Free Speech Unmuted: Campus Speech, with Dean Erwin Chemerinsky (Berkeley Law)

Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky—who is also a noted scholar of constitutional law and academic freedom—joins Jane Bambauer and me to discuss student speech controversies (including the one that was literally in Erwin's back yard), as well as faculty academic freedom in scholarship, public commentary, and teaching.

Comments

[Commenter_XY]

Runs for an hour regular playback. You can speed it up through settings, playback speed 1.5x; then it is ~40 mins. You don’t really lose anything. That saves you some time.

[Don Nico]

I was impressed by the viciousness of the shit who decided to interrupt the Dean's dinner with her harangue.

[Commenter_XY]

There is no reasoning with them when they become fevered and rabid.

[Absaroka]

Very interesting, thanks!

1)I thought that the Dean's point that allowing conduct contrary to the rules by one group means allowing the same conduct by all groups in the future seems to be a big deal.

2)The Dean advocates for making hiring decisions solely based on merit, without a finger on the scale to support intellectual diversity. And I think that is certainly the desired end state, but OTOH I supported affirmative action in the 1960's, because the existing imbalance was so large we, pragmatically, couldn't wait several generations for, say, Ole Miss to slowly integrate its faculty. When you look at the numbers for, say, sociology or history departments it also seems like a course correction is in order so that we can restore the balance in less than multiple generations.

3)The Dean has an impressive intellect.

[gormadoc]

On 2), I don't think he believes in hiring based solely on merit:
"What I mean by unstated affirmative action is, what if the college or university doesn’t tell anybody, doesn’t make any public statements, but still wants to do it. I’ll give you an example from our law school—but if ever I’m deposed I’m going to deny I said this to you. When we do faculty hiring, we’re quite conscious that diversity is important to us. And we say diversity is important, it’s fine to say that. But, I’m very careful when we have a faculty appointments committee meeting. Any time somebody says, you know, we should really prefer this candidate over this candidate, because this person would add to diversity— don’t say that! You can think it, you can vote it, but our discussions are not privileged, so don’t ever articulate that that’s what you’re doing!"

[Absaroka]

Well, evidently not!

(I presume that's a Chemerinsky quote? I didn't see it in the transcript, did I miss it or it sourced elsewhere?)

[mulched]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12253931/White-Berkeley-Law-dean-tells-class-illegally-discriminates-hiring-boost-diversity.html

It came out several months ago, presumably related to the SFFA cases.

[Absaroka]

Thanks!

FWIW, I think that's quite wrong. The dean is an employee, and should abide by his employer's rules. 'Do this, but keep it off the record' means you're doing something wrong, and know it.

[gormadoc]

As mulched said, Chemerinsky had said it during class. It was also referenced by one of the follow-up cases after SFFA.

[Krayt]

A decade or so back, my state gov went to umich and said, "Tell us your internal rules, weightings, for how you select students."

"Nope."

[Dr. Ed 2]

"the Dean’s point that allowing conduct contrary to the rules by one group means allowing the same conduct by all groups in the future seems to be a big deal."

It IS -- content neutrality.

[Krayt]

allowing conduct contrary to the rules by one group means allowing the same conduct by all

"Oh noes?"

[mydisplayname]

Freedom means a shot across the bow: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/05/07/biden-delays-weapons-israel-rafah/

[Krayt]

“YES!!!”, scream everyone from soft, kind hearts concerned with innocents to far larger numbers who don’t and want to push millions into the sea. Tiki torch sales go up.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Israel's response should be that they will have to resort to area bombing (or shelling) instead. WAY more casualties...

And Congress should introduce an article of impeachment -- make Dems with Jewish districts vote on this.

[Internet sloth]

Gratitude for the insightful and balanced analysis, which I would imagine is harder than it looks when the events are happening so close to home. Namaste.