Good evening! I'm Leonard Baynes, Dean of the University of Houston Law Center. Welcome to our Yale Rosenberg Memorial Lecture. We're honored to have Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, as our lecturer.

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And the law school, for those who may not know, we have an audience here, and we have about 200 people online, viewing our presentation today. And the law school, for those who don't know the law school, the law school's a top-tier law school. It was recently ranked number 54 in the nation. We have 11 programs.

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Yes, you can applaud.

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It's the highest rank it's been in a number of years, more than a decade. We have 11 programs that are ranked in the top 50. We have 4 programs that are ranked in number 1 in Texas, that is our health law program.

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Intellectual property program, part-time program, and legal writing program. I, for those who don't know me, I'm the dean. I've been dean for going on 12 years.

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I'm the longest-serving law dean in the state of Texas.

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I don't know if I'd go that far, but…

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But, yes, 12 years, and I'm the 10th longest serving law dean in the nation. Isn't that surprising?

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But I also think that, you know, it's a testament to the law school and the university, and the great city of Houston, the great state of Texas. It's a great place for people of all backgrounds who just want to work hard and succeed to be able to succeed, and that's, I think, the testament of our city, our state, and which is great. But let me tell you a little about the Yale L. Rosenberg Lecture before we introduce our guest speaker.

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So there'll be some reflections on Yale Rosenberg and Memorial Lecture. So, Yale Rosenberg was one of our esteemed faculty members who passed away in the 2000's. He's an alumnus of Rice University, graduated in 1964 from NYU Law School, was on the Law Review.

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was a Ruth Tilden Scholar there, joined a Law faculty in 1972 to pursue his true calling of teaching and a distinguished career in government.

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He inspired instruction in civil procedure, federal jurisdiction, professional responsibility, and Jewish law at the U.S. Law Center that earned him the Teaching Excellence Award, the Teaching Excellence Award, in 2000.

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He's an award-winning scholar. He's been called America's prophet for his analysis of the decline of federal habeas corpus. I didn't really get a chance to meet him.

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Because when I arrived in 2014, he had already passed away.

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But he's part of a power couple, Irene Merker Rosenberg with his spouse. They were both law professors here. She was the first woman tenured law professor at the law school. Those who knew them marveled at the great love between them for more than 30 years as marriage partners, collaborators, colleagues, and co-authors. And after he passed away, this is when the Yale Rosenberg Lecture

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was established to foster excellence at Law Center. It's an endowment to fund student writing, prizes, and to bring distinguished lecturers to the law school.

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I want to thank the Rosenberg family and close friends, Rifqa Marrus Sa’Aadat.

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Tobi Cooper, Estaline Katz, Marty Katz, Leslie Wagner, Robin Wagner, Ellen Maris, Professor Emerita, Ellen Marrus, Malikah Marrus, Professor Emerita Laura Oren, Jerry Paine, and Linda Paine. Let's give them a round of applause.

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And especially Professor Marrus and Oren, they keep the fire burning for, Yale Rosenberg and Irene Merker Rosenberg.

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And over the past few years, we've had incredible speakers who have embodied the Yale Rosenberg credo, and been our memorial lecturers. We've had Professor Sam Levine, who's now the Director of the Jewish Law Institute at Touro Law School.

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When he gave the lecture, he was actually a professor at Pepperdine.

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We had Joshua Dressler, who's a professor emeritus at Ohio State University, College of Law, our own David Dow, Professor David Dow, the Cullen Professor of Law at the University of Houston.

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We've had Cornell William Brooks, who was, at the time he came the president of the NAACP. He's now a professor of practice at Harvard Law School...Harvard Kennedy School. Our own Renee Knake-Jefferson, who's the Doherty Chair and Professor here of legal ethics.

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Professor Jack Chin, who is a professor at UC Davis School of Law.

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Professor Tanya Hernández, who's a professor at Fordham.

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Professor Nelson Tebbe, who's a professor at Cornell Law School. Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin, who is Dean of the Radcliffe Institute and Professor of law at Harvard Law School. Janai Nelson, who's the Director, Counsel and President of the Legal Defense Fund, formerly known as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

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Noah Feldman, who's a professor

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and founder of the director of Julis-Rabinowitz program on Jewish Law and Israeli law at Harvard Law School, and Erwin Chemerinsky, who's the dean and professor at UC Berkeley School of Law.

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So it's quite an accomplished list of scholars and activists and officials. Let's give them all a round of applause.

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For all the great speakers that we've had.

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And we're now gonna bring another great intellectual speaker to the midst of our Yale Rosenberg lecturers, and it's a real pleasure for me to introduce today's Yale Rosenberg speaker, Michael S. Roth, who's the president of Wesleyan University.

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President Roth has served as the 16th president of Wesleyan University since 2007.

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Prior to that, he had held academic leadership positions at Scripps College, served as Associate Director of Getty Research Institute, was president of the California

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College of Arts, and so it's fair to say that President Roth has seen higher education from nearly every angle, and brings a truly comprehensive perspective.

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Under his leadership, Wesleyan has achieved record-breaking fundraising, raising over $482 million, much of it directed toward financial aid and expanding access for students from underrepresented backgrounds.

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President Roth has also overseen significant institutional growth, from campus expansion, development of interdisciplinary programs spanning the sciences, art.

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and humanities. In the wake of the Supreme Court's affirmative action decision in July 2023, he's introduced new recruitment initiatives aimed at strengthening campus diversity, including expanding admissions… ending, I'm sorry, admissions preferences for legacy applicants, and launching an African Scholars Program.

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But Professor Roth's influence extends well beyond university administration. He is a public intellectual.

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He's an author and leader who's become one of the most influential voices on the role of higher education in contemporary society. In many of his op-eds, including those published in New York Times and Inside Higher Education, he engages directly

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With some of the most challenging issues facing universities today, such as academic freedom,

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political polarization, and anti-Semitism. President Roth has written candidly about the difficulty of sustaining environments where ideas can be freely expressed, while also maintaining a sense of responsibility to the broader community.

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In a recent Inside Higher Education essay, Education as Freedom, President Roth reflects on the serious and evolving challenges surrounding anti-Semitism on college campuses.

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In that essay, he cautions against political narratives that say they are protecting Jewish communities while simultaneously undermining those institutions to justify limiting academic freedom.

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He also argues that the true purpose of higher education is not simply career preparation, but the cultivation of independent thinking and personal autonomy. He describes education as a practice of freedom, where students learn to think for themselves in the company of others.

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President Roth has also spoken thoughtfully about the debates on political correctness and intellectual diversity on college campuses. In his Inside Higher Ed essay, From Unruly Hearts to Open Minds, he notes that what we often call political correctness

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can sometimes be an oversimplified way of describing much deeper societal tensions. In his New York Times essay, I'm a college president, and I hope my campus is even more political this year.

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President Roth extends this idea to making a critical distinction between politicalization and genuine political engagement, arguing that universities should not retreat from political energy on campus, but instead foster spaces where disagreement, protest, and debate can unfold.

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Productively.

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Across all his work, and he's written many books also, his leadership, his scholarship, and his public writing has indicated a consistent theme, a deep commitment to the role of higher education in sustaining democratic society.

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He received the, in 2025, received the PEN/Benenson Courage Award for his defense of higher education and his willingness to speak out against external pressures on academic institutions. Professor Roth is courageous, smart, talented. We're really glad that he's here, and his talk today is called Academic Freedom Depends on an Ecosystem of

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Free Speech, which builds on all his previous ideas.

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It asks us to think not just about free speech as an individual right, but as a part of a larger system one depends on for institutions, norms, and frankly, the willingness to engage with ideas that we may not agree with.

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With that, please join me in welcoming President Michael S. Roth.

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President Roth:  Thanks very much. That's very… Oh, yeah, gracious. I got… I got… Yes, so one thing I should just… it's a terrible form to correct an introduction, but I do… I do have to say just one thing, which is we didn't expand legacy admissions, we got rid of it entirely.

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So, just want to make sure,

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was not a very popular decision among the alumni. Shocking. Shocking. So, it's great to be here with you. I am,

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I'm somewhere between amused and terrified to be talking about academic freedom in Texas.

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Not for the reasons you think, probably, because actually the greatest expert

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on academic freedom in the United States is in Texas. And unlike me, he is also… he's a lawyer, like many of you.

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It's David Rabban, who is at the University of Texas at Austin, and he's a Wesleyan alum, that's why I… so if you buy his book, he gives me more money, but he has this book, he has this book, Academic Freedom. It's a history, published by Harvard University Press, and

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And, we often find ourselves in the same place, so I'm nervous about that. I'm nervous to be one of the few non-lawyers to speak in this series. I'm amused, also, because…

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I'm trying to wrap my head around the Jewish part of this.

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Frankly, that is that the comparison of Talmudic law, Jewish writings on the law, and freedom is so interesting. When I'm not traveling.

