Speech conference

A University of California free speech conference has turned into a microcosm of the free speech battles that regularly take place on U.S. college campuses after student activists show up at the event in Washington on Thursday and interrupted speakers to advocate for increases for graduate teaching assistants in the system.

The handful of undergraduate students representing COLA for All, a group pushing for a monthly cost-of-living adjustment of $ 1,412, or COLA, for teaching assistants on all UC campuses, are standing by. are sometimes held in front and interrupted speakers and panelists at # SpeechMatters2020, which was hosted by UC’s National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. The protesters, who study at the center of Washington’s university system, said it was ironic that the conference addressed how institutions should allow campus activists to speak out with respect while, at the same time, Conference organizers were moving protesters to the side of the stage to prevent their posters from blocking the view of members of the public of speakers on the stage.

Protesters were holding placards describing information about the California Teaching Assistants’ strike and calling on UC President Janet Napolitano, who was seated in the front row, to resign.

Michelle Deutchman, executive director of the center, told the students they could stay but couldn’t disrupt the speakers. She used the recommended language that UC Irvine includes in its policy to “prevent and respond to disruptions in real time”.

It was “appropriate” to attend a live demonstration at a conference focusing on the campus protests and their treatment, said Akshita Gandra, a UC Davis student who attended the conference and is UC National Center Valuing Open and Inclusive Conversation and Engagement recipient. Gandra said she understood protesters’ frustration over graduate student salaries, which has been a constant problem since arriving at the Davis campus four years ago.

“Maybe it was good to give them five minutes on the microphone to talk about the cause,” Gandra said of the protesters.

Protesters Missy Hart and Jazleez Jacobo accused conference leaders of silencing them.

“Why are you censoring me? Jacobo said he was driven to the side of the conference stage. “It goes hand in hand with the tactics the university uses to silence us. Yeah, everyone has access to freedom of expression, we have the right to demonstrate, but did we do it within the framework?

Protesters compared their treatment at the conference to clashes between police and protesters at UC Santa Cruz, such as earlier this month when 17 protesters on campus were arrested for illegal assembly and non-dispersal. Graduate teaching assistants have been protesting and striking since December, demanding a pay rise to help them cope with the high cost of living in California.

UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara graduate students joined the strike on Thursday – labeled a “wildcat” strike because it was not approved by United Auto Workers Local 2865, the union representing 19,000 student workers in the UC system. UC Santa Cruz graduate students participating in the strike have refused to submit their grades for the fall 2019 term, and UC Davis graduate students will follow suit for the winter term, The Sacramento Bee reported.

Jacobo said the strike, which is now spreading to other UC campuses, will have a ripple effect on undergraduates, some of whom have not received their fall grades and are at risk of have their classes canceled.

“As undergraduates, we are not protected by anything,” Jacobo said. “So when I can’t take my classes or someone else can’t continue their education… they’re not going to take that into account. “

Hart and Jacobo said they and others were frustrated by Napolitano’s refusal to engage with them at the conference, which Jacobo called a “spectacle.”

Administrators facing protests on their campuses “are navigating dangerous waters,” Deutchman said in an interview before the conference began. She said she sympathizes with institutional leaders who struggle to balance the rights of students to speak out and protect the rights of students who feel wronged by certain types of speech.

“I have a lot of admiration for them, not just because they are the ones who are sometimes criticized, but sometimes they are forced to defend someone’s right to come to campus,” Deutchman said.

Napolitano did not address or recognize the protesters who remained silent and held up signs during his opening speech at the start of the conference. But in an interview the day before the conference, she discussed some of the challenges university administrators face when scheduled events and speakers spark controversy.

“Sometimes the protest activity takes the form of stopping speech,” Napolitano said. “It’s a tough problem for university administrators – are you bringing all the students up to the student conduct charge?” Are you trying to make arrests? Do you apologize and move on? It is a decision-making framework that university rectors must go through.

At the time of the conference’s final panel, in which Napolitano and others were scheduled to discuss the “executive’s perspectives on free speech on campus,” Deutchman announced that the conference was over time and that the panel was canceled. Protesters said they planned to use the panel as an opportunity to confront Napolitano about the increases for teaching assistants.

“Protests and participation are not always easy, and they can often reshape our programs, as they have done today,” Deutchman said after the conference. “But they remain of crucial importance for the proper functioning of our democracy, and today we had the opportunity to see it in action.”

