Category Archives: Freedom of speech and expression

Alumni, Free Speech, and Intellectual Diversity

Posted on July 5, 2023 by | 1 comment

I’d much rather communicate through the written word than the spoken word, but the American Council of Trustees and Alumni took the trouble of interviewing me and breaking down the video into bite-sized, easily digestible morsels — call them Bacon Bits — so it would be churlish of me not to make them available to the Jefferson Council.

Although the interview took place last fall, the topics are relevant today. Above, I’ve posted one of the nuggets: on the importance of intellectual diversity. All the clips can be accessed below:

On the Founding of the Jefferson Council
On the Importance of the Intellectually Diverse Campus
On How Alumni Can Promote Intellectual Diversity on Campus
On Ideological Polarization
On the Importance of Intellectual Humility
On Creating Coalitions within the Alumni Free Speech Movement
On How the Jefferson Council Engages with All Alumni

— JAB

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

Colleges Should Compete on Free Speech

Posted on June 28, 2023 by | 2 comments

Credit: Bing Image Creator. Students engaging in civil free speech in the style of Norman Rockwell.

by James A. Bacon

The U.S. News & World-Report ranking of best U.S. colleges and universities is coming under assault from the left on the grounds that the publication’s methodology gives insufficient weight to social justice considerations. That may be a valid concern… if your priority in selecting a college is social justice. But U.S. News and its lefty alternatives are worthless if your No. 1 concern is ensuring students are exposed to diverse views and feel free to explore ideas that cut against the mainstream.

In an article in RealClear Politics, Edward Yingling and Stuart Taylor suggest that higher-ed institutions should begin differentiating themselves by their commitment to academic freedom. Yingling and Taylor are founders of Princetonians for Free Speech and co-founders with the Jefferson Council of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance.

As the duo observes, many of America’s elite universities have low ratings for free speech in the annual survey conducted by the Foundation for Rights and Expression (FIRE).

“The lists of ‘top colleges’ have varied little in many years. They always include the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech, etc.,” write Yingling and Taylor. “But that could change. Colleges of all types can differentiate themselves on the core values of free speech and academic freedom, and those that do will increasingly attract more and better students, faculty, and employment opportunities for their graduates.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

Back in Vogue at UVa: Viewpoint Diversity

Posted on June 4, 2023 by | 20 comments

Douglas Wetmore

by James A. Bacon

The University of Virginia leadership normally keeps its Board of Visitors meetings running on such a tightly scripted schedule that board members rarely get an opportunity to engage in free-wheeling discussion. But Rector Whitt Clement and President Jim Ryan made an exception Friday during the board’s June meeting: They set aside nearly an hour to talk about Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

Board member Douglas Wetmore, a Richmond businessman appointed by Governor Glenn Youngkin, set the tone as soon as the discussion began. On paper the administration values “viewpoint diversity” along with demographic and other forms of diversity, he noted. But unlike the meticulous statistics it compiles on the racial and gender breakdown of students, faculty, and staff, he said, the university does not track viewpoint diversity at all.

“We want a wide range of competing ideas,” Wetmore said. “One hundred percent of statistics are related to race and gender. I haven’t seen one reflecting viewpoint diversity,” he said.

While a few board members suggested that viewpoint diversity was not a serious issue at UVa, the ensuing discussion revolved mainly around how to define viewpoint diversity, how much of such diversity was desirable, and how to measure it while respecting individuals’ right to privacy.

The Board conversation was unprecedented at UVa, where the DEI bureaucracy dedicated to advancing the interests of “marginalized” minorities has grown to 55 employees by the university’s own count. Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression, Race, Equity and Diversity

Team Ryan Defends UVa Commitment to Free Speech

Posted on June 2, 2023 by | 5 comments

Leslie Kendrick (wearing a mask and recovering from a cold) and Melody Barnes address the Board of Visitors.

by James A. Bacon

Jim Sherlock, a Bacon’s Rebellion columnist, offers his take on the Diversity, Equity& Inclusion presentation to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors scheduled to take place this afternoon. Based on the PowerPoint deck to be used as the basis of the presentation, he concludes that the administration intends to deflect the conversation from the main issue, which, he maintains, is using the DEI bureaucracy to impose political and ideological control.

Read his essay here. You might want to check out the comments section in which Ryan administration sympathizers and critics engage in a lively (and mostly civil) back and forth.

Sherlock published his essay yesterday before another important presentation took place. Anticipating criticisms like Sherlock’s, the administration stressed the value it places on “free speech,” “free inquiry” and “diversity of viewpoints.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors, Freedom of speech and expression

Apologies Run One Way at UVa

Posted on April 20, 2023 by | 13 comments

Credit: Bing Image Creator

by James A. Bacon

The woke witch trials of the 21st century don’t burn their victims at the stake, but they still do immense harm.

We previously told the story of how Morgan Bettinger, a 4th-year student who ran afoul of the University of Virginia’s social-justice warriors, was vilified on social media, investigated by university authorities, and required to perform social justice-related community service to atone for supposed threats she never uttered.

What we haven’t told before but can now thanks to a lawsuit asking for the expungement of disciplinary sanctions on Bettinger’s college record, is what it’s like for a student to endure the assaults of the Woke Mob.

The question every UVA alumnus, student, parent, professor and member of the UVa community must ask is this: How can freedom of speech and expression thrive in an environment where students are treated this way?

