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Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

freespeech.mit.edu

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Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#41

Post by cowl »

evancoop wrote: post #7

Most responses to this will be positive, and they should be. Typically, the real evaluation is the market (will more students and professors be drawn to MIT?). However, there is already a tremendous demand for admission (from students) and competitive hiring processes (for professors). So...how many other comparable institutions will follow suit? Will universities in California adopt, oppose, or ignore?

>> Typically, the real evaluation is the market

Last years experience tell us that the perception on Media is the driving factor not the market. No-one is waiting for market effects to be visible. They are just reacting to anything that makes enough noise.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#42

Post by jeremyis »

timthebeaver wrote: post #29

Some speech issues that come to mind which, I sometimes wonder, how they would have gone down today: * The 6.001 porn * The ghetto party * The Reg Day porn (particularly Deep Throat, but many) * The Visualizing Cultures display (with CSSA opposition) * Some 10% of the day to day traffic on senior-house@, bexley-minus-fascists@, and ec-discuss@ Norms around speech have evolved a lot even as the fundamentals of ethics…

Uhm what was the 001 porn?

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#44

Post by da_chicken »

tokai wrote: post #21

Is this really needed? I'm not trying to be obstinate. But in the north european country where I reside, while we have hate speech laws etc., my speech is protected by the law - both from the state and my employer (a university). This commitment seems very bombastic for what feels like a work environment policy to me. Am I misunderstanding something cultural here? EDIT: thx for the comments, it makes it more sense to…

At least in the US, there have always been two places where freedom of expression is taken to its most extreme: libraries and universities.

Libraries tend to take the view that even bad and hateful ideas are worth preserving simply to record how bad they are. The idea should live on in its horrific badness, an example to all of the idiocy of humanity. In my experience, you'll never meet anyone as dedicated to privacy and openness as a librarian.

Universities take the view that every idea should be up for debate. It's the only way, the argument goes, to suss out the bad ideas and to harden good ideas against poor arguments. After all, if your idea is right then it should not be such a burden to examine it. The best ideas are those that survive the strictest scrutiny, so all ideas should be subject to it.

In both cases, the ideal should trump the social norms of avoiding certain topics due to social pressure or how offensive they are. Not studying history, medicine, or science due to societal norms is a questionable choice on the academic search for truth, and institutions of learning and knowledge should be dedicated to that search for truth.

Both these institutions, then, tend towards the philosophical ideal of free expression, not the legal reality of protected speech. When they say "freedom of expression," they're more interested in John Stuart Mill than the Constitution. Places of ideals judge themselves by ideals.

It's one reason people get annoyed when there are those stories about professors expressing bad ideas and asking students to think about them critically, and students respond by attacking the professor or asking for their removal. Bad ideas are great practice for learning critical thinking skills.

That said, I'm sure there are cases where the professors are sanctimonious jerks, too.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#45

Post by ghaff »

timthebeaver wrote: post #29

Some speech issues that come to mind which, I sometimes wonder, how they would have gone down today: * The 6.001 porn * The ghetto party * The Reg Day porn (particularly Deep Throat, but many) * The Visualizing Cultures display (with CSSA opposition) * Some 10% of the day to day traffic on senior-house@, bexley-minus-fascists@, and ec-discuss@ Norms around speech have evolved a lot even as the fundamentals of ethics…

>The Reg Day porn (particularly Deep Throat, but many)

Today? Clearly not.

But you don't need to fast forward that far. They were discontinued in I think 1980 or 1981 when things went from "we don't think you should do this" to "this is no longer a polite request."

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#46

Post by verisimi »

shadowgovt wrote: post #36
verisimi wrote: post #19

Quoted post unavailable.

Such invitations are often extended by organizations in the university, not the university itself. Those organizations can definitely be politically far afield from the university median. The test of a declaration like this will be how the school responds when another organization on campus reacts to such an invitation by protesting it.

[flagged]

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#47

Post by tagoregrtst »

zo1 wrote: post #11
cwillu wrote: post #2

I love the explicitness of “they may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe.”

