it is not so much the freedom of free speech but what is being born. that is what bothers me. is there a principal in terms of what this is all about. event was cohosted by the national constitution center, the federalist society and the american constitution society. see the entire debate on campus free speech with first amendment scholars and authors from around tonight, 8:00 eastern here on c-span. ♪ >> this week on "q&a," sciencer of political at military college in vermont. she talks about reaction of middlebury students. press of usnd the

-- and the professor were physically attacked following the event. ost: professor allison stanger what is the famous middlebury protest? the story has been told many times. a student group, the aei club is aed charles murray, who rather controversial figure, libertarian scholar. because the newly he was controversial, he invited me to ask in the first three or four questions. it went from there. in march.ck the event was on march 2 and there was a run up to the event where tensions rose and rose to the point where they were whipped into a frenzy so that some student organizers shut down the speech that was

successful. we had an alternative plan, we went to a remote location. in enraged some of the protesters further and that is rate got the incident where i was injured outside the lecture hall. host: middlebury college is where? allison: middlebury college is in the greenmount server mod, champlain valley. in some sense you can in part explain the reaction because it is a bubble within a bubble. arts campus is something of a bubble because liberal learning takes place there. it is also in vermont, which is the home of ben & jerry's, bernie sanders and the state of the union with the smallest percentage of voters who voted for donald trump. that context is very important for what transpired. host: how many students. small.: 2350, fairly found the number $63,000

online that said that is what tuition and living cost for a year. allison: yes, an expensive proposition. we make an effort to make the experience as available to as many capable people as possible. there are a significant number of students at middle barry on full financial aid. even a greater number pays that enormous amount. where did you get your education? allison: i got it in two places. i was a student at a small liberal arts college outside of chicago for three years. i was a math major. i loved mathematics at the time. iran ran out of math classes to take my senior year. a senior residency requirements i was going to have to take electives from other departments. i transferred to ball state university where i could do applied mathematics and graduate in the great state of indiana. host: your city is what?

>> my city is fort wayne. did you get a masters and then a phd but -- or your phd. did take some time to her out what interests you and why. i went on to the london school of economics. studies atsoviet harvard university followed by a phd in political science at harvard. trajectory from questions that really have answers. what i like about mathematics to some the unanswerable questions. i embrace both of those strands in my thinking and in my teaching. hell on have you been at middlebury college? >> i went there directly after

graduate school. host: the semester this year you are and i will a very -- middle barry? >> i had a scheduled sabbatical so i am a scholar at the new america foundation. host: what does it do? >> it is a think tank in washington that helps me work on my buttocks and provides a great environment for me to do that. i teach range of courses. i am trained in international relations, but i have an interest in variety of fields -- fields. empire, newminar in course of the politics of virtual realities, i am leaving some things out, but that covers the main courses i am known for. view of your your relationship with students over these 25 years? students and i

think they love me back. i am seeing as an honest broker. 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. host: did the students protest edward snowden at all? prof. stanger: no. host: 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.

so republican scholar is controversial to them. which is unfortunate because the republican party is the other major party and the united states, but that is what it is. revered by the left and protest when he is on campus. i would like to see that remedied. it 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. you have to have your liberal education for that to take place. host: i looked up the ethnic population in vermont and found that there are 2.5% african americans in the state and in and the of middlebury

sound is now .25, which is almost nonexistent. what does that do for the topic you are discussing? stanger: 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 land in vermont, there is no one who can cut their hair, they feel completely out of place any have to do something to make them feel like this is their institution to. i think it is really easy to paint it as a story of conservative versus students of color, but really what is taking place is that we have a situation where 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

the anguish that was expressed 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. host: how often have you met someone who teaches at middlebury who is conservative? prof. stanger: there is not that many. host: 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 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 i want it to be available to other students. murray appeared on this program in 1995. he talked about the bell curve. i want to run this. book is about this distribution, this change, what about the bell curve? we heard it and it was one of those cases where he said, yeah, that is a wonderful title. host what does it mean. : >> it looks like a bell. it is a phenomenon that you see in all kinds of things in nature, whether it is tight, -- whether it is height, 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 -- host: 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. i used it in the republic symposium that had other critics write about the book, and i used it in a first year seminar on american constitutional democracy. i thought it really affected the pedagogical device precisely it provoked students and got 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. host: in reading about before you 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.

and 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. he advocates the total elimination of the welfare state, affirmative action, and the department of education are -- arguing ways that it is because of inmate efficiencies. my question to you is, is that accurately per train charles murray? -- is that accurately portraying 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 man cannot speak here, 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 had to say first before drawing conclusions about his character and past work, but it was like something you could not control because people just kept reading that website and saying that was all they had to know. we had faculty at middlebury college who had openly admitted they had never read charles murray, but because of the website, this is all you needed to know to know that you could do to be a righteous human being. run 25 just want to 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 was it?

