Category: freedom of speech

The University of Chicago falls to #43 in FIRE’s free-speech rankings

September 5, 2024 • 7:15 am

I got this tweet from Luana, who noted Chicago’s steep fall from grace in FIRE’s free-speech rankings for 2025. (“The College Pulse” also collaborated in the rankings.)

Click the screenshot to see all 251 rated schools.

Here are the top ten. Note that the University of Chicago, once #1 for a long time and always in the top five, is no longer at the top. In fact, the top school, the University of Virginia, simply gets a “good” rating and a so-so score of 73.4 out of a hundred.

Where, oh where, is my school?  It’s a dismal #43, and rated only “slightly above average.”

The low score appears to reflect a big difference in the campus’s willingness to tolerate liberal vs. conservative speakers, and a high score in the degree of self-censorship that students practice.

This is very sad, for we can no longer even say we’re in the top ten, and Chicago’s reputation for being a bastion of “free speech” has taken a severe hit.

As for the bottom ten, well, Harvard is the worst, but now both NYU and Columbia have joined it with the rare “abysmal” rating:

All I can say is “oy vey!”, and that the administration is going to have to do some fast-stepping, for they used to tout our high ratings and now will have to confect some reasons why the rating system isn’t very good.

On Gaza protests in the coming year

August 31, 2024 • 9:15 am

I think there’s little doubt that the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests will once again roil colleges campuses this coming academic year.  As protestors vow that they’ll continue their activities, legal or not, and as Israel continues to root Hamas out of Gaza, I fully expect more trouble come this fall.

So do colleges, which are at this moment preparing for such trouble by confecting new regulations and policies. We have two articles on this subject, one in the NYT (first below) and the other in the Times of Israel. Click each headline to read; if the NYT is paywalled, you can find the first article archived here.

Note about what’s below: Daniel Diermeier used to be the Provost of the University of Chicago; now he’s the Chancellor (equivalent to the President) of Vanderbilt University, where he’s still carrying out the Chicago Principles, including free expression and institutional neutrality. Indented text is from the press; text flush left is mine. An excerpt from the NYT about Diermeier’s address to this year’s entering class at Vandy:

Less than 10 minutes had passed before Daniel Diermeier, Vanderbilt University’s chancellor, told hundreds of new students what the school would not do.

The university would not divest from Israel.

It would not banish provocative speakers.

It would not issue statements in support or condemnation of Israeli or Palestinian causes.

Before the hour was up on Monday, he added that Vanderbilt would not tolerate threats, harassment or protests “disrupting the learning environment.”

As you see, Diermeier pulls no punches.

This month, Vanderbilt required all first-year undergraduate students to attend mandatory meetings about the university’s approach to free speech, with the hope that clear expectations — and explanations for them — would help administrators keep order after protests rocked American campuses toward the end of the last academic year.

“The chaos on campuses is because there’s lack of clarity on these principles,” Dr. Diermeier said in an interview.

Well, that’s one reason, and I didn’t hear his talk, but the universal hope in all of the new “solutions” to protests is based on the claim that students simply don’t understand how free speech works on campuses, including private ones like Chicago and Vanderbilt. An important difference between “college” free speech and speech in the public arena is that colleges can more easily create “time, place, and manner” restrictions so that while legal speech is allowed, it mustn’t interfere with the mission of the university: no sit-ins or trespassing, no loud megaphones that disrupt classes, no encampments to block access to parts of campus, no deplatforming of speakers.

The problem I see is that the protestors in many places already know about these restrictions, and are determined to violate them anyway. They regard this as a form of civil disobedience—but one that, unlike classical civil disobedience, does not accept any attendant punishment. Indeed, just a handful of protestors who violated university regulations last year received either civil or University punishment, so there’s no incentive to at least go through the motions of obeying free-speech regulations. From later in the article:

Even as some universities have prepared more rigorous rules and procedures, it remains to be seen how strongly or consistently they will be enforced. The lasting consequences of defiance are also murky. Officials nationwide ultimately dropped many of the criminal charges that protesters faced after the spring demonstrations, and school discipline is still pending for many students. Suspensions have often been lifted in the meantime.

This is why universities’ solution to bring more “clarity” to free-speech rules seems hopeless. The solution, I think, is simply to enforce the rules. 

University presidents used summer break to huddle with police commanders, lawyers, trustees and other administrators to rewrite rules, tighten protest zones, and weigh possible concessions to maintain, or restore, order. Many have studied universities that temporarily defused tensions by striking deals with protesters.

But so far, universities are signaling little overt interest in negotiations.

On Monday, the University of California’s president, Michael V. Drake, told campus chancellors to ensure that their policies included bans on unapproved encampments and “masking to conceal identity.” Columbia University, where contentious protests helped drive Nemat Shafik from her 13-month-old presidency on Aug. 14, is limiting campus access. Northwestern University said that students would receive “mandatory trainings on antisemitism and other forms of hate,” with more policy changes coming.

“The question is how do we get more consistent in the way we respond to these issues — and clearer about what the rules are and what the tiered responses will be,” said Richard K. Lyons, the new chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, a campus with one of the nation’s most robust records of protest. Dr. Lyons estimated that planning for demonstrations had consumed up to 15 percent of the summer for top administrators at Berkeley.

And there have been legal rulings that can force universities’ hands:

A series of recent court rulings, as well as investigations from Capitol Hill and the Department of Education, have created pressure on universities. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction this month that said the University of California, Los Angeles, could not allow protesters to block Jewish students from campus facilities. (Although U.C.L.A. initially warned that the ruling threatened to “hamstring our ability to respond to events on the ground,” it decided not to appeal and said it would “abide by the injunction as this case makes its way through the courts.”)

Can you believe that UCLA defended the behavior of protestors to keep Jewish students away from their classrooms? Here’s a video of the blocking I remember at the time:

From an article on the UCLA ruling:

The complaint [by three Jewish students] alleges the protesters created a “Jew Exclusion Zone” where in order to pass “a person had to make a statement pledging their allegiance to the activists’ view.” Those who complied with the protesters’ view were issued wristbands to allow them to pass through, the complaint says, which effectively barred Jewish students who supported Israel and denied them access to the heart of campus.

Wristbands! Oy vey!

Our own University, like Vanderbilt, did not divest nor tolerate the encampments for very long, though it did give the encampers what I consider an overly long grace period.

The University of Chicago’s own experience this year suggests that even those deeply held principles do not always prevent turmoil. In May, the university brought in the police to remove an encampment that violated its policy barring unapproved tents.

At any rate, the divisions on campus are now so deep, and the protestors so sure of their moral compass, that I see no rapprochement, no matter how much universities inculcate students with the First Amendment or campus speech regulations.

