Tls and panamerica, and its a total delight to discuss the issue of free speech which never seems to go away. As i edit a literary magazine, i thought id begin things with a literary angle. In britain he wrote the polemic against [inaudible] and in it he said this which has continued to resound, give me the liberty to know, to utter and to argue freely according to conscience above all liberties. But before we get mistyeyed though, he also said this those which otherwise come forth, if they be found mischievous and libelous, the executionist will become the remedy to follow. He was the godfather of i believe in Free Expression but, which has been active as a brigade ever since. As were going to discuss over the next 50 minutes, free speech is never in practice absolute. The question before us today is how much it should be championed over other rights, especially in universities. And those rights might include the right not to be offended, but also the right to live free from abuse and intolerance, to live safely and happily. This week berkeley hosted ben shapiro and and had to tighten security and offer counseling to those traumatized by his presence. Were deeply concerned about the impact some speakers may have on individuals sense of safety and belonging. No one should be made to feel threatened or harassed simply because of who they are or what they believe. This week, too, harvard disinvited Chelsea Manning as a visiting fellow at its institute of politic, evidence that harvard is not a place where ambiguities cannot be cutsed, or is it a place cannot be discussed. And in august 2016 the dean of students in chicago sent a letter to incoming freshmen and said this our commitment to Academic Freedom means we do not support socalled trigger warnings, we do not counsel [inaudible] speakers, and we do not condone the creation of safe spaces where individuals can retreat from perspectives of opinions of their own. How far should we prioritize the need for safety and security within universities. I once gave a talk and was asking students as an event about trigger warnings and what member of the faculty talks about the impocket of teaching impocket of teaching shakespeare, and when i left, there was a discussion that trigger warnings had not been prefaced by a trigger warning. [laughter] and so we do need to try and find a way, i think, as a society how we preserve safe spaces, how important they are. So were going to consider is there a risk of safe spaces of becoming segregated spaces, to help present all of that, im joined by two people and hopefully a third who will silently enter as the debate continues, but theyre all eminently qualified to discuss this. Jolani cole, one of the great jobs surely in all of journalism, his most recent book is the substance of hope hello hi. Hes also a professor at columbia journalism school. Michelle goldberg is an author and as of tomorrow, i think, a columnist at the new york times. So congratulations to her. Her first book was called kingdom coming the rise of christian nationalism. And next was called the means of reproduction sex, power and the future. Of the world, so shes unafraid of tackling pretty substantial toppingics, and alongside her is the executive director of panamerica, hugely Important Organization including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as well as serving as Deputy Assistant secretary of state for international organizations. She also writes for lots of people as well. So our speakers will talk over some of the issues, and at the end well take questions and observations from you. One thing youll note despite everyone looking so youthful and lovely, none of us are currently students at u. S. Universities, so if there are students with their other than sense of with their own sense of what safe spaces are like, please insert at the end. Lets start by my asking the panel, do we believe is free speech significantly under threat on campuses or more broadly . First like to say good afternoon and thank you for the invitation. I am a, once upon a time, a brooklynite, now a harlemite, but i come back down to visit every so often, and im very happy to be here with you all today. Sure, i think free speech is under threat. I dont think its under threat on College Campuses. I think the preeminent threat to free speech in this country resides at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. And weve seen this is not just kind of rhetorical, this is not simply playing to people who i feel might be in my same leftprogressive sliver of the universe. I think objectively weve not seen a president referring to the media as the, quote, enemies of the people, kind of retrofitting antique, stalinist language into 21st century demagoguic presidency. And for us to actually grapple with what that means, the daily drip, drip, drip of political assaults against the press, i think, is something that we should be very concerned with. And i think when we look at the way in which this conversation about free speech on campuses is held, very often what ive noticed about the kind of reactionary movements is that they tend to drape their agendas in the virtues of democracy. And what i mean by that is saying that you are upholding one principle of democracy, but you are actually seeking to dismantle another fundamental principle of it. I think the example that stands out to me most notably is the kind of voter suppression, excuse me, Voter Integrity Commission [laughter] they have now in which they are allegedly attempting to make sure that our votes, our elections are untainted but having no concern for the number of people who are fining it much more difficult to actually participate in democracy through voting. I think the same thing happens with free speech, that when we are looking at the conversation around free speech, it is not that is actually a standin for a much more nefarious set of concerns that would not garner public attention in the way that saying free speech would. And as a quick example of that, its worth noting that the recent spate of neonazi events and farright wing events have been billed as free speech events. And it should also be noted that we saw lots of people who were in that kind of part of the world, part of the ideological spectrum defending milo ya knop lis on the grounds of free speech whether it was racism or sexism or xenophobia, antiimmigrant bias, any of these things that he was promulgating with his speeches. Those things were being defended under the name of free speech as opposed to the other kind of subsequent issues concern. Should he be excluded