Welcome to one of your first of several campus life meetings.
My name is Mike Hayes and I serve as the Assistant Vice
President for Student Life at the University of Chicago.
And I'd like to add my welcome to the University of Chicago.
As you've probably noticed, you are
in the competition gymnasium of the Ratner Athletic Center
where our UChicago Maroons compete
in intercollegiate athletics.
I know that your fellow students who are athletes
would enjoy your support.
And before we get started, I'd ask that each of you
silence your cell phones.
Thank you.
We have a very robust program this morning
discussing one of Chicago's foundational values,
free expression.
Joining me on stage today are four members of our community
who assist the university every single day in stewarding
this important value.
With me are Michele Rasmussen, Dean
of Students in the University, Melissa Gilliam, Vice Provost
for Academic Leadership, Advancement, and Diversity,
Ted Stamotakos, Senior Associate General Counsel,
and Randall Picker, James Parker Distinguished Senior Professor
of Law.
We'll hear from these individuals
throughout the program.
Let's give them a round of applause.
To set the tone for our conversation this morning,
I'd like to introduce Daniel Diermeier, Provost
of the University of Chicago, who
will offer greetings and his thoughts
on this important topic.
As Provost, he has responsibility
for the academic and research programs across the university,
as well as the oversight of the university's budget.
Prior to his appointment, Provost Diermeier
was dean of the Harris School of Public Policy from 2014
to 2016.
He also holds the David Lee Schilling law Distinguished
Service Professorship at the Harris School
and in the college.
Provost Diermeier's teaching and research
focuses on formal political theory, political institutions,
the interaction of business and politics,
text analytics, public perception,
as well as crisis and reputation management.
Please welcome Provost Diermeier to the stage.
DANIEL DIERMEIER: Well good morning to all of you,
and welcome to the University of Chicago.
We have a great panel today and a great program for you.
And to kind of to set the tone, I
want to just put this a little bit
into perspective for why this is such an important topic for us.
You chose the University of Chicago
to spend your next years with us for many reasons.
But one of the important ones, I think
that you should at least consider
is really what the University of Chicago is all about.
It's a great university, we all know that.
But it's a university that is quite distinct
and has its own identity compared
to many other great places of higher education.
When you look at many other universities,
Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and so forth,
they developed over time.
Kind of like countries develop.
You know, Britain develops, first there's
that and the Anglo-Saxons and so forth.
And the University of Chicago in contrast to them,
was founded on a set of principles.
So to use my kind of country analogy,
it's little bit like the United States, that
from the first moment on was founded
on a set of principles such as the Constitution and so forth.
That's different from other universities
and then these principles have guided this university really
from the first day.
They continue to guide us.
We constantly think about what they mean,
how they apply in the current context,
but they have been a wonderful set of principles
that have guided university over its 127 years of its existence.
The first important component of that
is that the university is totally focused
on academic excellence.
And what that means in the context of a college education,
it means that our goal is to provide
the best and most transformative education you're
going to find anywhere.
That means for us, that we have an integrated college
experience, you all know that.
And that's what you're going to start on.
And most importantly, it is designed and structured
to really look at all possible modes
and dimensions of inquiry.
We have Nobel Laureates in economics, many of you
know that.
We have them in physics, we have them in medicine,
we have them in chemistry.
But we also have had them in literature.
We have the world's greatest astrophysicist
on campus and the world's greatest living female
composer.
So we look at all sorts of different dimensions
and we do it in a particular way.
We do it in a way that is focused and dedicated
to the exchange of ideas.
We believe that the best education and the deepest
and most profound insights come from the fact
that we challenge each other, that we argue with each other,
that we discuss and debate, and if you are disagreeing with me,
I should be grateful for that because that
means you're taking my ideas seriously
and I have a chance to think about them more, question
my assumptions, and end up with deeper insights than when
I walked into this great university.
So this is what we live by.
This is a fundamental principle that guides everything
that we do here and that principle is founded
on two very important values.
The first value is the one we're going
to talk about most today, which will be freedom of expression.
And the idea here is that we want
to make sure that everybody in the classroom,
when you talk to each other in the residence
halls, outside on the quads, has feels freely
and feels the freedom to express their ideas
without any constraints, without being worried
that they're going to be suppressed
or that they're going to be censored in any way.
We believe that this is an absolutely essential component
for us, to create the type of transformative education
that you all came here to the University of Chicago.
The second component is our commitment
to diversity and inclusion.
So what that means for us is that when we have this debate,
we believe the deeper insights come if everybody participates
and if we bring as many possible perspectives to the table,
to the seminar rooms.