The solution, which is Diermeier’s is simple, just follow through with campus speech violations by enforcing the rules. In my view, students will be loath to participate in illegal protests if they know that they’re going to be suspended, expelled, or have a punishment noted on their college transcripts. For even more than the students want divestment and a ceasefire, they want their degrees, an untarnished academic record. and jobs. I’m still baffled why many universities are simply letting the protestors off scot-free.

The Times of Israel simply lets us know that more disruptions of campuses are in store (click to read):

An excerpt:

The Student Intifada, a growing coalition of pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist student groups, is making clear its intention to disrupt the fall semester on school campuses across the United States.

Across dozens of campuses currently opening their fall semesters, there are already calls for masked vigils in support of “Palestine.” Troublingly, many of the groups have gone from calling for demonstrations and encampments to condoning the use of violence and “the total eradication of Western civilization.”

Note that, as some like Douglas Murray have warned, the protestors are not simply anti-Israel, but anti-West and anti-Enlightenment. The article continues.

The Student Intifada’s roots can be traced to the National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), founded in 1993 at the University of California Berkeley. However, it’s picked up followers since the war in Gaza and then again with the media attention on Columbia University following last year’s highly-covered student encampment.

It’s worth noting that not a single Columbia student, despite illegal occupation and trashing of a university building faced legal charges (which the Manhattan DA dropped), and nearly none of them (perhaps none at all) faced severe university charges including permanent suspension (many ‘interim suspensions” were rescinded). More:

With the National SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] as its guide, the movement isn’t limited to local SJP chapters. But it’s not so much the coalition’s reach that troubles some, but rather its refusal to engage with different perspectives.

“The movement is a belief cascade where those in the group compete with each other for acceptance. As they do that, their opinions become more and more extreme,” said William J. Bernstein, author of “Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups.”

Excuse my cynicism, but I don’t think introductory units on critical thinking, free speech, and civil discussion required for first-year students are going to solve this problem. More:

Across dozens of campuses currently opening their fall semesters, there are already calls for masked vigils in support of “Palestine.” Troublingly, many of the groups have gone from calling for demonstrations and encampments to condoning the use of violence and “the total eradication of Western civilization.”

Yep, all of Western civilization.

The Student Intifada’s roots can be traced to the National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), founded in 1993 at the University of California Berkeley. However, it’s picked up followers since the war in Gaza and then again with the media attention on Columbia University following last year’s highly-covered student encampment.

. . . “Expect to see zero compromise”

With the National SJP as its guide, the movement isn’t limited to local SJP chapters. But it’s not so much the coalition’s reach that troubles some, but rather its refusal to engage with different perspectives.

“The movement is a belief cascade where those in the group compete with each other for acceptance. As they do that, their opinions become more and more extreme,” said William J. Bernstein, author of “Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups.”

“No matter how high their SAT scores were, they don’t have the critical thinking skills they need. They are incapable of putting themselves in other people’s shoes. They are utterly intolerant of other views,” Bernstein said.

. . . University leaders should expect the students to become more strident in their demands this fall, said Lauren Post, an analyst with the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.

“They are going to increase their efforts to drive Zionist institutions off campus. They are going to make the average Jewish and Zionist student increasingly uncomfortable. We can expect to see zero compromise from these groups,” Post said.

. . . . In a July 31 Instagram post, the University of Chapel Hill SJP appeared to back the right to use violence.

“We emphasize our support for the right to resistance, not only in Palestine, but also here in the imperial core. We condone all forms of principled action, including armed rebellion, necessary to stop Israel’s genocide and apartheid, and to dismantle imperialism and capitalism more broadly. The oppressors will never grant full liberty to the oppressed; the oppressed must seize liberty with their own hands,” the post said.

The Times of Israel also emphasizes the lack of sanctions for violators, again mentioning my school:

There were an estimated 3,200 people, not all of them students, arrested at colleges and universities last spring, according to the Associated Press. Most of the charges against students have since been dropped.

Other universities, including the University of Chicago and Harvard, withheld degrees from some pro-Palestinian students facing disciplinary measures for their part in encampments and protests. Many of them have since received their diplomas.

About those “nonstudents” demonstrating at many colleges, which also happened at Chicago, it’s a simple matter to ask for IDs, something that students at the U of C must produce on demand.  Then names can be taken and trespassers in unapproved demonstrations given the boot.

Two caveats. First of all, as always I am an exponent of free speech on all campuses, public and private.  I’m even at the extreme of those free-speechers who think that someone shouting “gas the Jews” on campus in a situation that isn’t likely to provoke violence should not be punished.  What I object to is students, with full knowledge, violating campus regulations and, by so doing, impeding the mission of colleges: access to learning. And I object to universities growling about this but doing absolutely nothing to the violators.

There’s a reason why speed traps work: those who speed do so at their own risk (and the risk of others), knowing that they’ll have to get a ticket and a fine. The result: if you know there are speed traps in an area, you slow down.

As an experiement on what happens when deterrence vanishes, read about Montreal’s Murray-Hill Police Strike in 1969. (This is also an object lesson for those who think that you can solve the problem of crime by getting rid of cops and using patrolling by locals.)

Second, I think students deserve a warning when engaged in illegal demonstrations before they’re disciplined.  The encampers in Chicago got several days of warnings before the cops took down the encampment (without a single person hurt) at 4:30 a.m. last May 7.  Those shouting down speakers or occupying buildings should get, say, ten minutes of warnings before the hammer comes down. Finally, there should be no illegal encampments: not a single tent stake should be driven into prohibited college ground without University officials saying, “Sorry, you can’t do that.”

By all means have introductions to free speech and moderated discussions of first-year students to teach them how free speech works, and why we have it. But that’s not enough. I’m stymied by the failure of universities to realize a simple principle of human behavior: if you give people meaningful punishment for doing something that’s prohibited, they will stop doing it. 

A regulation that’s no enforced is a regulation without teeth.

University of Chicago grad students file suit against their union, alleging that it makes them engage in compelled speech

July 23, 2024 • 11:30 am

After several years of effort, graduate students getting paid for research or teaching at the University of Chicago joined a labor union.  Because they couldn’t form a union de novo but had to join an existing one, they became dues-paying members of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, Local 11o3.  This enables graduate students who get paid as research assistants or for teaching to engage in collective bargaining and to strike against the University if the bargaining reaches an impasse. The University of Chicago opposed the students’ efforts to join a union, but the University can’t prevent it.

You can see why the University would oppose unionization, for often research assistantships and teaching are regarded by universities as training rather than jobs; and if there were a strike, it would cripple research at the school as well teaching itself, for in some courses graduate teaching assistants do much of the work. But the students prevailed.  I didn’t have much of a dog in this fight, except that I thought the possibility of strikes was a dangerous byproduct of unionizing.

