All, since we’re at the beginning of a new year, I thought I’d write a more detailed introduction, the story of how/why I am involved with this Freedom Effect Facebook group, and with free speech issues more generally.
One day in 2015, when my twins were 9 months old and finally somewhat manageable, I logged onto Facebook in order to check out what I had missed over the past year or two. Busy with work and babies, I had only logged on periodically and did not have time for the contentious/lengthy discussions I had previously enjoyed on the Wellesley “Community” forum which then included about 7K alumnae. However, since I had only recently gone to Boston for my 10 year college reunion where I spent hours reconnecting with Wellesley acquaintances, I felt ready to jump back in the fray.
On this particular day, someone had posted the “Coddling of the American Mind” article from The Atlantic by Greg Lukianoff (head of a free speech non-profit called FIRE that my husband used to work at) and Jonathan Haidt, a professor at NYU. The article posited that college students increasingly demand protection from speech and ideas they dislike, and that this was bad. The post included the comment “Interesting” inviting others to discuss, and so I proceeded to say that I was against mandatory trigger/content warnings for college students, although I was okay with them being used voluntarily. In 2013, I would also have expected strong disagreement from most Wellesley alumnae, but suddenly in 2015, this was worthy of censorship. Dozens of people called me a “bad person” who was “causing trauma to the community” and hundreds more agreed. In retaliation, I called those requesting moderators and the moderators themselves “totalitarian” and “Orwellian.” The six moderators of the forum were called to temporarily ban me from posting on the Community forum.
This was something I had never encountered at Wellesley, within the alumnae community, or within American society more generally. When I lived in Beijing as an expat’s child from 1994 to 1996, I had to bring my passport to attend Catholic mass at the Canadian embassy because of the potential “harm” that proselytizing religion to local Chinese would cause. When I lived in Shanghai in 2010 during a business school exchange between NYU and Fudan University, I could only access Facebook through a VPN because of the Great Firewall, again designed to control what speech and ideas local Chinese could access. I had never thought that my fellow citizens in a “free” country like the United States, with multiple parties and points of view, would support censorship of ideas in interactions with their peers.
While I understood the First Amendment does not apply to private Facebook groups, and also discovered through a quick Google search that this problem was not Wellesley-specific, I also found through my research that Wellesley in particular was faced with this problem. The annual senior exit survey in 2015 indicated that “75% agree “Students are so concerned about being politically correct that difficult issues do not get discussed as they should.” Upon talking with Professor Cushman, he indicated that the classrooms had not really had this problem in his experience, and that most Wellesley students were in favor of open discussions. Indeed, I had not seen any indication that Wellesley would start dis-inviting speakers, and former President Bottomly had been an advocate of your program The Freedom Project, which invites speakers which sometimes disagree with commonly accepted points of view at Wellesley. However, the statistic from the senior survey, combined with my own experience of participating in several Wellesley forums, each with thousands of members, which all started monitoring posts from an ideological perspective, indicated to me that it was better to be safe than sorry.
As a preventive measure to make sure that Wellesley enshrines and upholds our value of intellectual diversity, I started a free speech policy petition, which garnered 45 signatures, 43 from alumnae and 2 from then current students. Despite a meeting with College President Paula Johnson in 2017, the policy initiative temporarily failed (for that year). The President wanted to start smaller, and a formal policy would require Board approval, which would take years. In hindsight, change really only comes with within. Current faculty and students will lead the way, and the pendulum eventually must swing the other way, back towards free speech. I’ve been a well-meaning meddlesome auntie-type, but all I can really do is support you all while you find your own path.
A week after my meeting with President Johnson, the Wellesley News staff penned an editorial saying that “hostility may be warranted” against harmful speech (http://thewellesleynews.com/2017/04/12/free-speech-is-not-violated-at-wellesley/). This was posted by the Wall Street Journal without comment other than the title ‘Shut Up, Wellesley Students Explained,” and a backlash ensued, with editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg calling it “one of the most frightening editorials I’ve ever read (from a student newspaper)” and conservative pundit John Podhoretz commenting “This is the actual face of American fascism.” Hopefully, that was the height of embarrassing negative press Wellesley will receive for free speech issues.
Since then, President Johnson has made speeches on and referencing free speech (https://www.wellesley.edu/about/president/speeches/node/120641) and seems to want students to still be free to debate ideas, but advocates that they do so in a compassionate way that helps “stretch-but-not-break” fellow students, voluntarily taking into account their feelings and emotions. While I agree with the wisdom in not being overly hostile in conversations about difficult subjects, especially resorting to personal attacks, I do think there is value in candid and even rancorous exchanges, and I would rather Wellesley students “stretch but not break” through maximal use of free speech rather than restrict how students can express themselves short of causing imminent danger to themselves/others. Furthermore, I’ve been excited to learn that Wellesley has started a task force on speech and inclusion, which Professor Lynch and other faculty, student volunteers, and administrators also are involved with.
While this is all my background on why I care about free speech issues, I recognize that The Freedom Project is about much more than that. You care about freedom more generally, and while I previously was more inclined towards statist beliefs (heavy emphasis on social benefits/programs and bureaucratic efficiency), my more recent experience on free speech and parenting have definitely moved me closer to the libertarian camp and pondering more generally about what restrictions and level of monitoring (whether through the government or fellow citizens) are good and/or necessary.
Thanks for reading, and I am excited that some alumnae (including myself) may travel to Wellesley sometime this semester to meet you in person. Have a great wintersession/spring semester!
xtinakloster 