Kind: captions
Language: en
if the goal is the project of human
knowledge which is to know the world it
is you cannot know the world as it is
without knowing what people really think
and what people really think is an
incredibly important fact to know so
every time you're actually saying you
can't say that you're actually depriving
yourself of the knowledge of what people
really think you're causing what Tim
Quran who's on our Board of advisors
calls preference falsification you end
up with an inaccurate picture of the
world which by the way in a lot of cases
um because there are activists who want
to restrict more speech they actually
tend to think that people are more
prejudiced than they might be and
actually one very real practical way it
makes things worse is when you censor
people it doesn't change their opinion
it just encourages them to not share it
with people who will get them in trouble
so it leads them to talk to people who
they already agree with and group
polarization takes off
the following is a conversation with
Greg glucianov Free Speech Advocate
First Amendment attorney president and
CEO of fire the foundation for
individual rights and expression and
he's the author of unleashing Liberty
co-author with Jonathan height of
coddling of the American mind and
co-author with Ricky schlot of a new
book coming out in October that you
should definitely pre-order now called
the canceling of the American mind which
is a definitive accounting of the
history present and future of cancel
culture a term used and overused in
public discourse but rarely studied and
understood with the depth and rigor that
Greg and Ricky do in this book and in
part in this conversation
freedom of speech is important the
especially on college campuses the very
place that should serve as the
battleground of ideas including weird
and controversial ones that should
encourage bold risk-taking not
conformity
this is Alex Friedman podcast to support
it please check out our sponsors in the
description and now dear friends here's
Greg Luciano
let's start with a big question what is
cancel culture now you've said that you
don't like the term as it's been quote
dragged through the mud and abused
endlessly by a whole host of
controversial figures nevertheless we
have the term what is it cancel culture
is the uptick of campaigns especially
successful campaigns starting around
2014 to get people fired expelled
de-platformed Etc
um for speech that would normally be
protected by the First Amendment and I
say would be protected because we're
talking about circumstances in which it
isn't necessarily where the first
amendment applies but what I mean is
like as an analog to uh say things you
couldn't lose your job as a Public
Employee for and also the climate of
fear that's resulted from uh from that
phenomena the fact you can lose your job
for having the wrong opinion and it
wasn't subtle that this there was an
uptick in this particularly on on campus
around 2014.
um John Ronson wrote a book called so
you've been publicly shamed they came
out in 2015 already documenting this
phenomena I wrote a book called freedom
from speech in 2014. and but in but it
really was in 2017 when you started
seeing this be directed at professors
and when it comes to the number of
professors that we've seen you know be
targeted and lose their jobs I've been
doing this for 22 years and I've seen
nothing like it so there's so many
things I want to ask you here but one
actually just look at the organization
of fire can you explain what the
organization is because it's
interconnected to this whole
fight and the rise of cancer culture and
the fight for freedom of speech since
2014 and before
so uh fire was founded in 1999 by Harvey
sliverglade he is a famous civil
liberties attorney he's a bit on the
show he's the person who actually found
me out in my very happy life out in San
Francisco but knew I was looking for a
First Amendment job
um I'd gone to law school specifically
to do first amendment
um and he he found me which was pretty
cool his Protege Kathleen Sullivan was
the dean of Stanford law school and this
Remains the best compliment I ever got
in my life is that she recommended me uh
to Harvey and since that's the whole
reason why I went to law school I was
excited to be a part of this new
organization uh the other co-founder of
a fire is Alan Charles Coors he's just
an absolute genius um he is the one of
the leading experts in the world on the
Enlightenment and particularly about
Voltaire and if any of your listeners do
like the Great Courses
um he has a lecture on Blaze Pascal and
blaze of course is famous for the
Pascal's wager
and I left it just so moved and
impressed and with a depth of
understanding of how important this
person was
that's interesting uh you mentioned to
me offline connected to this that there
is a
that at least it runs in parallel or
there's a connection between the love of
Science and the love of the freedom of
speech Yes um can you maybe elaborate
where that connection is sure um I think
that for those of us who are really you
know who've devoted Our Lives to freedom
of speech one thing that we are into
whether we know it or not is
epistemology
um you know the the study and philosophy
of knowledge you know freedom speech has
lots of
um moral and philosophical Dimensions
but from a pragmatic standpoint it is
necessary because we're creatures of
incredibly limited knowledge we are
incredibly self-deceiving I always love
the fact that Yuval Harare uh refers to
the enlightenment as the discovery of
ignorance because that's exactly what it
was it was suddenly being like wow hold
on a second all this incredibly
interesting folk wisdom we got which by
the way is can be can be surprisingly
reliable here and there uh when you
start testing a lot of it
is nonsense um and it doesn't hold up
even our even our ideas about the way
things fall you know as you know Galileo
established like even our intuitions
they're just wrong
and so a lot of the early history of
freedom of speech um it was happening at
the same time as sort of the Scientific
Revolution uh so a lot of the early
debates about freedom of speech um were
tied in so certainly Galileo uh certain
you know um I always point out like