Different backgrounds, different histories,
different economic backgrounds, different family backgrounds.
And we want you all to participate
in this great debate and this great discussion that makes
this university so special.
Sometimes this means that we're going
to have to deal with points of view that are not our own, that
are point of views that we may not agree with,
that we may fundamentally disagree with.
But what we're committed to is to the process
of arguing with each other, of discussing it,
of finding reasons, and exploring our assumptions
and the assumptions of others to end up
with insights that are more profound
and can guide us throughout our lives.
One of the things that we have learned
is that engaging and committing to these values
is not always easy.
We come from different backgrounds,
we come from different schools, may have different family
traditions, may have different spiritual traditions,
may have different historic and economic contexts.
So one of the important parts of this program
and of coming to the University of Chicago
is to realize that this is not easy for everybody,
but that it is something that is of tremendous value
and will guide you throughout your time
here at the University.
So be ready that you're going to be challenged.
Be ready that there's things that
will question of how you have been thinking
about these issues before, questioning our assumptions,
questioning what we've done before,
ending up with deeper insights is what this university is all
about and today's the first step you're going
to take in this direction.
Thank you very much and welcome to university.
Thank you.
MIKE HAYES: Thank you Provost Diermeier.
Thank you, we appreciate you being here this morning.
So to get us started and to further
help us start thinking about this important UChicago value,
let's hear from a former UChicago professor of law
and what he says about your next four years.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- The purpose of college is not just
as I said before, to transmit skills,
it's also to widen your horizons,
to make you a better citizen, to help
you to evaluate information, to help
you make your way through the world,
to help you be more creative.
The way to do that is to create a space where a lot of ideas
are presented and collide and people are having arguments
and people are testing each other's theories.
And over time, people learn from each other
because they're getting out of their own narrow point of view
and having a broader point of view.
So Arnie, I'm sure has the same experience that I did,
which is when I went to college, suddenly
there were some folks who didn't think at all like me.
And if I had an opinion about something, they'd look at me
and say, well, that's stupid.
And then they'd describe how they saw the world
and they might have had different sense of politics,
or they might have a different view about poverty,
or they might have a different perspective on race.
And sometimes their views would be infuriating to me.
But it was because there was this space where
you could interact with people who didn't agree with you
and had different backgrounds than you, that I then started
testing my own assumptions.
And sometimes I changed my mind.
Sometimes I realized you know what, maybe I've
been too narrow minded.
Maybe I didn't take this into account.
Maybe I should see this person's perspective.
So that's what college in part is all about.
[END PLAYBACK]
MIKE HAYES: President Zimmer, whom you met yesterday,
plays a national role as an expert and champion related
to free expression.
Under his leadership, the university
has become a national model among higher education
for safeguarding free speech and expression.
Let's listen as he puts the value of free expression
in historical context and explains the Chicago
principles.
These principles have been adopted
by countless institutions across the country as their guide
posts for free expression.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- Now let me turn to the second topic, or second question,
namely the Chicago principles, which
are a forceful statement of one university's commitment
to free expression.
Unlike all the universities in the United States
that preceded it, except for Johns Hopkins,
the University of Chicago was established
as a research institution from its very inception.
From its early days, the leadership and faculty
of the university articulated the importance
of free expression to its missions of rigorous inquiry
and providing and education that was embedded
in intellectual challenge.
Throughout its history, the university
has stood against suppression of speech,
with its faculty and many of its presidents, William Rainey
Harper, Roberty Maynard Hutchins, Edward Levi,
and Hanna Gray as key examples, playing visible leadership
roles.
It was in this historical context
and against the backdrop of shifts
in the American academy over the past decade
that in July 2014 (AUDIO OUT) the faculty committee
chaired by University of Chicago law professor, Geoffrey Stone.
The committee was charged with and now I'm
quoting, "articulating the university's
overarching commitment to free, robust, and uninhibited debate
and deliberation among all members of the university
community."
In other words, the committee was
asked to provide a concrete statement that
encapsulated the underlying and broadly understood culture
and views on free expression at the University of Chicago,
a culture that had been present at the university for well
over a century.
In response, the Stone committee put forth
a thoughtful, powerful, and clear articulation
of the university's stance, laying out
a set of principles now becoming know as the Chicago Principles.
And I want to summarize three such principles
from the report.
The first principle is a statement
of unwavering committment to free expression.