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I do Torah study on Shabbat, so every Saturday morning I'm on Zoom using artificial intelligence to find out what medieval commentators think about the Torah. Very weird combination of practices. But one thing that occurs to me, just as we start out

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is that, you know, the Jewish legal tradition, interpretive tradition, has a very… how should I put this, vexed relationship to authority.

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You know, the study of the Talmud, which the Rosenbergs, you know, exemplified, because the study of the Talmud is always in a couple. In other words, the students study in pairs.

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So they could… I was about to say, fight, they're supposed to say, so they can talk, right? Really, it's so they can fight. And the ethos is you…

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You're not supposed to try to get to the right answer.

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You're supposed to have a really good conversation.

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Now, that sits uneasily with, I would imagine, with the legal profession, where there's a conclusion, often, to a case, or a series of cases.

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But I'm a put of mine, just, like, this one story, I'll just… I won't… I won't do too many stories, but, there's one story, and some of you may know this, you know, there…

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I'm gonna kind of make it up a little bit, but it's three scholars. They're studying a passage in Exodus, and

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They say, wait, but why do Aaron's sons have to die.

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It was in Exodus, quite shockingly, just two weeks ago, if you're following the seasonal reading of the Torah, Aaron is the head priest, Moses' brother, as you'll no doubt recall. I say that to my students all the time. They don't know any of the Bible in Connecticut, very few of my students.

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But as you no doubt recall, Aaron's sons are incinerated, are killed, because they go into the tabernacle

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with unholy fire.

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So the story is, these three rabbis are sitting there,

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You know, why do they have to die? And one rabbi says it's because… and this is the part I'm just making up, it's God's will. They broke the rule.

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And the other two rabbis… Come up with a much more nuanced

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interpretation, where they say, that Aaron's sons, die in order to send a message about the borders of holiness

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and the relationship of prayer to power, and that Aaron, just afterwards, the only time in the Torah, those of you who care about such things, that God speaks directly to Aaron.

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After that. So, these two rabbis say, it's not just because they broke the rules.

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And… And then the first rabbi says, yes, it's just about the rules, and if I'm right.

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May the heavens open up, and the heavens open up!

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It's pouring rain!

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And he says, if I'm right.

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Let thunder come, and the other two were always saying, so what? So what? A little thunder? A little rain…

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And he says, okay, if God is on my side and I'm right, let the floor shake, and the floor shakes.

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And he looks at his two colleagues and says, See? And they say, well, now it's just 2 to 2.

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So, the relationship to authority in the Jewish tradition of Talmudic interpretation is not so clear.

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Not so clear. So many examples of… of, heroic figures in the Bible.

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In the Hebrew Bible, standing up to God.

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Bargaining, compromising, convincing, What should I say? There's not as much anticipatory obedience in the Torah.

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As there is

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in the United States today.

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And, anticipatory obedience is a horrible thing.

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It's when people of goodwill, and sometimes not such goodwill, decide to start obeying rules that they don't have to obey yet, even though they don't believe in those rules, in order to prevent what may become some pain later on.

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And we see this all the time

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these days.

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And it is a terrible thing for academic freedom.

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When professors and deans and… And other, and students, Begin trimming their sails.

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Not thinking expansively.

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Trying to conform to an ideology that they think will help them succeed, instead of pursuing their ideas where they may go, instead of pursuing inquiry where it might go.

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They are corrupting the academic enterprise.

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Because the academic enterprise, especially in the United States, especially since World War II,

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Depends on the ability of faculty and students and the people who work with them.

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It depends on their ability to pursue questions of inquiry wherever they may go.

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So when they're pursuing the question, and there's thunder, or the earth shakes.

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They shouldn't take that as a sign that that question can't be pursued.

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Even though it feels like they want to.

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Because it's scary.

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And the great discoveries in science, or the revolutions in how we understand civil rights, or American history, or any number of subjects.

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Those changes have taken place because people have had

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I was about to say the courage to pursue these questions, but I don't think it usually required courage.

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Because the ethos was that you had the freedom to do that, In a college or university

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which you might not have in other enterprises. So if I'm, you know, running, like, my father was a furrier.

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He turned old fur coats into something glorious.

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Beautiful!

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You look great! How many times I heard that, heard that expression, I see a woman with a coat like this, and she's choking, and he's like, oh, you look great!

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So he was… he, now, if someone, like, I would go to work for him to earn some money, and I was in high school, and even my first year at Wesley, I would go home and have to go to work with him, and I would just want to go read.

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You know, I was, those days, I was reading Freud or something.

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Maybe that's why he didn't want me to. I just realized… finally realized that. But I would be reading, he said, I'm paying you to read!

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He said, I'm paying to count these dollars.

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And I'd say, I already counted the dollars. He'd say, count them again.

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Because I didn't have the freedom to read what I wanted, I was supposed to be helping with this shop.

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I got fired from Macy's, the department store. I was fired for reading.

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Because I was a stock boy, and I put the stuff away, and I took a… I had a book in my pocket.

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They didn't appreciate that. I said, it's a free country. They said, yes, but you don't have to work here.

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It's so much freedom!

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Goodbye. Goodbye.

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So you don't need free… you don't get freedom in all these other enterprises.

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But in an academic context, without that freedom.

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You just don't know what you might have thought, what you might have been pursuing.

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But for the weight of authority and convention.

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That shrinks your imagination and curtails your experimentation.

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Now, the title here about, depending on an ecosystem of free speech, people might say, well, you know, there have been universities long before America, there have been universities and monarchies, there have been universities in other countries that don't respect free speech.

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Another, you can have some academic freedom

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in other contexts other than ours, with the First Amendment, for sure, of course.

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But what has happened in the United States since the Second World War, especially

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is the relationship between government, society, and the university depends on

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the mutual respect for the freedom of inquiry and teaching

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that colleges and universities depend on.

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I have a lot of people have said to me, the real problem here is that the government gave the university so much money.

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To do science.

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And so now it's revealed that money comes with strings, which they should have known.

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I think that's nonsense, actually.

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The government gave schools money to do specific kinds of research because it wanted the research done.

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didn't give, like, Harvard, or Wesleyan, or the University of Houston doesn't get a grant, oh, go do some research.

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It happens, it's like 60 people apply for a grant from the school, and 2 of them get it, because the government… the committee of officials appointed by the government say, those two people could really do something extraordinary.

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And they get the money to do that thing.

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They don't have total academic freedom. You get a grant, like, I studied, get a load of this. French Hegelianism.

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I never got a grant from the United States.

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Right? Because they're hooked, they didn't want, they didn't need to know about Alexandre Kojéve.

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I got a grant from the French, because they like people who look at them, you know, study the… but the person who is working on… I get what's saying there's a guy in the physics department that works on sensor… sensors.

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Now, he's actually really more of a math whiz, but the math he does has been very useful for the Defense Department

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to create sensors that, I'd like to think of it as protecting planes from attack. They're also very useful if you want to attack a plane, apparently.

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But it's the math that he's…

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That has evolved under his, in his lab.

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Now, when he gets a grant, it's because the government wants to know the answer to the question he's asking.

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Now, what's happened now, in the last couple years.

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And I do think it's very different from other epochs of repression in American history, and we can talk about that if you'd like, when we have questions. What's happened now is that the government is just canceling contracts

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Which, I would imagine, from a legal perspective, has its own problem. They're just canceling contracts, but they're canceling contracts, and it's portrayed as they're taking money away from University of Houston, or Wesleyan, or Yale, although they haven't taken any money from Yale.

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Hmm, I wonder why.

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Hundreds of millions of lobbying dollars has helped, and keeping quiet. But they take those grants away.

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Without… Apparently caring about whether the research gets done.

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And I think this should be very frightening to us in the United States.

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I mean, some grants are canceled for people like me studying French Hegelianism, or somebody doing opera or painting, and I think that's a shame, because I think our culture needs that kind of lubrication.

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But the millions and millions or billions of grants that either have been canceled or threatened to be canceled

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mean if they don't get funded, the work doesn't happen.

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American science doesn't progress.

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It is the greatest symptom of declining empire and society I know.

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One that turns its nose up at long-term progress.

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In favor of short-term transactions.

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You all know… Those of you in the room who are lawyers.

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There are people who enter into agreements simply to get the immediate benefit that the agreement brings.

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And there are other people who enter into agreements because they think they lead to either more agreements or different kinds of relationships.

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That create new possibilities for commerce, or for professional exchange, or for what have you.

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The repression we've seen, over the last couple years

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I think is animated by a complete disinterest

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in the long-term history, or the long-term future of the United States, Let me say that again.

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A complete disinterest.

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Into what happens when people who are old now die.

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Not to put too… Fine a point on it.

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You know people like this. Hopefully not too many.

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Who actually don't care about the world that our children and grandchildren inherit.

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I do think it's unusual. I don't know many people like that.

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Now that I have 3 grandchildren, I'm a lot more concerned about the future that I won't see, but I want them to.

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But there are people who live a life of short-term transaction, either out of narcissism or indifference to the future, or because they think the accumulation of a short-term transactional benefits

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will one day accrue to the improvement of the future. I guess that's a possibility, logically.