Kepler was probably like the even more
radical idea that there weren't even
perfect spheres but but at the same time
largely because of the invention of the
printing press you also had all these
political developments um and uh you
know I always talk about yanhus you know
from the uh a famous Czech
um uh the hero who was a
um who was burned at the stake and I
think in 1419
um but uh he was basically Luther before
the printing press uh before Luther
could get his word out you know he
didn't stand a chance and that was
exactly what Janos was but a century
later thanks for the printing press
everyone could know Luther thought and
boy did did they but it led to of course
this completely crazy hyper disrupted
period in in European history
well you mentioned uh to jump around a
little bit the First Amendment first of
all what is the first amendment and what
is the connection to you between
the First Amendment the freedom of
speech and cancer culture sure
so I'm a First Amendment lawyer as I
mentioned and that's what I uh that's my
passion that's what I studied and I
think American First Amendment law is
incredibly interesting in one sentence
the first amendment is trying to get rid
of basically all the reasons why
humankind had been killing each other
for its entire existence that we weren't
going to fight anymore over opinion we
weren't going to fight any more of
religion that you have the right to
approach your government for redressing
grievances um that you you have the
freedom to associate that all of these
things in one sentence were like nope
the government will no longer interfere
with you with uh with your right to have
these have these fundamental human uh
human rights and so one thing that makes
fire a little different from other
organizations is is however we're not
just a First Amendment organization we
are a free speech organization and so uh
and and but at the same time a lot of
what I think free speech is can be well
explained with reference to a lot of
First Amendment law partially because in
in American history some of our smartest
people have been thinking about what the
parameters of freedom of speech are
um in relationship to the First
Amendment and a lot of those principles
they transfer very well just as as
pragmatic ideas so like the biggest sin
in terms of censorship is called
Viewpoint discrimination that
essentially you allow freedom of speech
except for that opinion now it's and
it's found to be kind of more defensible
and I think this makes sense that if if
you set up a forum and like we're only
going to talk about economics to exclude
people who want to talk about a
different topic but it's considered
rightfully
um a bigger deal if you've set up a
forum from economics but we're not going
to let people talk about that kind of
Economics or have that opinion on
economics what most most particularly so
a lot of the principles from First
Amendment law actually make a lot of
philosophical sense as good principles
for when like what is protected and
unprotected speech what should get you
in trouble how you actually analyze it
which is why we actually try and our
definition of cancel culture to work in
some of the First Amendment Norms just
in the definition so we don't have to
bog down on them as well you're saying
so many interesting things but if you
can link on the Viewpoint discrimination
is there any gray area of discussion
there like what isn't isn't economics
for the example you gave yeah is it is
there uh I mean is it a science does it
or is it an R to draw lines of what is
and isn't allowed yeah you know if
you're saying that something is or is
not economics well you can say
everything's economics and therefore I
want to talk about poetry there'd be
some line drawing exercise in there but
let's say you at once you decide to open
up
um uh it's a poetry even
um it's a big difference between saying
okay now we're open to poetry uh but you
can't say you know Dante was bad
um like that's a that's a forbidden
opinion now officially in in this
otherwise open Forum that would
immediately at an intuitive level strike
people as a bigger problem than just
saying that poetry isn't economics yeah
I mean that intuitive level that you
speak to
I hope
that all of us have that kind of basic
intuition when the line is crossed it's
the same thing for like pornography yeah
you know when you see it I I think
there's the same level of intuition that
should be applied across the board here
um and it's when that intuition becomes
deformed by whatever forces of society
that's when it starts to feel like
censorship yeah I mean people find it a
different thing um you know if someone
loses their job simply for their
political opinion even if that employer
has every right in the world to fire you
I think Americans should still be like
well it's true they have every right in
the world and I'm not making a legal
case that maybe you shouldn't
fire someone for their political opinion
but think that through like what what
Society do we want to what kind of
society do we want to live in and it's
been funny watching
um you know and I I point this out yes I
will defend businesses uh First
Amendment rights of Association to be
able to have the legal right to decide
you know who works for them
um but from a moral or philosophical
matter
if you think through the implications of
if every business in America becomes an
expressive Association in addition to
being a profit maximizing organization
that would be a disaster for democracy
because you would end up in a situation
where people would actually be saying to
themselves I don't think I can actually
say what I really think and and still
believe I can keep my job and that's
where I was worried I felt like we were
headed because a lot of the initial
response to people getting canceled
um was uh very simply
um you know oh but they have the right
to get rid of this person
um and that and and that's that's the
end and be beginning and end of the
discussion and I thought that was a
Dodge I thought that wasn't actually a
very serious way of that if you care
about both the First Amendment and
freedom of speech of thinking it through
so to you just uh
clarify the first amendment is kind of