And I'll quote the somewhat sizeable section of this
and I'm quoting now, "The university's
fundamental commitment is to the principle
that debate or deliberation may not
be suppressed because the ideas put forward
are thought by some or even most members of the university
community to be offensive, unwise, immoral,
or wrongheaded.
it is for the individual members of the university community,
not for the university as an institution
to make those judgments for themselves
and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress
speech, but by openly and vigorously contest
the ideas that they oppose.
Indeed, fostering the ability of members of the university
community to engage in such debate and deliberation
in an effective and responsible manner
is an essential part of the university's
educational mission."
In the same vein relevant to some current considerations,
it states, and again quoting, "It is not
the proper role of the university
to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions
they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply
offensive.
Although the university greatly values civility
and although all members of the university community
share in the responsibility for maintaining
a climate of mutual respect, concerns about civility
and mutual respect can never be used as a justification
for closing off discussion of ideas,
however offensive or disagreeable
those ideas may be to some members of the community."
[END PLAYBACK]
MIKE HAYES: We're going to turn to two of our panelists
this morning, Randy and Melissa.
President Zimmer talks of this relentless pursuit
of the idea of free expression.
Why is that important at the University of Chicago?
RANDALL PICKER: Well, I think it's
really important to understand what we do at the university.
And I think we do two things.
We work really hard to discover new ideas
and we communicate those through scholarship and through what
goes on in the classroom.
That's the fundamental enterprise
that we do at the university and that you're joining us here
to do.
That's really hard to do.
I just can't impress upon you how hard that is.
And to do that, we need the right tools to do that.
And so this powerful sense that we
have to chase ideas and do so in a fully unencumbered way,
I think that's the core of what President Zimmer's talking
about.
MELISSA GILLIAM: So in addition to my role as an administrator,
I'm a faculty member.
And I study a topic called reproductive justice.
I work in the South side of Chicago, I work in India,
and I work in slums and I work on issues
of reproductive health, issues like HIV.
I've watched across the country as my colleagues actually
have their work scrutinized and often it's very hard to do.
The advantage and the opportunity
we have at the University of Chicago
is that we get to study what we want to study.
We get to think what we want to think.
And we get to express our views, whether you're
a faculty member or a student or another member
of this community.
This is an incredibly rare opportunity.
We have to take it very seriously.
MIKE HAYES: Thank you.
We're going to move to our first student vignette.
With current student, current events playing out,
Laverne Cox was invited by a student organization
to campus to give a talk about the history of the transgender
community and historically marginalized place they
occupy on a college campus.
Let's listen.
SPEAKER 1: Who is this Laverne Cox person?
SPEAKER 2: What do you mean who is this Laverne Cox person?
Haven't you ever seen Orange is the New Black?
She plays Sophia the transgender hairdresser.
SPEAKER 1: Oh, yeah.
And what is she speaking about?
SPEAKER 2: Well, from my understanding,
she's going to campus to talk about the history
of transgender persons on college
campuses and the discrimination that they face.
SPEAKER 1: Oh, so it's one of those talks where UChicago
invites someone liberal to talk about perceived
problems on campus.
SPEAKER 2: Oh, come on.
It won't be that bad.
I think we should go.
It'll definitely be interesting to hear her point of view
and see what she has to say.
SPEAKER 1: I mean, yeah, but if she sucks I'm blaming you.
SPEAKER 2: I can deal with that.
MIKE HAYES: We're live here at the University of Chicago
where Laverne Cox has just given her remarks on how
the university should make drastic reforms to the way it
handles transgender students and transgender issues.
What are your thoughts on the speech?
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I think she actually
made some really good points.
And I think we really have to rethink things here
at UChicago.
SPEAKER 2: You know, I disagree.
I don't think that her-- while I do appreciate some
of the sentiments she was sharing in her experience,
I don't think her policy points were very convincing
and I think it's an incredibly emotionally charged topic
to be talking about on campus.
MIKE HAYES: So here we have the case
of an invited speaker at campus, most likely
by an RSO, a Registered Student Organization.
This program has been designated for the specific purpose
of hearing perspectives of that invited guest, who also
enjoys free expression rights.
Michele, how is it that speakers come to campus?
MICHELE RASMUSSEN: So speakers come to campus
in myriad different ways.
One of the great things about the University of Chicago
is that on any given day, there is just
an incredible array of speakers who
come at the invitation of academic departments,
of individual faculty members, of entities like in student
politics, and by students.
And we try very hard at the university
to give students the resources, whether it
be financial resources, space resources, or just
advising resources to think about the kinds of folks they'd
like to bring to discuss interesting ideas of the day,
things that are relevant to their particular group,
whatever their group might be interested in.
And as a result, we have a real diverse range
of speakers in any given year.