Greensboro, North Carolina—The UNCG Department of Communication, with major funding from the National Communication Association, presents “Finding Expression in Contested Public Spaces: Free Speech Conference 2019” on Thursday and Friday October 24 and 25 in the Virginia Dare room of the House of the Elders on the UNCG campus.

The conference is designed to affirm the principles of freedom of expression, highlight scientific contributions and present community presentations addressing current concerns, debates and promises of free speech. Students, community members and faculty will share their scholarships, creative products, and advocacy interventions on contested campus and community issues. Conference organizer Dr Spoma Jovanovic is Professor of Communication Studies and 2019-2010 Fellow of the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement at the University of California.

Thursday nightly activities, 7-9 p.m., will feature the memory of the Greensboro Massacre with 40 seconds of silence and an opening speech, “Tribalism, Voicelessness and the Problem of Free Speech Presented by Dr. Eric King Watts of UNC-Chapel Hill before concluding with light refreshments. Dr Watts will examine the role post-truth plays in producing and amplifying intensely antagonistic audiences. He will discuss recent incidents of racial violence and controversies surrounding (anti) immigration policies and practices – acts that materialize that matter and that don’t – to examine how loud and angry voices are raised that make increasingly speechless democratic politics.

Friday, hourly sessions from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., will explore a variety of issues related to the controversies and teaching of the First Amendment, freedom of speech, and public expression, including: freedom of speech and popular music, video games, participatory democracy, controversies surrounding public monuments, rights of the homeless, speakers’ corners around the world, nonviolent mass movements and free speech laws on campus. Each session will include time for questions and answers.

The conference extends the commitment of the Department of Communication Studies at UNCG to deepen civic learning in the discipline and builds on the success of three previous symposia on the theme of Communication and Democracy organized by the department. since 2017.

Find expression in contested public spaces
Conference on Freedom of Expression 24-25 October 2019 Salle Virginia Dare, UNCG

THURSDAY – 10/24/19

7:00 p.m.-9: 00 p.m .: Welcome, Greensboro Massacre 40e Commemoration and opening speech

Welcome and 40 seconds of silence in commemoration of the Greensboro massacre

Dr Spoma Jovanovic, UNC Greensboro

Keynote Address: Tribalism, Lack of Voice and the Problem of Freedom of Expression

Dr Eric King Watts, UNC Chapel Hill

FRIDAY – 25/10/19

8: 00-8: 50 a.m .: Pedagogy and the 1st Amendment

Moderator: Dr. Spoma Jovanvoic, UNCG Department of Communication Studies

Welcome remarks

Dr. John Kiss, Dean of UNCG of the College of Arts and Sciences

Music as communication activism: educating for freedom through an interdisciplinary service-learning project

Mark Congdon Jr. and Lamera Palmer, The College of Saint Rose

Video games as freedom of expression: reproducing inequalities and pushing justice to the margins

Marina Lambrinou, UNC Greensboro and Yacine Kout, University of North Georgia

9: 00-9: 50 a.m .: Academic freedom and freedom of expression on campus

Moderator: Michael Frierson, UNCG chapter of AAUP

The freedom to listen

Lisbeth Lipari, Denison University

The First Amendment and the NC Campus Free Speech Act: their application to public universities in North Carolina

Jerry Blakemore. UNC Greensboro

Bypass the clear and present danger test

Craig Smith, California State University, Long Beach

10: 00-10: 50 a.m .: Contested public spaces

Moderator: Anna Fesmire, League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad

Legislate memory: accommodate challenges to public monuments

Laura Ricciardi, State University of New York at Purchase College

Social power and the right to the city: homelessness, access to public space, activism and

First amendment

Marcus Hyde, UNC Greensboro and Gary Kenton and Zalonda Woods, community members

Video of activists from local Greensboro leaders funded by the UNCG-Mellon Foundation

11: 00-11: 50 a.m .: Limits of freedom of expression and expression

Moderator: Dr Roy Schwartzman, UNCG Department of Communication Studies

Greensboro, 1963: Mass nonviolence at the frontiers of free speech

Thomas Jackson, UNC Greensboro

Money, Speech and Power: Participatory Budgeting as a Path to Free Speech in Public Spending