But joining the union came with an unexpected downside: unions can take political and ideological positions, and as a member of one (qualified students are required to join and pay union dues), you implicitly sign on to those positions.  And you may not want to do that.  In the case at hand, the Union has taken pro-Palestinian positions, and some students, especially Jewish ones, don’t want to sign on to these positions. So a group called “Graduate Students for Academic Freedom” has sued the union, alleging that the union makes them engage in implicit endorsement of the union’s positions. That, they claim, is Constitutionally prohibited “compelled speech.” You may have already guessed that this involves the war in Gaza.

Click the screenshot to read. I’ve put an excerpt below

An excerpt by Baude (there’s more at the site):

A few years ago, the graduate students at the University of Chicago, where I teach, formed a legally recognized labor union. Last year, that union expanded to include the law school, at least to the extent that law students engage in paid work such as providing research assistance. Law students who want to work as research assistants must either join the union and pay dues, or else pay agency fees to the union even if they do not join. Either way, giving money to the union is a legally required condition of working as a research assistant.

Graduate Students United at the University of Chicago, the union, engages in political speech that some law students find quite objectionable. The union is part of the United Electrical, Radio and Mine Workers of America, which also engages in political speech. For some law students, having to give money to these causes is an unacceptable condition of employment.

Yesterday, a group of those students, Graduate Students for Academic Freedom, filed a federal lawsuit against the union arguing that the arrangement violates their First Amendment rights under cases like Janus v. AFSCME, which holds that compelled agency fees “violate[] the free speech rights of nonmembers by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern.”

You can read the complaint here, and the motion for a preliminary injunction here.

This is from the complaint, so you can see what the students are objecting to. Bolding is mine:

INTRODUCTION

1.  Graduate students at the University of Chicago have been put to the choice of halting their academic pursuits, or funding antisemitism. That is unlawful.

2.  In the Winter of 2023, graduate students at Chicago voted to unionize, and are now exclusively represented by GSU-UE—a local of United Electrical (UE).

3.  That is a real problem. Among much else, UE has a long history of antisemitism. It is an outspoken proponent of the movement to “Boycott, Divest, and Sanction” Israel (BDS)—something so clearly antisemitic that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have condemned it as such. Indeed, for years, the union has had a consuming fixation with the world’s only Jewish state—a fixation peppered with all-too-common rhetoric. UE has charged Israel with “occupying” Palestine; has branded Israel an “apartheid regime”; and has accused Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing.”

4.  GSU-UE is cut from the same cloth. On campus, it has not only echoed its parent union’s rhetoric, but has added to it. It took pains to publicly “reaffirm” its commitment to BDS just one week after the October 7 terrorist attacks. And it has joined the “UChicago United for Palestine Coalition,” which gained notoriety for its protest encampment and hostile takeover of the Institute of Politics. Through it, GSU-UE has joined calls to “honor the martyrs”; fight against campus “Zionists”; resist “pigs” (i.e., police); “liberate” Palestine from the “River to the Sea,” and by “any means necessary”; and “bring the intifada home.” Jimmy Hoffa’s union this is not.

5.  Nonetheless, under a recent collective bargaining agreement extracted by the GSU-UE, graduate students at the University must now either become dues-paying members of the union, or pay it an equivalent “agency fee,” as a condition of continuing their work as teaching assistants, research assistants, or similar positions.

6.  Constitutionally speaking, that is not kosher. The union’s ability to obtain agency fees from nonconsenting students is the direct product of federal law—i.e., it involves governmental action, subject to the First Amendment. But if GSU-UE wishes to wield such federally backed power, it must accept the responsibility that comes with it; it cannot use a government-backed cudgel, outside constitutional constraint. And if the First Amendment means anything, it means students cannot be compelled to fund a group they find abhorrent as the price of continuing their work.

7.  The stories of Plaintiff’s members lay bare the stakes that are at issue here. One member is an Israeli; another a proud Jew with family fighting in Israel; and some are graduate students simply horrified by the union’s antisemitism—as well as its other (to put it mildly) controversial political positions, which reach well beyond collective bargaining to virtually every hot-button subject (e.g., abortion, affirmative action, policing, gender ideology, even the judiciary). Although members come from different backgrounds, none can stomach sending a penny to this union.

Now I’m no lawyer (I only play one on television), but it seems that this is indeed compelled speech: Jewish students are being forced to endorse policies that can be regarded as anti-Israel and likely as antisemitic. Nor do I know the solution, unless it’s to ditch the agreement that qualified students should have to join the union.  It seems to me, in my ignorance, that unions, like universities, should be “institutionally neutral”: they should not take political or ideological positions that have nothing to do with the working of the union itself.

The First Amendment itself prohibits compelled speech. As a free-speech site says,

The compelled speech doctrine sets out the principle that the government cannot force an individual or group to support certain expression. Thus, the First Amendment not only limits the government from punishing a person for his speech, it also prevents the government from punishing a person for refusing to articulate, advocate, or adhere to the government’s approved messages.

The Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) is the classic example of the compelled speech doctrine at work.

In this case, the Court ruled that a state cannot force children to stand, salute the flag, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The justices held that school children who are Jehovah’s Witnesses, for religious reasons, had a First Amendment right not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or salute the U.S. flag.

In oft-cited language, Justice Robert H. Jackson asserted, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

The problem, of course, is that this doctrine applies only to the government punishing people for their speech or for refusing to adhere to approved governmental speech. Since schools are arms of the government, they can’t be forced, as noted above, to salute the flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  But the plaintiffs argue that the power of unions ultimately derives from the government—from legislative acts. From the complaint:

80. Step one asks: “Whether the claimed constitutional deprivation resulted from the exercise of a right or privilege having its source in state authority.” Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614, 620 (1991). And the answer here is yes: GSU-UE’s extraction of fees is the product of its legal power to bind all workers to a single collective bargaining agreement, as their sole and exclusive representative.

81. The Supreme Court has said as much: The “collection of fees from nonmembers is authorized by an act of legislative grace—one that we have termed ‘unusual’ and ‘extraordinary.’” Knox v. SEIU, Local 1000, 567 U.S. 298, 313-14 (2012).

This case, then, would seem to be an important one, for it could decide whether unions in general can indeed take political positions that are seen as implicitly endorsed by their members.  And, of course, unions regularly endorse political candidates.

The fate of this case thus depends on whether the compelled speech involved in being a union member is construed as being connected with government. As I said, I think unions, representing a broad spectrum of views among their members, should be politically neutral even if there’s no governmental connection. Compelled speech is chilled speech and inhibits free speech; this is why our university has its institutional neutrality embodied in the Kalven report.

But if the court does find that union activities occur under the aegis of government, then it’s game over: the plaintiffs win. We shall see.

