(2018). Not so Scary: Using and Defusing Content Warnings in the Classroom. Journal of Political Science Education, v14 n1 p86-96. Content warnings–notices to students that class material may evoke their past traumas–have become entangled in (over)heated debates about the role of free speech on campus. Critics denounce content warnings as silencing tools intended to promote censorship, preclude discussion of difficult topics or punish professors who hold unpopular views. Supporters too often conflate content warnings with broader demands for classroom "safe space" that fail to recognize the distinct features of posttraumatic stress as a form of mental illness. In this article, I reconceptualize content warnings as a way to facilitate access to course material for students with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I then offer a set of concrete strategies for employing content warnings in political science courses. These strategies aim not only to support students struggling with trauma but also to de-escalate the controversy around content warnings by emphasizing how such warnings work to… [Direct]
(2020). Get Real: 49 Challenges Confronting Higher Education. SUNY Press Higher education always seems to be in crisis. Governments, foundations, professional associations, and the occasional scornful professor all tend to lament one or another problem plaguing America's colleges and universities. The more apocalyptic claims state that the United States is a "nation at risk," that our students' minds have been closed, or that radical faculty have run amok and are brainwashing our youth. In "Get Real," William G. Tierney, a leading scholar of higher education, cuts through this noise, drawing on his experience and expertise to provide a thought-provoking overview of the many challenges confronting higher education and how to deal with them. In forty-nine short, engaging essays, he aims not to stoke the flames of controversy or promote a particular stance but to provoke creative, forward-looking public discussion about what higher education could and should look like in the twenty-first century. Tierney clearly distills and offers his… [Direct]
(2015). Do Minors Have First Amendment Rights in Schools?. Knowledge Quest, v44 n1 p8-13 Sep-Oct. Courts have held that minors have First Amendment rights and that those rights include the right to receive information. However, how does that apply in the school setting? The First Amendment prohibits governmental entities from unconstitutionally infringing rights of free speech. Students in public schools, therefore, do have rights under the First Amendment. The author, in introducing this article adds the disclaimer that the article is not a "legal opinion," but rather presents examples where the rights of children in the school setting were challenged with regard to "expressing their right to free speech, removal of inappropriate reading materials from school libraries, or internet access to sites that could prove harmful to minors." The author concludes that public school officials must be cognizant of the First Amendment rights of minors when these officials make decisions about library resources, the curriculum, and policies related to extracurricular… [PDF]
(2020). Surrendered: Why Progressives Are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education. The Teaching for Social Justice Series. Teachers College Press In this dynamic book, Kevin Kumashiro offers a necessary intervention to help progressive educators and advocates take back public education. This book highlights how the broader Left (progressives, liberals, Democrats, teacher unions, civil rights organizations) are often talking about the "problem" in ways that were framed by forces contrary to the goals of democracy and justice, and in so doing, are advancing "solutions" that cannot help but be counterproductive. Kumashiro explains when, why, and how this has happened, particularly regarding the insidious nature of popular "reforms." He also dives into some of the biggest battles in education today, such as affirmative action, free speech and hate speech, bullying and violence, teacher shortages, and student debt. "Surrendered" offers a different path forward for K-12 and higher education by showing readers how to establish a progressive agenda, employ language, and harness evidence more… [Direct]
(2019). Investigating the Declarative-Procedural Gap for the Indirect Speech Construction in L2 Learners. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, v48 n5 p1025-1049 Oct. It is common to have good declarative but poor procedural knowledge of a foreign language, especially for classroom learners. To study this gap in a constrained manner, we asked Chinese learners of English to repeat, correct and produce indirect speech. The indirect speech construction was selected in the present study because it is known to be a particularly complex construction. Chinese university students who all had good declarative knowledge of the rules governing indirect speech were selected to have overall low or high oral proficiency when assessed in a free speech situation. High proficiency participants pursued strategies that increased their speech rate while reducing errors. They used more idiomatic English, more chunked expressions, and showed less negative transfer from Mandarin, compared to low proficiency participants. Indeed use of chunks was the primary means by which both groups of participants were able to increase their accuracy, complexity, and speaking rate…. [Direct]
