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CHASM in the CLASSROOM Campus Free Speech in a Divided America CHASM in the CLASSROOM Campus Free Speech in a Divided America

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CHASM in the CLASSROOM Campus Free Speech in a Divided America CHASM in the CLASSROOM Campus Free Speech in a Divided America CHASM IN THE CLASSROOM Campus Free Speech in a Divided America CHASM IN THE CLASSROOM Campus Free Speech in a Divided America April 2, 2019 ©2019 PEN America. All rights reserved. PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and hu- man rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Founded in 1922, PEN America is the largest of more than 100 centers of PEN International. Our strength is in our membership—a nationwide community of more than 7,000 novelists, journalists, poets, es- sayists, playwrights, editors, publishers, translators, agents, and other writing professionals. For more information, visit pen.org. Design by Pettypiece + Co. Cover image: Protesters chant during Richard Spencer's speech at the University of Florida in October 2017. Photograph by Evelyn Hockstein. CONTENTS LETTER 4 INTRODUCTION 5 SECTION I HATE AND INTIMIDATION ON CAMPUS 13 SECTION II SHUTDOWNS AND SHOUT-DOWNS 29 SECTION III FACULTY UNDER FIRE 47 SECTION IV STUDENTS’ VIEWS 60 SECTION V LEGISLATIVE AND POLITICAL ACTION 72 SPECIAL SECTION ECHOES ABROAD 85 PEN AMERICA PRINCIPLES ON CAMPUS FREE SPEECH 91 ENDNOTES 96 From Our Chief Executive Officer LETTER This report is informed by wisdom, perseverance, and ingenuity. PEN America is PEN America’s tracking of also indebted to Adeline Lee, PEN America’s Campus speech-related incidents Speech Coordinator, who played an indispensable and controversies on col- role in both the campus convenings, the drafting and lege and university cam- editing of this report, and the balance of our work puses for the past 3 years. in this area. Her aplomb, communication and inter- Our analysis has been par- personal skills, warmth, and analytic prowess have ticularly shaped by four contributed immeasurably to our work. PEN America’s convenings we organized Senior Director of Free Expression Programs, Summer in the 2017-2018 academic Lopez, provided leadership, support, a keen eye, sharp year on campuses that had editing skills, and dogged determination that were been the sites of particularly pitched controversies: essential to seeing the project through. PEN Free the University of California at Berkeley, Middlebury Expression experts James Tager and Nora Benavidez College, the University of Maryland at College Park, and provided extensive support in the researching, writing, the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. We express and editing of key sections. Special thanks also are deep gratitude to the participants in these convenings extended to the consultants who contributed to its and are indebted to the countless campus leaders and formation, Soraya Ferdman who contributed in numer- student affairs professionals who made these import- ous, critical ways, to legal extern Marc Walkow for his ant partnerships and searching conversations possi- research and legal support, to Noah Kippley-Ogman, ble: Matt Banfield, Susan Baldridge, Bill Burger, Carol for contributing to early drafts, and to past PEN Amer- Christ, Gina Banks Daly, Adrian Diaz, Michael Emerson ica staff including Katy Glenn Bass who spearheaded Dirda, Maya Goehring-Harris, Khira Griscavage, Archie our four campus convenings and Laura Macomber Holmes, Tom Katsouleas, Jenny Kwon, Dan Mogulof, who conducted initial research. The report could not Laurie Patton, Alexandra Rebhorn, Tim Spears, Elyse have come together without the assistance of many Smith, Timea Webster, and Roger Worthington. We interns, including Mary Akdemir, Mansee Khurana, also thank the dozens of students, faculty, staff, and Jessica Brofsky, Eli Miller, Erin Neil, Adam Panish, and administrators involved in the convenings who agreed Inika Sahney. to speak privately with PEN America and helped ensure We are especially grateful to Amy Binder and Jeffrey accuracy as we recounted events on their campuses. Kidder for allowing us to quote from their interviews We are grateful to the countless campus leaders, with college students in Section IV of this report, and commentators, student affairs professionals, faculty to the many external readers who reviewed the report members, and students who have heightened our in full or in part in the lead-up to publication. Thanks thinking, analysis, and understanding of these issues to Jeffrey Adam Sachs, Ulrich Baer, Sigal Ben-Porath, through close partnerships and honest feedback. Nana Brantuo, Joe Cohn, Jonathan Haidt, Robert Post, These individuals include: Floyd Abrams, Erik Bleich, Nadine Strossen, and Jonathan Zimmerman for your David Campt, Erwin Chemerinsky, Jelani Cobb, Mi- helpful feedback. We also extend thanks to Pettyp- chael Goodman, Will DiGravio, Jonathan Holloway, iece & Co. for graphic design, and to Susan Chumsky Jerry Kang, Sarah Kenny, Michele Minter, Dan Mo- whose careful editing and