from making those types of often stupid as well as inflammatory comments . I think that, like, the virtue of democracy is that everyone has the right to be stupid in their own term and publicly, and i think the stupidity is its own indictment. Yeah. That notwithstanding, i dont think thats what the concern was. Because when he began making statements that people were uncomfortable with about child molestation, all of a sudden that became something that was indefensible. They left the issue of the principle of free speech, but in theory, they should have been out there saying, well, milo has the right to talk about things that a make us uncomfortable, and well defend his right to do that, but the opposite is what happened. Do you blame trump for how free speech ideas have been wrongly articulated on campus . Do you think we [inaudible] from the head down as a society . I think hes made it worse. We did a report that we issued last fall, just about a year ago, called diversity and inclusion, free speech at u. S. Universities, documenting these rising techs and pressures between the drive to make the campus a more inclusive, equal environment open to all students from all kinds of backgrounds, making sure they really can learn and feel comfortable and accommodated at the university but also arguing that those changes in that necessary evolution of the university should not and must not come at the expense of robust protections for free speech and Academic Freedom. Its our view that the two sides of this debate too often talk past each other, and those who are demanding more inclusivity and social change and those who are defending free speech need to come together and come together. So i think really . Thats my, i think do you have an issue . Racism and sex schism, i think people who are concerned are not going to come together in promulgating [applause] i dont disagree with you, but you pointed this out. Not all people cloak themselves in the language of free speech come in peace. And i think what has happened especially over the last few months is this, you know, those who are advancing whether its a racist or a sexist or an antigay agenda, calling themselves and claiming the mantel of free speech advocacy at berkeley which is really about a particular political agenda, i think the danger there that we see is a rising generation of students who are becoming alienated from the concept of free speech because a they see it being invoked only to protect ideas and speech on the other side. I think thats a real risk. What were trying to point out is that free speech is for all of us. You know, you need free speech if youre going to challenge the administration, if youre going to challenge a professor. You fend on those protections in order you depend on those protections to insert your views. So weve got to reclaim free speech as a treasured value, you know, not belonging to the right or the left, but to all of us. Thats the angle we come from. Michelle, do you think this is a new, is it a new problem, a new issue, do you feel . These things flare up from time to time, but were in a specific i think the dynamic has become particularly toxic with you have this dynamic, and i dont know how you break out of it, because there is, on the one hand, this generation gap about free speech as a first principle or an absolute value, right . I think that there are a lot of people younger than me who think that safety or inclusion or diversity or tolerance are more important than, you know, letting the nazis march on scoping key, for example, which was the kind of civil lib arertarian libertarian tradition that i grew up in. And i wonder if part of the reason some of them think that is because fascism really does seem closer than it ever has before. And so, you know, it was one thing to make an argument that we should let the nazis march when you couldnt imagine that somebody whos only a couple of steps removed from them would be in the white house. You know, now i think the theres a reason that people are much more alarmed about the mainstreaming of these ideas and that people feel such an intense need to kind of hold the line on what is acceptable. Because part of what steve bannon and the rest of the right doing very consciously is trying to expand the realm of what can be said in public and decent society, right . Thats what he means when he says politics are downstream from culture. But i think were in a really bad place where for a lot of really alienated young men the site where you can be transgressive, where you can kind of throw off the norms of Polite Society where you dont have to second guess everything you say, you can be your true self, if they feel like thats the right and i think that thats something that, you know, people like Milo Yiannopoulos are very good at playing on and that kind of, you know, University Culture becomes the culture of tiptoeing around things and strictures and watching your words and, you know, i think that inasmuch as the right is able to be the kind of swaggering rule breaker, its going to, i think its going to keep attracting a lot of these alienated young men. And then the more they push, the more people, the more kind of response they get from, you know, from the kind of trigger warning left or whatever. The more they feel. Again, i dont think its not right when they say were the new punk rock, but i think theyre getting some kind of [inaudible] is what youre saying. Yes. If you pander to what they believe a stereotype is, then it does their work for them. You want to hold the line against fascists, do you invite them in and argue them, or do you push them out . Seems to me to be one of the questions here. What would do you think, jelani . I think there are a couple of things kind of implicit in this and kind to have other side of michelles point is that there is the very real we know this, that democracy can be undermined democratically. And so to kind of use the kind of threadbare at this point comparison but unfortunately still relevant, were talking about hitler being elected and not seizing power. So the idea of how we combat these fascist movements, i dont think that we have a full picture of what antidemocracy looks like. We can only conceptualize it, or in some ways we can only conceptualize it as a kind of robust and laissezfaire almost approach to free speech. But someone who has studied the history of race in this country can tell you very easily that there is a whole antidemocratic tradition in this country that was enhanced by the First Amendment. And what i mean by that is simply this in 1915 when