture hall is all middlebury students. >> let's just look at this and get a feel for it. [chanting] away!rles murray, go

murphy, go away! charles murphy, go away! away,rles murray, go racist, sexist, anti-gay. is any of that true? and didn't his daughter go to middlebury? prof. stanger: his daughter went to middlebury, and i would not use any of those terms to describe that man. >> weber the students doing that? -- why were the students doing that? prof. stanger: it was a tragedy. there were students who wanted to shut the speech down, and there were allies wanted to be supportive. i know student after student who went there who did things he were planning to do precisely because of that small minority

was so outraged, and so angry that they felt that to be a good human being, you had to do the same thing. >> what are they angry about? prof. stanger: about the gross inequality in the united states, about the existence of unequal treatment in the justice system, and about the election of donald trump, which none of those students wanted. we have real problems in this country that need to be addressed. they were legitimate in being concerned, but the tragedy to me is that the strategy they pursued brought about the very opposite of what they hoped to accomplish. >> charles murray is at the american enterprise institute. this was the american enterprise institute's student group? prof. stanger: it was a club like any other club. >> was he pay to go to middlebury? prof. stanger: no, nobody paid him anything.

i am not part of the club, i don't know, but my understanding is -- >> by the way, did you have to pay snowden? prof. stanger: he was paid a large amount of money. >> who would've paid him? prof. stanger: the middlebury activities board. >> we have video of you after this erupted. you moved out of that room. how long to the demonstration go on? prof. stanger: it just accelerated from their precisely because the speech was not shut down. it just enraged that small group of people who were determined to shut it down. so there were fire alarms going off, people screaming obscenities through the window. i don't know what clip you're going to show. >> it is used sitting down with charles murray. prof. stanger: i have not watched it because it is so unsettling to me. they used these directional microphones. so what you are hearing about what we are hearing on the tape. it is enhanced so you can hit a

conversation, but it was absolutely terrifying to continue. >> how far ahead of this that you knew something was going to happen? prof. stanger: i didn't think anything was going to happen. before i walked out the door when we were confronted with the crowd that injured me, i said, i left my computer in the car, and i will go separately and left -- and i will go separately and meet you at the dinner. >> had you met charles murray before? prof. stanger: no, but i knew of him and knew that he was some of the republican party takes very seriously. it was precisely the person i want my students to engage in. back -- you moved to this other room. was that set up in advance? prof. stanger: yes.

>> television cameras in their? prof. stanger: yes, yes. that was planned better be. b. >> and how far away was the rep. meng: auditorium? prof. stanger: it was in the basement of the building. i wish it was further away. >> this again was only 30 seconds. ofit is a place with a lot -- just ato 1960 which is few years later. i told them to put people -- i told people to put them -- i told people to put on the fire alarms. hold on just a second and they will turn those off. --son was attending prof. stanger: that is pretty funny. >> anyway, go back to that setting. how long did you than tart --talk to charles murray?

prof. stanger: i think it was roughly 30 or 45 minutes. we took questions from our students on twitter after the q&a, which was nice. >> any of the students in the room stay with this hope process? prof. stanger: yes. on the one hand there is a coalition of students who are united and one to challenge charles murray but in a variety of ways. some want to shut them down and some students to participate in the broken anchor restatement, who asked questions on twitter, so they stayed with it. they wanted to engage him. so the main message i would want to give to your audience is there is a variety of views at middlebury. it is not the monolithic, extremists place. it was just a small part of the population was amplified and a variety of ways. -- in is variety of ways. >> did this start with the

students are with one of your fellow professors, or both? prof. stanger: the shutdown? >> the whole idea of trying to shut it down? prof. stanger: there were all of these meetings before hand that my colleagues attended them or they were discussing resistance. the interesting thing is that all of the students who organized the resistance were used to being unanimously applauded by the faculty. for example, with the executive order against immigration, some of the same students involved in the protest against charles murray were involved in that resistance, and they have the whole faculty behind them. i was there with my constitution , and waving my american flag. and everybody supported them. and what was so disappointed them with this is that they were taking it to the next level by shutting it down. and everything fractured. and they were condemned by a large number of people. and neighbor expected to be

praised -- and they were expected to be praised. that is part of the problem. >> at the end of your discussion with charles murray, you left that room and went where and what happened? prof. stanger: they took us to this, the fact of the matter is, i don't really remember much of it. i couldn't even tell you what door we went out of. out of the taken hall and constructed -- out of the hole and confronted with a mob of angry people. their target was charles murray. and i was a little bit behind him. and it kind of intensified. it looked like he was about to fall to the ground. and at the time, he was a 74-year-old man. and i did what any decent person would do, i grabbed him by the arm to make sure he didn't fall.