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It seems to me a disaster

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for the United States.

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To trade short-term punishment of adversaries.

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For long-term cultural and scientific progress.

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And so… I think the attack on academic freedom

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That we've seen over the last couple of years.

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Is, is tragic for the country.

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Not because… the country won't do well if the University of Houston doesn't have a lot of grants, or…

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You know, another Ivy League school doesn't have a lot of grants. Of course, any of these institutions

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Could go out of business, go out of existence, and the science gets done elsewhere.

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What we're seeing right now is,

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The cancellation of extraordinary amounts of work.

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And, and this may be even more important.

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The chilling effects on everyone else.

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Because nobody wants to be in the government's crosshairs.

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For good reason.

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The American government is extremely powerful.

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Even when it follows its own rules of operation.

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And when it doesn't follow its own rules of operation, It is ex… it's frightening.

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00:30:41.280 --> 00:30:46.510
And when our leaders, Talk openly about committing

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Crimes, war crimes, or other kinds of crimes, it should remind us

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That, our freedoms can be easily imperiled

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For, the short-term gains of others.

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00:31:06.040 --> 00:31:17.590
Now, I want to talk a little bit about, the ways in which colleges and universities

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00:31:17.930 --> 00:31:20.060
Have responded to this.

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I want to be careful, because there's not just one kind of response.

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There are very different kinds of schools in this country, right? There are research universities like one we're in, there's law schools like where we're sitting, there are community colleges and regional publics, and so on and so on.

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And they've, they have different… They have different, stakes in these battles.

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But what they have in common, I think.

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And at least what they have had in common for a long time.

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Is a devotion to the freedom of their faculty and students to pursue inquiry and teaching as they see fit.

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There are limits to this, we can talk about those, I will talk about those a little bit.

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00:32:09.880 --> 00:32:18.160
And, and, the failure… Of the… of leading institutions.

228
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To consistently defend those freedoms seems to me to be…

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I'm trying to think of a word other than catastrophic, but I do think it's… it is a… it's a painful thing for me to see.

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Because I, I, because I have been outspoken.

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And because I think of myself as being saying kind of commonsensical, traditional American things, I do talk to a lot of other college presidents, or when a school is being attacked, I get called and asked, can you get other schools to stand with us? Can you get other presidents to sign on to things?

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And, that has been a challenge, over the last couple of years.

233
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And the… The reticence of…

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chancellors and presidents, it could be based on principle, but I don't know any college presidents or chancellors who actually would say they don't think academic freedom is an important value at their schools.

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So it's… it's either based on convenience, or tactic, or fear.

236
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Or sometimes a combination of those things.

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And I think the fear… Should not be, underestimated.

238
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I'm surprised by this.

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I was, like, this is the privileged little white guy growing up on Long Island. My father, again, my dad.

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He, he, I have to tell a story about my mother, she'll kill me tomorrow. I'm gonna see my mother tomorrow. But my dad, I used to say, when we were little, if the police ever hassle you, you ask them for his badge number.

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I was, like, 8 years old.

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I said, the first thought was, why would they hassle me? And he says, that's what they do. That's what they do.

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So, and my friends, my parents were cops and stuff, you know, we lived in kind of a lower-middle-class, working-class town.

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And so he would sit on the corner, you know, after he played some basketball, drinking a root beer or something, and the police would come along. That's what they did in my town. They said, alright, move along. Come on, move along. And I was saying, where's your badge number?

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And they didn't hit me.

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They didn't go, can't you read? You know? And I would say, okay, Officer 4623, you'll be hearing from me.

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And I did this. Now, I tell this story, people laugh, and it seems ludicrous and funny to me now, but what's interesting to me is I wasn't afraid, because I thought, these are…

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These are cops in my town, they, you know, people say, oh, it's because you're a privileged white kid. I thought it's just because I thought I believed in American freedoms.

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That their responsibility was to actually tell me their badge number.

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And even though they didn't have to, they didn't…

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They… that they… we had this kind of agreement. They… and we moved along. We moved along. It's like, our agreement was, you're gonna listen to me, you little bum. So we moved along, but we also felt like we could…

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I don't know, pushback is probably too strong, but just make our presence

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felt. And what I see now…

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In many schools is a real desire

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To not make the presence of the campus leadership felt.

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In Washington, or here in Texas, in Austin, for fear, that politicians

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We'll curtail our freedoms even further.

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Than they already have, or impose their view that we should teach a certain way, or not teach certain texts.

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Which you have here in Texas in a dramatic way.

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And one of the things we were just talking over dinner, and I'm no expert on this, so please forgive me if I don't get this exactly right.

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But the more draconian…

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bills that were proposed in Austin did not pass, I'm told, about, that would have given even more control, to state legislators and state officials, thanks to AUP and others who pushed back against it. But still…

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Many academics and leadership positions are trimming their sails.

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I want to poke the bear, I don't want…

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You know, and that's anticipatory obedience, or…

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Collaboration and advance seems to me very dangerous, because it creates a chill… a culture that's… where free speech is chilled, and where inquiry is chilled

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in, in serious ways that will undermine the future of intellectual work in our country.

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Now, I should say a little bit about the other factors that are, I think.

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Threatening academic freedom, or at least the benefits of academic freedom.

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And this usually goes under the rubric of, viewpoint diversity

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or intellectual diversity, I used… I like to say intellectual diversity.

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And, I have thought for a long time, well, actually 10 years, not that long, I suppose.

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I'm an old person, so 10 years is not that long anymore. I've thought for 10 years that the professoriate, especially in my neck of the woods in the northeast of the United States, is extraordinarily biased.

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Towards, left and progressive points of view.

275
00:38:13.770 --> And that, under the guise of their own version of meritocracy, they have imposed a kind of stifling political homogeneity

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Especially in the humanities and interpretive social sciences.

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And in 2016, I wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, that called for an affirmative action program for conservatives on American college campuses.

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No one liked this idea.

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It was the best op-ed, in a way, because one editor once told me years ago, he said, we'll never write, you'll never write anything for us. You can't… excuse my language, but he said, you can't piss anybody off. You're a president. You've got to please people.

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This annoyed everyone. The affirmative action program for conservatives. In 2016, my black colleagues did not want to talk about affirmative action. Affirmative action was unpopular even among the black population in the United States, so they were happy to have it, but didn't want to talk about it.

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Conservatives and other progressives didn't want to talk about it.

282
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But they said to me, you've sullied the words affirmative action by putting them close to conservative.

283
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Didn't even know you could do that.

284
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Sully words. And then the conservatives said, we don't need affirmative action, we just need a meritocracy.

285
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And my viewpoint, and I still believe this, despite all the opposition.

286
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My point was that we have this bias problem in the academy.

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It's not even implicit, it's explicit bias.

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And what you do in a professional organization when you have bias is you make the professionals aware of their biases, and they change!

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In the 1970s, when I was a graduate student, the Princeton History Department was almost all men, and some of the women students and their male allies or admirers went to the department and said.

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Why don't you hire any women?

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And they say, oh, we'd love to, but we only hire the best.

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And we did that. We all laughed. We thought, you're a bunch of jerks!

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Streaming Media (slides & audio): What a bunch of jerks! And they say, well, we have the freedom to hire what we want, we hire the best, and they just happen to look like us.

294
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That's what my sociology department says.

295
00:40:36.520 --> 00:40:38.980
Only they mean ideologically looks like me.

296
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They're congenial!

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Congenial Marxists. Who'd have thunk it? In the faculty lounge. You know, they, they, they get along.

298
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And every study that I know has shown that since the 90s until today, the weight of the economy politically has shifted so dramatically to the left of center.

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And please, I gave this talk in New York. In New York, of course, somebody raised their hand and said, well, we don't have enough anarchists!

300
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I go, okay.

301
00:41:14.390 --> 00:41:28.189
You know, they're not really leftists, but every study shows that it used to be, let's say, 60-40, or maybe 65-35, people left to center to right, and now it's 95 to 5.

302
00:41:28.530 --> 00:41:30.110
In the Northeast.

303
00:41:31.200 --> 00:41:45.460
And not every department, of course, but you'd be surprised how much that goes across academia. And so, in 2016, I was… I met this campaign to… just to make my colleagues aware

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00:41:45.840 --> 00:41:53.170
That we might be acting actually out of political bias, rather than scholarly judgment.

305
00:41:54.210 --> 00:42:05.150
And this was point… this point was brought home to me, actually, when I was giving a talk like this about a book I had written on political correctness and safe spaces. It's called Safe Enough Spaces.

306
00:42:05.450 --> 00:42:07.889
And there's a group of guidance counselors sitting in the back.

307
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And,

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00:42:10.070 --> 00:42:17.310
One of them raised his hand and said, you know, if I had a student who wanted to get into Wesleyan, applying for my high school.

309
00:42:17.580 --> 00:42:24.809
You guys say you want civic engagement, politically active students. I say, yes. He said, if my kid in the high school

310
00:42:25.570 --> 00:42:29.439
If their civic engagement was protecting the rights of the unborn.

