To the Editor:
As my colleague Nick Burbules points out in his timely article on deliberative and activist speech (“How Activist Speech Threatens Educational Values,” October 8, 2024), many universities “are struggling to reconcile the principles of free expression with campus safety.” While the distinction he makes between deliberative and activist speech is useful for addressing this struggle, there is a danger in identifying one—deliberative speech—as central to university values and the other—activist speech—at best as peripheral to the mission of the university and the source of potential danger.
True deliberative speech has an important aspirational role to play in the education of college students but, as part of the long tradition of civil disobedience, so too does activist speech. From civil rights, to anti-Vietnam, and anti-Apartheid, activist speech has played a major role in positive social change, a role that supports some of the basic human values—equality, free expression, and emancipation—central to the very idea of a university.
It is true that when activism is directed toward the practices of the very universities that students attend, safety issues, both real and imagined, can and do arise. The question is whether the speech itself is the source of this reduced safety, which Burbules’s letter seems to suggest. In reality, the primary source of responsibility will differ depending on individual cases. True there are situations in which protestors get out of hand, both inside and outside of university settings. Jan. 6, 2021, comes to mind.
However, contrary to Burbules’ idea that activist speech is in tension with university values, such speech often arises in response to those actions of universities as corporate entities when they act so as to contradict basic human and academic values. Past support for companies in apartheid South Africa is a prime example.
Burbules needs to clarify whether or not he thinks that activist speech is largely a cause of an unsafe university climate. By labelling activist speech as peripheral to the university, he reinforces those who believe that activists are outside trouble makers who have no place in a university. The problem with such an interpretation is that it blames protesters a priori rather than encouraging an open inquiry into the action of all relevant agents—say an unprepared administration or an undisciplined police force, or outside political pressure as well as those who do engage in activist speech.
Rather than viewing deliberate and activist speech as inherently opposed to one another, it is more productive to see each as part of a dialectic where activist speech is an accepted part of a campus environment. Burbules seems more friendly to this approach when he notes toward the conclusion of his essay that activist speech can provide a forum for those who “feel left out, or silenced and ignored.” He might also mention that more than feeling may be at stake. Activist speech can serve to raise important but uncomfortable issues and, as part of a dialectic can also serve to open up topics to be investigated in a more deliberate climate.
When considered as part of a dialectic, activist speech would be acknowledged as having a legitimate and important role for student engagement, and universities would be responsible to promote inquiry into the legitimate concerns they express. This is actually not a new approach. An earlier model was the teach-ins that played a critical role in informing campus communities about Vietnam and other issues. What universities must not do is to use the ideal of deliberative speech as a weapon to delegitimize activist speech.
Universities need to help guide students through difficult times, not punish them for caring enough to speak actively for their cause. When universities treat deliberative and activist speech not as a polarity but as two sides of a dialectic then passions become more than things merely to be tolerated, tamed or policed, they become concerns about real problems that need to be addressed and they raise questions for inquire and discussion. Passions and protests are an important part of this dialectic as are critical questions and deliberation.
The present protests between students who support Palestinians and those who support Israel’s government raise many questions that are critical parts of the dialogical approach. A few examples: is anti-Zionism the same as anti Semitism? What is the history of the slogan “from the River to the Sea” and what kind of future does it imply for Palestinians and Jews? What is the definition of genocide and do the acts of Israeli government in Gaza conform to that definition? Does Israel fit the definition of an apartheid state? Is Hamas a terrorist or a freedom fighting organization? When viewed as a dialectic activist speech becomes a valuable part of deliberative inquiry.
—Walter Feinberg
C.D. Hardie Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois
Author, Educating for Democracy, Cambridge University Press (2024)