and i don't know how many, but i was really fearful of being separated and being left behind. so i took his arm, and then it all turned on me. somebody pulled my hair. somebody body slammed me from another direction. then we finally made it to the car and this was a horrific getaway seen were students were climbing. windows, banging trying to prevent the car from moving forward. poor bill is in the driver seat. devised thene who radio free middlebury alternative plan, if you will. he was taking directions from public safety on how to go. it was moved forward, retreat, move forward, retreat. i was on the passenger side, screaming, stop, you are going to hit someone! the car was stopping and

starting, stopping and starting. and that is what exacerbated my injuries. >> how badly were you injured? prof. stanger: i did not think i was badly injured at all, but it was worse than i thought. >> you had a collar on for a while. prof. stanger: first i realized something was wrong with my neck. then i was taken to the hospital. on days later, i was driving the wrong street and i could not find something that i already knew where it was, then i realized, you know, i needed to go back to the hospital. >> after you were out of the hospital and after things quieted down, what did you do about all this? prof. stanger: it was awful. have you ever had a concussion? >> no. prof. stanger: for all of those people who have had concussions, they know what it is like. your brain just gets scrambled. your brain is like a computer, and you can only --you just need to keep one window open at a time. you cannot have open -- you

cannot have multiple open windows open at a time. but everything we do in life involves having multiple windows, so that was deeply frustrated for me. it was pretty frightening. >> for how long? prof. stanger: i was in physical therapy until last month. so, it took a while to get better. >> how did you feel emotionally about all of this? did you do anything with middlebury's administration? did you talk to them? did you want to do anything about this? prof. stanger: sure. i was putting in my two cents all along the way is best that -- as best as i could. >> i read somewhere in all of this that 74 people were disciplined. for those only students? prof. stanger: i don't really know. i wasn't involved with the disciplinary procedures and i did not testify at the hearings. >> how much did they do on campus?

how many hearings to they have? prof. stanger: i don't know. i was disengaged from it. was trying to get better. >> were you doing this on purpose? did you just want to stay away from the whole thing? prof. stanger: yeah, well -- this is the first interview i have done, and i am glad to be doing it with you because we can have an extend conversation, but i did not want to speak to journalists until my brain had ien restored to be because was angry. part of what was at stake is i wanted to model the behavior i wanted to see. i did not want to respond emotionally. i wanted to talk constructively about where we go from here? what it all means? you cannot do that until you are healthy. i waited. atif this happened again middlebury, do you know what they would do? and you have a woman president. prof. stanger: yes, we do.

what do you mean? if another lecture was shut down like this. -- ie put this in the mix am sure there are a lot of people saying the students were great and they did the right thing. there is another group watching that says, you know, i have given a lot of money to my alma maters. someone is watching it they give a lot of money to middlebury, and they are saying, i did not give my money so that it will cost $63,000 a year for a student to go to school there so they can do this kind of stuff. what would you say to them? i think ther: president is trying to stand firm for the values that are so important for liberal education and for american democracy. i'm hopeful that she is going to be able to prevail in that environment. i am not a good person to ask about what is going on right now because i left vermont in may.

convalescencemy in michigan, where my family has a cottage that we have been going to since i was born. my hometown, if you will. i am not a good person to comment on what is going on right now. >> you will go back to middlebury after this is all over? prof. stanger: that is the plan. >> and if you are asked to moderate another discussion with a conservative/republican like this man is supposedly, would you do that again? prof. stanger: of course. i don't regret a single thing i did. to me, it is enormously important that students be unafraid to confront controversial ideas, and in my classroom, speak their mind. thathat concerns me is some students are free to speak their minds because it may offend someone.

and to me, that is catastrophic because if you cannot speak your mind, and make mistakes, and learn from them, it is the end of liberal education. so what i do in my classroom, what is interesting in my classroom, i continued to teach my one class after the incident about western europe. in my classroom, we were able to maintain an atmosphere where that was possible, even in the midst of all of that controversy that was rolling over the charles murray fallout. to me, that is deeply significant because it is in the hands of every single professor to create an environment where everybody feels like they belong, they can speak their mind, and i tell them, we are going to speak our mind, and if you offend someone, i want that person to call you out, and i offendedperson who apologize, and then we will move on because everyone makes mistakes.