MIKE HAYES: Let me ask you a follow up.
What are the options if students disagree with the speaker?
And or they want to express that some how?
MICHELE RASMUSSEN: Again, there is myriad ways
that you can express your displeasure
or your disagreement with a speaker.
And as long as you don't interfere
with the rights of that group of students or faculty
or that other entity that had that speaker come,
those ways that you can express your displeasure are many.
You might decide to hold an alternative event,
you might decide to engage directly
with the folks who are bringing that speaker to campus to get
more insight into why they feel it's important to have
that person come.
You might even be part of a protest, and that's fine too.
MIKE HAYES: Great.
I'm going to ask Ted a two part question.
Given the high profile events on college campuses this past year
and some of those headlines were on the screens
as you were coming in, will the university
ever disinvited a speaker?
And I guess the second part of the question
is can anybody just simply show up and speak?
TED STAMATAKOS: The easy answer on disinvitation is no.
The university itself, its leaders, its administrators,
don't disinvite speakers.
It's a corollary to the principle
that Michele mentioned.
And disinvitation or withdrawing an invitation
would be the prerogative of the group that
has invited the speaker in the first instance.
Being a lawyer, I'm trained to identify exceptions.
I'd say there's one little exception, I can't help myself,
and that has to do with the safety
and health of those participating
in any particular event.
We have a fundamental obligation,
a commitment to ensuring safety and health of participants
in our programs, like students, of researchers and of invitees,
people who come to talk.
And I could foresee under some circumstances, a situation
where the university works with the organization or the group
that has invited a speaker to either find a venue that's
more appropriate for the setting or reschedule
in a way that allows us to plan appropriately.
But ultimately, the disinvitation,
the authority to disinvite, is not
the university's to exercise.
MIKE HAYES: Thanks.
We're going to look at a quote on the board.
Hanna Holborn Gray, who was the former president
of the University of Chicago said, "Education should not
be intended to make people feel comfortable.
It is meant to make them think."
This is an important notion and let's dig
a little further with two additional videos
that will help us make additional meaning of this.
The first being from Jay Ellison, the Dean of Students
in the College.
And secondly from Professor Jeff Stone,
whom President Zimmer mentioned in his remarks, the Edward Levi
Distinguished Service Professor, and as President Zimmer
told us, the chair and the author
of the report of the Commission on Free Expression.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- So I'm Jay Ellison, the Dean of Students in the College.
I want to welcome you to the university
and to the college in particular.
This is a wonderful opportunity for you
and for us to have you here.
As I've said in my letters of welcome and introduction,
this is a place that we want you to ask questions.
We want you to debate and argue.
We want you to think about what we're saying
and we want to think about what you're saying.
This is an opportunity, not for us to teach you what to think,
but how to think, how to be critical,
how to analyze the information that comes to you.
And as you do that, there'll be times
that you will be uncomfortable.
That's just part of the educational experience.
But we want to be careful to distinguish,
and I encourage you to distinguish, between being
uncomfortable and harm.
They are different.
When we talk and we think critically about things,
we are really thinking about words and we think about ideas.
We're critically analyzing the things that come before us.
But we're not intending harm.
What we are doing is at times being very uncomfortable
and pushing our comfort levels.
But words are important and words
and how we think about them and how
we analyze them are important.
And that's very, very different.
And this is an opportunity for you
to do that, both with your peers,
with your fellow students, with the faculty and with the staff,
to have these opportunities to really expand, to think,
and to analyze critically.
- I believe that a central part of my responsibility
as a teacher and a central part of the responsibility
of a university or college with its students
is to prepare our students to be effective, courageous citizens
in the real world.
To have the intellectual skills and the personality
to be able to stand up for oneself.
To defend one's positions, to explain why others are wrong,
and not to cower or to be afraid or to be reluctant to engage
in intellectual combat.
I think our job is to make good citizens
and good citizens are people who are
capable of having courage and defending their views.
And I worry that the impetus for a lot of this censorship today
is basically saying, I don't want to be in that position.
I don't want to have to fight back.
And that I think asked universities
to do exactly what they're not supposed to do.
On the other hand, I do think we have
to be cognizant of the fact that we
want universities to be places in which people are civil.
That's a value that is important.
Not to the point of censorship, but as an aspiration.
It's something universities should encourage.
And I think we also have to be aware of the fact
that it is tough to be a student in an environment in which all
of your ideas are open to challenge and to question
and that universities have to be cognizant of the fact
that they want to be able to make sure students can flourish
in the institution.
The idea is not to destroy students,
its to strengthen them.
