William Payne

I agree with the symptoms described here but propose a different flavor to the concluded take, because I believe the root cause of these issues is 1) unavoidable and 2) fundamental and inescapable to the dynamics of human interaction.

Basic playground guidance assumes the norms will be respected and followed by everybody, and in an increasingly divided community (and society as a whole) that assumption can only be advocated for. But if in lived reality these cries for good faith are ignored, then influence and power inevitably become a factor as a means of upholding these values and will be to our detriment if ignored or avoided. Good faith is a social contract mutually agreed upon, but in event of its breach alternatives to good faith engagement become necessary.

Semantic differences between “influence” and “manipulation” aside, speech that is disagreed upon will always be flavored with moral arguments on either side, whether made in good faith or bad. To my mind, there is no objective means to evaluate the validity of these arguments beyond what is observable and empirical; the material context in which these arguments are made provide this universal standard, as well as illustrate the power dynamics by which one’s speech is made and how that speech may alter the material conditions of everyone around us. It is for precisely this reason why hate speech is outlawed and made distinct from other forms of speech; because it is an incitement to physical, material, lived violence upon a perceived group.

I would agree that further regulation brings diminishing returns; microaggressions and dog-whistles do not carry the same weight of material consequences or historical animus as racial epithets that were so often employed by the bigots and lynch mobs of prior eras. But I would disagree with the assertion is to simply try to enter into good faith discussion with people who are clearly “gaming the system.” If someone speaks dogwhistles rather than open epithets in support of their views (which are fundamentally unchanged in comparison to the speech they employ), then by inference it can already be concluded that good faith is out the window. The ground that is free speech is already contentious. What the law accomplishes with regulations to free speech is to keep that conflict within the bounds of words rather than physical action. I believe this to be a good thing; it suppresses harmful behavior, but it cannot change the heart of the person advocating for those things. Where there is a will, there is always a way.

For this fact alone, speech in pursuit of advocacy takes on a dynamic of engagement, even contention. Even so, it must not be shied away from; and all manner of rhetoric in support of this advocacy is fair game, regardless of how it’s characterized by the opposition. Narratives and framing of ourselves and our detractors will always be an inevitable part of discourse, and as a tool they are used to convince others. I do not think of these things as inherently misleading or harmful. In my humble opinion, biases are inherent to possessing moral values, and therefore cannot be fully suppressed or suspended, and I would rather that these be openly acknowledged rather than claiming that we are free of them (or at least more free than our opposition, which again carries a primarily rhetorical function as a claim towards objective truth) when making arguments for morality and systems of ethics.

The impetus for this engagement, in my view, is all the more important when our own perceptions and means of thinking is influenced not only by individuals of social media, but also by moneyed interests in the mainstream media class, who absolutely weaponize their speech to alter and shape the perceptions of their vast audience. This has been made clear in the ways in which the press has characterized the campus protests of the genocide in Gaza, the lack of any western press on Israel’s intent to ethnically cleanse Palestinians in the strip, and the ways in which government twitter accounts blast Neonazi sentiments across the app of a person who bought his way into a shadow vice presidency. Speech has material consequences affecting countless people and cannot be divorced from this reality; these matters must be engaged by every means available to us precisely because of the moral, material crises facing our country and society today. I believe we should defend free speech with an explicit awareness and engagement of this context, as a nonviolent means to advocate our values in a world where speech is inherently intertwined with power, influence, and conflict.

I’m not sure how this narrows our past understanding of critical thinking since I’m not sure what that has been. Our lack of a shared understanding of outcomes like Critical Thinking is a good part of the reason we are engaged in ILO reform.

Addressing our accreditation recommendations requires remedying this issue. To this end, we are proposing a more developed understanding of Critical Thinking. One that is pretty mainstream, and research based. There is still ample flexibility for teaching it across disciplines.