The lawsuit cites the following testimony Bettinger gave in a recorded interview with the university’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Freedom of speech and expression

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Debate: Academic Freedom at U.S. Universities

Posted on April 18, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Register for the Livestream Debate, 1:30pm EST, Wed, May 3, 2023:

“Protecting Academic Freedom at U.S. Universities: Do Proposed Policies in Florida Make Sense?”

Many educational leaders have become acutely concerned that Academic Freedom and Free Expression are being abandoned at U.S. universities. In recent years, educational priorities seem to have shifted from researching and teaching “academic knowledge & objective truth” to the promotion of “political activism & social justice.” Many see this educational “mission drift” as seriously undermining the fundamental purpose of U.S. universities – while others see such political activism in curricula and research as bringing necessary change to American society and culture. Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression, Speakers, Panels and Events

Controversial Commerce School Prof Resigns Mid-Semester

Posted on April 18, 2023 by | 1 comment

Jeffrey Leopold

Jeffrey Leopold, a McIntire School of Commerce assistant professor who was subjected to a Twitter firestorm two-and-a-half years ago, has resigned from his post mid-semester. No explanation has been given.

The Jefferson Council was first alerted to Leopold’s departure last week by the parent of a student in one of his classes. University of Virginia spokesman Brian Coy confirmed that Leopold resigned Friday.

Coy said he could not comment on the nature of the professor’s decision to resign other than to say that it was “in no way related” to the 2020 controversy stirred by his telling of a joke in class that was widely portrayed as a racial insult.

Leopold used the joke to illustrate stereotypes held of peoples around the world. It went like this: Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

Douglas Murray’s “Notes on the State of Virginia”

Posted on March 24, 2023 by | 9 comments

The University of Virginia was the first stop for Douglas Murray, author of “The War on the West,” in a multi-campus speaking tour last month. He was accompanied by Marion Smith, president of the Common Sense Society, the lead organizer of the tour. (The Jefferson Council co-sponsored Murray’s appearance at UVa.)

It is illuminating to read the reactions of both Murray and Smith upon the completion of the tour.

Wrote Murray in the U.K. publication The Spectator:

I started my week at the University of Virginia. It is one of the many American universities which have serious problems because of their founding – probably the majority do. In this case the University of Virginia has a problem because it was founded by Thomas Jefferson.

Until recent years, being founded by Jefferson – whether in the case of the United States or a university – was a badge of honour. Today it is a mark of Cain.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression, Speakers, Panels and Events

Empty Gesture? UVa Board Endorses Diversity of Thought.

Posted on March 5, 2023 by | 6 comments

by James A. Bacon

The University of Virginia Board of Visitors did more than endorse free speech on university campuses Friday when it voted to adopt a Council of Presidents statement on free speech: It endorsed the principle of viewpoint diversity.

In 2012 the Board had embraced a 2021 statement on free speech by a commission appointed by President James Ryan. But that statement alluded only vaguely to the value of “exposure to a range of ideas.” If the ideas discussed at UVa consisted only of different strains of leftism, the declaration on free speech wouldn’t amount to much.

The statement of the Council of Presidents, which was crafted at the request of Governor Glenn Youngkin, made it clear that the exercise of free speech and the diversity of ideas are intertwined, and it implied that a wide range of ideas should be encouraged. (My emphasis added below.)

As presidents of Virginia’s public colleges and universities, we unequivocally support free expression and viewpoint diversity on our campuses. Free expression is the fundamental basis for both academic freedom and for effective teaching and learning inside and outside the classroom. Our member universities and colleges are bound to uphold the First Amendment. We are committed to promoting this constitutional freedom through robust statements and policies that are formulated through shared governance processes and through actions that reflect and reinforce this core foundation of education. We value a scholarly environment that is supported by a diversity of research and intellectual perspectives among our faculty and staff. We pledge to promote and uphold inclusivity, academic freedom, free expression, and an environment that promotes civil discourse across differences. We will protect these principles when others seek to restrict them.

Ryan told the board that he wants the Council of Presidents statement to “inform what we do at UVa.”

The challenge for Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom will be implementing those principles in an institution marked by a left/right ideological imbalance of roughly ten-to-one; in which a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion bureaucracy suffuses university policies with a leftist understanding of “equity” and requires employees to express their views of DEI in “diversity statements”; and in which many students and the faculty self-censor for fear of igniting a social media storm, sparking social ostracism, or suffering administrative punishment. Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors, Freedom of speech and expression

Ceaser Crosses the Rubicon, Refuses to Give DEI Loyalty Oath

Posted on March 2, 2023 by | 8 comments

Jim Ceaser

by James A. Bacon

Jim Ceaser runs the Program for Constitutionalism and Democracy at the University of Virginia, which provides civic education on American ideas in politics and political economy. The courses are unusual these days in surveying the thought of mostly dead white men: from Aristotle and Montesquieu to Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville. The courses are remarkable also in giving equal time – in many instances even more than equal time — to thinkers whom most today consider conservative and whom, he believes, receive less attention than they merit.

Ceaser is a fully tenured professor, which provides significant protections against being fired. As for the program he directs, which reaches a large number of students, all of the funding comes from private donors and foundations from outside the university. Having started teaching in 1975, he’s reached retirement age.

If not cancel proof, he is cancel-resistant. That makes it easier for him to refuse to fill out questions in a “peer review evaluation form” that probe his thinking about Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression, Race, Equity and Diversity