Another government-funded organization encourages staff to chant Māori prayers

July 19, 2024 • 9:30 am

Some of you may be wondering why I persistently post on the efforts of New Zealand to interpolate local superstitions and lore into science classes and other government endeavors.  This is not because I hate New Zealand, but because I love it.  I hate to see the country brought down, especially scientifically, by sacralizing the superstitions of the indigenous population. Yes, I admit that the local “way of knowing,” Mātauranga Māori (MM), does contain some empirical trial-and-error knowledge, though most of that knowledge should be conveyed in anthropology and sociology classes. But what’s going on in the country now is the world’s most pervasive form of “wokeness,” though it’s not purely performative because it actually damages the country. And the authorities have ensured that no objection to this ideological capture will be tolerated.

So my occasional reports about New Zealand on this site are meant to let Kiwis know what’s really going on in their country in the hopes that rationality and science won’t be held hostage to the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Many residents know already, but many also send me documents that can’t be criticized publicly because the sacralization of the oppressed has reached the point where New Zealanders who criticize the intrusion of legend, superstition, and local religion into the workplace are liable to be fired or punished.  I can’t tell you the number of emails I get from Kiwis urging me on, but saying that I can’t publish their names for fear of reprisal.  But since I’m in the U.S., I can at least mention this foolishness without fear of retribution. That’s why some NZ outlets, like this one, simply reproduce the posts I’ve written about what seems to be the world’s worst and most dictatorial form of DEI.

So here is yet another email from a New Zealander wanting me to report on this mishigass, but asking to remain anonymous.  So be it.  The other day I reported how the staff at some locations of Health New Zealand, a government health-promoting agency, were encouraged to say Māori prayers or chants (“karakia“) daily. This practice was originally reported on a NZ website, but the link was sent to me anonymously. The author, A. E. Thompson, noted that “voluntary” prayers aren’t really that voluntary if you’re pressured to say them:

Sure, the email to health staff only used the word “encourage” but really, when your employer issues an email saying that, you know it will be expected and that ignoring or opposing it will be held against you and may cost you your job.

Pressuring state employees and even private company employees to participate in karakia sets a dangerous precedent in eroding separation between state and religion. As we speak, Muslim immigrants in Europe are deliberately imposing their religious practices on non-Muslim populations by having their distorting loudspeakers call dozens or hundreds of faithful to prostrate themselves in prayer on public footpaths and roadways (even though nearby mosques are plentiful). The practice reflects their belief that Islam is so important that everyone either needs to convert to it or be discriminated against or killed.

This is why, in the U.S., “voluntary” prayers are banned in school. This not only violates the First Amendment, but pressures kids to conform to public prayers lest they be ostracized.

Well, now New Zealand has done it again, this time in a hospice largely funded by the government, and in the southern part of the country. The hospice even suggests some prayers, which seem to be Māori.  This was sent to me by someone who requests anonymity for fear of losing their job.

Note that this was sent to the staff of a hospice, not to the residents, and, as usual, it’s full of Māori words (I’ve bolded them) that are there simply as a performative act, since they impede understanding (everyone speaks English, but few, even Māori people, speak the indigenous language). In this case, most have already been translated into English. You can look the words and pharses up in the Maori dictionary, but karakia I’ll define for you (here’s part of it):

incantation, ritual chant, chant, intoned incantation, charm, spell – a set form of words to state or make effective a ritual activity. Karakia are recited rapidly using traditional language, symbols and structures.

It can also refer to Christian prayers, but note in the second paragraph that this effort is being guided by a Māori advisory group. Note as well that the introduction of the karakia are being timed to coincide with the new Moon (the phases of the moon have great significance for Māori life).

The email:

Kia ora team,

I’m emailing you all ahead of a change in the way we manage karakia for our IDT hui/meetings.

I want to acknowledge that karakia to begin and end our IDT hui/meetings started quite abruptly to begin with, and it is my hope, and that of the Māori Advisory Group (MAG), to provide some context and to guide this part of our day in a way that is supportive and makes sense.

Firstly I’ll speak to why work places might look to introduce karakia into everyday activities, such as the IDT meeting. Karakia are an integral part of te ao Māori (the Māori world).

On a functional level karakia:

– Provide a predictable structure to everyday interactions i.e. beginning, middle, end;

– Enable the everyday exchange of whanaungatanga (managing relationships/relationship building) and manaakitanga (hospitality).

– Support the normalisation of te reo me ngā tikanga Māori (Māori language and customs), which I believe in turn lends to:

— The development of skills that enhance our capacity to provide culturally safe care to Aotearoa New Zealand’s indigenous people.

— The development of perspectives that foster cultural humility in our engagements with all.

On a deeper level karakia:

– Support us to collectively connect with and focus in on the context (kaupapa) of the interaction;

– Navigate tapu and noa (separate but corresponding states of being within te ao Māori. Inappropriate association between things that are tapu and noa can impact all dimensions of wellbeing) safely.

– Fortify our holistic wellbeing by engaging with Te Taha Wairua (the spiritual dimension of wellbeing).

Making space for karakia within our workplace is particularly important given the intensity of the mahi (work) we are engaged with as individual clinicians, and as a collective. Our mahi straddles the ordinary and the extraordinary: we support patients, whānau and caregivers as they navigate the threshold between life and death, and support each other to provide this care.

We are going to begin refreshing the IDT karakia (or whakataukī – proverb) in concordance with Whio – the New Moon – as an opportunity to consider and acknowledge both the maramataka (Māori lunar calendar) and pūrākau (stories/legends/myths) inherently relevant to our work at the hospice.

 Our hope is that incorporating such an initiative into OCH processes will support us to:

·        Normalise the use of te reo Māori.

·        Enable the everyday exchange of whanaungatanga and manaakitanga.

·        Grow in our personal and organisational understanding of Māori world views within the palliative context.

·        Equip the team with knowledge that may support us to be more culturally responsive.

·        Foster a sense of interest/curiosity in learning more.

So, with this in mind, and given that the next new moon is July 6th, we will be setting this new initiative in motion on the next working day which is Monday 8th July. On the 8th I’ll speak to the initiative briefly, and then provide some context regarding the new karakia or whakataukī, and we’ll go from there. For those that feel comfortable joining in with reciting the karakia – please feel free to join in – otherwise, please feel free to sit back, relax and tune in to the kupu (words) and the kaupapa of the karakia, kei a koutou (its up to you)!

You will find copies of the karakia or whakataukī we are going to use for the next month attached to this email for your reference.

If you are curious about learning more please check out the piece I have contributed to this months OCHeye coming out soon!