And therefore, I think we have to think about situations
in which it may be that there is a really difficult situation
created for students.
That does not ever, in my view mean censorship.
But it might mean support in a variety of ways.
Maybe they need counseling in a variety of ways.
I don't think we should simply blind ourselves to the fact
that life is hard and not all of our students
are capable of dealing with it equally.
And therefore, it is important to be attentive to the fact
that we need to nurture the kind of values in our students
that we want them to have upon graduation.
[END PLAYBACK]
MIKE HAYES: So a question for our panelist, Melissa.
One could argue that many times the value of free expression
and the value of diversity and inclusion are in conflict.
What do you think?
MELISSA GILLIAM: Sure.
I grew up there I was always told be proud of my race.
It's something that I am proud of it.
It's a real source of strength.
But I've also been the only person, only
black person in the room when we're discussing Huck Finn.
Or I've been the only woman of color in a room full of,
a meeting full of people who do not look like me.
And it's stressful.
And when you hear this conversation about freedom
of expression and unpleasant views,
that also sounds stressful.
As a medical doctor, I know that that type of stress
has health consequences.
However, the principles of freedom of expression
are incredibly important and they only
work if lots of people are present.
So I'll quote one of my friends and colleagues
who uses the terms bandwidth and interval training.
And by bandwidth, you don't have to do this all of the time.
You do what you're able to do at that time.
Interval training, you do it and then you take a rest.
We have lots of centers like the Center for Identity
and Inclusion and other places.
You'll find your networks and your colleagues
in the places where you feel good.
You restore, you build the muscle, and you get out
and you have those arguments again.
But you don't have to do this all the time.
We do understand that it can be stressful.
MIKE HAYES: Randy, do you have any other thought?
RANDALL PICKER: So I guess I want to focus on this idea.
We've talked about the importance of free speech
and free expression.
No one said anything like free listening.
But the other side of this is is that in participating
in this process, you have an obligation
to listen to other people.
And it really goes to this issue of diversity and inclusion.
You are going to learn more talking to people,
listening to people, who see the world in a way
that you don't than talking to someone
and listening to someone who thinks about the world
exactly the way you do.
You know how you think.
You want to sit down with someone
who's had a different set of experiences, who's
got a different perspective on things
and you need to listen to them.
So I don't think there's any conflict here at all.
I think it's as the Provost Daniel Diermeier suggested,
they go together completely.
To have a context in which everyone thought
about things the same, there'd be no point
for us gathering together.
MIKE HAYES: Thanks Randy.
And Michele, are there any additional messages
that students should take away about this notion of unplugging
or disengaging periodically as Melissa
and Professor Stone alluded to?
MICHELE RASMUSSEN: I think they handled
that question beautifully and I would agree wholeheartedly.
I think that just as we have on any given day,
you know, a plethora of different events
and speakers on campus, we also have a very, very wide array
of places where students can just relax,
kick back, hang out with people without having to constantly
be engaged in intellectual battle,
which we want you to do part of the time,
but you don't have to do it all the time.
And you have an agency of students mapping
your own course here to determine when you want
to engage, and we hope you will regularly,
but you don't have to do it all of the time.
MIKE HAYES: Great, thank you.
We're going to pivot just a bit as we think about other ways
that speech plays out on campus, we're
going to move to another vignette.
It's week one of the autumn quarter, that's next week.
A first year student Jasper, who's an aspiring filmmaker,
is putting up several vintage movie
posters on his side of his residence hall room.
One of the pictures is an image from the 1915 film
Birth of a Nation, which features white hooded clansmen.
While Jasper's roommate is fine with the poster,
other members of the community are not.
Let's take a listen.
SPEAKER 2: You know every day when I leave this dorm,
I walk past this room and I see a poster that's racist.
I don't really think that that's something
I should have to deal with, especially in my own home
and I'd really appreciate if you could talk to him
and do something about it.
If you don't, I'm going to have to talk to the Maroon
and write about this lack of action.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
I hear you.
Hey, Jasper.
I just wanted to talk to you.
Some students have come to me and had some problems
with one of the posters in your room.
They feel as if it creates a racially hostile environment.
Do you see where they're coming from?
JASPER: I suppose so, but it's my private room
and I don't think they have a say in that.
I've talked to my roommate and he's
fine with the art I've decided to put up.
Look, I like this house and I like the people here,
but I don't want to compromise my artistic values, just
to keep the peace.
You can't make me take it down.
SPEAKER 1: You're right.
I can't make you take down the poster,
but I want you to think about the impact it'll
have on the house community.