we are human. and we cannot eliminate offense from the world because we are all different. we are going to misunderstand and say the wrong thing, but we must be allowed to say the wrong thing and correct it and have those conversations that educate us as human beings. prof. stanger: here is charles murray appearing on the "tucker colson" show in june. >> i expect it because i have been briefed by the people of middle. ,hat the protest would occur but what we did not know if they were going to keep it up forever -- but what we did not know if tha is that they were going to keep it up forever. membersing to say, u.s. of the new elite have to be aware of all of the ways in which the elite is the working class in this country. >> what you think of that statement? aof. stanger: i think he has point. and that is another tragic

irony. he wasn't even coming to middle buried to talk about the bell --ve, which was the 10 over which was rich and over 25 years over 25hat was written years ago. he was talking about his message about how this unexpected outcome could transpire. so it is sad that we cannot have a conversation about that book instead of looking backwards at something written long ago. brian: what is a micro-aggression? allison: that is when somebody offends somebody without even knowing it. out,ven when you point it they still think you are being too sensitive, or you should not be pointing it out. brian: how much complaining goes aboutmiddlebury micro-aggressions from the students to professors? prof. stanger: you know, my take

on trigger warnings is that those are good things, if you are saying something and you are unaware that it is deeply upsetting to another human being, we need to know about it. you need to reflect on it. so, i don't have a problem with the concept. i have a problem with people being expected to preempt their mistakes before they make them. that creates this chilling effect that is so damaging to the free exchange of ideas. brian: looking back to when this happened, how much interest was there in the media to get you to talk? prof. stanger: tons of interest. i don't apologize to anybody's who's email i did not respond to. i still have a huge trove of unanswered emails. i was able to look at screens and read them, and i hope to respond to people in due time because i received wonderful notes from people.

there are people all around the country who wrote things that made me go so much better. i am deeply grateful to them. i will respond to them in time. some: but you did write op-ed pieces for the "new york times." prof. stanger: i had to do that, that was probably not wise but i had to. i was not supposed to be on a computer. i had to sneak to do it. i just felt like i had to define the situation as i saw it. brian: interested about march the 13th -- understanding the angry mob in military that gave me a concussion. allison: i did not come up with that headline, by the way. that was "the new york times." brian: the second was on the third middlebury -- my divided campus. how did that come about. what do they want from you? prof. stanger: my perspective. brian: did they find other

perspectives on the other side of people who bought this was on perfect thing to do -- the other side of people who thought this was the perfect thing to do." the new york: times was great about that, i was on a panelist that wrote the definitive justification of shutting down speech. he wrote a piece in the new york times called "snowflakes get ripe." brian: what was the broken inquiry? prof. stanger: that was a heartfelt statement by students at middlebury college. they were trying to explain why they had done what they had done. it was a response to another piece that ran in the "wall street journal" on principles on free expression written by my colleagues. broken inquiry was there attempt to respond point by point to what they were reading. and people can read it for themselves to understand the perspective. brian: how often is a

conservative of any kind invited to speak on the middlebury campus? prof. stanger: a lot of times. i mean, what you will find on college campuses is there are conservative faculty who camouflage their real views. until they get tenure. they are a minority, but they are there. through this charles murray incident, i became aware that there were some conservatives on my faculty, and i did not realize previously that that was their political leanings. that saddens me to some extent, why should they not be able to talk openly about their politics? we would have a better conversation about policies, we need to debate together, to move the country forward.

