(2010). Everything but "Censorship": How U.S. Newspapers Have Framed Student Free Speech and Press, 1969-2008. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park. Legal scholars rarely focus on student First Amendment rights, and general public understanding of the extent of these rights is vague at best. While media scholars have focused much attention on newspaper coverage of more mainstream issues, no notable attention has been given to examining the way news media cover student First Amendment rights. As future leaders in a democracy, students at public schools are inculcated with notions of civic duty, independent thinking, and a respect for the freedoms that distinguish the U.S. from other countries. However, many public school students are consistently denied their rights to the very same freedoms they are expected to value. When students seek legal action to guarantee First Amendment protections, how U.S. newspapers frame these lawsuits and the students involved can greatly impact public perception of these issues. This study examines newspaper coverage of eight court cases that set precedent on student free speech and press… [Direct]
(2009). Spotlight on Speech Codes 2009: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation's Campuses. Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (NJ1) Each year, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) conducts a wide, detailed survey of restrictions on speech at America's colleges and universities. The survey and resulting report explore the extent to which schools are meeting their obligations to uphold students' and faculty members' rights to freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and private conscience. This year's report examines the restrictions on speech in force at a large sample of American colleges and universities and identifies emergent trends within the data. The report also addresses recent developments regarding free speech in the university setting, drawing from FIRE's research on university policies and from cases that FIRE has handled over the past academic year. Some highlights from this year's research include: (1) Jackson State University in Mississippi prohibits speech "which degrades, insult [sic], taunt [sic], or challenges another person by any means of communication, verbal [sic],… [PDF]
(2010). Singing All the Way to the Union. Academe, v96 n1 p18-20 Jan-Feb. In early 1909, just over a hundred years ago, the Spokane, Washington, branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) got a reputation as a "singing union." Later that year, the same Spokane branch of the IWW embarked on a massive free speech fight. IWW agitators would arrive on street corners, call on the crowds not to pay for work, and inform them that the union could find them better jobs. The IWW speakers would also sing. Public agitation was an essential part of organizing, and song was essential to agitation. Free speech had been won, not by the bourgeois intelligentsia that usually gets credit for such things, but by the organization and performance-artistry of the working class. Today, people still complain about limits on their free speech. Yet they no longer agitate, and they rarely sing. And graduate students do so least of all. Yet graduate students, no matter how quiet voiced and library prone, are in a special position to revive the proletarian publicness… [Direct]
(2009). The Chicago 8 Trial, 40 Years Later: A Case Study in Teaching "U.S. v. Dellinger" (1969). Social Education, v73 n5 p203-206 Sep. Growing up in an era when protest at national political conventions is carefully contained in "free-speech zones" (often physically removed from the site of the official conventions), students today may have a difficult time conceptualizing the tumultuous scene that was the 1968 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago. Fueled by the consensus-shattering backdrop of the Vietnam War, the upheaval of a civil rights movement turned violent, the assassinations and abdications of national leaders both beloved and despised, and the cultural chasm opened by a rising generation of questioning youth, the chaos and unrest of that historic confrontation open up a unique opportunity for twenty-first-century youth to review fundamental issues of democracy that continue to shape America's political culture. A perennial issue confronting democracies is: When does free speech become punishable for "intent to incite a riot"? This article offers a blueprint for addressing… [Direct]
(2012). All Words Are Not Created Equal: Expectations about Word Length Guide Infant Statistical Learning. Cognition, v122 n2 p241-246 Feb. Infants have been described as \statistical learners\ capable of extracting structure (such as words) from patterned input (such as language). Here, we investigated whether prior knowledge influences how infants track transitional probabilities in word segmentation tasks. Are infants biased by prior experience when engaging in sequential statistical learning? In a laboratory simulation of learning across time, we exposed 9- and 10-month-old infants to a list of either disyllabic or trisyllabic nonsense words, followed by a pause-free speech stream composed of a different set of disyllabic or trisyllabic nonsense words. Listening times revealed successful segmentation of words from fluent speech only when words were uniformly disyllabic or trisyllabic throughout both phases of the experiment. Hearing trisyllabic words during the pre-exposure phase derailed infants' abilities to segment speech into disyllabic words, and vice versa. We conclude that prior knowledge about word length… [Direct]