prof. stanger: i think it could fit 300. it is the same place two weeks later in which i interviewed edward snowden. host: 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. there were outside agitators, but they were not inside the lecture hall. so what you are seeing inside the lecture hall is all middlebury students. host: let's just look at this and get a feel for it. [chanting] >> charles murray, go away! charles murphy, go away! racist, sexist, anti-gay! charles murphy, go away! racist, sexist, anti-gay!

charles murphy, go away! racist, sexist, anti-gay. -- post: host: charles murray, go away, 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. host: why were the students doing that? prof. stanger: it was a tragedy. there was a small minority of students who wanted to shut the speech down, and there were allies that 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. host: what are they angry about?

prof. stanger: about the gross inequality in the united states, about the existence of unequal treatment before the law and our criminal justice system. 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. host: 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. host: was he paid 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 -- host: by the way, did you have to pay snowden? prof. stanger: he was paid a large amount of money. host: who would've paid him?

prof. stanger: the middlebury activities board. that was a students choice speaker. host: we have video of you after this erupted. you moved out of that room. how long did 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. host: it is you sitting down with charles murray. prof. stanger: i have not watched it because it is so unsettling to me. precisely because they used these directional microphones. so what we were hearing is not what you are hearing on the tape. it is enhanced so you can hit a conversation, but it was absolutely terrifying to continue. host: how far ahead of this that -- this did you know 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 meet you at the dinner. host: 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. if we were a department of political science only allows the views of democrats to appear just anampus, we're indoctrination center. we are not an institution of higher learning. host: let's go back -- you moved to this other room. was that set up in advance? prof. stanger: yes. host: television cameras in their? prof. stanger: yes, yes. that was the plan be. host: and how far away was the

representative. prof. stanger: it was in the basement of the building. i wish it was further away. host: this again was only 30 seconds. >> it is a place with a lot of -- you go to 1960 which is just a few years later. i told people to put on the fire alarms. hold on just a second and they will turn those off. prof. stanger: this is unique in my academic career. attending -- in my home state of indiana in richmond. anyways, how long did you -- richmond. host: anyways, how long did you talk to charles murray? prof. stanger: i think it was roughly 30 or 45 minutes. we took questions from our

students on twitter. that was kind of nice. host: 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 in wanting to challenge charles murray but in a variety of ways. some want to shut him down and some students to participate in statement whouiry , 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 voice was amp you put -- amplified in a variety of ways. did this start with the students are with one of your fellow professors, or both? prof. stanger: the shutdown? host: 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 they were expected to be praised. that is part of the educational process. they made a mistake and have to think about what that means. host: 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. but we were taken out of the 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. they were banging windows, we were so afraid we were going to hurt someone. poor bill was in the driver's seat. he is the director of communications at middlebury and he devised the 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. host: how badly were you injured? prof. stanger: i did not think i was badly injured at all, but it was worse than i thought.

host: 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. two days later, i was driving on 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. host: 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? host: 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 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.

new sheeting and violating having to be in dark rooms. for how long? prof. stanger: i was in physical therapy until last month. so, it took a while to get better. host: 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 as best as i could. host: i read somewhere in all of this that 74 people were disciplined. were 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. host: 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. host: 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 been restored to be because i 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. host: if this happened again at middlebury, do you know what they would do? and you have a woman president. prof. stanger: yes, we do. what do you mean? host: if another lecture was shut down like this.

let me put this in the mix -- i am sure there are a lot of people saying the students were great and they did the right thing. there is another group watching you willthere 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? in prof. stanger: i think the i 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 will because i left vermont in may. an and continued my convalescence in michigan, where my family has a cottage that we you have been going to since i was born. my hometown, if you will.

i i am not a good person to comment on what is going on right now. host: you have tenure and you will go back to middlebury after this is all over? prof. stanger: that is the plan. host: 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. and what concerns me is that some students are free to speak to are afraid to speak their minds because it might 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 in the political development of 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 swirling 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 want the person who offended 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. host: here is charles murray appearing on the "tucker colson" show in june. just talking about the incident. >> i expect it because i have been briefed by the people of middlebury. that 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 is that they were going to keep it up forever. this will not be a lecture demonizing welfare, mothers and things like that. i was going to say you as members of the new elite have to be aware of all the ways in which the elite is screwing the working class in this country. host: what did you think of that statement. prof. stanger: i think he has a point. and that is another tragic irony. he wasn't even coming to middle -- to middlebury to talk about curve, that was written

over 25 years ago. he was talking about his message about how this unexpected outcome, the election of donald trump, could actually transpired . saying we can have a conversation about that book, instead of looking backwards at something written long ago. host: what is a micro-aggression? prof. stanger: that is when somebody offends somebody without even knowing it. and even when you point it out, they still think you are being too sensitive, or you should not be pointing it out. host: how much complaining goes on at middlebury about 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. host: 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 mean, i don't apologize to anybody's who's email i did not respond to. like i still have a huge trove of unanswered emails. i was able to look at screens and read them, and i hope to i will 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 road and betterthere are people 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. host: but you did write some 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. host: interested about march the 13th -- understanding the angry at the middlebury they gave me a concussion. prof. stanger: i did not come up with that headline, by the way. that was "the new york times." host: the second was on the third middlebury -- my divided campus. how did that come about. did they call you, or did you call then -- call them? what did they want from you? prof. stanger: my perspective. host: did they find other perspectives on the other side of people who bought this was the perfect thing to do -- on the other side of people who thought this was the perfect thing to do."