311
00:42:30.020 --> 00:42:34.950
It would be political malpractice for me to let her mention that in her application.

312
00:42:35.700 --> 00:42:37.729
And I said, get outta here!

313
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I said, come on! And all the guidance counselors began to laugh at me.

314
00:42:43.420 --> 00:42:48.030
Because they could see that I didn't know… I didn't even know.

315
00:42:49.120 --> 00:42:54.000
That people in the admissions department, 26 years old, let's say, average, or 28 years old average.

316
00:42:54.320 --> 00:42:56.530
Graduating from places like Wesleyan.

317
00:42:58.240 --> 00:43:00.370
They had their politics.

318
00:43:00.800 --> 00:43:03.449
And they would say, I'm picking the best students.

319
00:43:04.720 --> 00:43:07.659
And the best students believe in reproductive freedom.

320
00:43:09.230 --> 00:43:10.280
No.

321
00:43:10.640 --> 00:43:12.560
And we say we want civic engagement.

322
00:43:13.350 --> 00:43:16.900
If the student says, I'm protecting gun rights, they're not gonna get in.

323
00:43:17.370 --> 00:43:21.269
I really think that was true then, and may still be true.

324
00:43:22.490 --> 00:43:24.650
And I think that's a big problem.

325
00:43:26.510 --> 00:43:36.520
Creating communities on the basis of affiliation that shrinks the realm of discourse around political issues.

326
00:43:36.860 --> 00:43:38.739
Is anathema to education.

327
00:43:40.270 --> 00:43:48.669
And I had a friend who actually joined the board, and he gave me some money to help me do this kind of work, but he would just point out to me

328
00:43:48.990 --> 00:43:55.130
Like, all these things that I thought were just normal academic speak, but they're all only comprehensible.

329
00:43:55.720 --> And congenial to people who were left of center.

330
00:44:00.340 --> 00:44:02.000
And so,

331
00:44:02.260 --> 00:44:18.269
I do think viewpoint diversity is really important. There's a study, by a group of colleagues in Claremont, I think I have their names written down here. Well, it doesn't matter, I don't need the footnote. Looking at syllabi all over the country.

332
00:44:18.680 --> 00:44:27.789
And they show that in most social science and humanities fields, people are assigning certain kinds of books, which is fine.

333
00:44:28.090 --> 00:44:33.670
But many of those books have been deeply criticized by other scholars, and they don't show any of the criticism.

334
00:44:34.990 --> 00:44:44.519
Because it's more convenient to have a consensus around leftist values in these communities than it is to, engage in the real debate.

335
00:44:44.720 --> 00:44:50.699
And so… I think academic freedom becomes very thin, or…

336
00:44:51.100 --> 00:44:54.419
Uninteresting if you don't have intellectual diversity.

337
00:44:54.650 --> 00:44:58.740
If you have free speech, but everybody says the same thing, what the… you don't need free speech?

338
00:44:59.780 --> 00:45:01.269
You have an echo chamber.

339
00:45:02.880 --> 00:45:07.550
So, what can one do to… To change that.

340
00:45:08.470 --> 00:45:12.040
I think the worst thing you could do is empower the federal government

341
00:45:12.530 --> 00:45:20.570
To go in and set quotas and have litmus tests for the political views of people being hired.

342
00:45:20.910 --> 00:45:24.329
I think, like in many other areas, they will make it worse.

343
00:45:24.460 --> 00:45:28.480
If they try to do that from, with government officials.

344
00:45:28.810 --> 00:45:33.769
But I do think it's a very important task on campuses around the country

345
00:45:34.450 --> 00:45:42.890
to have more political and cultural diversity in the faculty and students. I also thought affirmative action based on race was really important.

346
00:45:43.480 --> 00:45:46.030
But it's illegal now, and so we don't do it.

347
00:45:46.560 --> 00:46:05.090
But I thought that one of the… the reason I thought that was because I believe that diversity in the classroom, when people bring different life experiences as well as different political views, makes the classroom better. And so what I've tried to do is to, annoy the faculty as often as I can by bringing this issue up and asking them to talk about it.

348
00:46:05.500 --> 00:46:18.479
And the response I've gotten since, really, even the first Trump administration, is, how can you ask us to do that in a climate when, and then a, you know, a litany of bad things that have happened.

349
00:46:19.100 --> 00:46:37.239
And I think, actually, it's even more important in our time to promote intellectual diversity and political diversity because of the threat that the government might impose these things on us. And they are doing it. I mean, I just read in the Harvard Crimson, someone sent me a link

350
00:46:37.290 --> 00:46:43.830
That, Harvard is raising, I think, 30 $10 million endowments.

351
00:46:44.140 --> 00:46:46.160
To hire conservatives.

352
00:46:47.070 --> 00:46:51.020
Now, that's not because they read my op-ed after all these years and are convinced.

353
00:46:51.330 --> 00:46:55.910
That's because they're scared out of their pants that the Trump administration is gonna…

354
00:46:56.100 --> 00:46:58.330
Do bad things to them.

355
00:46:59.460 --> 00:47:02.069
And I, I think,

356
00:47:03.070 --> 00:47:11.200
that fear is, I mean, I guess if you… if the outcome comes out the right way, you might say, well, the fear… it worked.

357
00:47:12.010 --> 00:47:22.620
But I think it's a very dangerous precedent, to use, that kind of leverage on universities in a way that may result

358
00:47:22.810 --> 00:47:27.510
Not more intellectual diversity, but more intellectual cowardness.

359
00:47:27.820 --> 00:47:32.650
So one of the things we've done at Wesleyan to… Try to promote this idea.

360
00:47:33.470 --> 00:47:42.239
is to, really model it, that is, to try to create more public conversations among people who disagree about lots of different things.

361
00:47:42.760 --> 00:47:53.210
And so, several years ago now, we had, an op-ed in the student newspaper, criticizing Black Lives Matter.

362
00:47:53.880 --> 00:48:06.349
It was written by one of… we all started a veterans program. We were, for several years known… ranked by U.S. News as the best place for veterans in any liberal arts college. It's a low bar, I guess.

363
00:48:06.350 --> 00:48:16.580
But still, we were proud. It was, you know, not really… wasn't on brand for Wesleyan, but it was great. And one of the veterans wrote this piece attacking the Black Lives Matter movement.

364
00:48:16.580 --> 00:48:26.229
or at least saying that they have bad apples, just like the cops have bad apples. And, well, yeah, it wasn't a work of genius, but it was a provocative op-ed.

365
00:48:26.230 --> 00:48:42.080
And the campus went kind of crazy. They started protests, and, you know, they threw the newspaper in the garbage can, and then the Washington Post, the New York Times, and every conservative newspaper in the country wrote about this. I was… my view was very…

366
00:48:42.350 --> 00:48:48.949
Sanguinizing, I said, well, it's online. It's so that's symbolic of throwing things in the newspaper. You're not really censoring it.

367
00:48:49.160 --> 00:48:52.719
But it got ugly, and the author was threatened, and…

368
00:48:52.850 --> 00:48:57.299
So I wrote a piece for the campus, Black Lives Matter, So Does Free Speech.

369
00:48:57.830 --> 00:49:09.129
And I was feeling pretty good about myself. I thought things seemed to calm down. And then I read a piece by Jelani Cobb, who writes for The New Yorker, now the dean of the School of Journalism at Columbia.

370
00:49:09.510 --> 00:49:16.289
And Jelani Cobb said, also a professor of history, said that, Free speech talk.

371
00:49:17.020 --> 00:49:19.690
Is now a cover for racism.

372
00:49:20.580 --> 00:49:22.599
And I had just written this thing.

373
00:49:22.830 --> 00:49:24.120
So I wrote him.

374
00:49:24.280 --> 00:49:28.929
And, I said, here's what I just wrote. You just wrote this.

375
00:49:29.140 --> 00:49:31.789
you want to come to Wesleyan and talk about it.

376
00:49:32.430 --> 00:49:34.830
And he did. He said, sure.

377
00:49:35.080 --> 00:49:41.340
So it was… the campus was in turmoil. There were demonstrations everywhere, activists were full of energy.

378
00:49:41.610 --> 00:49:46.669
And we were in a room like this, like an auditorium. It was packed with angry young people.

379
00:49:47.090 --> 00:49:47.990
You know?

380
00:49:48.050 --> 00:50:07.099
Really, like… And Jelani, who's a big guy, you know, he's a big, deep voice, and is a physically imposing person, as well as intellectually off-the-charts smart. Gets up there and says, well, I just want to say, I want to thank President Roth, we just had a lovely dinner at his house, and we had a great conversation, and it's just like, what?

381
00:50:07.250 --> 00:50:10.160
You ate with a fascist wrath?

382
00:50:10.420 --> 00:50:15.510
That fascist, liberal, free speech, anarchist… well, I don't know, I'm anarchist…

383
00:50:15.830 --> 00:50:21.789
And so he gives his talk, which is still about how often free speech talk is used to cover a racist

384
00:50:21.940 --> 00:50:32.379
ends. And I think what happened was that people said, you know, say, we don't agree.

