UC's National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement $20K Non-Residential Fellowships

The Center is accepting applications until March 15; check out the details here. (I'm one of the Advisory Board members.) An excerpt:

Each year, the Center selects Fellows from a broad range of disciplines and backgrounds such as law, journalism, higher education, social science, technology and government.

The Center welcomes candidates from all backgrounds to apply, and invites a wide range of innovative projects. As part of the University of California, the Center is committed to promoting diversity and equal opportunity in its education, services and administration, as well as research and creative activity. We are focused on projects that address current issues affecting students, staff, administrators and faculty and will have a direct impact on individuals and communities across campuses. Work products can take many forms such as (but not limited to) qualitative/quantitative research, curricular modules, toolkits or training programs/pilots.

As a Center Fellow, you will be welcomed into a community of practitioners, educators and students who share the common purpose of advancing the mission of the Center. Incoming Fellows are connected with former Fellows and become part of a larger UC-wide and national network of scholars, educators, practitioners and activists.

The one-year fellowship will run from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025.

• This is not a residential fellowship. Selected fellowships will be awarded $20,000 to support their work, and up to $5,000 in research funds will be available as needed.
• Fellows are expected to participate in monthly meetings (virtual) and two one-day colloquia on a UC campus, at the UC Center in Washington, D.C. or virtually. Travel and accommodations will be covered by the Center if applicable.
• Involvement and interaction with the UC community is critical to the Center's mission. Over the course of the program, Fellows will be provided access to resources and connections throughout the 10-campus UC system as befits their research.

Potential Project Themes, Topics and Activities

This year we remain particularly interested in issues that explore the connections between higher education and democracy such as:

• Effective methods to teach and build skills for dialogue across difference; encouraging robust conversation in and out of the classroom;
• The connections between international events and expression on campus;
• Relationships between free speech, falsehoods, disinformation/misinformation and artificial intelligence.

We also welcome additional themes, topics and activities that fit within the Center's mission which may include (not an exhaustive list):

• How best to safeguard academic freedom in response to the national and global climate including legislative assaults and other threats to the creation and transmission of knowledge;
• Exploring the interaction between diversity, inclusion and expression on campus;
• Navigating values-based polarization and political partisanship in higher education;
• Higher education's role in supporting democracy and democratic learning;
• How to incorporate civic engagement and democratic learning into everyday life and learning on campus;
• Understanding what motivates civic engagement among diverse campus groups.

Comments

[EscherEnigma]

The cheerleader for library censorship is an Advisory Board member for UC's National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement?

What, to sabotage it?

[Eugene Volokh]

Seems to me that one can support free speech in general, while at the same time concluding that school libraries are entitled to pick and choose which speech to provide to their students. To be sure, it's a complicated question, as the 4-4 split in Pico reveals; perhaps I'm mistaken in my views. But the question whether the First Amendment prohibits viewpoint-based school library book removal seems like a poor litmus test for who is really a supporter of free speech.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Three words: in loco parentis.

The ONLY time this becomes an issue is when the in loco and the actual parentis don’t quite see things the same way. Otherwise, there is no disputing the right (and need) to make decisions as to what books should or shouldn’t be in a children’s library.

For example, I think most people would agree that that the History of Explosives book ought not be in a middle school library -- but ought be in a civil engineering college library as a cautionary tale to pay attention when using explosives.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

the question whether the First Amendment prohibits viewpoint-based school library book removal seems like a poor litmus test for who is really a supporter of free speech.

What about repeated, viewpoint-driven censorship imposed by the operator of a blog?

[Dr. Ed 2]

" How best to safeguard academic freedom in response to the national and global climate including legislative assaults and other threats to the creation and transmission of knowledge;"

What if you believe in the concept of representative democracy and the related belief that the people, through their elected representatives, should have the right to determine the curriculum of the schools they are paying for.