It’s an open question how many courses will adopt a CT ILO along the lines we’ve proposed. I hope many of us do. But our past practice of claiming outcomes in the absence of any developed shared conception doesn’t meet accreditation expectations nor does it serve our students well.

You mention “The bigots still face the criticism of many powerful voices on campus including faculty, staff and students.” Can you expand on this? Maybe give a hypothetical as to what this would look like?

Dr. Payne,

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of my “statement on statements.” I have enjoyed our conversations about my position, and I appreciate your updates to this post. I think that you have quite fairly captured the competing value propositions, and I don’t have any issues with what you have written about my position of restraint. In fact, I appreciate the generous reading that you have given my writings. As you know, this was not a decision that was made quickly nor was it made easily. There is a long list of readings and a considerable heap of arguments that have been considered including the Kalven report (which is not the position that I have adopted) and arguments made by the president of Seattle University among many other presidential statements.

I would also like to briefly address your non-hypothetical above. One of the things that has been confounding to an ability to respond from my seat is a rush to judgement in too many cases. If I was a lawyer, and I very intentionally am not, I would object to your non-hypothetical because it assumes facts not in evidence.

Unlike the statement on statements, what did or did not occur with respect to the student posters is not a matter of values in the first instance but rather, first, a matter of fact. What values are attached must, I think, rely on those facts as established. The assumption that posters were ripped down and that the intent in doing so was “aimed at silencing our students of color” may, certainly, be correct. They may also be incorrect, and many other possibilities and motivations are in the realm of the possible. If the assumptions are correct, then outrage at an assault on our broadly held values is certainly justified. If those assumptions are not correct, then the outrage may be misplaced and may actually be damaging to our ability to respond to such an assault on our shared values when it does occur. The determination of the truth or falsity of assumptions is often difficult and always takes time.

If the time required to make determinations of fact is not allowed and if the assumptions are accepted as fact absent evidence, the outrage may feel justified when, again, it could in fact be misplaced. If, entirely hypothetically, there was video evidence retrieved a day or two after that showed the poster(s) in question being blown away by a strong gust of wind, that fact would be problematic to the assumptions. And the challenge then is that any statement that confronts the assumptions, now accepted as fact and also imbued with a deeply held value, is too often seen as a challenge to the value that has been embedded in the assumption rather than the assumption itself. I think that is true even if the statement seeks to uphold that very value at the expense of the incorrect assumption. There is, in short, no positive value added or usually received by any statement at that point.

And the silence, the lack of a statement, will then be taken by some as a lack of support for the value in general. Connections will be made and new assumptions generated without the dialogue necessary to validate those new or even the old assumptions (now “facts”). The absence of a statement is newly recreated with whatever value the non-listener wishes to insert whether valid or not, and Griffin v California notwithstanding. I have not yet seen the right moment to “put a stick into the spokes” of that often very rapid cycle.

And so, then I am left wondering how to possibly navigate these difficulties. You and I have briefly discussed the problem of statements about the current war in the middle east as another example. There were many loud voices last October demanding a full-throated and unequivocal statement of support for Israel. The people desiring such were, in that moment, very clear about the value statement and were certain of the moral clarity of their position and I am sure that some still are. However, from my perspective and with the advantage of time, it may be less clear cut than it initially appeared. Some people, including some college and university presidents, who gave such unequivocal statements have certainly come now to regret those unambiguous statements with the admission of new facts and different value propositions into the equation. Many clarifications have been written as the facts and associated values have been stressed and have changed. Those clarifications and even retractions may be necessary, but they also have the effect of devaluing the positional power of the next statement, given that it is issued with the full knowledge by everyone that it might rightly need to be retracted or modified when its internal assumptions prove to be flawed or even incorrect. These are not easy waters to navigate. I think that it all ultimately augurs toward a position of restraint in institutional statements.

I hope that you will accept these thoughts as they are intended, clarifications and examples that might contribute to continued dialogue around these issues.

Dave