LeFrak Conference on Intellectual Diversity and Free Speech: Day 2

Sat, April 4, 2020 at Lincoln Room, Kellogg Center

Day Two of the LeFrak Forum's Conference on Intellectual Diversity and Free Speech include several panelists discussing freedom of speech.

Panel 1: An empirical accounting of the recent challenges to free speech on campus from left and right. What is the true character of the problem or problems here and do they constitute a 'crisis'?

 Paper: Jonathan Marks, Professor and chair, Department of Politics and International Relations, Ursinus College, author of Becoming Reasonable People: A Conservative Case for Liberal Education (under review.)

Respondent: April Kelly-Woessner, Professor and Chair, Department of Politics, Philosophy and Legal Studies at Elizabethtown College, author of The Still Divided Academy.

Panel 2: But is free speech, as traditionally interpreted, even the right ideal? A debate.

Ulrich Baer, University Professor of Comparative Literature, German and English, New York University, and author of What Snowflakes Get Right: Free Speech and Truth on Campus. 

Keith Whittington, Professor of Politics, Princeton University, author of Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech.

Panel 3: What is to be done?

Paper: Nancy Costello, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, MSU, Found and Director of the First Amendment Law Clinic - the only law clinic in the nation devoted to the defense of student press rights. Also director of the Free Expression Online Library and Resource Center.

Paper: Jonathan Friedman, Project Director for campus free speech at PEN America - "a program of advocacy, analysis, and outreach in the national debate around free speech and inclusion at colleges and universities."