if people to be more open about thinking for themselves. brian: are you one of the 900 plus members of the heterodox? prof. stanger: no, i am not. brian: are you aware of what it is? prof. stanger: of course. brian: what is your opinion? prof. stanger: i don't join things. brian: we have a list of some of the leading schools and the heterodox space. a judge on whether or not the universities are open or closed on all of this. i want to put on the screen the six of the schools. purdue. that just happened. the last couple of days. prof. stanger: that is your alma mater. brian: yes. university of chicago, george mason's number two. university of tennessee. prof. stanger: carnegie mellon,

look at that. brian: and there is a whole skill of how they judge, and i have no idea of what that is. and let's look at the ones rated on the very bottom. prof. stanger: northwestern? uc berkeley? brian: i know that you and harvard are right there at the bottom. prof. stanger: really? but they're making such efforts to uphold freedom of expression. i would want to dissect those rankings. they could be right. anything that will capture a particular moment in time, so when you ask the question, you have to look at the methodology to understand what you want to take away from it, and i have not done that. brian: they judged it on the basis of how open the campus is and all of that. some campuses have more activity than others. prof. stanger: yeah. brian: the university of chicago's is number one, and people often cite them as having the strongest statement. i got a john ellison, dean of

students, who wrote to the class of 2020. you know, that person in chicago that did a whole study on this? jeff stone ledger: the committee. brian: it says here that one of the university of chicago's defining characteristics is our commitment to freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression. the means we do not support trigger warnings. we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of the intellectual safe space, where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own. you said you liked the trigger warnings. prof. stanger: well, how you parse that is very important. because i have been on a panel with university of chicago. agree that ae can

space spacean't be a safe because learning has to take place. you have to let ideas collide. classroom.can be safe what is interesting to me is that there are safe spaces that we don't call safe spaces. athletic teams, liberal arts colleges are safe spaces. i want those guys and women out of their safe spaces as much as i want students of color out of their safe spaces and interacting. through that interaction we can create a dynamic intellectual life. brian: when i grew up, and went to college, it was fairly quiet before the vietnam war. what happened? prof. stanger: since then? brian: yeah.

prof. stanger: well, the pendulum has swung back. it was a renewal of some of the same sentiment and feelings. what caused it was ? the privatization of government. we take all kind of things that were done by government employees and turn them over to the private sector. on its face, that is a good thing. we can be more efficient and that market value striping, and that is good. but i think it has changed the tenor of government. and in a sense, made increasingly large portions of the population feel that their elites don't represent them, don't speak for them, and are acting in their own self interests rather than the interest of the common good. and i think that is directly linked to the privatization of so many functions. 2009, you had a book in "one nation under contract,"

that talks about privatization a lot. "elite." youword heard that from charles murray, you hear from conservatives, newt gingrich talked about elite media all the time. how would you define elite? prof. stanger: those are the people with the power, and let's face it, this town in washington has become enormously affluent over the past three decades. we can speak to this, as it not changed? we have all of these amazing restaurants. but they are upscale. people have gotten rich, and as a consequence to that. you know, the people who are running our government institutions are increasingly part of an delete that is detached -- that is an elite that is detached from ordinary people. that is not just true of government elite, it is financial elites. part of what we are seeing on our politics is ordinary people realizing, hey, you have the

levers of power, and you are doing things to benefit yourself here you are not benefiting me. and that is a legitimate response from both left and right. brian: in 2015, $68 billion was sent to american universities for research and development. prof. stanger: yeah. up to the pell grants are over $30 billion, that is over $100 billion going to college campuses. what about the academic elites? in their particular position -- they have the tenure. nobody can touch them. so many of them, their life revolves around the next grant that comes in from the government. prof. stanger: well, when you talk about academic elites, it is important to talk about which disciplines. are we talking about natural sciences, social sciences? humanities? i can speak from my own experience, which is political

science. and i have seen over the course of my career, when we were at harvard, the idea of the best and the brightest -- matt bundy, henry kissinger, the idea was to educate yourself, and they go make a difference in the world. you know? and what has happened over time is u.c. think tanks developing in washington and they are more , concerned with the policy and real-world issues. there are exceptions to this but the departments of political science, they are talking about methodological debates that are less directly connected to real life policy issues. so in some sense, that is a horrible thing because people with tenure are the ones that can really speak truth to power. people in think tanks don't have that same freedom. because they can be fired. so, i would like to see departments of political science back in the fray, debating policy issues.