a legal embodiment of the ideal of
freedom of speech and then Freedom
satisfied the government in this very
specific applied to government and
freedom of speech is the application of
the principle to like everything
including like kind of the high level
philosophical ideal of what it of the
value of uh people being able to speak
their mind yeah it's an older Bolder
more expansive idea and you can have a
situation uh and I talk about countries
that have good free speech law but not
necessarily great Free Speech culture
and I talk about how when we sometimes
make this distinction between Free
Speech law and Free Speech culture we're
thinking in a very cloudy kind of way
um and what I mean by that is that laws
generally particularly in a common law
country it's the reflection of norms
those you know judges are people too and
in a lot of cases common law is supposed
to actually take our intuitive ideas of
fairness and and place them you know
into the law so if you actually have a
culture that doesn't appreciate free
sweet from a philosophical standpoint
um it's not going to be able to protect
free speech for the Long Haul even in
the law because eventually that's one of
the reasons why I worry so much about
some of these terrible cases coming out
of law schools
um because I I fear that even though
sure American First Amendment law is
very strongly protective of First
Amendment for now it's not going to stay
that way if you have generations of law
students
um graduating who actually think there's
nothing there's no higher goal than
shouting down you're an opponent yeah so
that's why so much of your focus
uh or a large fraction of your focus is
on the higher education or education
period is because education
is the foundation of culture yeah you
have this history you know uh 64. you
have the free speech movement on
Berkeley and in uh 65 you have
repressive tolerance by Herbert Marcus
which was a declaration of by the way
um we on the left we shouldn't we should
have Free Speech but we should have free
speech for us I mean I I went went back
and reread
um uh repressive tolerance and how clear
it is I I forgot I had forgotten that it
really is kind of like
um and these so-called conservatives and
right-wingers we need to repress them
because they're regressive thinkers it
really doesn't come out to anything more
sophisticated than the very old idea
um that our people are good they get
free speech we should they should keep
it
other side bad
um we should not have and we have to
retrain society and of course like it it
ends up being another he was also a fan
of Mao so it's not surprising that he
that of course the system would have to
rely on some kind of totalitarian
uh system but that was a laughable
um uh position you know uh say 30 40
years ago the I the idea that
essentially you know free speech for me
not for the uh as the great you know
Free Speech Champion that hentov used to
say was something that you were supposed
to be embarrassed by but I saw this when
I was in in law school in 97 I saw this
when I was interning at the ACLU in 99
um that there was a slow motion train
wreck coming that essentially there was
um these bad ideas from campus that had
been
taking on more and more steam of
basically no free speech for my opponent
we're actually becoming more more and
more accepted as and partially because
Academia was becoming less and less
Viewpoint diverse I think that as my
co-author Jonathan height points out
that when you have low Viewpoint
diversity people start thinking in a
very kind of tribal way and if you don't
have the respected dissenters you don't
have the people that you can point to
that I'm like hey this is a smart person
um this is like this is a smart
reasonable decent person that I that I
disagree with so I guess not everyone
thinks alike on this issue you start
getting much more kind of like only you
know only bad people only Heretics only
blasphemers only right Wingers you know
um can actually think in this way every
time you say something I always have a
million thoughts and a million questions
that pop up but since you mentioned
there's a kind of drift as you write
about in the book and you mentioned now
there's a drift towards the left in
Academia which we were also maybe draw a
distinction here between the left and
the right and the cancel culture as you
present in your book sure is not
necessarily associated with any one
political Viewpoint that there's
mechanisms on both sides that result in
cancellation and censorship uh in
violation of freedom of speech so one
thing I want to be really clear about is
the book takes on both right and left
cancer culture they're different in a
lot of ways and definitely you know
Council culture from the left is more
important in Academia where the left is
what dominates but we talk a lot about
cancel culture coming from legislatures
we talk a lot about Council culture on
campus as well because even though
um most of the attempts that come from
on campus to get People canceled are
still from the left there are a lot of
attacks that come from the right that
come from you know uh attempts by
different organizations and sometimes
when there are stories in Fox News you
know like they'll go after professors
and about one-third of the attempts to
get at professors punished that are
successful actually do come from the
right and and we talk about attempts to
get Books banned um in in the in the
book we talk about
um and uh I talk about suing the Florida
legislature Ron DeSantis had something
called the stop woke act
um which we told everyone this is
laughably unconstitutional
um they tried to ban you know particular
Topics in higher ed and we're like no
this is a joke like like this will this
will be laughed out of court
um and they didn't listen to us and they
brought it they passed it and we sued
and we won now they're trying again with
something that's equally as
unconstitutional and we will sue again
and we will and we will win can you
elaborate and stop woke X this is
presumably trying to limit certain
topics from being taught in school yeah
it basically woke topics um you know
it's more it came out of the sort of
attempt to get at a critical race Theory
um so it's topics related to race gender