The two karakia enclosed are both Māiru incantations: here’s a screenshot of one:

 

Yes, these are non-religious and could be considered as Māori haiku, but the point is that these are “suggested” incantations, and they are Māori.  Note that these are being introduced to the hospice to bring it into “the Māori world”, and one of the stated reasons for the introduction is “The development of skills that enhance our capacity to provide culturally safe care to Aotearoa New Zealand’s indigenous people” and to ·       “Grow in our personal and organisational understanding of Māori world views within the palliative context.”  Now of course one must be sensitive to the culture of hospice patients, and not insult or agitate them, but prayers aren’t the way—they should use Måori healers or spiritual leaders to do this—and I doubt that everybody in the hospice is of indigenous ancestry.

This is in fact one attempt to indoctrinate the staff with the spiritual aspects of Māori culture. Yes, the prayers are “optional”, but you know what that means, and woe to the person who writes to the boss to object to this effort! What is this doing in a hospice? Are there any atheists or Christians there? In the U.S., this kind of effort would be prohibited as discriminatory and perhaps a violation of the First Amendment. Chaplains are allowed to visit hospitals and say prayers with the patients, but hospital staff are not given “suggestions” to say prayers. But this admixture of superstition and government-funded institutions is not prohibited in New Zealand. Many residents object to it, but they’re so cowed that they can’t even voice their objections for fear of punishment. All over the country, speech has been chilled.

So it goes. I hate to think of what New Zealand will look like in thirty years, when this kind of ideological capture has become the norm.

******

I’ll add that in 2021 the leadership of the University of Auckland, Vice Chancellor Dawn Freshwater, promised that there would be seminars, panels and debates on the virtues of teaching MM as coequal to modern science in university science classes.  That was three years ago, and absolutely nothing has transpired. I’m told that the Māori moiety of the administration has prevented any such debate, but I don’t know for sure. All I know is that when I wrote Dr. Freshwater reminding her of her promises, and asking when this important debate would take place, I got no reply.

FIRE poll has good news and bad news

June 21, 2024 • 11:30 am

A new poll by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has some good news and some bad news. I’ll highlight what I see are the important results, but you can read the whole thing by clicking below.


The poll was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago (formerly the National Opinion Research Center), and their results are generally solid.  The sample, says the page, “The

.. . . was conducted May 17-19, 2024, using NORC’s AmeriSpeak® probability-based panel, and sampled 1,309 Americans. The overall margin of error for the survey is +/- 4%.

Here are some graphs:

While some of these protest actions are regulated on campuses (ours, for example, regulates the times when you can use amplified sound), the poll is simply about whether it’s okay for college students to engage in these activities. No “time, place, or manner” restrictions are discussed.

Given that, and looking at the dark and light red bars as indications of “not very acceptable”, we see pretty much what we expect. What’s surprising is that a huge majority of Americans (these are not just students) find burning an American flag unacceptable (about 70% “never acceptable and 12% “rarely acceptable”), despite the fact that burning an American flag is protected as free speech by the First Amendment!  (So is holding signs.) Americans either don’t know or don’t care about that interpretation of flag-burning by the courts. As the FIRE site notes:

“It’s no shocker that Americans tend to disapprove of illegal and illiberal conduct by student protesters,” said FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens. “But it’s alarming that a third of Americans say constitutionally protected and non-threatening activities like sign-holding or petitions are only ‘sometimes’ or ‘rarely’ acceptable. Nonviolent protest should always be acceptable on college campuses.”

But I disagree with FIRE in part here as there are time, place, and manner restrictions that apply even to nonviolent protests. Blocking access to campus or impeding classes with megaphones and shouting are nonviolent forms of protest, but prevent academia from operating propetly. In my view, FIRE is simply wrong that these should always be acceptable.  Much of the time, yes, but not always. 

Encamping is also of interest, and 43% of American think that establishing them is “never acceptable” while about 22% see them as “rarely acceptable”. About 25% see encampments as “sometimes or always acceptable”, with the “sometimes” outnumbering “always’ here.  Whether universities consider encampment acceptable, of course, depends on the school and the form of encampment.  Williams College, for instance, had a small, out-of-the-way encampment and nobody was bothered.

Here are the consequences that the American public thinks should fall onto students participating in encampments.


FIRE’s summary:

Nearly three-fourths of Americans (72%) believe that campus protesters who participated in encampments should be punished, but only 18% believe they should receive the harshest penalty of expulsion. Other responses ran the gamut from suspension (13%), to probation (16%), to written reprimand (12%), to community service (13%). Only 23% believe the students should receive no punishment at all.

LOL; I think more than 23% of colleges themselves believe that encamping students should receive no punishment at all. At least that’s my guess based on the number of students who seem to be getting of scot-free for encamping.  As for punishment, there’s roughly equal sentiment in faor of a written reprimand, community service, probation, suspension, or expulsion.  Perhaps a written reprimand would be okay for students who are first-time violators, but the penalty should go up if there are previous violations on a student’s record, and also on how much warning they were given by the university, as well as whether they engaged in any harassment of individuals during the encampment.

There’s a bit more:

“Public colleges and universities can usually ban encampments without violating the First Amendment, so long as the ban serves a reasonable purpose, enforcement is consistent and viewpoint-neutral, and students maintain other avenues for expressing themselves,” said FIRE Director of Campus Rights Advocacy Lindsie Rank. “Universities can’t disproportionately punish students just because administrators don’t agree with the viewpoint being expressed at the encampment.”

Agreed!

And I’ve saved the good news for last:

FIRE’s summary:

Almost two-thirds of Americans (63%) said that the campus protests had no impact at all on their level of sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza, and respondents were as likely to say that the campus protests made them sympathize less with the Palestinians (17%) as they were to say they made them sympathize more (16%).

In other words, the net effect of campus protests—and they surely mean “pro-Palestinian protests”—is ZERO: as just as many people become more sympathetic as become less sympathetic, while most people don’t change their minds at all. In other words, the protests are performative, at least with respect to American opinion. They could, of course, hearten or disappoint Hamas, but again the net effect would be nil.  What the protests do accomplish is reduce America’s confidence in colleges and universities, which seems to be continuously slipping. And yes, that’s bad news:

FIRE’s poll also shows that American confidence in colleges and universities continues to slip. Only 28% of respondents said that they have either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in U.S. colleges and universities. By comparison, 36% of Americans told Gallup in summer 2023 that they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education in the U.S.

The FIRE summary concludes with more bad news: a pessimistic take of Americans on whether institutions of higher education protest free speech

Colleges received middling grades in particular on the issue of protecting speech. Almost half of Americans (47%) say that it is “not at all” or “not very” clear that college administrators protect free speech on their campus. Roughly two-in-five Americans (42%) said that it is “not at all”or “not very” likely that a school administration would defend a speaker’s right to express their views during a controversy on campus.

