Excuse me! Did you mention 'freedom of speech'? by M.J.Ferreira

Excuse me! Did you mention ‘freedom of speech’? by M.J.Ferreira

In this contribution I was supposed to continue to tell a story about ‘epistemic communities’ and how they might influence world power. However, a January 2006 article from the ‘Los Angeles Times’, signed by Stuart Silverstein and Peter Hong caught my attention and led me to decide to tell another story. Not a story about theoretical questions, but a story about ‘freedom of speech’.

In the last few days, we have heard much about ‘freedom of speech’. The recent ‘cartoons’ story (I must say, a very well told story) depicts a drama like a movie scene where western societies are the ‘victims’ of a well organised Muslim scheme to denounce liberal values and to endanger democracy and free thinking. However, we hear and discuss very little the events that are happening inside our ‘western fortress’ and that represent real, even if micro, attempts to curtail our resilient liberty.

The situation I’m about to describe and comment on constitutes one of many examples of how ‘freedom of speech’ is fragile even in century old democracies and how the concept might be differently interpreted by political entities (I consider every citizen as a political entity) who adjust its interpretation of true ‘freedom of speech’ to their political biases and objectives. The following story shows how democracy and liberty are always held on thin strings that need to be firmly grasped by all those that believe in the so-called ‘western values’.

In their 20th January ‘Los Angeles Times’ article, Silverstein and Hong say that a former US Republican congressman has resigned from the advisory board of the University of California (UCLA) alumni group after he discovered the latter was offering students money to point and accuse ‘radical’ and ‘liberal’ professors in this academic institution. James Rogan, who served two terms in office, claimed that he did not want his reputation tied to the inquisitory activities of this alumni association. Rogan's resignation follows those of the Harvard historian Stephan Thernstrom and professor emeritus Jascha Kessler who, for the same reasons, also left the board. Thernstrom said he joined the alumni group's more than 20-member advisory board last year because he believed it "had a legitimate objective of combating the extraordinary politicization of the faculty on elite campuses today."

The University of California alumni association, led by 24 year-old Andrew Jones, has been offering students up to US$100 to supply recordings and notes from classes in order to denounce professors suspected of upholding liberal political views and of passing them to their students. Those are encouraged to provide information on instructors who are "abusive, one-sided or off-topic" in advocating political ideologies.

Andrew Jones graduated in June 2003 and was chairman of UCLA's Bruin Republicans student group. Jones defends his association’s idea claiming that its objective is to expose UCLA's teachers that have given signs of being "actively proselytizing their extreme views in the classroom, whether or not the commentary is relevant to the class topic." Although the group says it has a general concern about ‘engaged’ professors of any political field, it has distributed an initial "Dirty 30" of teachers, considered sympathetic with left-wing or liberal ideologies.

He said his organization, which is registered with the state as non-profit, does not charge dues and has no official members, but has raised a total of $22,000 from 100 donors. Jones' group is following in the blueprint of various conservative groups that have taken steps, including monitoring professors, against what they regard as an overpowering leftist incline at North-American elite colleges and universities. He said many of these efforts have not been able to properly document their claims. As a result, the Bruin Alumni Association is offering to pay students for tapes and notes taken from classes. Jones claims he plans to show what he considers biased material to professors and administrators, in order to ensure that teachers present more balanced lectures or possibly face reproach. Jones alleged to have lined up one student who, for $100 a class session, has agreed to provide tapes, detailed lecture notes and materials with what the group considers inappropriate opinion. He does not name the student or the professor whose class will be monitored. Jones characterized the work a non-commercial news gathering and advocacy that does not violate university policy. On one of its websites, the Bruin Alumni group names education professor Peter McLaren as No. 1 on its "The Dirty Thirty: Ranking the Worst of the Worst." It says "this Canadian native teaches the next generation of teachers and professors how to properly indoctrinate students." The website also lists history professor Ellen DuBois, saying she "is in every way the modern female academic: militant, impatient, accusatory, and radical — very radical."

Targeted professors complain of a true witch-hunt: Peter McLaren says that any “sober, concerned citizen would look at this and see right through it as a reactionary form of McCarthyism”. He also claims that the teaching atmosphere at UCLA is being poisoned by these bounty offers to students willing to track down their own teachers.

The University said it will notify the association that selling copies of professors' lectures violates campus regulations, specifically concerning copyright protection. UCLA authorities recognise they will not develop immediate legal action. They will only notify Jones and alert students that selling course material without the consent of the instructor and Chancellor violates university policy. Patricia Jasper, a university lawyer, said UCLA will reserve the right to engage into legal action if a student is proved guilty of unauthorized selling of materials. Adrienne Lavine, chairwoman of UCLA's academic senate, agreed that the University could do little more at this point. She said she found the profiles on the alumni group's website "inflammatory" and "not a positive way to address the concerns that Mr. Jones has expressed. “Still”, she said, “I certainly support freedom of speech and that extends to Andrew Jones as much as it does to every faculty member on campus."

In spite being only a local event that seems not to be achieving very high success, this story can be considered an example of how difficult it is to sustain a proper balance between freedom and responsibility. All freedom has a limit, a kind of boundary that gives sense to freedom itself. Freedom is not practiced in an anomic environment. Freedom is relational. Our freedom should uphold the freedom of the people we enter in relation with.

All freedom is watched and it should be. Otherwise we would have a return to what Rousseau described as a primitive society. However, the references used to limit the practice of freedom (freedom of speech, freedom to teach, freedom of association, freedom of manifestation through public initiatives, etc.) have to be clearly stated, have to be coherent, have to be tolerant, have to be felt legitimate. The question is to ensure that western freedom is not considered hierarchically superior to Muslim rights (namely cultural rights) or that students’ right to a non-politically biased education (as if that could exist) does not constrain their teachers’ ‘freedom of speech’.

Excuse me! Did you mention freedom of speech?