prof. stanger: 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." host: what was the broken inquiry? prof. stanger: that was a heartfelt statement by students at middlebury college. they put their names to it, 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. host: 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. host: are you aware of what it

is? prof. stanger: of course. host: what is your opinion? prof. stanger: i think it is great people are mobilizing for it. i am not a joiner, i don't join things. host: 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 top five or six of the schools. prof. stanger: purdue. host: that just happened. the last couple of days. prof. stanger: that is your alma mater. host: yes. university of chicago, george mason's number two. university of tennessee. prof. stanger: carnegie mellon, look at that. host: 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? yale andnow that

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. host: 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. host: 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? prof. stanger: jeff stone led the committee. host: what did the committee do?

prof. stanger: it came up with the principles of free expression. host: it says here that one of the university of chicago's defining characteristics is our commitment to freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression. our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called 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. and i think we can agree that a university can't be a safe space because learning has to take place. you have to let ideas collide. but there can be safe spaces within the university.

in other words, if you're a student from a disadvantaged background, you may need a place to retreat or you can feel completely safe and at home, but that doesn't mean you're not engaging in larger issues in the classroom. 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. host: when i grew up, and went to college, it was fairly quiet before the vietnam war. what happened? prof. stanger: since then? host: yeah. prof. stanger: well, the pendulum has swung back. it was a renewal of some of the same sentiment and feelings. host: what caused it? prof. stanger: what caused it is

a variety of things. a big one, just something i have written about is 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. host: you had a book in 2009, "one nation under contract," that talks about privatization a lot. you said the word "elite." you 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. host: in 2015, $68 billion was

sent to american universities for research and development. prof. stanger: yeah. host: the pell grants are up to over $30 billion, that is over $100 billion going to college campuses. what about the academic elites? and 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 you see 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 theoretical concepts, 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. because they have something that 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 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. host: here is a recent incident, this is only 30 seconds. back on september 27, at the college of william and mary, the executive director of the aclu's virginia chapter. 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 knowing your rights and

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. host: they are saying that the aclu protects murray, too. -- hitler's, too. prof. stanger: they need to be educated. old'sou see 18 to 21 year doing stuff -- are those students or activists? host: 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 growing. they don't have a real historical context. 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 to say 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. but you know, you can't tell people that. they have to own it and learn it for themselves. you can just keep asking them questions so they can arrive at some of those conclusions on their own. so that is the student peace. they 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 russian meddling to try to paint 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. host: back in june, because of 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. in classrooms, liberal arguments 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 -- i deplore the state of free speech and intellectual freedom on my college campus. host: williams, a big liberal arts school in massachusetts. did he say anything you want to comment on? prof. stanger: that is a wise and articulate young man. i think it is great you are showing this clip. it allows me to say that i have with a you cannot paint broad brush what students of colors feel. 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 wetor to my people. nobody wants to be that. that is a toxic environment that needs to be changed. 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 justice for 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. host: speaking of the ongoing attempt to change things, johns hopkins university just got $150 million grant to facilitate the restoration of open ended and

inclusive discourse. that is the greek family. 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 thinkers who can 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 got to think 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, this last election, where very much of the clever manipulation of people. firms like cambridge analytic a, you could speak out and determine from social media. certain emotional buttons, and you can get people to vote that way. what is the antidote to that? don't be an algorithm, 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 solve a lot of problems simultaneously. host: what does the group do?

who runs it? 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. host: 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. host: 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. host: 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 had a sabbatical and it was up in the air. i had different plans ever change. 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. host: either any residual health problems you have after all 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 decently, which is a good feeling. 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%. host: after that incident, did

anybody who was responsible for that come to you and apologize? prof. stanger: no. and i would like that. host: 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. host: 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 -- host: do you know who they are? prof. stanger: of course. host: 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 are more radical, they want to 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. we have these heated, passionate exchanges of views 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. host: 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. host: thank you for joining me. prof. stanger: yes, it has been a great pleasure and honor. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> 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. tonight on c-span, legal scholars debate hate speech laws and the first amendment. then a senate hearing on free speech on campuses. then angela davis, editor of a new book on racial profiling. and law professors debated the first amendment and hate speech laws at an event hosted by the national constitution center. this took place last month at the chicago cultural center. it runs one hour and 45 minutes. gentlemen,nd