Bobo’s boo-boo: Harvard dean says faculty have no right to criticize University if it could lead to outside intervention in the school’s business

June 20, 2024 • 9:30 am

Just when you thought the turmoil at Harvard was over, its briquettes have ignited again, thanks to a big squirt of lighter fluid from Harvard’s Dean of Social Science, Larry Bobo.  Last week, Bobo posted a deeply misguided editorial in the Harvard Crimson, which you can see by clicking the title below. What he calls for is in-house censorship of Harvard faculty, and even sanctions applied to those who nevertheless adhere to First-Amendment-permitted free speech:

Click to read:

Apparently the target at which Bobo’s editorial is aimed is ex-President Larry Summers, who criticized Claudine Gay’s response to the October 7 butchery of Hamas as well as the University’s hamhandedness in dealing with antisemitism. But then Bobo goes on to say that faculty should be muzzled in general, so long as what they say could, down the line, cause “trouble”.

I’ll give a substantial excerpt of Bobo’s screed because it violates canons of academic freedom, academic neutrality, and simple common sense.

Having witnessed the appallingly rough manner in which prominent affiliates, including one former University president, publicly denounced Harvard’s students and present leadership, this first question must be answered: Is it outside the bounds of acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member to excoriate University leadership, faculty, staff, or students with the intent to arouse external intervention into University business? And does the broad publication of such views cross a line into sanctionable violations of professional conduct?

Yes it is and yes it does.

Note that Bobo says that the faculty behavior is “sanctionable”, i.e., faculty could be punished for free speech—for criticizing the University. As for “the intent to arouse external intervention into University business,” that’s both hard to determine and, at any rate, remains free speech. It’s as if professors or other deans cannot bring to the attention of the public bad stuff going on at Harvard.  One possible example is donor Bill Ackman pulling his gifts to Harvard during and after the Claudine Gay affair. That was bad for Harvard, but faculty who publicized Gay’s missteps, which included plagiarism, should certainly NOT be punished.

And remember that, as Dean, Bobo has the ability to affect people’s tenure, promotions, and salaries within his division, as one professor critical of his stand has noted (see below).

Here’s Bobo evincing ignorance of the First Amendment, which Harvard is supposed to adhere to:

Vigorous debate is to be expected and encouraged at any University interested in promoting freedom of expression. But here is the rub: As the events of the past year evidence, sharply critical speech from faculty, prominent ones especially, can attract outside attention that directly impedes the University’s function.

A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs. Along with freedom of expression and the protection of tenure comes a responsibility to exercise good professional judgment and to refrain from conscious action that would seriously harm the University and its independence.

The response to these assertions is simply, “yes: so long as a faculty member’s speech is not prohibited by the First Amendment (and “inciting external actors to intervene in Harvard’s affairs does not count), faculty do have a blank check. Speech prohibited by the First Amendment includes incitement of imminent and predictable violence (no Harvard faculty have done that), and things like defamation, false advertising, harassment, and so on. Absent those kinds of speech, yes, Harvard faculty can say what they want. Bobo needs to understand the First Amendment. He shows further ignorance of the law in this paragraph:

But many faculty at Harvard enjoy an external stature that also opens to them much broader platforms for potential advocacy. Figures such as Raj Chetty ’00, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jill Lepore, or Steven A. Pinker have well-earned notoriety that reaches far beyond the academy.

Would it simply be an ordinary act of free speech for those faculty to repeatedly denounce the University, its students, fellow faculty, or leadership? The truth is that free speech has limits — it’s why you can’t escape sanction for shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.

Note that Gates, Lepore, Pinker et al. are said to have “well-earned notoriety”—an interesting choice of words! Why not “renown”?

But the “shouting fire in a crowded theater” phrase, which, when used as a ruse, was construed as speech creating immediate and predictable panic and violence, came from a  1919 Supreme Court decision by Oliver Wendell Holmes—in a case in which a man was indicted for urging others to avoid the draft.  In fact, the anti-draft speech, held unlawful by the Court, was partly overturned 5 decades later precisely because it wasn’t “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and [wasn’t] likely to incite or produce such action”

None of Harvard faculty speech, then, violated free speech, though Bobo added one other area in which faculty should shut up:

Following similar logic: Is it acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member to encourage civil disobedience on the part of students that violates University policies? Faculty advocacy for actions clearly identified as in violation of student conduct rules is extremely problematic. Doing so after students have received official notification of a potential serious infraction is not acceptable. Such behavior should have sanctionable limits as well.

. . .Modern student protest appears less and less likely to target major non-University events, businesses, or government bodies. Rather, they’re comfortably situated in the confines of college campuses, directing demands for change at university administrators and boards of directors.

While this certainly draws in media attention, it is flawed. Targeting protest at those charged with a pastoral duty of care for their students and an indirect-at-best relation to the protesters’ core grievance considerably removes these efforts from the inarguably heroic actions of college students who burned draft cards in protest of the Vietnam War, registered black voters in Mississippi or Alabama, sat in at segregated lunch counters, or joined marches for women’s liberation and gay rights.

Even this commitment to instruct students on protest, however, is not without justifiable limits. If we are prepared to sanction our students for a line of action contrary to our codes of conduct, then I believe professors or administrators who encourage and advocate for such actions should also face parallel consequences.

I disagree, as do many others.  Encampments (that’s surely what Bobo’s talking about here) are violations of Harvard’s policies, and some faculty did encourage students in their desire to encamp. But that is simply calling for civil disobedience, not calling for violence and the like.  If faculty promoting encampments is illegal speech, then so were the calls by civil rights leaders for illegal sit-ins, voter registration, and marches.  (Note, “lawless action” implies violence, not “peaceful disobedience of the law”.) I disagree with the politics behind encampments, of course, but I certainly wouldn’t sanction faculty for encouraging that behavior. Such speech may have been unwise, but it was neither illegal nor a violation of Harvard’s speech policy.

Remember, encouraging civil disobedience is legal, while civil disobedience itself is by definition illegal.  As for whether disobedience like encamping is “heroic”, that’s a matter for history to judge, not Harvard.

One more thing: Bobo didn’t emphasize that he was speaking personally rather than as a Dean of the College; in other words, he was not limning official policy. (He later clarified that he spoke personally.) Thus his first op-ed is a violation of institutional neutrality that was likely to chill the speech of people in the social sciences and keep them from criticizing him. In fact, someone of Bobo’s position is best off muzzling himself because the line between personal speech and official speech from administrators is unclear. Even now that he’s clarified that he was speaking as an individual, what faculty member in the social science wouldn’t feel inhibited from encouraging students to commit civil disobedience, or from criticizing the administration in a way that may draw outside attention?

The pushback on Bobo has already begun.  A letter appeared in yesterday’s  Crimson authored by three members of Harvard’s faculty Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard (CAFH), and signed by ten bigwig professors (including Randall Kennedy, The Notorious Steve Pinker, Jeannie Suk Gersen, and others) showing how misguided Bobo’s piece was. Click to read:

They correct a number of Bobo’s mistakes I’ve mentioned above, but here’s an excerpt:

It is downright alarming that such a stunning argument would come from a dean who currently wields power over hundreds of professors — without indicating that he would refrain from implementing his views by punishing the faculty he oversees.

