October , 2014
What is going on?
Across the nation the calls for greater “civility” in public
discourse have been increasing and along with them there are now the
voices of concern over the consequences of such calls and the use of
such exhortations to chill free speech. In the academy there is
concern for academic freedom.
There have been a series of cases across the nation wherein claims
about objectionable discourse result in actions against faculty and
students for expressing their academic judgments and position on
matters of some import. Many believe that freedom of speech and
Academic Freedom have been jeopardized or violated by words and
actions offered under the guise of promoting more civil discourse.
Here is one form of expression of the concerns and possible threats:
1. Faculty expressing themselves in a manner displeasing to
the university or college administration are deemed to have
displayed a lack of civility or proper decorum. The "tone" or
"manner" of their discourse is offensive to the sensibilities of
those in authority.
2. Such behavior on the part of the offending faculty is
deemed to be uncivil or conduct unbecoming a member of the faculty
by the chancellor or the president acting unilaterally and
individually.
3. Lack of civility or violation of some unwritten code of
"civility" or “conduct unbecoming a member of the faculty” in many
institutions and in some of the recent cases constitutes grounds for
disciplinary action against faculty.
4. So, if faculty express themselves on matters where Academic
Freedom is expected to prevail but do so in a manner displeasing to
the administration, then disciplinary actions can be taken against
faculty who so displease the authorities by the manner or tone of
their discourse.
Therein, is constituted but one form of the assault upon and
violation of the Academic Freedom of faculty and the right to
freedom of speech.
The “Civility” Craze Sweeping the Nation and Higher Education
In “Pleas for Civility Meet Cynicism”
http://chronicle.com/article/Pleas-for-Civility-Meet/148715
by
Peter Schmidt, there is described the current phenomena being
evidenced by college administrators. In that work he reports that:
Henry F. Reichman, chairman of the American Association of
University Professors’ Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure,
who has suggested on the AAUP blog Academe that charges of
incivility are being used to silence today’s faculty members in the
same way that accusations of communist sympathies were used to
silence them during the red scare of the 1940s and 1950s.
In
an interview this week, Mr. Reichman said he perceives "a growing
trend" in which college administrations are citing a need to
maintain civility "whenever there is controversial speech that
people don’t like."
It is noted that “Advocates of academic freedom have long been
skeptical of efforts to
promote civility on the campus,
fearing that they represent a veiled attempt to squelch debate.
Among the recent events bringing attention to the trending use of
demands for civility threatening freedom of speech and academic
freedom was the recent action of the Chancellor of the University of
California at Berkley who maintains that free speech requires
civility
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/7/uc-berkley-chancellor-free-speech-requires-civilit/#!
by
Jessica Chasmar - The Washington Times - Sunday, September 7,
2014
Chancellor
Nicholas Dirks
at the University of California, Berkeley sent an email to faculty,
staff and students on Friday, arguing that civility is a
prerequisite for free speech. In it he wrote:” “As a consequence,
when issues are inherently divisive, controversial and capable of
arousing strong feelings, the commitment to free speech and
expression can lead to division and divisiveness that undermine a
community’s foundation,” he wrote.
Popehat called that last
statement by
Mr. Dirks
“legally incoherent and misleading.”
Applicable to the situation are observations found in “Wild
Words, Brain Worms, and Civility”
September 14, 2014 in the New York Times
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2014/09/14/wild-words-brain-worms-and-civility/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
by CUNY’s Paul Krugman who has written that:
civility is a gesture of respect — and sure enough, the loudest
demands for civility come from those who have done nothing to earn
that respect.”
“And if you look at the uncivil remarks by people like, well, me,
you’ll find that they are similarly aimed at people arguing in bad
faith. I talk now and then about zombie and cockroach ideas. Zombies
are ideas that should have been killed by evidence, but keep
shambling along — e.g. the claim that all of Europe’s troubled
debtors were fiscally irresponsible before the crisis; cockroaches
are ideas that you thought we’d gotten rid of, but keep on coming
back, like the claim that Keynes would never have called for fiscal
stimulus in the face of current debt levels (Britain in the 1930s
had much higher debt to GDP than it does now). Well, what I’m doing
is going after bad-faith economics — economics that keeps trotting
out claims that have already been discredited.