MIKE HAYES: So Michele, here we have
a poster in a private residence hall room.
Does the university have a role in asking students
to remove the poster?
MICHELE RASMUSSEN: No, but just as we saw in the vignette,
just because you have a right to put something up in your room
or say something, doesn't mean that you're
free from the potential consequences of how
people around you are going to engage or react to that.
And I think the conundrum here is
that while Jasper could certainly keep his poster up,
there's not going to be any university administrator who
is going to force him to remove it,
he may find that his ability to connect
with many of his housemates is going to be compromised.
And he's going to have to work through that
in whatever way works for him.
But to assume that people are not
going to necessarily be upset is probably folly on his part.
MIKE HAYES: Great thanks.
And Ted, as you know, in the past year or so,
we've had lots of posters on campus
that folks have found offensive and are
placed all over at large.
What should students consider as a response to those posters?
TED STAMATAKOS: Well, what I would suggest
is not resorting to self-help in terms of addressing
the poster itself.
The university has fairly comprehensive policies
regarding guidelines about where postings can take place,
the content of postings that are appropriate, how they're
attached, and so forth, and we really
do follow these guidelines.
So regardless of how offensive or upset a particular poster
or posting may make you feel, I'd
encourage you to not resort to self-help like tearing it down,
or defacing it, or covering it.
Contact campus and student life representatives,
contact the dean on call.
They will intervene, they will assess the situation,
and if appropriate as we have in the past,
we will remove the posting if it's not
compliant with the policy.
And by all means, take a picture of the posting
and use it to catalyze conversation, debate,
and discussion among your peers.
MIKE HAYES: Great, thank you.
We want to listen one more time to President Zimmer
as he outlines the last two Chicago principles.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- The second principle is that the university recognizes,
indeed embraces, non-disruptive protest as a legitimate means
of free expression.
And as such, supports the rights of all members
of the university community to engage in such protests
around whatever issues they wish.
The third principle in the report,
articulates that disruptive protest, or other means
of limiting the rights of others to engage in free expression,
work, and open discourse is not acceptable and in fact,
is a violation of the university's commitment
to free expression.
The distinction between disruptive and non-disruptive
protests is essential.
preventing others from speaking and listening
is arrogating to oneself the right of free expression,
but denying it to others.
[END PLAYBACK]
MIKE HAYES: So, Michele, again, how does the university
define disruptive conduct in this particular context?
MICHELE RASMUSSEN: So disruptive conduct
is conduct that essentially prevents others
from experiencing an event, whether it be a speaker or even
a planned activity on campus.
And so some specific examples that might come to mind
are if the speaker is at a podium in a room like this
and individuals, whether it be one or many,
shout down at that speaker in such a way
that it becomes impossible to hear the speaker.
It might involve holding up signs
or other large visual displays that in such a way
that block the visual path of others,
so they can't see the speaker.
It might involve things that make it impossible or dangerous
for people to safely enter or exit
a venue where an event or a speaker is taking place.
So it's essentially acts that go beyond protesting
an event, which you can do in a number of ways that don't
actually interfere with other people
being able to experience that event.
MIKE HAYES: Great.
Thank you.
We're going to have our final vignette.
During a history course, a professor
shows the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will.
After the conclusion of the film,
the professor begins to highlight
the important academic points within the film.
Let's see what's happening.
SPEAKER 1: So like we talked about last week in this film,
you can see many examples of religious imagery,
religious symbolism, nationalism, and pleas
to the German people.
Actually lots of people have compared the rhetoric and style
of Adolf Hitler to Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.
And--
SPEAKER 2: How dare you?
How dare you insult President Trump like that?
How can you compare a billionaire entrepreneur
to a fascist dictator who murdered millions of people?
In fact, if we want start making comparisons,
I think there's a lot of similarities between Hillary
Clinton and Adolf Hitler.
JASPER: Yeah, how dare you use the death
of my grandparents and my relatives
to push your political agenda?
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I think you both make great points.
And if we discuss--
JASPER: No, no.
We're not going to discuss this.
You're standing on the graves of millions of people,
each of whom had a family.
You're a bully.
SPEAKER 2: Yeah, be willing to apologize for your actions.
If you don't, I'm going to talk to Fox
News, Sean Hannity, the Maroon, anyone else that will listen.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I understand your anger
and it makes a lot of sense to me.
But if we can discuss some of the academic points
about the movie, I think that you'll see--
SPEAKER 2: No.
You can't silence us or push us around.
We're going to make America great again.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I think you've both become disruptive
in this conversation, Isn't really happening.
If you guys really want to talk about the academic points,
you can come to my office hours.