Etc
um I don't remember exactly how they
tried the cabinet to um uh to CRT
um but when you actually the law is
really well established that you can't
tell higher education what they're
allowed to teach without violating uh
without violating the First Amendment
and when this got in front of a judge it
was exactly as uh he was exactly as uh
skeptical of it as we thought he'd be I
think he called this dystopian
um and it wasn't a close call so if
you're against that kind of teaching the
right way to fight it is by making the
case that it's not a good idea as part
of the curriculum as opposed to Banning
it from the Creator yeah it just the
state doesn't have the power to Simply
say to ban
um you know what what teacher what
professors in higher education teach now
it gets a little more complicated when
you talk about K-12 because the state
has a role in deciding what public K-12
teaches because they're your kids they
it's taxpayer funded
um and generally the legislature is
involved there is democratic oversight
of that process so for K-12 is there
also lean towards the left in terms of
the administration that manages the
curriculum yeah um there there
definitely is um in K-12 the the I mean
my kids go to public school
um I have a five and a seven-year-old uh
and they have lovely teachers
um but we have run into a lot of
problems with with education schools at
fire
um and a lot of the graduates of
Education school end up being the
administrators who clamp down on Free
Speech in higher education
and so I've been trying to think of
positive ways to take on some of the
some of the problems that I see in K-12
I thought that the attempt to just
dictate you you won't teach the
following 10 books you know or 20 books
or 200 books was the wrong way to do it
now when it comes to deciding what books
are in the curriculum again that's
something the legislature actually you
know can have some say in and that's
pretty uncontroversial um in terms of
the law but when it comes to how you
fight it I had something that since I'm
kind of stuck with the formula I called
empowering of the American mind I gave
principles that were inconsistent
um with the sort of group think and
heavy emphasis on uh identity politics
uh that um you know some of the critics
are rightfully complaining about in K-12
uh and we we that is actually in
canceling of the American mind but I
have a more detailed explanation of it
that I'm going to be putting up on my
blog the eternally radical idea is it
possible to legally this is a silly
question perhaps create an extra
protection for certain kinds of
literature 1984 or something to remain
in the curriculum I mean it's already
it's all protected I guess yeah I I
guess to protect against administrators
from fiddling too much with the
curriculum like stabilizing the
curriculum I don't I don't know what the
Machinery of the K-12 Public School in
K-12 you know the state legislatures you
know um they're part of that they're
part of that and they can say like you
should teach the following books right
now of course people are always a little
bit worried that um if you uh if they
were to recommend you know teach uh
teach the Declaration of Independence
you know that it will end up being well
they're going to teach the Declaration
of Independence was just to protect
slavery which yeah it wasn't yeah so
teaching a particular topic matters
which textbooks you choose which
perspective you take all that kind of
stuff yes there's like religion starts
to creep into the whole question of like
how you know is the Bible are you
allowed to teach into incorporate that
into education uh don't yeah I mean mean
I'm I'm an atheist uh with an intense
interest in religion I actually read the
entire Bible this year just because I do
stuff like that and I never actually had
read it begin from beginning to end um
then I read the Quran because you know
and I'm going to try to do the Book of
Mormon but you know well they started
hey you're so fascinating
um do you recommend doing that I think
you should
um just to know because it's such a
touchstone
um in in the way people talk about
things it can get pretty tedious but I
even made myself read through all of the
very specific instructions on how tall
the different parts of the temple need
to be and how long the garbs need to be
and what shape they need to be and what
like and those go on a lot
um there that surprisingly surprisingly
big chunk of Exodus
um I thought that was more like in
Leviticus and Deuteronomy
um but then you get to books like job
you know wow I mean job is such a read
and no way job originally had that
ending like job is basically you it
starts out as this perverse bet between
god
um and Satan about whether or not they
can actually make a good man renounce
God and initially they can't it's all
going very predictably and then they
finally really tortured job
and he turns into the best
why is God cruel how could God possibly
exist How could a kind God do these
things and he beats he turns into like
the best lawyer in the entire world and
he defeats everyone all the people who
come to argue with him he he argues the
pants off of them and then suddenly at
the end God shows up and he's like
um well you know uh I am everywhere and
uh it's a very confusing answer he gives
an answer kind of like I am there when
when when lionesses give birth and I am
there and by the way there's this giant
monster Leviathan that's very big and
it's very scary and I and I have to
manage the universe and I'm kind of like
God are you saying that you're very busy
is that it it it it it is that
essentially your argument to job and you
don't mention the whole you don't
mention the whole kind of like that I I
have a bet that's why I was torturing
you that doesn't come up and then at the
end he decided God decides like job's
like Oh no you're totally right I was
totally wrong uh sorry
um and I and God says I'm going to
punish those people who tried to argue
with you and didn't didn't win so
um so he gets rid of the I don't know
exactly what he does to them I don't
remember
um and then he gives job all his money
back and all and it makes him super
prosperous and I'm like no way that was
the original ending of that book like