(2014). 2013 Dewey Lecture: College–What Is It Good For?. Education and Culture, v30 n1 Article 2 p3-15 Spr. In this 2013 John Dewey Society Lecture I examine the history and the structure of the American system of higher education. I argue that the true hero of the story is the evolved "form" of the American university and that all the things we love about it, like free speech, are the side effects of a structure that arose for other purposes. I tell this story in three parts. First I explore how the American system of higher education emerged in the nineteenth century, without a plan and without any apparent promise that it would turn out well. Then I show how this process created an astonishingly strong, resilient, and powerful structure, which deftly balances competing aims–the populist, the practical, and the elite. Then I veer back toward the issue raised in the title, to figure out what the connection is between the form of American higher education and the things that it is good for. I argue that the form serves the extraordinarily useful functions of protecting those of… [Direct]
(2007). 4 Challenges to Free Speech in Academe. Chronicle of Higher Education, v54 n10 pB7 Nov. Free speech in American higher education was sorely tested by three bizarre events in the waning days of September and another incident in early October. Each one has potentially grave implications for free expression and academic freedom, and thus merits closer scrutiny. The first event was the extension, then withdrawal and eventual reinstatement, of an offer of a deanship at the University of California to an outspoken scholar of constitutional law. The second was the lecture given by an anti-Western head of state, a vehement Holocaust denier, at Columbia University, along with a less than cordial welcome by the university's president. Meanwhile, though barely noted, the University of California's Board of Regents withdrew a speaking invitation to an eminent economist who is better known as a former president of Harvard. Finally, just as the dust was settling, the University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota, declined to invite to the campus, as one of a series of Nobel laureates, a… [Direct]
(2012). Bullying and Mobbing in Academe: Challenges for Distance Education and Social Media Applications. Journal of Academic Administration in Higher Education, v8 n1 p49-58 Spr. Bullying and mobbing are migrating to online realms, intensifying the damage involved and increasing the complexities of these issues. Social media (such as Facebook and Twitter) are intensely communal in many senses; they may serve to increase the negative aspects of bullying and mobbing as well as provide community-oriented tools for mitigation. Academic environments such as distance education also introduce intricate dimensions to these concerns, especially involving online freedom of speech and privacy issues. Younger individuals in academic realms may not be aware of the power of words and images to harm, especially in seemingly playful online contexts. Higher education institutions are legally and morally constrained in terms of student and employee privacy and free speech, which can make it difficult to protect victims and control the dissemination of often-damaging information. Many social media platforms allow for the surveillance and recording of incidents of bullying and… [PDF]
(2011). Assessing Internal Group Processes in Collaborative Assignments. English Journal, v100 n6 p41-46 Jul. As teachers consider ethics, they find that it may often look like a student issue. It may be discussions of plagiarism, social justice, honesty, bullying, privacy, child labor, free speech, inequity. However, even as teachers struggle with ways to model ethics or \teach\ ethics, they find that their teaching practices may warrant reflection. One of these may be the question of distinguishing between the group and the individual when assessing products done in a group-work setting. Involving students in close examinations of their work in groups can increase the effectiveness of collaborative learning strategies. However, asking them to work in groups can also raise practical and ethical questions about assessment. Drawing on a survey of her students, the author discusses some of these issues and suggests workable solutions. (Contains 1 figure.)… [Direct]
(2007). Rights at Stake in Free-Speech Case. Education Week, v26 n27 p1, 28-29 Mar. Despite the less-than-weighty incident at its core–the display of a homemade banner emblazoned with "Bong Hits 4 Jesus"–a case that the U.S. Supreme Court will take up carries potentially far-reaching consequences for student speech, and for the legal protections of public school educators. From a sea of controversies over student speech–on T-shirts, in classroom assignments, on Web pages, and in other forms that have conveyed political, religious, or arguably violent or offensive messages–the justices have chosen to review the case of an Alaska senior at Juneau-Douglas High School who was disciplined for exhibiting the banner at an Olympic-torch relay outside the school in January 2002. It was a fleeting statement that its creator describes as lacking in any particular meaning other than to provoke. Upset by the banner's reference to drug paraphernalia, Ms. Morse asked Mr. Frederick and the others to drop the banner, according to court papers. When Mr. Frederick… [Direct]
