UW-Madison professors and a former government official met with community members Tuesday in Memorial Union to discuss free speech and its impact and importance at UW-Madison.
The debate was hosted by Ideas on Trial — a nonpartisan student group that promotes debate on issues relating to students — and featured UW-Madison professors Kathleen Culver and Howard Schweber, as well as former Deputy Attorney General of Wisconsin Kevin St. John.
The group discussed four core topics involving First Amendment rights on campus.
Intolerance to conflicting viewpoints
The group first discussed whether the campus community’s intolerance towards conflicting, unpopular or dissenting viewpoints represents the biggest threat to the mission of the university today.
Schweber, a professor of political science and legal studies, and St. John argued that this intolerance poses a threat to the university’s mission of facilitating the discovery and decimation of knowledge and truth.
St. John said that without the recognition of opposing viewpoints, universities cannot up-end orthodoxies and expand knowledge by defeating ideas that were once perceived to be true.
“Intolerance of ideas whether it’s in the name of social moraes or social justice presumes that we know all that there is to know,” St. John said. “What good is a university if that’s the case?”
Culver, an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication, did not think intolerance of conflicting viewpoints was the biggest issue.
According to Culver, the fundamental change in the way society looks at university education, talks about that education and thinks what that university education should accomplish poses as a larger threat.
She said that when she attended UW-Madison, the school’s mission was not to have education serve as a credential, but to help students become responsible citizens.
“We now have this idea that students are consumers,” Culver said. “And with students as consumers we get issues like a conservative student might not want to hear a liberal viewpoint from a professor. It’s made us shift how we view a university.”
UW-Madison’s role in protecting students in potentially hostile learning environments
Another discussion point was whether the university has the responsibility of restricting offensive or demeaning speech in educational classrooms or at university sponsored events.
Culver argued that the university should not have administrative policies that restrict offensive or demeaning speech but should promote a safe and welcoming environment in these spaces.
Schweber agreed, saying the university is not responsible for restricting offensive or demeaning speech. He said universities do not bear the responsibility of choosing the environment a teacher decides to set in their classroom.
“As instructors we have to have the freedom to adjust that atmosphere as we see fit,” Schweber said. “The university’s only job is to set limits.”
Disruption of guest speakers on campus
Recently, the Board of Regents passed a resolution that would punish students for disrupting speakers invited to campus.
The speakers said that university-affiliated groups have the right to bring controversial speakers to campus, but that their goal for inviting the speakers should not provoke others.
Culver said that there are responsibilities that come along with these rights. She said that students have the right to express their opinion when they think a speaker is brought to campus with the wrong intent.
“Other people on campus can say to you that [bringing a controversial speaker to campus] is irresponsible,” Culver said. “As a community, we set norms and we want to protect them.”
While Culver questioned the intent of some groups’ speaker invitations, she said the university should not get involved in moderating the speakers. In fact, Culver said the Board of Regents policy punishing student protesters is unnecessary.
“It is a solution in search of a problem,” she said.
Instead of having the university govern who can and cannot come to campus, the UW-Madison community should decide the standard, according to Culver.
While Schweber agreed, he said university intervention becomes necessary when groups repeatedly misuse their “given rights.”
Student involvement in political sarcasm as a means of expression to contest ideas
The phenomenon of “trolling” detracts from the perception of student expression at UW-Madison, according to the speakers.
The group agreed that trolling as a means of expression to contest ideas is unethical and breaches freedom of publication rights.
Culver said that there has been an expansion in the freedom of publication in the United States without having the social conversation about the responsibilities that accompany that freedom.
“We are now in the land of Pepe the Frog, 4Chan, and Twitter trolling where people have access to an audience but they are not engaged in ethical reasoning,” she said.
While students have the right to publish these satirical ideas, the ongoing trolling occuring on university campuses is unproductive and potentially provocative, according to Schweber.
“Just because [students] have the right to engage in this behavior doesn’t mean [they] should,” Schweber said.
Despite this, St. John said students should not be apprehensive about sharing their ideas.
“I hope that [students] are not scared of ideas and are not fearful that their ideas are challenged,” St. John said.