Nor
are zombies and cockroaches the only kinds of bad faith; the worst,
as far as I’m concerned, involves refusing to take responsibility
for your actual statements.
On the right observers such as Rush Limbaugh have described the
calls for civility as a form of censorship
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/01/13/civility_is_the_new_censorship
which the defenders of the US Constitution and freedom of speech
decry. He is vigorously vociferous in describing how calls for
civility in discourse appear to be originating from those who are
allied with actions and policies being criticized. Limbaugh raises
the question of how are people to respond to situations in which
outrageous acts have been committed against them or their ideals?
Is all discourse of a forceful nature to be termed “uncivil” and
condemned?
Suppose a faculty member is reacting to action on the part of others
in the department or the college that deny rights to which the
faculty are entitled over the course of years and to their repeated
dismissals of polite attempts to raise how violations of bylaws were
happening to the detriment of the faculty of the department. Suppose
that faculty member over time used language that became more
forceful discourse and stronger in tone and was done in the presence
of colleagues, not a one of whom cautioned more moderate speech.
Suppose faculty involved in the exchanges supported the faculty
member who they saw as speaking on their behalf and even championing
the cause of faculty rights and academic freedom. What can the
action of an administrator be who seeks to punish that champion for
the struggle beign waged to secure those rights with heavy penalties
other than an act of censorship and violation of the free speech and
academic freedom of faculty.
Conservative Scott Kirwin describes in his Razor
http://www.therazor.org/oldroot/Spring03/censorship.htm
cases where concern over civility results in censorship, either from
the bottom-up or top-down. When the acts of sanction come from the
administration it is top-down. This is the far more offensive form
than from the bottom-up wherein colleagues might pressure a
colleague to refrain from some forms of speech.
One
way of silencing free speech is not to attack what is said but to
attack the tone, attitude or demeanour of the speaker. It is a
convenient way of telling people to ‘shut up’, and this is something
Dirks and many other university officials realise. Indeed, it is
becoming impossible for academics to challenge any of the prevailing
trends in universities without the charge of ‘incivility’ being
made. Today, it’s not considered ‘civil’ to challenge management’s
ideas, however wrongheaded or destructive they may be. If you don’t
believe me, look no further than the case of
Professor Thomas Docherty,
a well-known critic of contemporary higher education, who is facing
disciplinary action at the University of Warwick for ‘sighing’,
negative ‘body language’ and unwelcome use of ‘irony’.
Limbaugh while correct in noting the impact of cries for civility on
free speech might not so appreciate an example of what he forewarns
as applied to the actions of Karl Marx. In
“Civility
and Speech in the Modern University, 200 Years Ago in Germany”
https://notevenpast.org/civility-and-speech-in-the-modern-university-200-years-ago-in-germany/
by
Matthew Bunn
Demanding that scholarly writings be “earnest and modest,” the
Prussian government in Marx’s view imposed on scholars’ work
conditions that had nothing whatsoever to do with truth. The tone of
a work, Marx noted, is dictated by the nature of the
subject—ridiculous things ought not be taken seriously, serious
injustices not protested modestly.
This admonition is worthy of careful attention and respect:
Civility as a conversational virtue has much to recommend it. The
enforcement of civility, however, especially among classes like
academics particularly inclined to advance challenging ideas, should
make us recall how the use of “tone” as a criteria for controlling
discussion works. As the example of nineteenth-century German
intellectuals suggests, what may appear an effort to reign in
abusive language can quickly become a powerful tool for the
suppression of speech. Let us all be civil—and accepting of a little
incivility too.