because this would like this was clearly
beloved novel that they were like but I
can't have that happening okay so so
yeah it's a long way of saying I
actually think it's worthwhile uh some
of it was you're always kind of
surprised when you end up in the part
like um
there are parts of it that will sneak up
on you kind of like Isaiah has a trip
um Ecclesiastes Depeche Mode
you did you said you also uh the qurans
yeah which was fascinating so what is
there it'd be interesting to ask is
there a tension between
the study of religious texts or the the
following of religion and just believing
in God and following the the various
aspects of religion with the freedom of
speech
um in the First Amendment uh we we have
something that we call the religion
clause that I've never liked calling it
just that because it's two brilliant
things right next to each other the
state may not establish an official
religion but it cannot interfere with
your right to practice your religion
that's beautiful two things at the same
time and I think they're and I think
they're both exactly right and I think
sometimes the right gets very excited of
the free exercise clause and the left
gets very excited about establishment
and I like the fact that we have we have
both of them together now how does this
relate to freedom of speech and I was
right to the curriculum like we were
talking about
um I actually think it would be great if
Public Schools Could Teach the Bible
like in the sense of like read it as a
historical document but back when I was
at the ACLU every time I saw people
trying this it always turned into them
actually advocating for you know a
Catholic or a Protestant or some
Orthodox even kind of like read on
religion
um so if you actually make it into
something advocating for a particular
view on religion then it crosses Into
The Establishment Clause side so
Americans haven't figured out a way to
actually teach it so it's probably
better that you you know learn learn
about outside of a public school class
do you think it's possible to teach
religion
um from like uh world religions kind of
force without disrespecting the
religions I think the answer is it
depends on from whose perspective
um well like the practitioners say
you're like an orthodox follower of a
particular religion yeah
is it possible to not piss you off in
teaching like all the major religions of
the world for some people it the bottom
line is you have to teach it as true
ah um and with that under those
conditions then the answer is no you
can't teach it about without offending
someone at least don't you say these
people believe it's true can you reform
so you have to walk on eggshells
essentially you you can try really hard
and you will still make some people
angry but serious people will be like oh
no you actually tried to be fair to to
the beliefs here um and I I and I try to
be respectful um as much as I can about
um a lot of this I still find myself
much more drawn to both Buddhism and
stoicism though
where do I go okay let's
one interesting thing to get back to
college campuses is uh the fire keeps
the college free speech rankings yes at
rankings.thefire.org I'm very proud of
them I highly recommend because forget
that even just the ranking you get to
learn a lot about the universities from
this entirely different perspective than
people are used to when they go to pick
whatever University they want to go to
it just gives another perspective on the
whole thing and it gives quotes from
people that are students there and so on
like about their experiences and and it
gives different maybe you could speak to
the various measures here before we talk
about who's in the top five and who's in
the bottom five what what what are the
different uh parameters that contribute
to the evaluation so people have been
asking me since day one to do a ranking
of schools according to freedom of
speech and even though we had we had the
best database in existence of Campus
speech codes
policies that universities have that
violate the First Amendment or First
Amendment Norms we all also have the
best database of we call the
disinvitation database but it's actually
the it's better named the D platforming
database which is what we're going to
call it and these are all cases where
somebody was invited as a speaker to
campus and they were disinvited
disinvited or D platforming also
includes shouting down
um so they showed up and they couldn't
really speak yeah exactly
um and and uh and so having that what we
really needed in order to have some
serious social science to really make a
serious argument about what the ranking
was
um was to be able to one get a better
sense of how many professors were
actually getting punished during this
time and then the the biggest missing
element was to be able to ask students
directly what the environment was like
on that campus for freedom of speech are
you comfortable disagreeing with each
other are you comfortable disagreeing
with your uh with your professors do you
think violence is acceptable in response
to a speaker do you think shouting uh do
you think shouting down is okay do you
think blocking people's access to a
speaker is okay
um and once we were able to get all
those elements together we uh first did
a test run I think in 2019 about 50 and
we've been doing it for four years now
always trying to make the methodology
more and more precise to better reflect
the actual environment at particular
schools and this year the number one
school is Michigan Technological
University which was a a nice surprise
the number two school was actually
Auburn University
which was nice to see in the top 10 the
most well-known prestigious school is
actually UVA which did really well this
year University of Chicago was not happy
that they weren't number one but
University of Chicago is 13 and they had
been number one or in the top three
three years prior to that really so can
you explain it's almost surprising is it
because of uh like the really strong
economics departments and things like
this or what why they had a case
involving a student they wouldn't
recognize a chapter of Turning Point USA
and they made a very classic argument
um that we and classic in the bad way