The times are posted on my door, but you need to leave.
MIKE HAYES: Professor Stone is careful to point out
that free speech works differently
in the classroom because of the professor's ability
to conduct the class in the exercise of academic freedom.
Let's listen to what Professor Stone has to say.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- Well first of all, Professors shouldn't
be uncivil or disrespectful to their students.
But at the same time, the real world
will not protect people from that type of upset.
And therefore, I think we do a grave disservice
to our students by creating a safe space of a university that
shields them from ugliness and from discord.
and from insult when it exists in the world.
Again, my view is the point of education
is to prepare students to be effective citizens.
Effective citizens cannot be thin skinned.
And that doesn't mean I think faculty
should be abusive to students for the sake of it.
But I also think that this is part of the reality of life
and one might imagine a Peter Pan
world in which there is no reality,
but that's not our world.
And I want my students to be able to go into that world
and to be fearless and to be able to take challenge
and insult. They shouldn't ideally, in the ideal world,
they shouldn't.
But that's the world in which we live
and I don't want our students to be
shielded from things that they have to learn how to deal with.
[END PLAYBACK]
MIKE HAYES: So we'll turn to our faculty members again.
Randy and Melissa, it appears that in the scenario,
the professor was in the midst of pointing out
a very clear relationship in the material
to the subject when he was interrupted by the students.
Randy, were the students out of line?
RANDALL PICKER: Well, I mean, part
of what happens in the classroom is that there is so much
material you could cover, that you're constantly
having to make decisions about what you should do in class
and what you should do out of class.
Classes at the law school start a week from today.
I spent most of the last three days
sort of reshaping my materials, seeing
what's happened in the last two years since I taught the class.
So part of my job is to figure out what we should talk about
and what we shouldn't talk about.
There's a way in which classrooms
not an exercise in democracy.
So I think professors are responsive.
I tend to hang around after class in the halls
for like 10 to 15 minutes to answer their questions.
So I think there are lots of vehicles
for expressing concerns about what's being done in class.
But I think having those disputes in the middle class
tends not to work particularly well.
MIKE HAYES: Melissa, do you have any thoughts
about how would you might respond
to a situation like this and other ways
for students to raise concerns?
MELISSA GILLIAM: Sure so as Randy said,
it is difficult that the class is being disrupted,
then the other students can't hear the point.
So you can, you can ask the students
to talk to you after class.
You can try to make your point and be
able to use the rest of the class time to speak
and then maybe, in a separate situation
where you can sit down and hear from the students,
hear their perspective, you can use
that to go back into your classroom
and think about another way that you
might approach the material.
MIKE HAYES: Michele, you have any other thoughts?
Or are you good?
MICHELE RASMUSSEN: You know, you're
going to be challenged outside the classroom here,
you're going to be challenged inside the classroom.
That's why its the University of Chicago
and that's why you came here, not to just
be spoon fed things you already believe or know.
And I think that you've got to think about the experience
of your fellow classmates.
And it's not as if the faculty here
sort of have this attitude of it's my way or the highway,
they want to engage rigorously with their students.
But they offer the appropriate means to do so.
And I think that taking advantage of office hours,
taking advantage of the after class hall room chats,
is the best way to do that.
And probably is going to be more satisfying, ultimately,
to everyone rather than just taking a stand
while class is going on.
MIKE HAYES: Great.
Thank you so much.
And as we think about this really complex issue
of free expression, let's hear one more time
from that former law professor from the University of Chicago.
He reminds us that the best strategy is not
to shut others out or shut them down,
no matter how we disagree with them.
And here's how he put it.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- You know there's been a trend around the country of trying
to get colleges to disinvite speakers
with a different point of view, or disrupt a politicians rally.
Don't do that.
No matter how ridiculous or offensive
you might find the things that come out of their mouths.
Because as my grandmother used to tell me, every time a fool
speaks they are just advertising their own ignorance.
Let them talk.
Let them talk.
If you don't, you just make them a victim.
And then they can avoid accountability.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't challenge them.
Have the confidence to challenge them.
Confidence in the rightness of your position.
There will be times when you shouldn't compromise your core
values, your integrity.
And you will have the responsibility
to speak up in the face of injustice.
But listen, engage.
If the other side has a point, learn from them.
If they're wrong, rebut them, teach them, beat them
on the battlefield of ideas.
[END PLAYBACK]
MIKE HAYES: So as we conclude today's program--
stay seated, we have lots of announcements--
we hope that you will want to engage in learning more
about this important value of the University of Chicago,
its history at the university and that you
will visit this website that's on this slide.