Audrey Pietrucha ” writes
The argument for
free speech does not assume this right is without risk, but as a
society we have determined that any negatives encountered through
unregulated speech and expression are far outweighed by its positive
value. It is through freedom of inquiry, thought and speech that we
come to define our personal and philosophical approaches to
government, both of society and self.
Civility begins
with each of us and if we feel it should be better practiced it is
our personal responsibility to determine and adhere to the standards
of politeness we would expect of others.
Civility is seen as a device for censorship at the Northern Illinois
University which is restricting students' access to certain websites
.
Orwellian University Blocks Students' Access to Harmful Sites, For
'Civility' -
http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/21/orwellian-university-blocks-students-acc
NIU cites "common sense, decency, ethical use, civility, and
security," as its various rationales for the policy. Yes, a public
institution of higher learning believes that it is just common
sense—and ethical—to dissuade students from visiting websites deemed
harmful by administrators
In Free Speech and Civility,http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2737#.VEKXWmt5mK1
a
college student at North Carolina State,
Derek Spicer, describes how he learned that that “civility” is
the latest buzzword in the lexicon of reactionary administrators. He
observed that:
the civility statement called for students to “speak to each other
in a civil manner, refrain from displaying items that are
disrespectful and hurtful to others, and confront behavior or report
to staff incidents of incivility or intolerance.” Asking people to
be civil may seem like the appropriate thing to do; however, the
statement caused some concerns on its own.”
In reaction to the attempt to control speech on campus with vaguely
worded phrases to be interpreted by those who would impose sanctions
on offenders he learned that:
“The lesson to take away from this is to be wary of college and
university initiatives to promote civility and tolerance. More often
than not, they are very vague and tend to punish those with a
minority viewpoint.“
In his “A Civility Manifesto”
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/10/10/essay-defending-value-civility-higher-education
Cary Nelson 10-10-14 claims that :
University
presidents who urge civility are not trying to stifle dissent or
suppress speech. They are trying to make the campus an oasis of
sanity. They are trying to urge faculty and students to showcase
productive dialogue. That is part of what higher education owes the
country. That is part of the cultural and political difference
higher education can make.
But
he clearly states that :” Uncivil students and faculty at a
university should not be punished.”
He
advocates what appears to be quite in order when he writes that:
. Voluntary
civility is the best way to conduct difficult debates, but it is not
a limit on permissible speech. Faculty members need to teach by
example. They need to take the lead in demonstrating what good
citizenship entails
It's one thing to
encourage civil conduct and reasoned discourse, quite another to
regulate expression in the name of such encouragement. But that is
precisely what too many college and university administrators and
trustees are threatening to do. The threat to free speech rights is
real.
Further he states:
The expressive
weapons of those in power and those without power almost always
differ. It is usually the powerless whose voices must be shrill, who
may break rules to be heard, who, in short, may be uncivil.
Civility, however, can be a privilege of the powerful, whose control
over institutions often leads them to silence opponents instead of
engaging them. As
Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education noted, in his experience "campus administrators
are most likely to deem as 'uncivil' speech that criticizes them or
the university’s sacred cows."
Reichman sounds the warning call when he notes that the urgings of
civility in discourse can and often do “ show undeniable and
dangerous signs of becoming requirements. And such requirements may
threaten academic freedom and free speech as much as any loyalty
oath.“
Why
is it that the calls for civility and actions to enforce a civility
code originate with those who have authority over others and with
regard to, as it happens in every case, positions or proposals or
criticisms with which they are not in agreement either on their own
or resulting from pressures upon them? Why is it that those deemed
to have been uncivil are often without power and too often the
victims of it?
Those who protested violations of civil rights often used speech and
actions that were deemed “uncivil” by the empowered perpetrators of
gross injustices and those who enjoyed benefits from them.
Once again there appears the effort to silence those who would speak
against what they perceive to be injustices and denials of basic
rights and freedoms for themselves and for others.
John Stuart Mill argued (On Liberty, Chapter Two)
against those who would call for civility in speech and who would
act against ‘vituperative’ speech. Obvious to him, and to many
others, is that such calls are the weapons of those with power:
‘With regard to what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion,
namely invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like, the
denunciation of these weapons would deserve more sympathy if it were
ever proposed to interdict them equally to both sides; but it is
only desired to restrain the employment of them against the
prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing they may not only be
used without general disapproval, but will be likely to obtain for
him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous
indignation.’
In
her wide ranging critique of civility police and call for strong
action and language in the face of injustice and discrimination ,”
Civility Disobedience”, (http://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2014/08/18/civility-disobedience/
) Tav Nyong’o
18 Aug 2014 observes that:
Creative disobedience to compulsory
civility isn’t any kind of guarantee. But without its wild resources
we would be greatly impoverished to wage the kind of struggles we
are in the midst of now.
Sometimes it needs to be reiterated that “ Dialogue Is
Important, Even When It’s Impolite”
as
observed by Ryan
M. Milner
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/08/19/the-war-against-online-trolls/dialogue-is-important-even-when-its-impolite
Incivility is a difficult problem for Americans, because its
underlying issues are social.
But restrictive gatekeeping just serves to dampen the generative
value of diverse voices engaging. The impulse to silence can be just
as uncivil as the trolling that inspired it.
"When administrators urge us to be models of civility they are doing
exactly what their job requires," Cary Nelson declares and Reichman
agrees. Nonetheless, those administrators who wish to cite faculty
for being uncivil in one way or another might themselves be judged
to be unfair, one sided, overreaching and petty and uncivil in their
dampening of open and free discourse. This is not how educators
aspire to act, nor what they should model for their students.
Surely, educators are capable of behaving better than this. What
appears to be rude, harassing and of a non-collegial nature and even
to be insulting , hostile and personal by one person may be seen as
strong language made necessary by the particularly egregious
repeated behavior of others refusing to acknowledge the rights of
faculty colleagues. The use of the term “civility” or the claim
that some speech within the academy is “uncivil” should not be used
to chill speech and the exercise of Academic Freedom to express
academic judgments or to defend the rights of faculty. Doing so
would be “uncivil”.
------------ END---------------
RESOURCES:
Civility Manifesto by Cary Nelson
10-10-14 Inside Higher Education
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/10/10/essay-defending-value-civility-higher-education
Civility and Free Speech By
Henry
Reichman October 14, 2014 Inside Higher Education
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/10/14/essay-argues-recent-statements-college-leaders-about-civility-are-threat-academic
Civility Disobedience by Tav Nyong’o,
18
Aug 2014 | Bully Bloggers
http://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2014/08/18/civility-disobedience/
Orwellian University Blocks Students' Access
to Harmful Sites, For 'Civility' - Hit & Run : Reason.com
http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/21/orwellian-university-blocks-students-acc
Free Speech and Civility | The John William Pope Center for
Higher Education Policy
http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2737#.VEKXWmt5mK1
Universities need less civility and more
‘shit-kicking’ | Down with campus censorship! | Education | Free
speech | spiked
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/universities-need-less-civility-and-more-shit-kicking/15783#.VEKXh2t5mK1
‘Civility’ doesn’t excuse censorship
The Daily Eastern News : Staff Editorial:
http://www.dailyeasternnews.com/2014/09/09/staff-editorial-civility-doesnt-excuse-censorship/
Civility and Racism at the University of
Michigan | Student Union of Michigan
http://studentunionofmichigan.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/civility-and-racism-at-the-university-of-michigan/
Pleas for Civility Meet Cynicism by
Peter Schmidt
http://chronicle.com/article/Pleas-for-Civility-Meet/148715
Dialogue Is Important, Even When
It’s Impolite Ryan
M. Milner New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/08/19/the-war-against-online-trolls/dialogue-is-important-even-when-its-impolite
Civility and Speech in the Modern
University, 200 Years Ago in Germany
https://notevenpast.org/civility-and-speech-in-the-modern-university-200-years-ago-in-germany/