Vincent Russell and Therese Gardner, University of Colorado, Boulder

Speakers’ corners around the world

Spoma Jovanovic, UNC Greensboro

13h00-13h50: Violence, Hatred, Control of freedom of expression

Moderator: Holly Williams, UNCG Department of Communication Studies

Identity and Free Speech: The Social Justice Rhetoric of African American Women

Sarah Hollingsworth, Oklahoma State University

Balancing the Goods of Speech in a Postmodern Historical Moment

David Errera, Duquesne University

A Safe Space for the White Race: An Interrogation of White Nationalist Propaganda on College Campuses

Gabriel Cruz, High Point University and Patrick Sawyer, UNC Greensboro

14h00-14h50: Talk about Race

Moderator: Doris Wesley, UNCG Department of Communication Studies

Powerful unpacking of the Race Talk

Sonny Kelly and Elizabeth M. Melton, UNC Chapel Hill

The weeks leading up to the Siena event were marked by the types of controversies that witnessed similar gatherings on campuses across the country. Among the questions raised: Should we limit the number of people who can be invited to speak on campus?

In a recent interview, the presidents of the three conservative campus organizations behind the event made it clear that they didn’t want this to turn into a chaotic melee, let alone riots sparked by recent visits to the event. ‘alt-right. figures at the University of California’s Berkeley campus.

“The aim of the conference is to educate students about freedom of expression, how it affects them and its importance for their country,” said Antonio Bianchi, junior of Siena, president of Turning Point Siena .

Bianchi hosted the event with Alec Barkett, president of the Siena College chapter of Young Americans for Liberty, and Michael Bove, president of Siena’s College Republicans.

All said they focused on inviting speakers who could talk about free speech from multiple angles and help balance what they saw as a liberal tilt among former speakers on campus.

Stone is expected to discuss free speech on social media. The longtime political adviser, lobbyist and author was recently banned from Twitter. Special Advocate Robert Mueller has been investigating Stone’s contacts with Wikileaks in connection with the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race, according to numerous recent reports.

James O’Keefe, who will speak on free speech in the media, heads a Mamaroneck-based nonprofit called Project Veritas. The conservative provocateur has made his career trying to expose what he describes as liberal media bias and left-wing hypocrisy, frequently through undercover videos.

The group has been denounced for its disappointments. Last fall, a Project Veritas member named Jamie Phillips approached The Washington Post with his account of an affair with Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama, whose campaign was reeling from multiple allegations of his. relationships with underage girls. Phillips told the Post – which broke the original story about Moore’s relationship with underage girls – that he pregnant her when she was a teenager.

The Post exposed his ruse in a story that included a video of its reporter confronting Phillips about his deception.

Other Sunday speakers include Christian Ragosta, a field coordinator for the National Rifle Association; Austin Petersen, a libertarian political candidate; Nico Perrino, communications director of the Foundation for the Rights of the Individual in Education; and Kassy Dillon, founder of the Lone Conservative website.

Payments to lecturers are paid with student activity fees. It is only open to people with a valid Siena ID card.

There will be a protest outside the conference, and students and faculty plan to attend to pose tough questions to speakers, said Jim LaValle, president of the Siena Democrats’ Club. He said he encouraged those inside and outside the conference not to be disruptive.

“Use your First Amendment rights the way they use it – but don’t put anything across the line, don’t incite anything,” he said.

Bianchi said he contacted other student organizations to invite them to participate in the event, but none agreed.

LaValle, however, said no one had reached out to his group.

“Why is it now just a platform for conservative speakers and pundits who have a turbulent history marked with racist and inflammatory comments?” ” he said. “Why have we never had the opportunity to provide a different point of view? “

And there was also a decline on the part of the teachers. Jenn McErlean, professor of philosophy, resigned from a committee that had been formed to develop methods of civil speech on campus because she did not want to work with students like Bianchi, according to an email sent to the Times Union .

Roy Gutterman, director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University’s SI Newhouse School of Public Communications, said in today’s politically charged national climate, college campuses are a precarious place for free speech.

“There is not a lot of tolerance,” he said.

There is also a belief in some conservative circles that the right to speak of right-wing students is more likely to be restricted in the name of “political correctness.”