birth of a nation was released, w. E. 3w6789 due boys and the naacp and William Monroe trotter, the civil rights leader, all of them wanted this film to not be shown. And within the naacp even, which was a fledgling organization then just a few years old, there was an internal debate saying do we really want censorship . This was not a abstract, academic question. Because birth of a nation was directly responsible for the rebirth of the ku klux klan x. This is not a, you know, should i be able to say this, it is directly related to these sources about lynching black people. And saying that when you have a hire hierarchical society, even Civil Liberties can be deployed in ways that reinforce that hierarchy. If we wanted to know the history of this country, we would know that. If we were willing to look at the history of this country, that would be apparent to us. And so when were saying, you know, are you in favor of the First Amendment, of course you are. But i also think that are we in favor of Everything Else that contributes to what we call a healthy democracy. So to answer your point, when they saw charlottesville, the city of charlottesville requested, tried everything they could to prevent that gathering from happening. And they said this is not a matter of free speech, this is a matter of intimidating the public, and these people are really interested in creating a violent atmosphere and so on. And they were knocked down, i think, three times in court. And the aclu defended the right of these farright groups to organize. And then once they got together, they did exactly what one would have expected, which is that they gathered around a church with a bunch of people inside, and they all had torches. And so anyone, again if we had an inkling of understanding about how antidemocratic the history of this country has been especially around matters of race, knew this is exactly where Something Like this would lead. All im saying is we should be mindful of an array of threats to democracy, not a singular one. I guess the question that follows [applause] do you trust young people as a whole on campuses or society as a whole to effectively selfregulate this . Sometimes you have to take absolute steps to limit freedoms because you cant trust society to regulate itself. Michelle, do you think thats possible with students . Should they be free to at least make these judgments themselves . Thats a good question, and i guess it kind of depends on what sort of judgment youre talking about, right . Like, should they be able to keep speakers that they dont like off their campus, should they be able to make certain demands of their professors. I mean, im sympathetic to professors ive spoken to who feel like they have to walk on egg shells in front of their students, who feel worried that theyre going to say the wrong thing and be brought up on a title ix complaint, you know . I think, you know, i had a lot of criticisms of laura [inaudible] book, but it was still kind of a cos caesque thing she had to go through. Heres something i dont trust, i dont trust that any kind of speech restrictions that we decide to allow against the right will only be used against the right. I mean, particularly when the left is not in power in this country, you know . And so and its actually true that weve, a lot of the, a lot of the examples of kind of really campus crackdowns on free speech, they dont get as much attention but theres, you know, a scholar you hear about leftwing scholars all the time who either lose their jobs for saying something intemperate about, you know, trump or white people. I mean, basically Tucker Carlson on fox news, you know, because he doesnt want to write about trump making deals with democrats, this is what he airs, you know . When hes not talking about dirty gypsies, hes talking about, you know, somebody said something at east tennessee, whatever, lets rile up the whole country in response. And so, again, my fear is that once you start temp rising them porrizing about free speech, it becomes harder to demand its an absolute the idea of safe spaces inherently is difficult for people who want to explore all sorts of ideas, even to reject them, that the unwanted and maybe its a price worth paying, you end up with institutions where risk is completely removed from the equation. So intellectually, there is a price to pay here. I think, you know, some versions of safe space are really just another term for freedom of association is. Of course you have the right to get together with a group of people who agree with you on who to vote for or who share your values or love a certain author, whatever might bring you together, you know, with a group of likeminded people for a meal, for a meeting. Thats different from declaring a whole campus or even a whole dormitory or dining hall a safe space and saying an alternative set of ideas is unwelcome there. Yeah, we have laws that protect people against harassment and threats, and i think thats very important. If people are being targeted, if theyre [audio difficulty] the environment where they live, they cant learn. Thats not a Healthy University environment. I think its the responsibility of the university to protect students against that. You know, but at the same time, you know, being an open space for all ideas. So i think the university can create the opportunity for safe spaces, students can find those spaces. You should know when you walk into one, you shouldnt fine yourself suddenly sitting at a table and discovering that, you know, because you think a certain way, you know, thats out of bounds. I think that does undercut, you know, the role of the university [audio difficulty] difficult, that are challenging. You know, i think jelanis right, that we have to be attentive to some very real dangers, you know, that we havent seen in our lifetime around marginalization of particular communities, rising authoritarian tendencies. And i think turning a blind eye to that is a big mistake. But at the same time, empowering the university, em purring particularly empowering particularly this government, empowering social media platforms to police and regulate speech, to draw lines, you know, to decide what is out of bounds i think surrenders our rights and will end up being used in ways, you know, that are the opposite of what, you know, what we here in this room might be aiming for. Im not so sure, im not so sure its that complicated, quite honestly. Because i think were using safe space in a way that is not common to how ive understood it on College Campuses. One, anyone whos been in my classroom, i always