(2018). How Christian Universities Respond to Extremism. Education Sciences, v8 Article 140. This research article explores how two English universities with Anglican foundations responded to UK government requirements to counter radicalization on campus. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with student union representatives, senior staff in the universities responsible for implementing the legal requirements and also those with special responsibility for religion. Christian foundation education institutions are required to implement government policy in response to visible radical and religious extremism. The UK higher education context is post-Christian (with lower levels of religious adherence) and post-secular (with greater plurality and greater prominence of controversial religious-related issues). It presents challenges for Christian university identity when meeting the complex concerns about dangers to students, university independence and free speech, and common values and public accountability. The research found that key to universities being able to respond… [PDF]
(2018). The Schoolhouse Gate in the Digital Age: Examining the First Amendment When Student Electronic Speech Targets School Employees. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Northern Illinois University. This paper investigates the intersection of student First Amendment free speech rights and off-campus electronic speech that targets school employees. Specifically, this study researched case law involving students who were disciplined as a result of off-campus electronic speech that targeted a staff member at their school. Analysis of case law and court decisions provides insight about how courts are interpreting and applying "Tinker" and other foundational student speech decisions in today's era of digital communication. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for school administrators around the topic of student electronic speech that targets school employees. By implementing some of these practices in schools, school administrators will be better positioned to prevent this type of cyberspeech from occurring and to respond to it if and when the need arises. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further… [Direct]
(2019). Has Student Voice Been Eliminated? A Consideration of Student Activism Post-Parkland. Philosophical Studies in Education, v50 p82-93. David Blacker points to a problematic decline in personal freedoms, including student speech rights: "s the 'educational mission' of schools moves ineluctably even further toward warehousing and surveillance–pre-jail–then remaining intra-institutional speech rights will easily be quashed." Critical of the elastic conception of educational mission as put forth in "Morse v. Frederick," he warns that matters of school safety will take precedence over student speech rights, especially in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, and earlier and future school shootings. In the wake of yet another mass school shooting, Paul Geis examines whether Blacker was correct to sound the alarm about an elimination of student voice. Similar to Kathleen Knight Abowitz and Dan Mamlok's recent article on political emotion in civic education, Geis uses the post-Parkland context to bring concepts from philosophy of education to bear on real contemporary events in… [PDF]
(2013). Electronically Transmitted Threats and Higher Education: Oppression, Free Speech, and Jake Baker. Review of Higher Education, v36 n3 p295-313 Spr. When Jake Baker wrote a violent, sexually themed story about one of his classmates and emailed it to a friend, the case that ensued highlighted how new technologies have created fresh ways for students to harass, oppress, or be oppressed by others. This article examines concepts of violence and cultural imperialism oppression, primarily as defined by Iris Young. Using the Baker case, this article juxtaposes oppression concepts and freedom of speech protections. It concludes that universities must use network technologies to become proactively involved in the virtual communities that surround them…. [Direct]
(2016). The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX. 2016 Bulletin. American Association of University Professors This report, an evaluation of the history and current uses of Title IX, is the result of a joint effort by a subcommittee that included members of the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the Committee on Women in the Academic Profession. The report identifies tensions between current interpretations of Title IX and the academic freedom essential for campus life to thrive. It finds that questions of free speech and academic freedom have been ignored in recent positions taken by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Education, which is charged with implementing Title IX, and by university administrators who are expected to oversee compliance measures. The report concludes with recommendations-based on AAUP policy-for how best to address the problem of campus sexual assault and harassment while also protecting academic freedom, free speech, and due process. While successful resolutions of Title IX suits are often represented as unqualified victories in… [Direct]