We strongly reject Dean Bobo’s arguments. He does not invoke generally agreed-upon exceptions to the right to free speech, such as inherently verbal crimes like libel, or justifiable restrictions on time, place, and manner. Instead, he references an analogy from former Supreme court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Class of 1861, arguing that shouting fire in a crowded theater is sanctionable.

The analogy is inapplicable for many reasons. Holmes alluded to falsely crying “fire,” whereas the speech that Dean Bobo would sanction is reasoned opinion, not known falsehood. The analogy pertains to a reflexive and predictable mob reaction; faculty opinions may be evaluated and deliberated over time. And the actual legal decision Holmes justified, which convicted people who criticized the draft during World War I, was later effectively overturned in a judgment that limited suppression of speech to incitement of “imminent lawless action.”

Analogies aside, Dean Bobo’s assertion that faculty who criticized Harvard’s leadership should be sanctioned because of an “intent to arouse external intervention” is troubling. He has no grounds for imputing such intent, nor for asserting that outside attention “impedes the University’s function.”

. . . Finally, Dean Bobo is also prepared to sanction those who encourage students to engage in civil disobedience that violates University policies. This, too, is deeply concerning. If a professor or administrator says to student protesters that their actions are legitimate civil disobedience, then such advice — whatever one thinks of its merits — is fully protected by academic freedom. Even encouraging students to break rules must be given wide leeway. Criminal law sets a high bar for charging incitement, solicitation, or aiding and abetting, precisely because of concerns for freedom of speech.

Will this letter itself incite outsiders to withhold money from or write letters about Harvard? If so, Bobo’s first op-ed would call this behavior “sanctionable”. But it isn’t.

The letter, I’m told, will soon appear with many more signers on the CAFH website.

There is a lot of criticism of Bobo’s op-ed at both liberal and conservative venues. I’ll show but two (you can access them by clicking on the headlines); one from a liberal source (the Boston Globe) and the other from a conservative cite (the Wall Street Journal editorial board). I’ll give two paragraphs from each.

One Harvard professor, who works in the social sciences, said, “The suggestion that members of an institution should be punished for criticizing that institution represents an authoritarian mindset, with no place in a university.” The professor requested anonymity to criticize “the dean who determines [my] salary, particularly when the dean is saying that deans have the right to punish faculty who criticize deans.”

In December, Bobo, along with hundreds of other faculty members, signed an open letter urging Harvard leaders “to defend the independence of the university and to resist political pressures that are at odds with Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom.”

The first paragraph shows why Bobo’s op-ed violated institutional neutrality. He’s now clarified that his statement wasn’t “official,” but it’s too late.  I don’t think the chilling effect of Bobo’s threat to punish faculty members can be overcome now that he’s shot off his big bazoo.  I seriously think he should be replaced, for there will always be the suspicion that he’s policing faculty in the social sciences.

The second paragraph is just bizarre, since what Bobo wrote urged direct violatio of academic freedom: the right of professors to engage in whatever academic research and speech that they see fit, so long as it doesn’t violate freedom of speech or University policy (again, Harvard says that it does adhere to a First-Amendment-like freedom of speech).

And the Wall Street Journal (archived here):

An excerpt:

As an institutional matter, Mr. Bobo’s position as a Harvard dean is especially problematic. Harvard President Emeritus Larry Summers notes that the call to censure faculty members’ comments on university affairs is “an obvious intrusion on academic freedom” and worse because of his position. Mr. Bobo “has authority over salaries, setting promotions and resource allocations,” Mr. Summers notes, and until his views are repudiated by university leadership, “academic freedom at Harvard will be in jeopardy.”

The Harvard faculty hasn’t so far embraced Mr. Bobo’s speech notions, and it will be useful if the gaffe encourages them to reread the University of Chicago free-speech principles over summer vacation. But Mr. Bobo’s broadside is a reminder that censors haven’t vanished from the top rungs of America’s supposedly elite universities.

Instead of soothing the turmoil at Harvard, Bobo has exacerbated it by, as the WSJ suggests, urging the Harvard professors censor themselves—or else. This is not going to bring peace at Harvard, and in fact it’s roiled the University, uniting Right and Left against the administration. (Note the plaudits to the University of Chicago.)

Given Bobo’s boo-boo, here are my three suggestions about what Harvard should do:

1.)  Get rid of Bobo as Dean. Seriously.

2.) The rest of the Harvard administration, and the deans of all the divisions, should publicly say that Bobo’s views are not University policy and that the University adheres to Constitutional freedom of speech as well as academic freedom.

3.) Most important, Harvard should adopt the five provisions laid out by The Notorious Steve Pinker in his Boston Globe editorial last December, “A five-point plan to save Harvard from itself.”  Here are two provisions that need to be formally and immediately adopted by Harvard (a short excerpt from Pinker):

Free speech. Universities should adopt a clear and conspicuous policy on academic freedom. It might start with the First Amendment, which binds public universities and which has been refined over the decades with carefully justified exceptions. These include crimes that by their very nature are committed with speech, like extortion, bribery, libel, and threats, together with incitement of imminent lawless action. It also permits restraints on the time, place, and manner of expression. The First Amendment does not entitle someone to blare propaganda from a sound truck in a residential neighborhood at 3 a.m. or to set up a soapbox in the middle of a busy freeway.

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. . . . Institutional neutrality. A university does not need a foreign policy, and it does not need to issue pronouncements on the controversies and events of the day. It is a forum for debate, not a protagonist in debates. When a university takes a public stand, it either puts words in the mouths of faculty and students who can speak for themselves or unfairly pits them against their own employer. It’s even worse when individual departments take positions, because it sets up a conflict of interest with any dissenting students and faculty whose fates they control.

During the turmoil of the last year, Harvard has lost considerable money and, more important, a lot of its reputation. The school is now the butt of jokes. It’s also subject to a federal investigation of whether it failed to stop harassment of Jewish students. Harvard’s entire position as the Best College in America depends on its academic reputation, something that has been severely undermined. Bobo helped continue the undermining. Part of the school’s academic reputation depends, of course, on academic freedom and freedom of speech: two buttresses of truth-seeking.

I used to think that NOTHING could erode Harvard’s reputation, but that doesn’t seem to be true. Applications to the school fell 5% last year as students sought other selective schools whose applications have actually increased, and applications for early admission dropped a whopping 17%,  Yes, Harvard will still be able to get its quota of highly qualified undergraduates, but with declining applications, some of the best ones will simply go elsewhere.