thatse they have something the rest of the chattering classes don't have, which is tenure. and tenure means cannot be fired. that is a big thing in washington. i mean, i have seen it myself. when i have testified before congress. that this is an acuity brands asset. -- that this is an enormous asset that i can speak the truth, and no one can take away my livelihood. that makes me feel like i have a moral obligation to not be partisan, speak freely, encourage people to speak for themselves. because i am in a unique and privileged position in that regard. brian: here is a recent incident, this is only 30 seconds. back on september 27, at the college of william and mary, the the aclu'sirector of virginia chapter. and blacklists matter challenged -- and black lives matter

challenged this person. let's watch this and see what your take is on this. >> and i'm going to talk a bit about the demonstration, i appreciate it. then i am going to respond to questions from a moderate, and then any questions from the audience. >> shame, shame, shame. brian: they are saying that the aclu protects murray, too. prof. stanger: they need to be protected -- they need to be educated, too. when you see 18 and 21 euros doing stuff -- are those students or activists? brian: i have no idea. prof. stanger: you have two things going on here -- they are 18 and 21-year-olds. they are still learning and they are still learning and

growing. they don't have a real historical sense. they do not understand how democracy works. for me, my job as an educator is to help them have that context. not to tell them to think differently, but this a, look at how extremist actions are violent actions have played out in history. have they ever led to the things you want to see realized? once you become educated, you realize the role of unintended consequences, and you realize that most of the great breakthroughs in the world come through nonviolent actions. can't tellw, you people that. they have to own it and learn it for themselves. theman just keep asking questions so they can arrive at some of those conclusions on their own. so that is the student peace. we need to be educated. but the activist piece, you know that is a horrible thing. ,because the black lives matter movement is a diverse movement.

you can have some extremists speaking out, and people decide the whole movement is about that. you even have direct evidence of intsian meddling to try to pa black lives matter that way. we all have to be critical thinkers and say -- question the reality that is presented to us in the media. and think for ourselves. and the best way to do that is to speak to people in black lives matter. talk to your neighbor. that is when you realize what people think and feel. because of in june, your incident and others, senator grassley had a hearing, and interestingly enough, after the william and mary thing, the student that testified was a guy named zachary wood. he was at williams college, and he says that he is a liberal democrat, and here is what he says about the whole student issue. >> i identify as a liberal democrat, who supports many progressive causes. yet, i adamantly believe that

students should be encouraged to engage with people and ideas that they vehemently disagree with. at williams, the administration promotes social tolerance often at the expense of political tolerance. in my time at williams, i cannot name a single conservative speaker that has been brought to campus by the administration. argumentsoms, liberal are often treated as unquestionable truths. in some cases, conservative students even feel the need to refrain from stating their opinion in fear of being shut down. i appreciate the desire of my administration to ensure that all students on campus feel included, yet i do for the state of free speech and intellectual freedom on my college cap is. -- on a college campus. brian: williams, a big liberal arts school in massachusetts. did he say anything you want to comment on questio? that is a wiseof. stanger:

and articulate young man. i think it is great you are showing this clip. it allows me to say that i -- it allows me to say that you can't paint with a broad brush what student of color field. you have some that want to shut down charles murray and on the other hand we have something my office saying this is horrible. i don't agree with this but if i speak out i am being seen as a trader to my people. nobody wants to be that. that is a toxic environment that needs to be changed. brian: trader to what people though? prof. stanger: make them feel as though they are somehow an oreo. black on the outside, white on the inside and that is bad. you should not be undermining the cause of bringing about african-americans who, let's be honest here, this is america's original sin. we got a lot of work to do in that realm.

and so it is a real debate about , how you bring about the change you want to see. it is unfortunate that there are some very smart people who have said publicly that they are giving up on america. i would never give up on america. for all of its flaws, if you look at its trajectory since the revolution, you know, it is the story of gradual progress, to make those ideals reality. i think it is called the great unfinished symphony in "hamilton," and i like that phrase. so, we have a lot of work to do and this is definitely a , beautiful thing and there aren't a lot of symphonies out there in the world. so what i want to say to my radical students, ok, this is wrong and this is wrong, but what would you propose as an alternative to the rule of law and the american constitution? that is where it gets tricky and challenging. brian: speaking of the ongoing attempt to change things, johns

hopkins university just got $150 million grant to facilitate the restoration of open ended and .nclusive discourse what can a foundation do with $150 million to improve the discussion that we have been talking about here about open dialogue? prof. stanger: it is funny that you say that because obviously, money is a good thing, and you can do great things with money. you can bring speakers and outside anchors to help you to parse these difficult issues. but for me, this is a matter of individual responsibility. that you want to encourage open and inclusive dialogue, we can all model the behavior we want to see. which is another way of saying,