385
00:50:32.790 --> 00:50:35.949
And we talk. And we learn… we try to learn from each other.

386
00:50:36.490 --> 00:50:45.699
I've been very public about my opposition to the boycott, divest, and sanction movement against Israel. I wrote… I've written about it in newspapers.

387
00:50:45.770 --> 00:51:01.370
But when my… when the philosopher Judith Butler, who I've known since we were in our 20s, had her talks canceled in New York because of her affiliation with anti-Israeli or pro-Palestinian groups, I invited her to give the talk at Wesleyan.

388
00:51:01.860 --> 00:51:04.970
Where she was denied tenure long ago, that's not the story.

389
00:51:05.860 --> 00:51:19.930
But we've stayed friends long before I was there. And so she came and gave this talk, and people in the audience are like, why would Roth bring her, you know, the people who were… whatever side on this issue they were on.

390
00:51:20.600 --> 00:51:27.920
And again, so we try to model it. Very early in these discussions, when Justice Scalia was still alive.

391
00:51:28.170 --> 00:51:34.879
I was asked by the faculty, who are clearly much further to the left than I, I was asked to invite

392
00:51:35.390 --> 00:51:38.020
Antonin Scalia to come to Wesleyan.

393
00:51:38.380 --> 00:51:40.160
To give a talk on free speech.

394
00:51:41.420 --> 00:51:43.410
I thought they were joking.

395
00:51:43.870 --> 00:51:53.120
I thought, they're just testing me. See, you know. It's like faculty power, it's their right to recommend, but it's my reg… I have to send the invitation.

396
00:51:53.380 --> 00:51:59.140
And then I thought, I'm a pragmatist, he's not gonna come. He's a Supreme Court justice, too busy.

397
00:51:59.290 --> 00:52:05.289
So I sent the invitation, not too worried about it. It seemed like within an hour, it came back.

398
00:52:05.510 --> 00:52:07.929
Yes, I can't wait to come!

399
00:52:08.050 --> 00:52:23.670
Oh, jeez. You know, because he says my clerk, my former clerk, Larry Lessig, who you guys would know, is, like, much further on the left. Everyone was, but he was… he was really on the left. He was here last year at West End, and he had a great time. So I'm coming!

400
00:52:23.920 --> 00:52:25.420
Oh, man!

401
00:52:26.330 --> 00:52:33.159
So my dilemma, if… I think Justice Scalia did more harm to the interpretation of the American Constitution

402
00:52:33.660 --> 00:52:36.479
Than anyone since the 1800s, until very recently.

403
00:52:36.710 --> 00:52:41.460
Thanks, thank you. Little delay on the laugh there, but

404
00:52:43.220 --> 00:52:48.150
so, but I… and I… if I had been on the faculty and not the president.

405
00:52:48.190 --> 00:53:04.409
I would have protested him coming. I wouldn't have tried to stop him from speaking, but I would have been outside banging on a drum, or… like my colleagues were doing. But I had to introduce him, because that's the protocol of this… talk about a Talmudic problem, right?

406
00:53:04.440 --> 00:53:11.580
So I had to introduce him. What I did is I injected in my introduction a very subtle reference to the historian Leonard Levy.

407
00:53:11.730 --> 00:53:16.079
Who thought he had shown, with beyond a shadow of a doubt, that originalism was bogus.

408
00:53:16.900 --> 00:53:26.749
Levy and Scalia had these debates, so Justice Scalia knew what I, you know, he knew, and he kind of gave me a wink. He spent the whole day at Wesleyan

409
00:53:27.390 --> 00:53:33.449
arguing with students, talking to people, making… he gave an okay talk, I mean, it was,

410
00:53:33.790 --> 00:53:46.410
No, it was fine. No, I remember most about it is he gave this talk, and there was lots of questions. We had protesters in orange jumpsuits because of Guantanamo.

411
00:53:47.800 --> 00:54:03.410
And people wanted to say, you have to sit down or leave. They sat down or they left. I think it was a great example of free speech in action. He actually really enjoyed it. He stayed afterwards and signed books. I was like, could you leave already? Because I was worried that something bad would happen. Something bad would happen.

412
00:54:03.790 --> 00:54:09.679
You know, like at Middlebury, or these other places where people have been shouted down. Just recently, UCLA Law School.

413
00:54:11.210 --> 00:54:15.950
I mean, I think people should certainly object to speakers before they come, but once they're there.

414
00:54:16.810 --> 00:54:28.000
The heckler's veto should not be tolerated by institutions, in my view. We didn't tolerate it at Wesleyan, and it wasn't necessary that we had it. We… people registered their opposition, and he made his case.

415
00:54:28.680 --> 00:54:44.789
And so I think that, for me, all these examples, Jelani, or Judith, or Antony Scalia, we have now the editor of Christianity Today comes from time to time to talk about issues of American identity and faith. I think that the,

416
00:54:44.960 --> 00:54:58.099
the appetite from our students, many of whom are on the left, or most of whom will see themselves on the left, you know, until they get an internship at Goldman Sachs, they… they… they…

417
00:54:58.280 --> 00:55:07.700
They… they… they seem to have an appetite. They seem to have an appetite for… For, the diversity.

418
00:55:07.880 --> 00:55:09.460
Of ideas.

419
00:55:11.240 --> 00:55:22.590
All right, I'm taking too much time with schtick. I have two, two other things I want, because we have time, we want to have time for questions, right? So, so,

420
00:55:25.520 --> 00:55:28.980
So, I want to end by talking to you about this democracy program.

421
00:55:29.150 --> 00:55:31.480
We have,

422
00:55:31.630 --> 00:55:45.179
and there may be some cooperation we can engineer with university here. But first, I do want to talk a little bit, about, institutional neutrality.

423
00:55:45.640 --> 00:55:46.980
which,

424
00:55:48.190 --> 00:55:57.300
is a creature of, the late 60s. As you may remember, the Calvin Report of 1967 and the University of Chicago.

425
00:55:59.200 --> 00:56:10.309
Which, just a couple of pages, says that university should remain neutral as an institution so that people within the institution can feel free to take different points of view.

426
00:56:10.450 --> 00:56:12.340
And, at the time.

427
00:56:12.670 --> 00:56:21.900
I think it was announced so as to keep the university from being controversial. That's not what it said. It said it wanted to promote free speech.

428
00:56:22.440 --> 00:56:33.399
well, I'll talk about why I don't believe that in a little bit, but it was civil rights, it was Vietnam, university was pressured, and if the presidents and deans…

429
00:56:33.680 --> 00:56:35.659
Just aren't allowed to…

430
00:56:35.780 --> 00:56:41.430
If they can't say anything, then they won't be criticized for anything they say, and they won't be criticized for being silent.

431
00:56:41.930 --> 00:56:49.420
So, from 1967 to 2023 to October 7th, October 7th.

432
00:56:50.630 --> 00:56:52.650
I think 5 schools.

433
00:56:53.070 --> 00:56:56.100
Some people say 9, but either way.

434
00:56:56.390 --> 00:57:02.230
adopted, in quotes, institutional neutrality. I can't tell that they practiced it.

435
00:57:03.490 --> 00:57:06.049
But they said they did… they… that was their policy.

436
00:57:06.220 --> 00:57:14.230
After October 7th, Like, 150 schools discovered this principle of free speech.

437
00:57:14.890 --> 00:57:16.960
And so, I'm a historian.

438
00:57:17.450 --> 00:57:19.010
Skeptical guy.

439
00:57:19.310 --> 00:57:21.700
I think, what problem is this?

440
00:57:22.200 --> 00:57:33.600
discovery of… aim to solve. What problem is the institutional neutrality supposed to address? And I think it was very clear. It's supposed to address the problem that people like me.

441
00:57:33.760 --> 00:57:41.879
Deans, the heads of departments even, chancellors and presidents. Whatever they say, they're gonna get in trouble with somebody.

442
00:57:43.050 --> 00:57:46.429
And so, the doctrine says, not only

443
00:57:46.890 --> 00:57:52.519
Is it not just because you're afraid of getting in trouble that you're not… it's a principle that you're not speaking.

444
00:57:52.990 --> 00:57:57.390
You're a… you're doing it on… for principle, not out of fear.

445
00:58:00.380 --> 00:58:07.329
The argument is, it's an empirical one, you'd have more of a speech if the administrators spoke less.

446
00:58:07.500 --> 00:58:15.620
It's paradoxical coming for free speech people who have, for decades, echoed what Scalia echoed, which was.

447
00:58:15.820 --> 00:58:18.049
The cure for bad speech is more speech.

448
00:58:20.070 --> 00:58:30.780
I wrote a piece with Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, I think in November, maybe even late October of that year, saying, what's it, only Jews? Is it really about Jews?

449
00:58:31.470 --> 00:58:40.370
Because we… all the instances were about Israel. This is what… we can't talk about Israel.