say if you know what i actually think at the end of the class, then it means ive failed. [laughter] as a matter of fact, just last week i did my favorite exercise which is that, you know, i had and this is in my preponderancewriting class in my opinion writing class. By definition, selfselection. So i have them kind of pick a side of a controversial issue whether its daca or, you know, the confederate monuments or building a border wall, any of these things, and tell them to go for it. You know, at the beginning of class. And they are writing their finest prose and bringing out their best arguments and so on. And then we kind of go through the class, and we talk about, you know, a whole bunch of other things. And then i say, okay, shred that up and write to opposing argument honestly and sincerely. And youve never seen that much fidgeting and shifting [laughter] because its physically uncomfortable that you have to engage the opposite perspective or the perspective that is 90 degrees askew from i mean, i think this is what, you know, the beautiful element, the most beautiful element of universities remains. But this not what people thats not what people has anybody ever complained about that . No. Well, theyve complained about it being difficult. One person said can i write in favor of the border wall without writing something racist . And i was, like, thats the question. [laughter] im not going to tell you, im not going to help you here. What if they said youre making me espouse a view i dont want to do, that makes me uncomfortable. Thats exactly the point. Itd be like telling your personal trainer, like, im uncomfortable right now. [laughter] and would your university back you up . I suspect, for saying i asked you to write an exercise that was difficult . Id probably be in pretty safe territory. But the other side of it, safe spaces is much more akin to what we think about in terms of workplace culture. Its very clear that, you know, you dont walk into your workplace generally and refer to everybody by fourletter words, you know . Because in most workplaces that would be frowned upon. Or there are kind of sexist behaviors that we think of or culturally insensitive behaviors or any of these other kinds of things that we know are not appropriate. And were saying simply, as i have understood it always to be used, is that we want to create a common sense of Community Around what are acceptable and unacceptable ways of interacting. Now, there are people who feel like the inability to marginalize other people is, in fact, marginalization themselves. People who confuse that with marginalization. And i think this is where this conversation comes from. Its a question of intolerance and intolerance of the intolerant. And you said [inaudible] michelle and suzanne get in on this, a lot of the criteria [inaudible] people have the right to have freedom of expression, they can go off wherever they want to talk and go on social media and blather on, but is the responsibility of the institution not to give them a platform sometimes . Do you think theres a straightforward criteria . People espousing a certain view should happily be platformed with no risk of being accused of restricting free speech . Are you saying is there a criteria or could there be a criteria . What would the criteria be . Oh, i dont that seems like it would be a long project, to try to elucidate those criteria. I think right now we dont have strong criteria which is what makes this whole thing so fraught. Like, for example, you know, ben shapiro spoke at berke hi earlier this week berkeley earlier this week. I dont like ben shapiro, i dont agree with anything he says, buzz hi views arent but his views arent dangerous. There was understanding because they reflect powerful Political Tendencies in this country. And so, but he is treated, i think, as being inseparable from, say, like a Richard Spencer or a Milo Yiannopoulos. Milo in some ways is an easier case. I you think you could say he shouldnt be speaking on campus because he harasses individual students. Thats part of his shtick hes designing, hes deliberately trying to cause trouble. You can make a judgment of that intent. I would think so. I mean, i would hope so. But also, but no platforming, you know, i do worry about that it just kind of expands and expands and expands, and people, you know, who have little bits of people who feel like they have very little power in this world for good reason, you know, find a venue in which they can exercise some power, and, you know, are kind of likely to push that as far as it can go because they feel marginalized, and they feel victimized, and they deserve to have those feelings. But, you know, kind of trying to get, make sure that republicans, you know, that Condoleezza Rice cant speak on your campus is not necessarily, i think it might be the only venue that you can exercise power, but its not, its neither kind of useful for advancing progressive ideas. As somebody who writes about the right a lot, you just cannot overstate how gleeful the right is whenever one of these incidents breaks out. I mean, to them it is just not just that they see it as a recruiting tool, again, for like alienated young men, and i think you cant overstate how deliberate the kind of recruitment of alienated young men on chat boards and video games and all this kind of stuff. I mean, steve bannon in the book dells bargain talks about devils bargain talks about this kind of deliberate, seeing these massive, networked people as a possible source of Political Energy if they could just be channeled in the right direction. And so, you know, i wish that progressives would stop giving them giftwrapped, giftwrapped presents. Suzanne, what do you think . Straightforward. Theres an important distinction to be drawn in terms of a campus where basically theres a liberal policy with respect to any Student Group being able to invite a speaker to campus. Thats the policy and somebody is invited, i think for the university to then disinvite that individual is a pretty serious step, you know . Its viewpointspecific, and theyre imposing, you know, a set of ideas on the whole campus. I think thats, you know, that should be the very rare exception. I think its very different than when youre talking about a Commencement Speaker or an honorific, and its the university putting their on an individual thing. This is a person of esteem, you know, that we recognize in this way. I think those decisions need to be made in a very considered way. You know, i think its terribly, you know, awkward and i think embarrassing for harvard to rescind