stop believing that ad hominem attacks stop an argument. that is what we see on television today. and in our discourse of these partisan labels. and you have to take that way, or you are cast out of the tribe. i want people to think for themselves. i want them to challenge those labels. and that is particularly important to me in a big data world because let's face it, verylast election, where much of the clever manipulation of people. firms like cambridge analytic cut, that figured out algorithms that you can determine from social media. social -- certain emotional buttons, and you can get people to vote that way. what is the antidote to that? don't be an outer them, be a human, think for yourself and then you can't be manipulated by

your government, or by large technology companies, or by the russians, for that matter. if we think for ourselves, we saw a lot of problems simultaneously. brian: what does the group do? prof. stanger: it is created to thinking about -- it is a think tank that is devoted to thinking through some of the challenges america faces in the digital age, more specifically. brian: what kind of contract to someone like you have with them? limited to a year? prof. stanger: yes, yes. i will be there for a year, i have a nice home and people to speak with. it is a wonderful place to be. brian: and now that you have seen a little bit of the foundation world in washington, what is your take? prof. stanger: i have seen it before. it performs a valuable function. but i think what you can see is that it has its limits. so, very much again as i was saying, there is a role for

tenured academics to make a contribution to policy debates. i think we have this advantage that we are not bought by anyone. brian: were you all set up in advance of what happened in march to do the america foundation, or did they come to after that and said, they had a home for you for a year? prof. stanger: i will set up for a sabbatical. i had plans that were changed. i was supposed to finish one book and start another. i haven't finished the book. my life had all the pieces thrown up in the air. yeah, they were kind enough to give me a home and i decided to stay in washington for the year. >> any residual health problems -- brian: are there any residual health issues you have after all of this time? prof. stanger: i still have a couple of muscles in my neck that misbehave. but i think i am almost back to complete recovery. i feel like my brain is functioning normally again. i missed it.

i appeared here on time, i was having a lot of trouble back in spring about getting out the door on time. that was enormously difficult for me. so yeah, i am feeling strong and almost 100%. brian: after that incident, did anybody who was responsible for that come to you and apologize? prof. stanger: no. and i would like that. brian: do you know who it was? prof. stanger: i have some ideas. i do have some ideas. and i would not want to see anybody punished, or suspended, or anything like that. i think it would be a very constructive thing for students who were involved in the shutting down of this speech that led to my injury to apologize. brian: why would you not want to see someone punished? prof. stanger: because you have to make a distinction -- ok, there are a number of layers to this. 1 -- what disturbs me about what happened at middlebury, i think students were actively

encouraged by some members of the faculty to do things that were not in their interest. that upsets me. 18 to 21-year-olds are still developing, and they need to be advised in the right ways. i think i will leave it at that. to say that i would fault some faculty more than the students for what happened -- brian: do you know who they are? prof. stanger: of course. brian: and have they apologized to you? prof. stanger: some of them have. i think there is a real belief on the part of the people who , they want toal say that what happened outside of the lecture hall has nothing to do with what happened inside the lecture hall. to me, they are directly connected because shutting down speech is an invitation to

violence. passionatese heated, exchanges precisely to avoid having to pull out guns or , swords or have a dual. and so when you shut down speech, you are basically inviting violence. but i think the people who supported some of the extremist actions thought well, that happened outside. and they want to say it was a result of outside forces, but it is all interconnected. brian: our guest has been professor allison stanger. she is with middlebury college and currently in washington. she will be back in the classroom in january? prof. stanger: no, no. not for two years. brian: thank you for joining me. prof. stanger: yes, it has been a great pleasure and honor. ♪

>> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. q&a programs are available as c-span podcasts. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> if you like this q&a interview, here are others you might enjoy. he talks about his writings and role as administrator of the white house office of information and regulatory affairs during the obama administration. also, mitch daniels discussed his political career during a q&a session with students at purdue university. and hillsdale college president larry on the school's history and its conservative roots. you can find those interviews online at c-span.org.

>> here on c-span this morning, washington journal is next. former president bill clinton is part of a summit discussing opioid addiction and treatment. and then the foreign committee hears testimony from secretary tillerson and secretary mattis about strategy and war authorization powers. coming up on today's, washington journal, ken sterns shares his thoughts on political powers in the u.s. in his new book. after that, look at the senate' move to repeal a will that would make it easier for consumers to file class action lawsuits against financial institutions. we are joined by ceo