However, they negate it with this caveat: > "The Institute may restrict expression that violates the law, that falsely defames a specific individual, that constitutes a genuine threat or harassment, that unjustifiably invades substantial privacy or confidentiality interests, or that is otherwise directly incompatible with the functioning of the Institute." Which is vague enough that an enterprising and determined ind…

In the US, thanks to the first Amendment and its interpretation by SCOTUS, what is legal is very broad.

Thats why elites have outsourced the censorship to private entities. Ironically most universities, since they are public, violate the law when they deplatform someone they don't like and have lost numerous court cases.

Of course they keep doing it because litigation is an insignificant cost for rich non-profits, theres no personal risk for the administration and it makes them feel virtuous.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#48

Post by zozbot234 »

ModernMech wrote: post #40
oefrha wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, this is actually a lot worse than it sounds. Rather than requiring an arguably hollow oath like the infamous UC loyalty oath from the 50s, they actually grade each applicant against “DEI” rubrics and eliminate applicants based on that. You don’t get a job without demonstrating tangible contributions to DEI in the past (no, treating everyone equally doesn’t count) and plans to promote it in the future. According…

Why is this a bad thing? Part of a faculty’s job is to do community service and to manage a diverse classroom. Faculty who have a good handle on the issues that arise through teaching such a diverse classroom are better equipped to handle the job. It’s no different than judging them based on the their research or teaching experience, which are also part of the job. If an applicant doesn’t understand the salient DEI i…

The requirements are not limited to "understand[ing] the salient DEI issues" in an abstract, neutral sense; going by the scoring rubric, they're explicitly demanding a statement of ideological conformity-- as well as a personal commitment to an especially divisive, controversial, dubiously-effective approach to mitigating DEI challenges-- that goes further than what was previously "expected of all faculty". That's what makes it not OK.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#49

Post by ModernMech »

db48x wrote: post #22
onos wrote: post #3

Meanwhile, the University of California seems to have implemented a DEI litmus test on all applications for faculty positions and promotion. Does anyone know if this is actually true? Is this reasonable? https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2020/01/wokeademia.html?m...

How can it not be true? Berkely posts a detailed rubric for grading DEI statements on their own website, for all to see: https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit... It is clear that they won’t hire anyone who doesn’t express beliefs identical to their own.

> It is clear that they won’t hire anyone who doesn’t express beliefs identical to their own.

That's not really what's going on here. First of all, you're not really understanding the faculty hiring process. The DEI aspect is just one of many considered, and the people who have most direct impact on the hiring process are the department and college dean, not the DEI office who produced this website.

Secondly, to the extent that DEI statements/rubrics are considered as part of the application, they are done so because they relate specifically to the job. It's a faculty's explicit purpose to teach and manage a diverse classroom. If you look at the rubric, the low scoring results would indicate an applicant has no working knowledge or experience in diversity. This is a job requirement because the student body is diverse. This is not a purity test or an ideological test. Notice the rubric says nothing about beliefs. This is about knowledge and experience.

Experienced teachers will be able to speak cogently about DEI issues, and they will pass this with no problem. Applicants who never taught anything, and who believe the job is to do research and treat teaching as an afterthought will not to well. That's just how it is. But it's not a litmus test or a purity test or an ideological filter. It's about ability to do the job as it's advertised.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#50

Post by tokai »

colpabar wrote: post #33
tokai wrote: post #21

Is this really needed? I'm not trying to be obstinate. But in the north european country where I reside, while we have hate speech laws etc., my speech is protected by the law - both from the state and my employer (a university). This commitment seems very bombastic for what feels like a work environment policy to me. Am I misunderstanding something cultural here? EDIT: thx for the comments, it makes it more sense to…

> my speech is protected by the law - both from the state and my employer (a university). Can you elaborate what it means that your speech is protected by your employer? Because that seems like something that doesn't happen here in the US - you can lose work over disagreeing with political ideologies, especially at universities.

If I made public speech and I was terminated over that (or even if it could be proven that it possibly had an influence) that termination would be unlawful.
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