Four U of C students punished for illegal Encamping, angering many who don’t understand freedom of expression

May 26, 2024 • 9:30 am

A petition is circulating among the University of Chicago community about our weeklong Encampment, which violated numerous University “time, place, and manner” (TPM) restrictions on free expression.

Our own encampment began on April 29 on the University Quad.  After the President and Dean of Students warned the protestors that they faced university sanctions for violating TPM restrictions, there were some negotiations between the protestors and the administration, but they came to naught. By May 3, the patience of the administration was at an end. On that day the President issued a statement that ended this way:

At 5 a.m. on May 7, after about a week’s existence, the encampment was taken down by the University of Chicago Police. (Apparently the Chicago City police, on orders from our bumbling mayor, wouldn’t do anything, though Mayor Brandon Johnson did allow the city cops to remove an encampment at the Art Institute.)

Before that time I had beefed that the University didn’t seem interested in identifying any protestors violating TPM restrictions despite the threat of sanctions; indeed, when the encampment was taken down and the Encamped fled like fleas off a drowning rat, the campus cops didn’t take names or look at IDs, but simply drove the protestors onto a nearby street. How would they know who the Encamped were?

Without sanctions and punishment (it needn’t be severe for first-time violators), there is no deterrent to actions that violate our freedom of expression. (Yes, it’s okay to put “time place, and manner” regulations on speech in colleges, as those regulations support an atmosphere of free expression.  No deplatforming or shouting down speakers, and you can’t block buildings or use megaphones outside of prescribed hours.)

And, in my view, the University had been lax in punishing violators. In the end, that only impedes free expression and creates chaos on campus. (I am, of course, fully in favor of free speech that doesn’t violate the regulations we have in place.) But, mirabile dictu, now there’s a petition going around reporting that there have indeed been sanctions imposed on some Encampers. Four of them, all seniors, won’t be receiving their degrees, presumably until their actions are examined and judged by the relevant committees.

That, of course, angers up the coterie of Palestine supporters, many of whom seem to believe that any expression of their ideology constitutes free speech, even if it violates university regulations. It’s OKAY, they think, to block campus access, deplatform opposing speakers, fence off an area of campus for Tentment, and cancel or disturb regular classes by chanting through megaphones. These folks really do need a lesson in what free speech means here.

But let’s look at the pushback to the punishment (probably temporary) for those four seniors.  Below is the text of a Google document for a petition addressed to the University community. In the petition is the report of sanctions.

The bolding in the first and last two sentences is part of the petition, while that in the middle is mine.

NO WITHHOLDING DEGREES FOR SUPPORTING PALESTINE: UCHICAGO, LET THE SENIORS GRADUATE

On May 24th, the University of Chicago told 4 seniors that their degrees are being withheld without justification just 8 days before graduation set for June 1st. UChicago administrators engage in their latest form of repression and intimidation against Pro-Palestine student activists. We demand UChicago let them graduate!

The administration claims these students “may have been involved with complaints” regarding the UChicago Popular University For Gaza Palestine solidarity encampment. Friday Morning, a University adminstrator from the Center for Student Integrity sent the student activists a “Disruptive Conduct Process Notice” informing them the conferral of their degrees will be delayed, therefore, preventing them from graduating with their diplomas despite the students completing their degrees. The Center for Student Integrity went on break for 4 days after notifying the students, preventing students from asking what the complaints were or questioning  how they were selected to be a part of this process.

The University of Chicago administration continues to target these 4 students for their support of Palestine on campus. Administration has intimidated, repressed, threatened, and harassed students who show support for Palestine all year. This new intimidation tactic follows the university arresting 26 students and 2 faculty at a sit-in in November, subjecting those same students to disciplinary proceedings that stretched on over 6 months, and repeatedly destroying pro-Palestine art memorials throughout this year. Most recently, the administration used sleep deprivation against people in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment by threatening overnight police violence multiple nights in a row before ordering a brutal police raid on the encampment at 5am, attacking in riot gear while the exhausted people in the encampment were asleep in their tents.

The University of Chicago forsakes its role as a university and eschews its responsibility to its students, workers, and community. As Israel continues its genocide of the Palestinian people, UChicago continues to invest in weapons manufacturers and Israeli companies collaborate with Israel through programs like the Israel Institute and study abroad at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. UChicago cares only about appeasing donors, not about people’s lives.

In the last few weeks, Israel has launched another assault on Rafah where it told people to flee, blocked all aid to Gaza, and attacked northern Jabalia where Palestinians are trapped in a hospital under siege. Yet, UChicago is more concerned with targeting and harassing its students than with addressing its complicity in genocide. After 8 months of genocide, after days of meetings with students from the Popular University for Gaza encampment, UChicago admin refuses to even name Palestine. UChicago’s President, Paul Alivisatos, refuses to acknowledge the undeniable fact that every Gazan university has been destroyed. Over the past 8 months, UChicago has evaded, stalled, and ignored even the most basic demands of its students–hiding behind its bureaucratic structures. But in one email, a single administrator can make the baseless decision to prevent 4 students from graduating.

We, students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members demand the University of Chicago let our seniors graduate.

See the full petition and list of signatories here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VEpMFO_Roxbb00AVR80rz_p3-bsgJht-meU2o2yqvVg/edit?usp=sharing

As far as I can see, the bit in the middle is both erroneous and funny. Pro-Palestinian students have indeed been allowed to engage in repeated demonstrations, even illegal ones, without either no or perfunctory punishment. I kept an eye on the art memorials, like a huge installation of Palestinian flags, and I saw no destruction of legally permitted installations. (Illegal stickers and posters were removed by the University, and graffiti painted on buildings was cleaned off.)

But the weirdest part of the petition is the claim that the University was using “sleep deprivation” to torture the Encampers.  If they intended that, they’d play music all night. The “sleep deprivation” was experience by Encampers who heard rumors on two nights that the University Police were going to take down the encampment in the early morning. And indeed, on the second night, they did. This is in fact a measure designed to ensure the safety of everyone, preventing clashes between police and protestors because the protestors were simply woken up and told to leave campus. And it worked: nobody was injured—no Encampers, no cops.  Beefing about this as a form of torture is just another way to claim victimhood, a leitmotif of these protests and not in keeping with pose of resolute civil disobedience.

I’m not going into the bogus claims of genocide or our supposed “complicity” in it. This post is just about the petition. I don’t know how many people have signed it, but they have to realize that if there are no sanctions for disrupting the campus in this way, the campus will continue to be disrupted.  These people fail to realize that the purpose of the University is teaching, learning, and promoting thought—not promoting a preferred ideology that comports with “social justice”.

Students are of course free to enact civil disobedience, but part of that is accepting the consequences of the disobedience.  Students who beg not to be punished, as well as people who signed the petition above, undercut the very moral suasion essential to civil disobedience, so they damage not only the university’s mission, but the concept of civil disobedience itself.