Before we dismiss, I want to hear one last time
from Professor Stone about his perspective
on this great place.
I would encourage you to listen and reflect
upon your own excitement about joining this community.
After the video, we're going to ask our panelists
for their final thoughts.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- Particularly in Chicago, there is a kind
of absolutely no holds barred community culture
about questioning one another, being pretty fearless
about questions, and being pretty thick skinned
about being questioned.
One of my favorite lines about the university
is that at the University of Chicago,
the only appropriate response to even
the most withering question is not resentment, but gratitude.
And I've always kept that in mind
because I think that does capture
very much what the intellectual give and take
of the university is.
And I just fell in love with that.
I mean, to be in a place where everything was on the table.
[END PLAYBACK]
MIKE HAYES: OK. I'd like to ask our panelists their final thoughts
or words of advice to the class of '21
and then we've got a couple of announcements we need to make.
RANDALL PICKER: I have the sense that I may be the only
graduate of the college on this panel, is that right?
OK.
So, look, I came here just like you did, many years ago
and I was a little nervous about the whole thing,
I'll be honest.
It seemed like a pretty intimidating place,
a very demanding place.
And I wasn't sure that I was necessarily up for that.
You've heard a lot of discussion today.
From my perspective, it feels like we've all
gone warm and fuzzy, but it can't feel that way to you.
All this emphasis on being uncomfortable.
This is a great four year opportunity for you.
So I just want to--
I felt a sense of excitement in being here.
I still feel that every day.
When I had a chance to come back here as a professor,
I couldn't have imagined that would be possible.
And I really feel almost a sense of electricity
when I step on the campus.
I hope that's what you feel.
You're surrounded by great, wonderful students
and professors, people who have all sorts of interesting ideas.
And you get to sort of immerse yourself
in that for four incredibly exciting years.
I hope you enjoy absolutely every minute of it.
MELISSA GILLIAM: I did not go here undergraduate.
I went to Yale and then Harvard, but--
RANDALL PICKER: Wow.
MELISSA GILLIAM: But Randy, like you, I
will say this is the most exciting intellectual community
that I have ever been a part of.
And when I tell people about the University of Chicago,
I don't emphasize just the freedom of expression.
But it is the fact that people will be genuinely interested
in your ideas, that you can walk across campus
and talk to anyone and they will be
excited to hear what you think and to look for opportunities
to collaborate.
This program has talked about expression.
But I spend more time listening and working on my skills
to hear people and understand what it is they're
saying to me.
That's one of the challenges when
you're in an environment of 30,000 people who
are as diverse as this group of people.
But that's the richness and the opportunity.
So welcome to the University of Chicago.
TED STAMATAKOS: Well I'm a bit of an outsider because I'm not
an alum and I'm not part of the academy,
but I'm more of a pragmatist.
So my advice is twofold.
One is learn how to introduce yourself to other people.
You won't believe the number of doors
that will open for you within your community
and outside of your community and some of them
will last a lifetime.
And the second point, which I want to play off something
that Randy said earlier is, commit yourself
to improving your listening skills.
This is something that's not really taught.
I didn't learn it at home, I didn't learn it at law school
or in college.
It's something I learned the hard way, frankly,
over a long period of time.
But you'll find that if you learn how to listen,
you become a stronger thinker, you become a better citizen,
you become a better friend.
And you're actually more capable of exposing
the flaws of the people who are advancing ideas
that you disagree with.
So I would commend you to do that.
And I would also say welcome to the University of Chicago.
This is a wonderful place.
MICHELE RASMUSSEN: I'm between you and lunch.
So I'll be quick.
I couldn't agree more with my fellow three panelists.
And all I will say is if you ever
get stuck or have a tough day or are really
having a hard time understanding a particular point of view
or you're feeling very alone, just
remember that in addition to your peers
who are going to be the most spectacular people you'll
meet in your lives, there's also a whole group of faculty
and staff and administrators at this university who
want to see you thrive, who want to see you flourish,
and our doors are always open.
So don't be shy about coming to talk to us
if you're having a rough time.
We will help you and welcome to the University of Chicago.
MIKE HAYES: OK, a couple quick things
before you move to your lunch.
I know, that's there.
First of all, I would like you to join me
in thanking our panelists for their time this morning.
I would also like you to help me thank Calvin, Chase, and Sabine
who happen to be your elected student government leaders
and for helping us out today in the program.
I want to thank you all for being here this morning.
We hope this has been helpful as you start your journey
at the University of Chicago.
Again, thank you.
Welcome to Chicago enjoy O week.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét