What should academic freedom look like in 2022? How has it become conflated with the idea of free speech? Who should decide how issues regarding faculty speech should be adjudicated? Those are just a few of the questions we explore this week with Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth, authors of It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom.
The book considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Bérubé and Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy—theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever. They argue that the democracy-destroying potential of social media makes it very difficult to uphold the traditional liberal view that the best remedy for hate speech is more speech.
Bérubé is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Penn State; Ruth is a professor of film at Portland State University. They've also coauthored Humanities, Higher Education, and Academic Freedom: Three Necessary Arguments.
Additional InformationIt's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy and the Future of Academic Freedom
Related EpisodesJonathan Rauch on The Constitution of Knowledge
Are land-grant universities still democracy's colleges?
When populism and democracy collide
Understanding union voters
A conflict at the heart of our political disagreements
What can we learn from early democracies?
Building better bureaucracy
Tim Miller on why Republicans stuck with Trump
"Democracy '24" on the debate stage
When the People Decide: Libraries as civic spaces
A deep dive on parties and political reform
Democracy Paradox: The democratic crisis you haven't heard about
Village SquareCast: Can curiosity save us?
Democracy-ish: Can America's democracy be saved?
Democracy needs serious people
Gen Z's fight for democracy
Think Inclusive: Facing the Anti-CRT Movement
Is America in a third reconstruction?
Between democracy and autocracy
Living in a fragmented democracy
Feet in 2 Worlds: Immigrants in a Divided Country
Harnessing the power of juries
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
City Manager Unfiltered
Potencial Americano
The ASIC Podcast
The Chris Plante Show
Red Eye Radio