and also pretend that think didnt recognize calling somebody a fellow at the Kennedy School was a mark of distinction and an honor . [laughter] how absurd. This is what the Kennedy School and harvard [inaudible conversations] but i think [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] rescinding Chelsea Mannings invitation, you know, is a good example of the fact that when you legitimize these tactics, they are not just going to be used against the far right and in a lot of ways are probably more likely to be used against the left. I mean, one of the, i think, biggest threats on College Campuses is the threat to criminalize bdf. [applause] but the argument against doing that is that this is a space for free speech even if, you know, some part of your students believe that this is hateful and triggering and all the rest. But i think okay. I think that im going back to this distinction between things we dont like and things that actually people have reason to feel threatened by. And i think that im not in favor of anyone being sheltered from speech that they dont like. Or that you december agree with with disagree with, but the ability to recognize the actual legacy of the things were talking about. Were pretending that we dont know where donald trump came from. But theres a genealogy in this country that nurtured and sustained those thoughts until they could reach the pinnacle of power they have achieved now and that they could pluck someone like steve bannon and place him as a Senior Adviser and gorka and miller and, you know, whatever kind of reactionary elements that have found themselves buoyed by this. We know where this comes from. And so i think that that is a kind of different thing. Right. That said, i dont think that and to suzannes point, i think you should amplify that 10,000 times. Commencement speakers are supposed to be boring. [laughter] you are, there was a statistic that came out that said most people did not remember the Commencement Speaker at their graduation, to which i said exactly, you know . [laughter] but i think its the point specifically because you are endorsing that person that you should go for the person whos just like, oh, you know or let the students pick them. Right. I cultivate a farm and i give out crops to hungry children. A free issue in your collective views. I dont know all the specifics of that, but it seemed to me on the face of it that that was what harvard did. And also this is the same time that it came out that they had rescinded their acceptance of the woman, africanamerican woman who was accepted to the [inaudible] program in history, right, because she had a very troubling history. She was a person who spent 20 years in prison for killing her own child. But that wasnt why they rescinded it. They rescinded it because they were afraid of what people would say, which i think is someone indefensible. I was talking to a student, and they said to me its not the students thats the worry, its the parents who are often paying the money. And the universities are frightened of parents who might say im paying 50,000 for my child to come to this school, i cant believe youre allowing x to come and speak there. Do you think that the concern around this comes from people outside the university, the parents . Theres all kinds of pressures. There are pressures from donors, media pressure and, you know, the people talking about this Michelle Jones case were very open about being afraid of fox news getting aced ahold of the fact that she got funded for her participation in this program. I think it is the role of the university to stand for these larger values recognizing, yes, youre going to be buffetted by a whole range of pressures, and there are going to be people who dont like it. Their job is not to have universal acclaim and be loved. But is there evidence that they are frightened . Yes. [inaudible conversations] they should be like that, but theyre. No i mean, its heartening that jelani, whose great lessons will be supported by his university, but theres a risk here, as harvard has shown. We made this decision to have Chelsea Manning, someone objects 45 minutes late e and they rescinded it. Is there not a role for universities to make difficult decisions and stick by them . I think there absolutely is. And we need to put as much pressure when they make these decisions where, you know, the problem with the Chelsea Manning thing, they theoretically said she could still come and speak, but that was sort of an afterthefact, kind of offhand. What they should do is we made this decision, we made this invitation. Yeah, shes got, you know, she has an important perspective, no matter your views, shes part of the Public Discourse and, you know, to disinvite her in this way when it seems pretty clear her views are not going to be heard, you know, i think is a real problem. And especially to do it under pressure, under the circumstances. Can i give a kind of quick point here . One of the things i think thats illustrative of how we are con freighting a conflating a lot of things in this conversation which is that when yale had the issue about free speech on campus, the students who felt that and then also the faculty member who felt that free speech was being, i guess, in some way impaired, they were responding to an email which suggested maybe you dont wear a black face on halloween. I mean, i read that email too. I think it said more than that, you shouldnt go with any living person. I once went for halloween as that girl who carved the backwards b into her cheek. I felt like that would have been verboten under that policy. What we should do is draw a distinction, shouldnt we . And that seems to be the conflation that goes on in universities themselves, Something Like that versus someone whos blacking up. That should be a relatively clear line to draw, perhaps. But i dont think even if youre saying this, right, okay, any living person, there are lots of other things you can do people may not like, but theres no way i think we can say that we cant tell first off, the marginal numbers of students of color who are on these campuses in the first place as a legacy of these institutions that have a history of explicitly forbidding these students to come to this place. And then when there is some really inconsequential number who manage to find their way to the campus, we see as a fee we say as a fee, you have to tolerate people marching around in black face, and were going to call this freedom. No, i dont think it was really about you know, everybody agreed e that, you know, certain costumes that are deliberately or wantonly offensive ought to be out of bounds. It was a question of, you know, how directive and prescriptive universities should be in detailing, you know, chapter and verse of different, you know, costumes and what was and wasnt appropriate. You know, students could make these decisions and judgments for themselves. They might get it wrong at times, but thats part of the experience like the experience that you offer of looking at things through different lendses and learning through interaction with other students, you know, what those boundaries are and should be. You know, i think, you know, i think you could defend the original memo, but i also think theres a real case that, you know, it was sort of a memo and then another countermemo, you know, that the intention of the countermemo was really to put that responsibility in the hands of students and, yeah, theres a case for that. These are people who are growing up, theyre living in a diverse environment. They ought to exercise good judgment, but its not something the university should necessarily prescribe to them. I understand. So we should say well let you all offend the black people until they leave campus, which some of the black students did, until you can figure out that this behavior tends to make the black students leave campus. [applause] and i dont want say that, i dont mean literally there were students leaving the campus because of this. And when you talk about, when you go into these institutions that have these problems with retention, one of the key things they say is that students of color feel alienated on their campuses. I know this is somebody who speaks frequently. Every institution i go to, public, private, college, university, midwest, south, west coast, whatever there is a cluster of black students who say i feel completely alienated in this place. And i understand exactly why they feel that way. And saying and also the other thick is the consistency the other thing is the consistency of it. What is this, september 16th, 17th . Well say in six weeks well have some university somewhere when itll be halloween, and someone will be Walking Around in black face because it happens every year. Its not were saying this is something that happened once, its a pattern where this happens again and again and again and again, and people are confronted by it and say, oh, its pretty cay correct politically correct and youre trampling on my rights. Im not arguing against free speech, im saying that we have all sorts of other things that we recognize that if we take a kind of unregulate ared, completely unregulated approach to them, they wind up with ends we dont intend. The Second Amendment is a great example of that. The fifth amendment and the due process clause, fifth amendment, is wonderful until people used it as a basis for preventing the emancipation of slaves. You can use democratic principles in undemocratic ways. Thats the basic point that im making. And i think we have to be cognizant of that. And its not a matter of curtailing things. How do you strike exquisite balance. These are not absolutes, but were trying to find a balance between competing ideals. And i suspect the question is can you trust the people running these institutions to strike that balance, and therell be moments where they get it wrong. Im conscious weve not turned to i you guys to you guys yet. Does anyone want to ask a question . Raise your hands and someone with a microphone, i believe, will come and find you. Well move around. So i actually just graduated from the university of virginia, and im from charlottesville. Ive got a brother and sister there right now, and ive got a question kind of about the practicality of bringing this conversation that were having to people who might not want it to infiltrate their daytoday lives on a regular basis. Basically, ive got a lot of friends on one side who dont want to hear anything about this free speech versus safe space argument, they want to go and live their own live, and they dont really have to worry about their privilege or the problems of other people. And then there are a lot of people who, as you say, feel alienated by their, the lack of presence of other africanamericans on the campus. And how do you start to have that conversation in a way that doesnt feel like its attacking either side, but really starts to bring people together and have them understand the problems that each are facingsome. Is it healthy, at least, having conversations like this . I mean, i think from [inaudible] point of view, dialogue is the e essence of how were going to get past this. One of the paris things we did first things we did, we brought together a group of leaders from the top campuses around the country just to talk face to face about why it is people are arguing that free speech protections in some situations, you know, leave people exposed and endangered, you know . Why it is that, you know, those who have spent their lives advocating the First Amendment think that it can offer adequate protections, and we find when people sit down face to face, you know, they might not agree perfectly, but they can be respectful and understand each other. I watched the ben shapiro lecture at berkeley the other night and, you know, inside that room he invited people who disagreed with him to come to the front of the line first and ask their questions, and there were a lot of challenging questions, and he answered them. It was a real exchange. And i think we need more of that, you know, to get away from these, you know, showpieces, grandstanding, people coming to parade on campus, you know, cloaking themselves in the mantel of free speech p but simply to provoke, instigate and deliberately anger without any real interest in conversation, give and take, empathy, hearing out the other side, learning what is the experience of, you know, africanamerican students on campus, why is it that theyre asking for this. You know, and it was important to know the history of that memo and, you know, jelanis right, there is a history to it. I think if you understand that history, you dont look at it as a caricature and say this is preposterous, its students surrendering their power to the university. Theres more to it. I agree, i think there is more to it. We might come out slightly differently on the whole crisis, but i think that kind of dialogue is essential, and we just need to do more of getting people into a room together to have it. Another question. This question is in particular for jelani. Id like to hear what you think about the media narrative around how to define free speech