that we hear campuses across the country
oh we have a campus Republicans so we
don't need this additional conservative
group and we're like no I'm sorry like
we've seen dozens and dozens if not
hundreds of attempts to get this one
particular
um conservative student uh student group
uh de-recognized or not recognized and
so we told them like listen this like we
told them at fire that uh you know we
consider this serious and they wouldn't
recognize the group so that that's a
that that's a point down in our ranking
and it was enough to knock them from
they probably would have been number two
in the rankings uh but now they're 13
out of 248 they're still one of the best
schools in the country I have no problem
uh saying that the school that did not
do so well
um at a negative 10.69 and negative
10.69 and we rounded up to zero was
Harvard and Harvard uh has been not very
happy with that result the only school
to receive the abysmal ranking yeah and
there are a couple oh Harvard oh Harvard
and there are a couple people who have
actually been really I think making a
mistake by getting very Harvard
um sounding by being like I've had
statisticians look at this and they they
think your methodology is a joke and uh
and like pointing out in this case
wasn't that important and that scholar
wasn't that scholar like one of the
arguments against one of the scholars
that we counted against them for uh
punishing was that that wasn't a very
you know famous or influential scholar
and I'm kind of like so your argument
seems to be snobbery like essentially
that like you you're not understanding
our methodology for one thing and then
you're saying that actually that scholar
wasn't important enough to count and by
the way Harvard
by the way Harvard
um if we yeah if we even if we took all
of your arguments as true even if we
decided to get rid of those two
professors
um you would still be in negative
numbers you would still be dead last you
would still be after Georgetown and Penn
and neither of those schools are good
for freedom of speech I should say the
the bottom five is the University of
Pennsylvania thank you said Penn uh the
University of South Carolina Georgetown
University and Fordham University all
very well earned that they have so many
bad cases at all of those schools what's
the best way to find yourself in the
bottom five if you're a university
what's what's the fastest way to that
negative to that zero a lot of
de-platforming
um that uh when we looked at the bottom
five uh 81 of attempts to get speakers
de-platformed were successful at the
bottom five um there were a couple
schools I think Penn included where
every single attempt every time a
student like objected a student group
objected to that speaker coming they
canceled this the speech and I think I
think Georgetown was 100 success right I
think Penn had 100 success rate I think
Harvard did stand up for a couple but
mostly uh people got D platform there as
well so how do you push back on
de-platforming well who who would do it
is it other students is it faculty is it
the administration what's the Dynamics
of uh pushing back of basically because
I imagine
some of it is culture but imagine every
university has a bunch of students who
will protest basically every speaker and
it's a question of how you respond to
that protest well here's here's the
dirty little secret about like the big
change in 2014.
um and and fire and me and height um
have been very clear that the big change
that we saw on campus was that for most
of my career students were great
um on freedom of speech they were the
best constituency for free speech
absolutely unambiguously until about
2013 2014. and it was only in 2014 where
we had these very you know kind of sad
for us experience where suddenly
students were the ones advocating for
de-platforming and new speech codes kind
of in a similar way that they had been
doing in say like the mid-80s uh for
example but here's the Dirty Little
Secret
it's not this it's just the students
it's students and administrators some
sometimes only a handful of them though
working together to make uh to create
some of these problems and this was
exactly what happened at Stanford when
Kyle Duncan uh a fifth Circuit Judge
tried to speak at my alma mater and a
fifth of the class showed up to shout
them down it was a real showing of The
of what was what was going on that 10
minutes into the shout down of a fifth
Circuit Judge and I keep on emphasizing
that because I'm a constitutional lawyer
if historical judges are big deals
they're one level below the Supreme
Court
um you know about a fifth of the school
shows up to shut them down after 10
minutes of shouting him down an
administrator a Dei administrator gets
up with a prepared speech that she that
she's written that's a seven minute long
speech where she talks about uh Free
Speech maybe the juice isn't worth the
squeeze and we we we're at this law
school where people could learn to
challenge these norms so it's clear that
there was coordination you know amongst
some of these administrators and from
talking to students there they were in
meetings extensive meetings for a long
time they show up do a shout down then
they take an additional seven minutes to
to to lecture the speaker on Free Speech
not being not the juice of free speech
not being worth the squeeze
um and then for the rest of it it's just
constant heckling
um after she after she leaves this is
clearly and this and something very
similar you know happened a number of
times at Yale where it was very clearly
administrators were helping along with a
lot of these disruptions so I think
every time there is a shout down at a
university the investigation should be
first and foremost did administrators
help create this problem did they do
anything to stop it because I think a
lot of what's really going on here is
the hyper bureaucratization of
universities with a lot more ideological
people who think of their primary job as
basically like policing speech more or
less they're encouraging students sorry
they're encouraging students who have
opinions they like
um to do shout Downs um and that's why
they really need to investigate this and
it is uh at Stanford the administrator
who who gave the prepared remarks um