(2021). Political Reality on North Carolina Campuses: Examining Policy Debates and Forums with Diverse Viewpoints. James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal Everywhere in higher education, there is a rhetorical affirmation of the values of free speech and the development of informed citizens. North Carolina's state motto in Latin is Esse Quam Videri, which translates to "To Be Rather Than to Seem." So it is reasonable to research what kind of speech actually exists on North Carolina campuses, particularly about public policy issues. This research examines the 2018 and 2019 online calendars for 37 four-year North Carolina campuses to record all their multi-speaker policy events. These events were then classified as debates or forums in 24 different policy areas. Because some calendars were incomplete or difficult to interpret, follow-up emails were sent to campus reference librarians, archivists, and chief academic officers to try to assure accuracy. Survey after survey shows that faculty are increasingly one-sided in their political identifications, that many students are fearful of expressing their policy opinions, and that an… [PDF]
(2021). The Contentious Rise of the New Civics: Contending with Critiques of New Civics as a Leftist Enterprise. Teachers College Record, v123 n11 p20-37 Nov. Background/Context: New Civics scholars and practitioners aspire to move beyond curricula focused on voter participation and knowledge of government structures and mechanisms to instead prepare youth to act upon their values in ways that lead to systemic change. Critics of New Civics argue that this approach is a form of pervasive leftist politics on campuses that seek to train youth activists with particular political agendas. Purpose and Research Questions: New Civics scholars must contend with conservative critiques as they envision curricula and programs to encourage greater civic action and engagement universally. Because these curricula and programs embrace nontraditional notions of civic action, they must garner some modicum of public trust to gain broad traction in schools and nonprofit organizations. Opponents of New Civics frame it as exclusively leftist, "politically correct," and hostile to alternative views. These accusations may convince an already skeptical… [Direct]
(2017). The Perils of Repressive Tolerance in Music Education Curriculum. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, v16 n2 p6-38 Oct. In recent years, philosophers of music education have called for a greater degree of political engagement by music education practitioners. Using Marcuse's discussion of "repressive tolerance" as a conceptual framework, I argue that a politicized curriculum in music education works against the liberal ideas of free speech and a free marketplace of ideas, both of which are foundational to democratic society. In particular, when dissenting positions are repressed or misrepresented in a drive towards liberation, Critical Theory moves inappropriately into the realm of ideology. The application of Critical Theory to music education curriculum is critiqued in two areas: the danger of working within a closed theoretical system, and the discourse surrounding the large ensemble. I conclude by arguing that a degree of detachment from the political is, in fact, a virtue rather than a problem for music educators, and that this attitude should be commended rather than deconstructed…. [PDF]
(2017). Nondisparagement Clauses in Severance Agreements: A Capstone Contracts Exercise. Journal of Legal Studies Education, v34 n1 p5-40 Win. Nondisparagement clauses are common in severance agreements. They are "boilerplate," "routine." They are "used across all industries, in companies of all sizes and with employees at any position within the organization, although they are more common with higher-ranking employees or when mass layoffs occur. Companies may be especially inclined to seek nondisparagement clauses when employees leave amid controversy or on bad terms. Following an introduction, this article reviews cases concerning nondisparagement clauses in severance agreements, highlighting key legal issues. The author examines nondisparagement clauses in other types of contracts, where they may violate relevant employment or consumer protection statutes. Drawing on this background, the author describes a brief capstone exercise for an introductory business law or legal environment course, focusing on the questions presented above as a means for reviewing and enhancing students' understanding of… [Direct]
(2023). At the Very Apex: What the Supreme Court's Student Speech Cases Have to Teach Us about a Constitutional Right to Education. Teachers College Record, v125 n1 p84-103 Jan. Background/Context: In the 1973 "Rodriguez" decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Constitution does not guarantee a substantive federal right to education. So far, this holding has not been adequately contextualized with many other statements the Court has made concerning the nature of education in the constitutional order. For example, since the 1969 "Tinker" decision, the Court has repeatedly justified curtailing student free speech by appealing to important educational goods, but the necessity of providing these educational goods has not been harmonized with the Court's denial of a federal right to education. Purpose/Objective/Research Question or Focus of Study: Is the Court's denial of a constitutional right to education consistent with how education is formulated in the Court's other decisions related to education, particularly as found in the student speech cases? Research Design: A "holistic analysis" is employed to examine the Supreme… [Direct]