and who gets to lay claim to it. I apologize if this was addressed in the first five minutes. They wouldnt let me in. [laughter] but, you know, when, when students of color, when women, when trans students are made to leave academia or, for example, even online when people close their twitter accounts because theyve gotten so harassed that they cant speak in the Public Comments anymore, that to me is a major free speech issue, and it has been framed that way in the feminist community. But in the Corporate Media narrative in particular, you only hear generally about, you know, milos free speech rights, ann coulters free speech right being taken away when theyre being asked to be accountable for their speech or not harassing people actively and targeting people with that speech. Does the media focus on the wrong things. Yeah, i think thats what weve been saying. Theres this kind of conflation and also people using the most absurd examples. There are things that, you know, you wouldnt find defensible at all with people like even the kind of Laura Kipniss situation where she is being, you know, basically persecuted because she wrote an article that someone disagreed with. And i think that also the left is guilty of deploying the term violence in ways that we deploy it to say, oh, i dont you didnt speak to me when i saw you today. You did violence to me. [laughter] like, everything has become violence such that i think to the extent that i think some of the left is, i think, culpable. Weve blurred those lines a little bit. But that said, i think we still do have, like, a fair idea of, you know, what is threatening or what is harassment. Institutions have lots of policies around these things and codes of conduct and behavior. I dont think its that hard to see it. But i think what weve done and to kind of go off topic briefly are, weve done in this subject the same thing that weve done with the 2016 election which is that people who have embraced a kind of demagogue ec approach to life and, therefore, imperilled lots of other elements of democracy if not the entire democracy ourself, but our reaction as has to be one of unlimited empathy to say im sorry that you feel that, you know . Like what was it that caused you to destroy democracy. [laughter] and perhaps we can hug you and move on from there. Michelle, youre joining the times tomorrow. Do you think the media covers this issue fairly, responsibly . And then well have to wrap it up. I think its not covered fairly and responsibly in, like i said, theres actually a fair amount of targeting of leftwing professors and kind of leftwing movements. And, but were used to a specific narrative of, you know, fragile snowflakes cant stand, you know, rightwing provocateur. And like i said, i do think that thats real. And even when it is inflated, even when its kind of blown up past the underlying fact, i dont think you can underestimate how useful that is to the other side. I mean, i often say i covered trump for a long time. I went to a ton of trump rallies, and i never heard somebody talk about nafta. But people always spoke about being really angry about Political Correctness and being really angry about things that they couldnt just say what they wanted anymore. And part of it was they couldnt cavalierly toss up ethnic slurs anymore, and they really resented that. But inasmuch as theres a kind of feeling that liberals want to exert, you know, this kind of nannying sort of control over people, even where that perception is exaggerated it creates such a powerful counterreaction that its just worse, i think worth, i think, trying to do what you cannot to foster that dynamic. Well, hopefully today weve managed to have a narrative thats a little bit more nuanced than that, let me thank jel a ani, suzanne and michelle [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] and youve been listening to a discussion about free speech on College Campuses. This is live coverage of the brooklyn book festival. And starting shortly, law professor Cheryl Cashin and Political Columnist norm ornstein talking about the supreme court. [inaudible conversations] heres a look at some of the current best selling nonfiction books according to the green light bookstore in brook brooklyn. Topping the list, all about love. Followed by against everything, a collection of essays from cultural critic mark guys. Third, patty smythe remembers her relationship with artist Robert Maple Thorpe in her National Awardwinning just kids. Thats followed by taan has city coats who reflects on race and america in between the world and me, and in fifth, hunger, a memoir about food, weight and selfimage by roxane gay. Our look at the best selling nonfiction books according to brooklyns green light bookstore continues with the new jim crow by Michelle Alexander which looks at how the u. S. Prison system is affecting africanamerican communities. Thats followed by historian Carol Andersons study on race in america, white rage. And a collection of essays from brooklynbased writer [inaudible] too much p and not in the mood. After that, filmmaker Brandon Harris recalls trying to make it in new york city in making rent in bedstuy. And wrapping you have our look at the best selling nonfiction books according to green light bookstore in brooklyn is a collection of essays by samantha irby. Some of these authors have or will be appearing on booktv. You can watch them on our web site, booktv. Org. Booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what theyre reading. Heres what oklahoma congressman Steve Russell had to say. I read all kinds of stuff. Im a voracious history reader. Not much onion fiction although there are some. I just finished a fiction book, i should say im not much on fiction. But i did just finish a fiction book by Derek Robinson that was kind of a british antiwar protest on a world war i setting, and it kind of reflects the times. But i have a great interest in world war i. My great grandfather and his brothers were world war i veterans, one of my relatives is buried in france, killed in the first world war. And since were in the 100th anniversary of our entry into that war and our participation in the campaigns, ive been reading quite a bit about that time. Congressman, youre also an author as well. Could you kind of talk about your experience as an author . Well, it is i have a Great Respect for those that take the time to write. My wartime memoir [audio difficulty] by Simon Schuster threshold editions with my memoir call we got him about the hunt and capture. It took me three years to write, extensive notes and personal