{"id":1120982,"date":"2024-01-12T14:10:21","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T19:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/uncategorized\/free-speech-on-campus-what-colleges-and-universities-can-do-mediate-com\/"},"modified":"2024-01-12T14:10:21","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T19:10:21","slug":"free-speech-on-campus-what-colleges-and-universities-can-do-mediate-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/free-speech\/free-speech-on-campus-what-colleges-and-universities-can-do-mediate-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Speech on Campus: What Colleges and Universities Can Do &#8211; Mediate.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><p>    Oski Dolls, Pompom Girls,  <\/p>\n<p>    U.C. all the way!  <\/p>\n<p>    Oh, what fun it is to have  <\/p>\n<p>    Your mind reduced to clay!  <\/p>\n<p>    Civil Rights, politics,  <\/p>\n<p>    Just get in the way.  <\/p>\n<p>    Questioning authority  <\/p>\n<p>    When you should obey.  <\/p>\n<p>    Sleeping on the lawn in a  <\/p>\n<p>    Double sleeping bag [during a sit-in]  <\/p>\n<p>    Doesnt get things done,  <\/p>\n<p>    Freedom is a drag.  <\/p>\n<p>    Junk your principles,  <\/p>\n<p>    Dont stand up and fight,  <\/p>\n<p>    You wont get democracy  <\/p>\n<p>    If you yell all night.  <\/p>\n<p>    Oski Dolls by Joe La Penta, FSM Record, to Jingle Bells.  <\/p>\n<p>    As I write, it is now the year of the 60th anniversary of the    Free Speech Movement (FSM) at U.C. Berkeley, in which I was an    active participant (I am at the far right in the photo.)    It is also a time when free speech issues are again triggering    campus conflicts, largely because of intense polarization over    fighting in Gaza, and the mutually antagonistic activities of    student supporters of Israel or Palestine.  <\/p>\n<p>    The students who are waging these battles are, of course, quite    different from those who participated in FSM, as are the    historical conditions in which they have arisen, yet the issues    they raise regarding free speech and civil liberties on    university campuses, as well as their meaning regarding the    relationship between law and politics, or between democracy and    revolution, reveal many similarities.  <\/p>\n<p>    It is also a time when democracy is regarded as expendable by    many, including, as I write, a major presidential candidate    supported by a major political party with significant popular    support and a strong likelihood of winning. Under these    conditions, as white supremacist, neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic,    Islamophobic, fascistic organizations are organizing openly and    gaining ground, the attack on liberal higher education, and    the related push to restrict free speech and civil liberties on    campus take on different meanings.  <\/p>\n<p>    During the 1960s, student activists complained that    universities, shaped during the 1950s by political    conservatism, McCarthyism, and the Cold War, was increasingly    seen as irrelevant to the pressing social issues that began to    emerge in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Here, for    example, is Mario Savio, speaking in 1962 on the nature of the    university and the reasons for political alienation among    students:  <\/p>\n<p>    Many students here at the university, many people in society,    are wandering aimlessly about. Strangers in their own lives,    there is no place for them. They are people who have not    learned to compromise, who, for example, have come to the    university to learn to question, to grow, to learnall the    standard things that sound like clichs because no one takes    them seriously. And they find at one point or another that for    them to become part of society, to become lawyers, ministers,    businessmen, people in government, that very often they must    compromise those principles which were most dear to them. They    must suppress the most creative impulses that they have; this    is a prior condition for being part of the system. The    university is well structured, well tooled, to turn out people    with all the sharp edges worn off, the well-rounded person. The    university is well equipped to produce that sort of person, and    this means that the best among the people who enter must for    four years wander aimlessly much of the time questioning why    they are on campus at all, doubting whether there is any point    in what they are doing, and looking toward a very bleak    existence afterward in a game in which all of the rules have    been made up, which one cannot really amend.  <\/p>\n<p>    As a result of my personal experiences during the 1960s, I    have spent a large part of my life thinking about and    advocating for free speech, not only in the Free Speech    Movement, but as a lawyer for various movement activists and    organizations in the late 1960s, and later as a law professor    teaching Constitutional Law in the 1970s.  <\/p>\n<p>    Starting in the 1980s, I spent a still larger part of my life    as a mediator, conflict resolver, and dialogue facilitator,    helping thousands of people and hundreds of organizations with    vastly differing opinions, many mired in hatred and enmity,    discover that they could somehow, unexpectedly, actually talk    to each other, engage in open, honest, constructive dialogue,    improve their understanding, and solve common problems.  <\/p>\n<p>    In my experience, conflict resolution methods and processes    allow people on all scales, from individuals to couples,    families, schools, workplaces, and    organizationsespecially colleges and universitiesto    raise free speech to a significantly higher level of skill,    where it becomes possible for authentic communication,    empathetic engagement, collaborative problem solving, and    profound learning to take place. I have written several    books outlining how to conduct these processes, most recently    in Politics, Dialogue, and the Evolution of Democracy,    and The Magic in Mediation.  <\/p>\n<p>    Where We Fell Short in FSM  <\/p>\n<p>    Walter Benjamin wrote that Every emergence of fascism bears    witness to a failed revolution. In hindsight, it is    important to note that not only did FSM succeed in enormously    expanding the scope and range of free speech on campus at    Berkeley, it also fell short of reaching its larger goal of    revolutionizing the practice of free speech, and in    transforming universities into centers for political    discussion, learning, and engagement.  <\/p>\n<p>    Instead, we are now witnessing a barrage of conservative    attacks on universities and colleges, triggered by profoundly    adversarial, campus conflicts over the war in Israel, Gaza,    Lebanon, and the West Bank, which ultimately appear to be aimed    at turning campuses back into havens for repression of    unpopular thoughts, political conformity, and apathy. The    alternative, as I see it, is not to repress civil liberties on    campus, or wage political battles more aggressively, but to    transform these conflicts into opportunities for dialogue,    understanding, problem solving, and collaborative    negotiation.  <\/p>\n<p>    One of the early founders of modern mediation and advocates of    participatory democracy was Mary Parker Follett, who wrote    The New State in 1918, in which she insightfully    observed:  <\/p>\n<p>    [I]t is not merely that we must be allowed to govern    ourselves, we must learn how to govern ourselves; it is not    only that we must be given free speech, we must learn a    speech that is free;  [I]t is not only that we must invent    machinery to get a social will expressed, we must invent    machinery that will get a social will created.  <\/p>\n<p>    It is clear, of course, that it is possible to have free    speech, yet lack a speech that is free; to have student    power, yet not know how to use it; to express an outdated    social will, yet lack the skills to create a new one. But    it is this second set of tasks that allow us to move from    purely procedural forms of democracy to higher order    substantive ones; and from a mere transfer of power between    conflicted and competing groups to a genuinely revolutionary    transformation and transcendence of adversarial, zero-sum,    violent, domineering, power-based communications, processes,    and relationships.  <\/p>\n<p>    Some of the hostility expressed toward universities today is an    effort to turn the clock back to the sort of university Savio    complained of; to return to the 1950s; before there was    affirmative action or diversity in enrollment and hiring;    before there were Black, Womens, Latino and LGBTQ Studies    programs; before issues of race and gender and other social    problems were regarded as legitimate to speak about publicly,    or as topics for academic research and teaching.  <\/p>\n<p>    But some of the hostility also emerges, I believe, from the    failure of universities to fully live up to their Enlightenment    promise, by becoming  not mere marketplaces of ideas  but    symphonies, laboratories, workshops, playgrounds, and    dances of ideas.  <\/p>\n<p>    How might colleges and universities achieve this? We can    begin by affirming five important ideas about political    differences. First, it is not helpful to try to    silence or minimize the passion and commitment people feel for    what they believe in and want for the world. Second, it    is helpful to assist people in turning their passion    and commitment from personally attacking their opponents to    jointly tackling their problems, seeking to understand what    lies beneath the surface of their conflicted beliefs and    desires, and searching together for core values and principles    on which they can fashion solutions. Third, it is    possible, even for political activists in the grip of    antagonistic passions and beliefs, to realize that they are all    members of the same human family; the same campus,    neighborhood, and community; the same species and planet.    