450
00:58:41.690 --> 00:58:45.429
We can't talk about Jewish things because of this principle.

451
00:58:47.040 --> 00:58:48.730
And so,

452
00:58:49.580 --> 00:58:56.040
I've, talked with many schools, there are lots of smart people, I mean, they, who…

453
00:58:56.300 --> 00:59:02.219
who do seem committed to what they call the Chicago Principles of Free Speech, but,

454
00:59:03.110 --> 00:59:11.249
When I wrote Safe Enough Spaces, I was characterized as a person who doesn't believe in free speech

455
00:59:11.440 --> 00:59:14.979
as much as the Chicago people, because I do think…

456
00:59:15.500 --> 00:59:31.569
although free speech is a fundamental value, there are some other values, too, and sometimes there are trade-offs. It's not an absolute value. But now, I'm considered the free speech guy, because I think that presidents should have free speech. Chancellors should have free speech.

457
00:59:31.820 --> 00:59:36.480
Department heads. I mean, at Harvard, you're head of a department, you're not supposed to say anything.

458
00:59:38.620 --> 00:59:48.440
When they came up with this policy, I was being interviewed by CNN, and I just joke, because I like to joke, as you can tell, I just said, oh, they're pricing in a Trump victory.

459
00:59:49.940 --> 00:59:52.579
The Harvard people, very sensitive.

460
00:59:53.320 --> 00:59:54.850
Very sensitive.

461
00:59:55.060 --> 00:59:59.580
You know, Rousseau said, rich people are sensitive in all of their possessions.

462
00:59:59.960 --> 01:00:05.959
It's a great line, it's a second discourse, because you have so many things you can get hurt by.

463
01:00:06.080 --> 01:00:15.310
And they were… they wrote, that's denouncing me, and I was like, why do they care what the president of Wesleyan says? I mean, it's like a little fly, you know, but they care.

464
01:00:15.380 --> 01:00:26.709
And it's because, I think… well, because I'm a Freudian, I think, well, they say no because it must be yes, that's why they're, you know, they're so upset, because it's true.

465
01:00:27.170 --> 01:00:29.350
But I think also because

466
01:00:29.930 --> 01:00:33.870
They don't want to say, I don't want to speak because I will get in trouble.

467
01:00:34.390 --> 01:00:37.960
Which is a perfectly reasonable reason to keep your mouth shut, actually.

468
01:00:38.170 --> 01:00:41.429
I don't want to speak in this context, because it's a no-win situation.

469
01:00:41.880 --> 01:00:47.390
That's a… to me, that's not unreasonable. It's just nothing to do with free speech. If there was any evidence

470
01:00:48.280 --> 01:01:02.899
that when presidents spoke less, that other people spoke more, I would have seen it by now, because I've been asking it for a year, and it doesn't exist. Robert Post, who you know, the great legal scholar, has made this argument.

471
01:01:03.470 --> 01:01:10.129
So… and there are versions of this. There's the Princeton version, which I think they call institutional restraint.

472
01:01:10.490 --> 01:01:14.060
Which is someone who went to Princeton… it's very Princetonian, you know?

473
01:01:14.390 --> 01:01:19.330
It's not… it's that… you're not muzzled, you're just… It was quieter.

474
01:01:19.440 --> 01:01:20.380
You know…

475
01:01:20.950 --> 01:01:35.610
There's a Jewish joke about this, but I don't think I should tell you. But if someone said, you know, I'm the president of Princeton, I don't think I should speak on this, because I don't have anything to add.

476
01:01:35.870 --> 01:01:39.009
Or, I don't think I should speak on this because it won't help the university.

477
01:01:39.700 --> 01:01:41.590
I think that's perfectly reasonable.

478
01:01:42.350 --> 01:01:58.990
I know my… you know, they… people ask me, so what's the… what's the… what's the policy at Wesleyan? And it's just that the president should try not to say as much stupid crap as he usually says. That's the principle we have. The, usually people laugh when we're rusty at that, I'm sorry. That, that the…

479
01:01:59.190 --> 01:02:08.549
That we… our communications people, find out what the president's going to say when everyone else does.

480
01:02:09.480 --> 01:02:19.269
Now, as a scholar I spoke enormously, Danielle Allen, who you may know, is a great political theorist and classicist and legal scholar.

481
01:02:19.410 --> 01:02:23.979
She says, because, Michael, you have your own voice.

482
01:02:24.890 --> 01:02:30.479
When you speak, they don't think Wesleyan is speaking. It's Michael Roth, who's the president of Wesleyan.

483
01:02:31.140 --> 01:02:42.850
But you have your own voice. And my response… I think that's… I think that's true, but how is it possible that in the United States of America, with these great universities.

484
01:02:43.700 --> 01:02:51.900
That there aren't scores of Presidents, chancellors, with their own voices.

485
01:02:52.590 --> 01:02:56.699
I mean… How could it be that they're…

486
01:02:57.380 --> 01:03:02.750
not… they're voiceless. That is not able to contribute to a public debate,

487
01:03:03.470 --> 01:03:05.070
public conversation.

488
01:03:06.700 --> 01:03:09.990
That seems to me… horrible.

489
01:03:10.450 --> 01:03:13.730
Indictment of leadership.

490
01:03:14.340 --> 01:03:23.940
All of the schools, that… Embrace institutional neutrality, One form or another.

491
01:03:24.870 --> 01:03:29.560
All of them have in their mission statements language about civic preparation.

492
01:03:30.210 --> 01:03:35.120
Moral… many times, moral… the growth of moral capacity of their students?

493
01:03:35.530 --> 01:03:49.520
They have a mission that is not narrowly tailored to some positivist view of science. The mission of American colleges and universities has long been, since the 1800s, has long been twinned

494
01:03:50.180 --> 01:03:54.240
with civic preparation, and moral development.

495
01:03:55.920 --> 01:04:00.209
And the leaders of the school are supposed to speak in a register.

496
01:04:01.130 --> 01:04:03.740
That might help in that regard.

497
01:04:04.220 --> 01:04:11.879
And so… Again, the institutional neutrality folks sometimes say, you can't speak on everything.

498
01:04:12.130 --> 01:04:15.429
No one does, no one has ever spoken on everything.

499
01:04:17.480 --> 01:04:24.259
The convenience factor of this so-called principle or policy seems to me too high a price to pay.

500
01:04:24.590 --> 01:04:29.700
For keeping, for impoverishing public discourse.

501
01:04:31.270 --> 01:04:40.240
So, if, and so, and to get to the final section here.

502
01:04:42.020 --> 01:04:51.319
We're planning what we're calling Democracy 250, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, like many schools around the country.

503
01:04:51.630 --> 01:04:55.750
We are, We are celebrating

504
01:04:55.980 --> 01:05:03.680
The birth of the nation by trying to activate the political muscles of our students.

505
01:05:04.380 --> 01:05:07.020
To get them to participate in the public sphere.

506
01:05:07.460 --> 01:05:13.460
Almost every college or university in the United States, religious, secular, would agree with the following three principles.

507
01:05:13.910 --> 01:05:17.310
That participation in the public sphere is good for the individual.

508
01:05:17.680 --> 01:05:22.870
That it's good for the school in which the individual's enrolled, and it's good for America.

509
01:05:24.050 --> 01:05:30.800
And so, at this point, when we have the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, when we have

510
01:05:31.120 --> 01:05:43.070
a growth of cynicism among students about the government, about the electoral system, that's rhymed with apathy in this generation. We need…

511
01:05:43.910 --> 01:05:55.279
To have participation by young people in democratic structures, working on campaigns, working in neighborhoods, working to defend the polls.

512
01:05:56.800 --> 01:05:59.310
We need their energies.

513
01:05:59.810 --> 01:06:10.459
Because if they don't activate their energies, it'll be only more difficult to activate them in the future, making them much more easily manipulated by authoritarianism.

514
01:06:12.330 --> 01:06:16.210
The view of many of my colleagues and some of my students, alas.

515
01:06:16.820 --> 01:06:22.260
Is that, although they wouldn't put it quite this way, authoritarianism isn't so bad.

516
01:06:24.050 --> 01:06:27.379
You could still play your rock and roll music.

517
01:06:28.080 --> 01:06:36.840
You can still read Flaubert in your 19th century literature class. You can still… blah blah blah blah blah. You can still do all those things.

518
01:06:38.500 --> 01:06:43.439
The shrinking of imagination, of inquiry, of teaching.

519
01:06:43.750 --> 01:06:47.200
That would happen with the growth of authoritarianism.

520
01:06:47.540 --> 01:06:53.450
Should scare the bejesus out of us, but it doesn't because we think, well, you know, we're pretty comfortable.

521
01:06:53.630 --> 01:06:58.639
Still… Not, of course, if you're an undocumented person.

522
01:07:01.440 --> 01:07:03.640
Not if you're a trans person.

523
01:07:06.460 --> 01:07:07.760
And who's next?