(2007). Free Speech, Quality Control, and Flame Wars. Academe, v93 n1 p50-55 Jan-Feb. The authors who happened to be moderators of academic online discussions bring tales from the trenches. Whether it's computational chemistry, the history of the book, or women's studies, the technology and the users can both prove difficult. The first author talks about two scholarly discussion lists. SHARP-L, whose name comes from the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing, focuses on book history, and VICTORIA is devoted to the culture and society of nineteenth-century Britain. The second author talks about mixing the media on CCL.NET, an Internet-based public forum on the use of computers in chemistry for almost sixteen years. The third author talks about moderation on WMST-L…. [Direct]
(2011). Hope, Healing, and Care: Pushing the Boundaries of Civic Engagement for African American Youth. Liberal Education, v97 n2 p34-39 Spr. Issues such as joblessness, violence, and substance abuse have threatened some forms of civic life and community well-being in African American urban neighborhoods. And for young people, a diminished capacity for hope is one of the most significant threats to civic engagement. Community organizations are responding to this crisis by creating opportunities for healing through caring relationships, strong social networks, and action taken to improve social conditions. Given the vibrant role of young people in the civil rights, free speech, Black Power, and other movements, additional research is needed to provide a more nuanced understanding of the contours of activism and civic engagement among African American youth. Further, a more robust understanding of how social settings and political contexts influence civic opportunities would help explain why youth of color seem to be disconnected from political life today…. [Direct]
(2008). When It Comes to Free Speech, Is a Professor Just Another Government Employee?. Chronicle of Higher Education, v54 n47 pA26 Aug. A case pending in a federal court of appeals in California may clarify a surprisingly murky question: Do faculty members at public universities enjoy a special privilege to speak freely about institutional matters, or, as far as the First Amendment is concerned, are they just another category of government hirelings? Juan Hong, a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of California at Irvine, sued the university after he was denied a merit salary increase in 2005. The denial was in retaliation, Hong alleges, for his history as a self-described "outspoken critic of university administrators on their mismanagement of their administrative responsibility." In one incident, Hong complained that too much teaching in his department was being done by lecturers rather than tenured professors. In another, he criticized his chair and dean for extending an informal employment offer to an assistant professor before a faculty vote. Hong also mounted… [Direct]
(2013). Thou Shall Not Do What Thou Wants. Principal Leadership, v14 n2 p8-10 Oct. Imagine a teacher who posted pictures of their favorite presidential candidate during the election season or a teacher who displayed a poster with the tenets of Scientology in the classroom. At issue in those scenarios is the extent to which teachers' expression in the classroom is protected by the First Amendment. This column focuses on a recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case that addressed whether a math teacher in San Diego was allowed to hang religious banners in the classroom. In "Johnson v. Poway Unified School District" (2011), it was noted that school officials permitted teachers to decorate their classroom with posters that included various messages. Although some teachers displayed posters of the Beatles, others displayed pictures of Mahatma Gandhi or the Dalai Lama. The math teacher involved in this case displayed two very large banners in his classroom. The first banner used the mottoes "In God we trust," "One nation under God," "God… [Direct]
(2009). A Place from where to Speak: The University and Academic Freedom. British Journal of Educational Studies, v57 n2 p146-163 Jun. The university is promoted as \a place from where to speak\. Academic freedom is examined as a crucial value in an increasingly uncertain age which resonates with Barnett's concern to encourage students to overcome their \fear of freedom\. My concern is that the putative university space of freedom and autonomy may well become constricted by those who would limit not just our freedom to speak but also our freedoms to be and to do. Without academic freedom students and teachers, who might be able to fly, will not be permitted to fly. I review issues of academic freedom and free speech raised especially by Berlin, Voltaire, von Humboldt, Mill, Milton and Rorty. I discuss problems raised when free speech is heard by others as harmful and offensive to their beliefs and values. I offer a set of suggestions to ensure that the university may envision itself as a space of freedom, pluralism and tolerance. Finally, I reflect that the university, of all democratic institutions, should be the… [Direct]