“There is some validity behind it,” Gutterman said. “When you see people who think they’re being censored or punished, they’re usually right-wing politicians, and that seems to be the way college campuses have evolved. “

These issues were discussed for two days in “Shall Make No Law: An Exploration of Current First Amendment Issues on College Campuses,” a two-day session hosted Wednesday and Thursday by Albany State University. and organized by the Office of the General Counsel of the SUNY System. A round table was entitled “Campus Unrest – The New Normal? “

In Siena, Bianchi, Barkett and Bove pointed out that the school administration has supported them since they started planning the event at the start of last semester. The pushback, they said, came from the faculty.

“And we had to clarify to them: even if you don’t like some of the people who come to this conference, neither do we,” Bianchi said. “We don’t agree with everything people at this conference have done or said.”

Siena College President Elder F. Ed Coughlin has said conferences and events like this are a balancing act.

“You’re still trying to deal with this tension,” he said. because of their reputation, have values ​​that are very opposite or in contrast to the values ​​of the college? “

Gutterman, who also teaches journalism and media ethics in Syracuse, said private colleges such as Siena have much more leeway in deciding how to handle free speech issues on campus than public universities.

“I think you can’t have a college education without freedom of speech,” he said. “Just because someone brings a speaker to campus doesn’t mean you believe what they say. “

Stone is a political advisor, lobbyist, and author with a long history in Republican politics. Self-described “dirty trickster” debuted during President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign in 1972. In 1980, Stone co-founded Washington, DC-based lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone with Paul Manafort, who would manage Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for several key months. (Manafort faces more than 30 federal charges brought by Special Advocate Robert Mueller, alleging his role in a decade-long money laundering program.)

Stone was one of the first advisers to Trump’s presidential effort, but left the campaign in August 2015. The two have remained in touch. Stone appeared before the House Intelligence Committee last September in a closed-door session to answer questions about Russian interference in the presidential election; The stone has vehemently denied there was collusion between the countryside and foreign elements.

Closer to home, Stone was the campaign manager for the 2010 campaign for governor of “Manhattan Madam” Kristin Davis.

O’Keefe is a conservative provocateur who has made his career trying to expose what he describes as liberal media bias and left-wing hypocrisy, frequently through secret videos. The majority of his work is carried out through a Mamaroneck-based non-profit organization called Project Veritas.

He gained notoriety in 2009 for several videos that led to the demise of ACORN, an organization that promoted healthcare and voter registration in low-income communities. The videos showed O’Keefe seeking advice on how to start a brothel.

In this and other controversies, O’Keefe has been criticized for using deceptive techniques, including selective sequence editing. He employed even more dubious tactics: In 2010, O’Keefe pleaded guilty in Louisiana to entering the office of US Senator Mary Landrieu under false pretenses. He was sentenced to a fine and three years of probation and community service.

Last fall, O’Keefe received heavy criticism after a woman he hired tried to spread a false story in the Washington Post. Jamie Phillips, a member of Project Veritas, told the Post that Alabama Republican candidate for the US Senate Judge Roy Moore – whose campaign was rocked by multiple allegations of his relationships with underage girls – had it. pregnant when she was a teenager.

The Post exposed the ruse in a story that included a video of his reporter confronting Phillips about his deception.

Other speakers announced at the Siena event include Christian Ragosta, field coordinator for the National Rifle Association; Austin Petersen, a libertarian political candidate; Nico Perrino, communications director of the Foundation for the Rights of the Individual in Education; Kassy Dillon, founder of the Lone Conservative website;

Free speech conferences have been organized by conservative academic groups across the country, particularly Turning Point USA. Collegiate sections of groups often invite controversial right-wing speakers in to draw attention to their activities and push the boundaries of acceptable discourse in a given academic setting.

Last September, UCLA canceled Free Speech Week after the college’s Turning Point USA chapter invited conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, a former member of the Breitbart media empire criticized for his bashing of feminists and Muslims , among others. The invitation led to numerous protests from groups on campus as well as outside progressive organizations.

Emails to the organizers of the Siena event were not immediately returned.

Siena College spokeswoman Lisa Witkowski said the event was approved by the college’s student life administration. It’s coordinated by the student groups, and Witkowski said she didn’t know what the speakers at the event would be talking about specifically or the titles of their speeches.

According to a conference registration page, it is only open to current Siena students, faculty and staff. Those attending the event must show Siena ID at the door.