524
01:07:09.190 --> 01:07:15.750
And if our students are not prepared to defend the democracy because they participated and they care about it.

525
01:07:16.010 --> 01:07:20.359
I ain't even about to say if you think I'll be corny, if they love it.

526
01:07:23.360 --> 01:07:30.319
That's the best defense, not just about the politicians who are around now, but the best defense of the country

527
01:07:30.860 --> 01:07:33.200
And it's constitutional republic.

528
01:07:34.130 --> 01:07:48.859
And so, I read… this winter, I was just reading, Len Edwards, who became a judge in California, worked a lot on juvenile justice, and maybe you may… some of you may know him. He went to Wesleyan and,

529
01:07:49.610 --> 01:07:56.960
And he described in an interview with us that in 1964,

530
01:07:57.460 --> 01:08:00.359
He went down to Mississippi, Freedom Summer.

531
01:08:00.910 --> 01:08:08.980
And I always heard about this, these tales of Wesleyan… Rusty and I were talking about this before, with tales of these Wesleyan professors, like John Maguire.

532
01:08:09.160 --> 01:08:15.149
who… with buses of kids went down, students went down to Mississippi.

533
01:08:15.550 --> 01:08:18.170
And Len Edwards said, It was…

534
01:08:18.750 --> 01:08:21.420
The most harrowing experience of my life.

535
01:08:21.580 --> 01:08:24.189
I was arrested 5 times. My friends were murdered.

536
01:08:25.640 --> 01:08:28.630
It changed my life irrevocably.

537
01:08:31.130 --> 01:08:34.710
And I thought to myself, that's courage!

538
01:08:35.930 --> 01:08:38.119
Writing in the New York Times.

539
01:08:38.560 --> 01:08:39.879
That's not courage.

540
01:08:40.109 --> 01:08:44.940
Going to Mississippi and registering voters in the face of violence from the Klan, now is courage.

541
01:08:47.510 --> 01:09:02.769
It's not as much courage, but it takes some courage just to walk into a neighborhood, knock on doors, and canvas for your candidate, because you don't know what they're gonna say when they open the door. You just have to think, they're not gonna hit me, because we're in the same society, in the same polity. We're…

542
01:09:03.180 --> 01:09:05.579
We may disagree, but we can talk.

543
01:09:05.689 --> 01:09:13.859
That takes courage. Takes a moving over that line. And so this summer, We are hoping to get…

544
01:09:14.290 --> 01:09:27.539
not just a few dozen Wesleyan students, but the same proportion of students from University of, Houston, or Texas, and Austin, or Michigan, and to have students just, however they want to do it.

545
01:09:28.359 --> 01:09:30.929
Nonpartisan, I don't care who they work for.

546
01:09:32.569 --> 01:09:36.000
But I do care that… They begin to care.

547
01:09:37.040 --> 01:09:40.639
Because my friends, if our fellow citizens don't care.

548
01:09:41.120 --> 01:09:44.459
About academic freedom, it'll be destroyed.

549
01:09:44.689 --> 01:09:46.310
Because we need their support.

550
01:09:46.779 --> 01:09:51.579
And if our fellow citizens don't care about democratic practice.

551
01:09:52.399 --> 01:09:56.170
It'll be destroyed. It is being destroyed. Now.

552
01:09:57.180 --> 01:09:58.860
We need to protect it.

553
01:09:59.300 --> 01:10:01.960
By exercising our democratic muscles.

554
01:10:02.220 --> 01:10:05.090
Just like we need to protect academic freedom.

555
01:10:05.370 --> 01:10:10.089
By exercising our academic, intellectual, spiritual muscles.

556
01:10:10.350 --> 01:10:13.659
and demanding what Americans have always prized.

557
01:10:13.890 --> 01:10:17.849
The freedom to think for ourselves in the company of others.

558
01:10:18.440 --> 01:10:22.269
And to take… The question's where they lead us.

559
01:10:22.760 --> 01:10:24.350
Thank you very much.

560
01:10:31.110 --> 01:10:35.879
Dean Baynes: Thank you very much, President Roth. We'll take some questions now. Here we go.

561
01:10:36.260 --> 01:10:38.210
Okay.

562
01:10:44.080 --> 01:10:44.789
It's on her hand.

563
01:10:46.010 --> 01:10:55.639
Question #1: It's on, it's on. Okay. It's a fascinating, talk that you gave. I was very interested. I only had one question.

564
01:10:55.780 --> 01:11:10.880
And that was… and this is concerning the free speech, because, as you know, your presentation went around a lot of different things. Whether or not, in a society, there can be

565
01:11:11.110 --> 01:11:17.220
Completely, or real free speech, where power and authority are so inequitably distributed.

566
01:11:18.280 --> 01:11:25.790
President Roth: Well, I guess a lot hangs on the word real, right? I don't think there's ever absolute free speech.

567
01:11:26.050 --> 01:11:29.470
I'm with the pragmatists on this, that everybody has their limit.

568
01:11:29.710 --> 01:11:33.389
they say no to something, and I think they, as they should.

569
01:11:33.610 --> 01:11:37.559
I think there should be limits, and surely

570
01:11:37.680 --> 01:11:43.190
some people have a microphone, or a dozen microphones, and other people

571
01:11:43.420 --> 01:11:50.140
you know, have their tongue cut out, or something. I mean, inequality compromises freedom of speech. I think, for sure.

572
01:11:50.380 --> 01:11:59.360
So, does that mean we don't have freedom of speech? Well, it depends what you compare it to, I suppose. It's like saying we don't have absolute freedom. That's true, too.

573
01:11:59.710 --> 01:12:06.499
But I do think that there are ways, and we see this in, like, many of you are teachers, we see this in class all the time.

574
01:12:06.770 --> 01:12:13.860
Right? I mean, you're teaching a class, and there's, I can see, Robin here, always raising her hand.

575
01:12:14.180 --> 01:12:25.320
Like, I say, I have a question, oh, oh, oh! Like, okay, Robin, and Robin gives me the answer. And then I say, okay, Sam, and Robin says, oh, I know! And I think, okay, well, thanks, Robin.

576
01:12:26.780 --> 01:12:44.909
But, you know, I want to ask Sam, and then I want to ask you, and then I want to ask you. And so what you do as a teacher, you try to actually not insult Robin, like, I hope I just didn't do that. But you want to actually find a way to mitigate those differences

577
01:12:45.010 --> 01:12:52.360
Volume and power, By, by helping people find their voices.

578
01:12:53.040 --> 01:12:59.380
And, on a social level, it's much more challenging.

579
01:12:59.620 --> 01:13:06.169
Because of the radical inequality in this country, which is, you know, probably tracks the…

580
01:13:06.340 --> 01:13:09.699
From the 90s to now tracks my, my,

581
01:13:09.960 --> 01:13:18.329
political polarization thing. The inequality off the charts means some people have so much access to microphones, or the equivalent.

582
01:13:18.570 --> 01:13:28.080
And that's why I think the Citizens United case was decided so badly, because I think it makes it much harder to make free speech meaningful to a lot of people.

583
01:13:28.620 --> 01:13:34.099
And as a result, many of my students, they kind of shrug their shoulders at free speech

584
01:13:34.860 --> 01:13:49.630
until we have a socialist revolution, free speech doesn't matter, is really what they're saying, because then you'd only… then you'd have equality. You might not have free speech, though, you might have state-enforced equality, but what they are getting at is that power compromises speech.

585
01:13:50.120 --> 01:13:55.210
And so, knowing that, I think some people learn to speak More often and more loudly.

586
01:14:00.690 --> 01:14:04.969
Question #2: First of all, thank you for speaking.

587
01:14:05.230 --> 01:14:08.940
I'd… Yeah.

588
01:14:09.370 --> 01:14:12.930
One of the things you point out is…

589
01:14:13.690 --> 01:14:18.939
what I call preemptive acquiescence, and boy, do we have it in Texas.

590
01:14:19.550 --> 01:14:28.209
The ones who are really enforcing it at our universities, Are the middle leaders.

591
01:14:28.830 --> 01:14:38.670
Deans, chairs, Associate Deans, associate provosts. Boards.

592
01:14:39.010 --> 01:14:46.080
Trustees, rich Texas billionaires out west. Anyway…

593
01:14:47.200 --> 01:14:53.480
But, especially the individuals in the middle there, Who are really caught.

594
01:14:55.250 --> 01:14:56.869
And it is fear.

595
01:14:58.990 --> 01:15:00.799
What do you say to them?

596
01:15:01.010 --> 01:15:10.270
President Roth: So, maybe before you give the microphone back, do those people typically, in your experience, in the middle, in those middle ranks, do they have tenure? Yes. Okay, so they have no excuse.

597
01:15:10.950 --> 01:15:26.530
No, I do… I mean, they have… except they… I mean, they're scared, and people are frightened. It's hard to say, don't be frightened. It's like, I'd be a bad therapist to say, I'm really frightened, don't be frightened! Instead of saying, why are you frightened? But, but,

598
01:15:26.530 --> 01:15:35.259
I mean, I gave a talk like this to a bunch of presidents, and it was a president from a university in Texas, and he said, I believe everything you said, and if I said that, I'd be fired tomorrow.