experiences. And then getting it to a major publisher where they actually want to publish it, that is no small task. And i wrote it myself. The big question i get is, you know, who helped you write it, as if an infantryman, you know, couldnt put sentences together. So its something that i get often. But it takes great discipline to do it, and so i have a lot of respect for the authors that are out there. And the book got good review, and it did quite well. So its always nice when you get the public to appreciate what you wrote. Do you have any other advice for any other writers who, you know, want to draw from their experiences of history, their connections to tell their story as well . I would say to all veterans whether you get something published or not, you should take the time to write the experiences for yourself. For me, it kind of buried some old wounds. It allowed me, it was a therapeutic process. It was very difficult to write and relive many of those experiences, but at the same time when i got it done, i felt like, okay, i got it out of my system, and there it is. So whether you just do it for your own personal notes or you do it for your family so that they might have some record of your service later, i would encourage all veterans that have, you know, participated in combat experiences to write about the warriors that could not tell their story and in honor of them tell what they accomplished. I have the great honor and privilege of just meeting Clarence Moses who was arrested in 1987 and wrongfully convicted in 1938 of sexual 1988 of sexual assault. He was sentenced to 48 years based on the victims dream. In 1995, with the help of barry scheck and the Innocence Project in new york, the Court Ordered dna to be tested. Moses and fellow prisoners who believed in his innocence raised 1,000 to have the dna tested. Denver police packaged the evidence including the victims rape kit, clothes and bed sheets in a box. The police permanently destroyed the evidence by throwing the box in a dumpster. A judge ruled that the mistake was not grounds for a new trial. In 2013 moses received a letter from another prisoner admitting to the crime. The confesser, l. C. Jackson, was one of the people whom the victim originally identified to the police in 1987 as a possible attacker. L. C. Jackson was housed wow. I hadnt gotten to this part yet. L. C. Jackson was housed in the same detention facility and is was doing a double life sentence for a 1992 double rape of a mother and her 9yearold daughter who lived about a mile and a half away from the victim. The blood type of the attacker matched that of l. C. Jackson. The Denver District Attorneys Office did not interview l. C. Jackson until 18 months after his confession became public, and they have fought vigorously to prevent clarence from receiving a new trial despite l. C. Jacksons confession and matching blood type. A colorado judge vacated the convictions and ordered the dna the d. A. To either retry the case or drop the charges. Clarence was released in december 2015, but the denver District Attorney has decided to retry him, and he was finally found not guilty on all counts in november of 2016. Can we, please, give a big hand for Clarence Moses . [applause] welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Heres a look at some authors recently featured on booktvs after words, our weekly Author Interview program. Harvard University ProfessorDanielle Allen discussed how mass incars ration has impact incars ration has impacted her family. Radio host mark levin warned against federal government expansion, and wall wall street journal writer George Malone offered his thoughts on the publications influence. In the coming weeks on after words, journalist susie henson will reflect on her travel ares abroad and weigh in on americas global standing. Investigative journalist art levine will report on the Mental Health industry, and this week on after words Progressive Policy Institute senior fellow david osborn examines the Charter School movement and offers his outlook for the future of public education. If youve got a system with a strong authorizer who is weeding out the worst schools and replacing them with schools operated by the best operators and is bringing in new blood to create new schools and is watching these numbers, that kids going to have a much better chance of being in a keep school. Correct. In new orleans 60 of the kids at the time of katrina went to schools in the bottom 10 statewide. On performance. Yep. Mostly test scores. Yep. Now 10 do. Just like the rest of [audio difficulty] because they have a system that weeds them out. Now, there are some yeah. And they need to keep weeding them out. Yeah. Its not perfect, but far better for the kids to have that reality in a constantly improving system. Yeah, than a sort of static, neighborhoodbased School System in which most of the schools are bad. After words airs on booktv every saturday at 10 p. M. And sunday at 9 p. M. Eastern. You can watch all previous after words programs on our web site, booktv. Org. Heres a look at some of the books being published this week. Thanks, obama, recalls the experiences of former speech writer david litt during his time in the obama white house. Bill oreilly and historian Martin Dugard team up to provide a history of the revolutionary war in killing england. Alone chronicles life in britain in the runup to world war ii through the remembrances of best selling author michael korda. And in one long night, journalist Andrea Pitzer reports on the history of concentration camps around the world. Also being published this week, historian Brion Mcclanahan offers a critical look at the political ideologies and influence of Alexander Hamilton in how Alexander Hamilton screwed up america. Brookings Institution Senior fellow thomas mann and Political Columnists e. J. Dionne and norman orrin steven weigh in on the 45th president. Best selling author doug staten looks at the vietnam wars tet to offensive. And former u. S. Secret Service Agent dan bongino provides his thoughts on challenging impacting that agency in protecting the president. Look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on cspan2. [inaudible[inaudible conversati] knox. [inaudible conversations] and youre watching cspan2s booktv. Up next live from the brooklyn book festival is a discussion on the supreme court. Ready . Welcome. Glad to see such a big crowd at the best law school in brooklyn. [applause] all right. [laughter] you know, an alum recently suggested that we should say were the Harvard Law School of kings county [laughter] bu