about the juice not being worth the
squeeze she has not been invited back to
Stanford but she's one of the only
examples I can think of when these
things happen a lot where an
administrator clearly facilitated
something that was a shout down or
de-platforming or resulted in a
professor getting fired or resulted in a
student getting expelled where the
administrator has got off scot-free or
probably in some cases even gotten a
promotion and so a small number of
Administrators maybe even a single
administrator
could participate in the encouraging and
the organization and thereby empower the
whole process and that's something I've
seen throughout my entire career and the
only thing is kind of hard to catch this
sort of in the act so to speak and
that's one of the reasons why it's
helpful for people to know about this
you know
uh because
there was this amazing case this was at
University of Washington
um and we actually featured this in a
documentary he made in 2015 20 that came
out in 2015 2016. called can we take a
joke
um and this was when we started noticing
something was changing on campus we also
heard that comedians were saying that
they couldn't use their Good Humor
anymore this was right around the time
that Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock said
that they couldn't uh they didn't want
to play on campuses because they they
could they they couldn't be funny
uh but we featured a case of a comedian
who wanted to do a musical called The
Passion of the musical making fun of The
Passion of the Christ with the stated
goal of offending everyone every group
equally it was very very much a South
Park Mission
um and it's an unusual case because we
actually got documentation of
Administrators buying tickets for angry
students and holding an event where they
where they trained them to to jump up in
the middle of it and Shout I'm offended
like they they bought them tickets they
sent them to this this thing with the
goal of shouting it down now
unsurprisingly when you send an angry
group of students to shut down a play
it's it's not going to end at just I'm
offended
um and it got heated there were death
threats being thrown the um and the and
then the Pullman Washington police told
uh Chris uh Chris Lee the guy who made
the play that he they wouldn't actually
protect him now it's not every day
you're gonna have that kind of hard
evidence that that that of actually
seeing the administrators be so uh so
Brazen that they recorded the fact that
they bought them tickets and sent them
but I think a lot of that stuff is is
going on and I think it's the it's a
good excuse to cut down on one of the
big problems in higher education today
which is hyper bureaucratization
the new experience does their
distinction between administrators and
faculty in terms of uh perpetrators of
this of these kinds of things so if if
we got rid of all like Harvey's talked
about uh getting rid of a large
percentage of the administration does
that help fix the problem or is the
faculty also yeah small
percent of the faculty also part of the
encouraging in the organization of these
kind of cancel yeah and and that's
something that has been profoundly
disappointing um is that when you look
at the huge uptick in attempts to get
professors fired that we've seen over
the last 10 years
and actually over the last 22 years as
far back as our records go
um
at first they were overwhelmingly led by
administrators attempts to get
professors punished
um and that was most you know I'd say
that was my career up until 2013 was was
fighting back at administrative excesses
um then you start having the problem in
2014 of students trying to get people
canceled um and that really accelerated
in 2017 and the number so one way that
one one thing that makes it easier to
document is are the petitions to get
professors fired or punished and how
disproportionately that those actually
do come from students but another big
uptick has been fellow professors
demanding that their fellow professors
get punished and that to me really sad
it's kind of shameful you you shouldn't
be proud of signing the petition to get
your fellow professor and what's what's
even more more shameful is that we get
store this this is a this has almost
become a cliche within fire when someone
is facing one of these cancellation
campaigns as a professor I would get
letters from some of my friends saying I
am so sorry this has happened to you and
these were the same people who publicly
signed the petition to get them fired
yeah yeah
yeah integrity
Integrity is an important thing in this
world and I think some of it
I'm so surprised people don't stand up
more for this because there's so much
hunger for it and if you have the guts
as a faculty or an administrator to
really stand stand up
uh with eloquence
with rigor with Integrity I feel like
it's impossible for anyone to do
anything because there's such a hunger
it's so refreshing yeah I think
everybody agrees that freedom of speech
is a good thing oh I don't I don't well
okay sorry to say I don't agree the
majority of people even at the
universities that there's a hunger but
it's almost like uh this kind of
nervousness around it because there's a
small number of loud voices yeah they're
doing the shouting so I mean again
that's the where great leadership comes
in and so you know presence of
University should probably be making
clear Declarations of like this is not
this is a place where we value the
freedom of expression when it and this
was oh this all throughout my career
um a president a university president
who puts their foot down early and says
Nope you know we are not entertaining
fire English Professor we are not
expelling the student it ends the issue
often very fast although sometimes and
this is where you can really tell the
administrative involvement students will
do things like take over the president's
office and then that takeover will be
catered by the university people will
point this out sometimes as being kind
of like oh it's clearly like um my
friend Sam Abrams when they tried to get
uh tried to get him fired at uh Sarah
Lawrence College
um and uh that was one of the times that
it was used as kind of like oh this was
hostile to the university because they