599
01:15:35.830 --> 01:15:40.429
And I was silent for a minute, and he said, you think I should just get myself fired?

600
01:15:40.590 --> 01:15:43.369
And I said, I don't know, I mean, it's easy for me to say that.

601
01:15:43.560 --> 01:16:01.499
I've been overpaid a long time, you know, at Wesleyan. The AUP would definitely say so. And I could be fired. Really, I could play more piano, read more. But other people have, you know, they have, you know, they have real concerns.

602
01:16:03.820 --> 01:16:07.080
I say that, but the truth is, I have no sympathy

603
01:16:07.260 --> 01:16:11.030
for… People in these big leadership positions.

604
01:16:11.800 --> 01:16:15.230
Because they can land… almost always land on their feet somewhere.

605
01:16:15.540 --> 01:16:23.849
Not always, but almost always. Often have tenure if they negotiate with… smartly. I mean, I have tenure at Wesleyan as a faculty member.

606
01:16:24.050 --> 01:16:27.850
They're like, oh, you wouldn't want to teach after you've been president?

607
01:16:28.240 --> 01:16:43.370
But, you know, some people like teaching. But I think the middle management issue is a real problem. And I guess the reason, maybe from their point of view, is not just fear, it's just like, I want you to be able to do your job. I don't want you to get hassled. I can…

608
01:16:43.510 --> 01:16:55.719
I can make it easier for you to do your job by cutting some things that are not unimportant, but they're not as important as the other things you're doing. And I guess that's their ration, I think it's a mistake.

609
01:16:56.150 --> 01:17:02.480
I think it's typical of authoritarianism that they rely on people like that who

610
01:17:02.970 --> 01:17:05.539
What was your phrase? Preemptively obey, or…

611
01:17:06.130 --> 01:17:12.269
preemptive acquiescence, I think that, you know, we've been relying on that, and I think,

612
01:17:13.410 --> 01:17:29.060
I think it's really, dangerous in an academic environment. I mean, in an academic environment, I'm used to preemptive rebellion, like people who just, you know, they're just like, whatever it is, I'm against it. Brian Rosenberg wrote this book about the faculty at McAllister.

613
01:17:29.160 --> 01:17:41.249
It's quoting this Groucho Marx film, when he was the president of a fictitious college, and he sings a great song about the faculty, whatever it is, I'm against it. So preemptive disagreement has been a characteristic, but right now.

614
01:17:41.380 --> 01:17:45.180
Especially in the big publics in Texas, I'm told.

615
01:17:45.880 --> 01:17:49.549
There is this, we don't want the scrutiny.

616
01:17:50.730 --> 01:17:53.100
And we can get a lot of other stuff done.

617
01:17:53.270 --> 01:18:11.479
And to me, it's… I think I stole this from Sam Masson, I think his name is? No, no, John Gantz, I'm sorry. He did this Vichy analogy. It's like you have a cafe in Paris, and the Nazis come in and they say, we think you have 3 dishwashers who are in the resistance.

618
01:18:12.350 --> 01:18:13.809
Give them to us.

619
01:18:14.640 --> 01:18:16.050
And you stay in business.

620
01:18:16.480 --> 01:18:18.550
And you have, like, 30 employees.

621
01:18:19.200 --> 01:18:26.600
You say, yeah, it's Jacques, Henri, and Bert.

622
01:18:27.070 --> 01:18:28.470
And they go off.

623
01:18:28.810 --> 01:18:30.380
And the cafe runs.

624
01:18:33.490 --> 01:18:41.329
And you all expect, and it's disgusting, it's a horrible thing, but you can also say the person says, and I saved all those 30 people.

625
01:18:41.520 --> 01:18:43.649
Their jobs and their safety.

626
01:18:44.420 --> 01:18:57.200
It's not as bad as that. This is much, you know, I over-dramatize. It's the Jewish studies part. But I do think, you know, that…

627
01:18:57.540 --> 01:18:59.409
Collaboration is dilemma

628
01:18:59.610 --> 01:19:05.720
is real when the state has so much power. You saw it this week with your police department.

629
01:19:07.920 --> 01:19:13.069
Right? It's saying, we know what the right thing is, but we can't do our job without the money.

630
01:19:14.950 --> 01:19:17.549
Some of that is life. People make compromises.

631
01:19:17.960 --> 01:19:27.319
But the problem is when you compromise things that are just so against the mission you believe in that it feels like you've given up the ghost.

632
01:19:32.110 --> 01:19:34.280
Question #3: Good evening, thanks for your talk.

633
01:19:34.410 --> 01:19:43.890
So one of the things you said toward the end there is that if people don't care about academic freedom, we're gonna lose it.

634
01:19:44.190 --> 01:19:51.079
And one of the things that I have found in trying to work on these issues

635
01:19:51.520 --> 01:19:55.719
is that people outside the academy

636
01:19:56.460 --> 01:20:09.699
don't get it. They don't see the value of it, in the way that we do. It's impossible to convey to legislators who've never, you know, been in a…

637
01:20:10.020 --> 01:20:18.880
on a faculty position, and so I'm just wondering what sort of strategies you think there are

638
01:20:19.440 --> 01:20:36.120
to get the broader public to appreciate that when faculties have academic freedom, it sort of lifts all boats, as it were. 

President Roth:
Yeah, it's a great question. I'm not sure I have a very, helpful answer.

639
01:20:36.320 --> 01:20:38.040
the,

640
01:20:39.940 --> 01:20:54.760
so much depends on the specifics of the situation. You know, if you ask Americans, do they have confidence in higher education, they answer pretty negatively, although actually it's improved in the last couple years. You wouldn't know that from the press, but…

641
01:20:54.820 --> 01:21:00.999
but still pretty low. Not nearly as low as, like, lawyers.

642
01:21:01.690 --> 01:21:10.519
journalists… bankers… I mean, every… it's… there's been a system… systemic decline in legitimacy

643
01:21:10.900 --> 01:21:17.749
Part of… and that's a longer story, and and so how do you get people to have confidence in an institution?

644
01:21:17.980 --> 01:21:24.070
People have… what I find is that people have confidence Often in their local institution.

645
01:21:24.530 --> 01:21:28.430
So, you have people who have gone to the University of Houston, they love, they love it.

646
01:21:29.070 --> 01:21:31.640
They feel like they're proud of it.

647
01:21:31.820 --> 01:21:40.899
You know, and the same would be true of community colleges or of other schools. It's certainly true of Wesleyan. You know, the parents of students, they're very grateful.

648
01:21:41.010 --> 01:21:53.299
They may be baffled by what the students are studying, or their choices, or… but they're grateful for the freedoms that their kids have to discover a path in life.

649
01:21:53.470 --> 01:22:00.139
And to leave with capacity to work after graduation that is much greater than they expected.

650
01:22:00.360 --> 01:22:06.240
And I think that a lot of people feel that way about their schools, so I think the way to convince more people

651
01:22:06.490 --> 01:22:11.250
About the value of these things is to tell better stories that are locally grounded.

652
01:22:11.690 --> 01:22:21.609
It's not so much about the principle of academic freedom, but what happens when this person has the freedom to look for a cure for Alzheimer's, or this person has the freedom to look

653
01:22:21.610 --> 01:22:33.749
For the root cause of, some, some other disease, or… I mean, those, those things I think people can find quite compelling. The abstraction

654
01:22:34.130 --> 01:22:46.370
Like, most abstractions don't, don't work so well. There is a lot of… again, I feel funny saying this to you, because you know this stuff better than I am. There's a lot of case law about this, about how freedom of speech

655
01:22:46.800 --> 01:22:51.900
Gives a certain amount of… a great amount of legitimacy

656
01:22:51.980 --> 01:23:03.469
Streaming Media (slides & audio): to the specific natures of academic freedom, so translating freedom of speech into a professional context, and David Rabban's done a great job explaining this. And… but I think…

657
01:23:03.470 --> 01:23:15.810
Many Americans really do value freedom of speech. Of course, they value it until someone says something offensive, but then you have to explain, like, that you don't have a right not to be offended, and I think a lot of people

658
01:23:16.360 --> 01:23:22.130
When they're with people they know in smaller groups, their neighbors.

659
01:23:22.420 --> 01:23:31.239
Town meetings, they actually do get over their differences, or just find successful ways of… productive ways of compromising.

660
01:23:31.430 --> 01:23:34.730
So I do think localizing, personalizing

661
01:23:34.940 --> 01:23:50.350
are good tactics for, public confidence in certain areas, and I think litigation at the national level, using this body of case law, was probably a good prospect, to defend the professional rights

662
01:23:50.570 --> 01:23:55.429
Of, professors, just like you have professional rights of doctors and others.

663
01:23:56.220 --> 01:23:59.239
Dean Baynes: Let's give President Roth a round of applause.