proofreading made the gulof, Ishaan Parikh, Robert Post, Marissa Reynoso, report tighter and clearer. Carol Rose, Michael Roth, Elizabeth Siyuan Lee, Tim PEN America takes responsibility for this report Spears, Geoffrey Stone, Sarah Stroup, Nadine Stros- and any errors are our own. We are publishing the sen, Joan Wallach Scott, W. Bradford Wilcox, Roger report online and reserve the right to make correc- Worthington, and Robert Zimmer. tions and edits as necessary. If significant and sub- In August 2018 Jonathan Friedman joined PEN stantive post-release edits are made they will be America to lead our Campus Free Speech Program marked as such. and spearhead the research and drafting of this re- port. Without his hard work, acumen, patience and insight this report would not have been completed. Jonathan wrestled with enormous volumes of ma- Suzanne Nossel terial, contradictions, nuances, and roadblocks with Chief Executive Officer 4 PEN AMERICA INTRODUCTION Failures of political The main campus of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities is bisected by the Mississippi River. Straddling leadership, persistent the water and stretching over a thousand feet is the Washington Avenue Bridge, which carries motor vehi- racism and bigotry, the cles, light rail trains, bicycles, and pedestrians. Built in 1965, the bridge is a central artery for campus traffic, weaponization of speech with thousands of students, faculty, and administra- on digital platforms, and tors crossing daily.1 In the past three years, the bridge has also become the site of annual controversy on gaps in civic education are the Minneapolis campus. In a tradition dating back to the mid-1990s, stu- combining to undermine dent groups gather every fall to paint the panels that line the bridge’s pedestrian walkway to showcase the consensus for an open the diversity of clubs at the university and share information about how to get involved.2 The painted marketplace for ideas. images and slogans vary each year; according to one student article about the bridge, “All that matters is that you catch the attention of passersby.”3 In 2016, conversation with the university president on “cam- the university’s College Republicans set out to do pus climate,” which had been planned weeks earlier, just that, choosing to devote one panel to the phrase to voice concerns about the treatment of students of “Build the Wall”—associated with Donald Trump’s color at the institution. They carried signs reading, “I presidential campaign—and another to the phrase Don’t Feel Safe Here” and “Build Love Not Walls.”10 “Trump Pence 2016.” Within 24 hours, the group’s The Department of Chicano and Latino Studies or- panels were graffitied over with multiple tags, and the ganized a teach-in on immigration, free speech, and only legible message was “Stop White Supremacy,” the role of the university that was well attended.11 rendered in gold.4 One College Republican student leader told Fox The next day, the university’s president, Eric Kaler, News that the episode was "the latest instance of sent a campus-wide email defending the right of the conservative students being targeted because of College Republicans to voice their opinion. “Build the their support of Trump."12 Wall” was to be protected as “free, political speech,” To one camp, the paint wars were just another he said, and those who found it distasteful should example of how college campuses had become inhos- “engage in more protected speech” to counter it.5 pitable to free speech, with left-leaning populations That afternoon, nearly 150 students gathered on the ready to censor conservative ideas. On the other bridge to protest these messages. A coalition of ac- side were students and faculty who, amid a pitched ademic departments released a statement saying presidential campaign marked by charges of sexism, that the university’s response did not recognize the racism, and xenophobia, were acutely sensitive to “inherent violence within this slogan,” which they said bigoted overtones in messages manifesting on cam- was a form of “barely covert" racism.6 They called pus. “Both sides feel their own sense of voiceless- for the university to “actively take responsibility ness,” one journalist wrote on November 4, adding for the racist and xenophobic climate that is being that everyone seems to agree on one thing: “The fostered in this public space.”7 The College Repub- 2016 campaign is exhausting.”13 licans, meanwhile, issued a statement thanking the Within a week, Donald Trump was elected the 45th president for his support but expressing their own president of the United States. In the nearly two dismay: “We find it highly disturbing that someone and a half years since, the panels on the Washington would vandalize a simple statement such as ‘build Avenue Bridge at the University of Minnesota have the wall.’”8 been a consistent flashpoint, the site of an annual In the ensuing days, the bridge uniting the two tit-for-tat between warring student groups. In 2017, a halves of the campus became a locus of division.
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