the students took over the president's
office and I'm like no they let them
take over the president's office and I
don't know if that was one of the cases
in which the the Takeover was catered
but if there was ever sort of like a
sign that's kind of like yes this isn't
this is actually really quite friendly
well in some sense like protesting and
having really strong opinions even like
ridiculous crazy wild opinions it's a
good thing it's just it shouldn't lead
to actual firing or de-platforming of
people like it's good to protest it's
just not good to for the University to
support that and take action based on it
and this is one of one of those like um
tensions in in first amendment that
actually I think has a pretty easy
release essentially you have app you
absolutely have the right to uh devote
your life to ending freedom of speech
and ridiculing as a concept and and
there are people who who really are can
come off as very contemptible about even
the philosophy of freedom a speech and
we will defend your right to do that we
will also disagree with you and if you
try to get a professor fired we will be
on the other side of that now I think he
had Randy Kennedy Who I Really I love
him I think I think he's a great guy but
he's he criticized us for our
de-platforming database as saying this
is saying that that students can't
protest speakers I'm like okay that's
silly
um we fire as an organization have
defended the right to protest all the
time we are constantly defending the
rights of the rights of protesters not
believing the protesters have the right
to say this would like basically that
would be punishing the speakers we're
not calling for punishing um uh the
protesters but what we are saying is you
can't let the protesters win if they're
demanding someone be fired for their
freedom of speech so the line there is
between protesters protesting in the
University
taking action based on the protest yeah
exactly and of course shout Downs that
that's just mob censorship
um and that's something where the
university the way that the way you
actually you deal with that tension in
First Amendment law is essentially kind
of like the one positive Duty that the
government has the the first the
negative due to the thing that it's not
allowed to do is censor you
um but it's positive duty is that if if
I want to say awful things or for that
matter great things that aren't popular
in a public park
um you can't let the crowd just shout me
down
um you can't allow what's called a
heckler's veto
that's so interesting because I feel
like that comes into play on social
media somehow because you know there's
this whole discussion about censorship
and freedom of speech but to me the the
carrot question is almost more
interesting once the freedom of speech
is established is how do you incentivize
high quality debate and disagreement I'm
thinking a lot about that and that's one
of the things we talk about in
counseling of the American mind is
arguing towards truth and that cancel
culture is cruel it's merciless it's
anti-intellectual but it also will never
get you anywhere near truth and you are
going to waste so much time destroying
your opponents
um in in something that can actually
never get you to True through the
process of course of you never actually
get directly at truth you just chip away
at falsity yeah but everybody having a
megaphone on the internet with anonymity
it seems like
it's better than censorship
but it feels like there's
incentives on top of that you can
construct to
um yeah to incentivize better discourse
yeah it's like to incentivize somebody
who puts a huge amount of effort to make
even the most ridiculous arguments but
basically ones that don't include any of
the things you highlight in terms of all
the rhetorical tricks yeah to shut down
conversations just make really good
Arguments for whatever it doesn't matter
if it's uh communism for fascism
whatever the heck you want to say yeah
but do it with scale with historical
context with uh uh with steel man in the
other side all those kind of elements we
try to make three major points on the
book one is just simply cancel culture
is real it's a it's a historic era and
it's on a historic scale the second one
is you should think of cancel culture as
part of a um rhetorical as a larger lazy
rhetorical uh approach to what what we
refer to as winning arguments without
winning arguments and we mean that in
two senses without having winning
arguments or well have actually having
one arguments and we talk about all the
different what we call rhetorical
fortresses that both the left and the
right have that prevent you from that
allow you to just dismiss the person
or Dodge the argument without actually
ever getting to the substance of the
argument third part is just you know how
do we fix it but the rhetorical Fortress
stuff is actually something I've been
I'm very passionate about because it it
interferes with our ability to get at
truth and it wastes time and and frankly
it also kind of since Castle culture is
part of that rhetorical tactic it can
also ruin lives
it would actually be really fun to talk
about this particular aspect of the book
and I highly recommend if you're
listening to this go pre-order the book
now
uh when does it come out October 17th
okay the canceling of the American mind
okay so in uh
in the book you also have a list of
cheap rhetorical tactics that both the
left and the right use and then you have
a list of tactics that left uses and the
right uses yeah there's the rhetorical
the perfect rhetorical Fortress that the
left uses and the efficient rhetorical
Fortress that the right uses yeah first
one is what aboutism yeah maybe we can
go through a few of them that capture
your heart in this particular moment as
we talk about it and if if you can
describe examples of it or with uh
there's aspects of it that you see
they're especially effective effective
so uh what aboutism is defending against
criticism of your side by bringing up
the other side's alleged wrongdoing I
want to make little cards of these of
all of these tactics and start using
them on X all the time because they are
so commonly deployed and what aboutism I
put first for a reason you know it'd be
an