Fourth, it is helpful to acknowledge that because we all live    on the same planet, short of mass murder and genocide, no one    is going anywhere, so the only real, sensible choice we have is    to learn how to live and work together. Fifth, we are now    facing serious global problems that require us to    collaborate across our differences and find ways of solving    problems together if we are going to survive.  <\/p>\n<p>    At the level of process, rather than content, we can begin by    recognizing that the ability to speak openly, honestly,    empathetically, and skillfully is essential for    successful problem solving on all scales, from navigating and    improving interpersonal relationships to making difficult    political decisions. It has been repeatedly demonstrated    in studies of small groups that diversity, dialogue, and    democratic decision-making are key elements in problem solving,    especially where problems are complex, layered, and    multi-faceted.  <\/p>\n<p>    Yet when people are in conflict, whether personal or political,    they often lose their perspective, forget their values and    goals, and revert to lower-level child-like communications,    adversarial negotiations, autocratic or dictatorial problem    solving, unilateral decision-making, and zero-sum processes    that encourage them to believe that dialogue, collaboration,    learning, and problem solving are entirely impossible.  <\/p>\n<p>    Yet it is possible, for example, for universities and colleges    to bring together Israelis and Palestinians, and opponents on    all kinds of issues, and help them engage in civil dialogues,    storytelling sessions, empathy building exercises, joint    critiques of historical narratives, problem solving practices,    political debates, brainstorming, research, collaborative    negotiation, ground rule setting, Truth and Reconciliation    Commissions, restorative justice circles, mock mediations,    model UN sessions, and many similar processes.  <\/p>\n<p>    It is equally possible for every university and college to hire    a full-time ombudsperson to help design and facilitate these    processes, train faculty and students as peer mediators and    volunteer dialogue facilitators; establish campus clinical    programs in social change, including community organizing,    mediation, and effective political advocacy; and to create    academically rigorous majors with required courses in    mediation, dialogue, collaborative negotiation, consensus    building, conflict resolution, international peace building,    and similar topics.  <\/p>\n<p>    It is possible for universities and colleges to assign students    to on-going or episodic dialogue groups; to conduct teach-ins    with diverse speakers and points of view, and opportunities for    small group discussion; to maintain a list of professional    mediators and dialogue facilitators who would be able to    intervene early, when divisive issues threaten to turn    political differences into battles for campus supremacy; and to    invite participants and advocates to join in open, campus-wide    learning experiences  not by shutting down debate, banning    unpopular groups, or expelling student advocates, but drawing    them into honest conversation with those whose ideas they    disparage.  <\/p>\n<p>    This happened with great success at various moments during FSM,    as when Mario Savio invited fraternity and sorority critics who    arrived to disrupt a rally to instead come to the microphone    and speak to the audience of FSM supporters; or when anyone    could say whatever they thought or felt from on top of the    police car; and at virtually every mass meeting when the floor    was open for comments.  <\/p>\n<p>    More importantly, the entire FSM and political movement    experience in the 1960s, for me and thousands of others, was    one of the most significant educational and learning experience    of my life. UC Berkeley certainly gave me an education,    though it wasnt entirely the one they meant to deliver.    Instead, I learned profoundly important lessons about how to    stand up for what I believed in, how to organize and work with    people I didnt always agree with to bring about social change,    how to disagree politically and still work collaboratively to    achieve common ends, and how to disagree  even over principles     yet learn something valuable from those disagreements.  <\/p>\n<p>    Through these experiences, and later from my practice as a    mediator, I learned that simply shifting the way we    speak to each other, without tempering in the least the content    of our beliefs and values, automatically encourages listening    and dialogue, elicits authentic communications, supports    collaborative negotiation, invites deep learning, and gradually    rebuilds the trust that is essential for joint problem solving,    without having to force others to support the content of what    we take to be true.  <\/p>\n<p>    In the absence of these higher order communication,    collaboration, and conflict resolution skills and processes, it    is easy to slip into a state of impasse that encourages angry,    hostile individuals and groups to exercise their freedom of    speech primarily for the purpose of blocking or destroying the    free speech of others  as occurred, for example, in Nazi    Germany during the late 20s and early 30s.  <\/p>\n<p>    Unfortunately, when we oppose free speech rights for our    opponents, we make the future repression of our own speech far    more likely. We also cheat ourselves and others out of    the opportunity to turn highly adversarial denunciations into    learning, and slip into pointless, hostile, destructive    communications that encourage others to suppress democracy,    both in content, and in processes and relationships. In    the end, whatever connects us empathetically and    collaboratively reduces our resort to fear, distrust, and    hatred, which are the deeper truths of our hostility toward    others, and encourages communication and learning, which are    often the unstated goals of free speech, and the implicit    promises of higher education.  <\/p>\n<p>    One of the most enduring and heartrending sources of human    tragedy arises from the assumption that history will continue    moving in the direction it is currently heading. Yet history    has many sources, with innumerable, complex, and contradictory    inputs that make it, like the weather, unpredictable and highly    sensitive to initial conditions. How many people were    able to accurately predict the 1930s bust in the midst of the    1920s boom, or the 40s from the 30s, the 50s from the 40s,    the 60s from the 50s, etc.? And of those who did, were    they not treated like the legendary Trojan priestess Cassandra,    who was deadly accurate but disbelieved by all?  <\/p>\n<p>    How, then, do we discern our future direction? Which of    the current contradictory undercurrents on campuses and in the    world will prove ascendant, for how long, and why? The    only way I know of finding the answer is to bring    opposing perspectives, experiences, beliefs, and ideas together    into dialogue, problem solving, collaborative negotiation, and    mediation, and listen to what emerges.  <\/p>\n<p>    It may sound bizarre or self-serving, but I find it    increasingly clear and open for all to see, that no single    highly polarized political group is exclusively correct, that    each is correct about something, and that the only intelligent    way forward is together. For higher education institutions,    this means encouraging learning through open discussion,    dialogue, debate, negotiation, problem solving, mediation, and    a search for restorative justice.  <\/p>\n<p>    There are no unilateral judicial or military solutions to the    wars being fought in Ukraine or the Middle East, or Sudan,    Myanmar, DR Congo, and elsewhere. They lead only to death    and misery, grief and guilt, environmentally unsustainability    and self-destruction, so figuring out how to live together    has to become a priority over anti-democratic, brutal,    inhumane, potentially genocidal alternatives, or the    consequences will begin to multiply, and worse disasters will    follow. The choice is ours. In the end, as Hannah    Arendt astutely observed,  <\/p>\n<p>    No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact,    that from the beginning of our history has determined the very    existence of politics: the cause of freedom versus    tyranny.  <\/p>\n<p>    The difference between these options inevitably becomes one of    freedom of speech, freedom to learn, and freedom to imagine    better ways of living, for each and for all, which requires us    to learn how to settle, resolve, transform, and transcend the    conflicts that divide us.  <\/p>\n<p><!-- Auto Generated --><\/p>\n<p>Originally posted here:<br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/mediate.com\/free-speech-on-campus-what-colleges-and-universities-can-do\/\" title=\"Free Speech on Campus: What Colleges and Universities Can Do - Mediate.com\" rel=\"noopener\">Free Speech on Campus: What Colleges and Universities Can Do - Mediate.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Oski Dolls, Pompom Girls, U.C. all the way! Oh, what fun it is to have Your mind reduced to clay! Civil Rights, politics, Just get in the way.  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/free-speech\/free-speech-on-campus-what-colleges-and-universities-can-do-mediate-com\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[162384],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1120982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-speech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1120982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1120982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1120982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1120982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}