On Tuesday, April 9, Carnegie Mellon SPEAK (Students Practicing Effective Argumentation and Knowledge) hosted an event on speech and academic freedom, with a presentation from philosophy professor Dr. Simon Cullen, who teaches the course Dangerous Ideas in Science and Society.
SPEAK is a new organization founded by two students: Jack Hurewitz, a first-year in statistics and decision science, and Carl Otten, a third-year in mechanical engineering.
Last fall, Hurewitz took a Grand Challenge Seminar (a Dietrich College requirement) on freedom of speech and academic freedom, taught by Dietrich dean Richard Scheines. Hurewitz had already developed an interest in freedom of speech during high school. During this class, Professor Cullen gave a guest lecture. Hurewitz was inspired to continue communicating with Cullen.
Meanwhile, Otten took Cullen’s Dangerous Ideas class. He’d already been thinking about how to create a debate club that would have “some way to get people closer to the idea of doing debate in a non-threatening way.”
At one point, another student suggested — half-jokingly — that there should be “somewhere on campus where people can just come and argue.” Professor Cullen agreed, and Otten thought, “This is my ticket.”
Cullen put Hurewitz and Otten in contact, and they began to plan their first SPEAK event. The event was held with the assistance of Dietrich College.
The event began with Cullen’s presentation. Afterwards, students discussed whether academic freedom or inclusivity was more important. This discussion topic was selected because, as Hurewitz put it, in the college environment, “when we talk about things being censored, they’re mostly being censored in the name of inclusivity.”
Cullen, Hurewitz, and Otten all agreed that inclusivity and academic freedom often go hand-in-hand; the topic of the discussion was which should be favored when they happen to conflict.
Cullen differentiated between academic freedom and freedom of speech. While freedom of speech is a legal issue, he said, academic freedom is a broader cultural issue.
Academic freedom entails respectfully engaging in ideologically-diverse conversations instead of avoiding or censoring these conversations. Cullen identified threats to academic freedom at Carnegie Mellon, self-censorship chief among them.
According to surveys he conducted of his own students and the broader student body, 67 percent of Carnegie Mellon students think they would feel “uncomfortable” or “somewhat uncomfortable” when “expressing an unpopular opinion about a controversial subject” during a classroom discussion, and 53 percent would feel uncomfortable expressing an unpopular opinion in a campus common space. This was somewhat more true of conservative students.
These percentages increase after students have gone to Carnegie Mellon for at least a year.
Cullen brought up how the attitude that “silence is violence” induces a false consensus; students who disagree with a statement of progressive orthodoxy often find it easiest to pretend they agree. When there is a false consensus, students with progressive beliefs never have to defend them, Cullen said, and therefore often do not fully understand them.
Cullen talked about how his course, Dangerous Ideas in Science and Society, can help students understand their beliefs through discussion. In this class, many students were able to examine their political beliefs for the first time, and realize that, even if they did not change their minds, their opponents often had good arguments and understandable motivations.
Cullen talked about how discussion of controversial topics can make us psychologically antifragile, referencing Nassim Nicholas Taleb, as opposed to our current psychological fragility. He also talked about universities’ exorbitant spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion officers.
After the presentation, a group of six students with different opinions on the relative importance of inclusivity and free speech volunteered to discuss their opinions at the front of the room. They all stated their beliefs and answered questions. Two believed there was not much of a tradeoff between inclusivity and free speech after all.
After this, the students in attendance — around 25 people — were separated into groups of four or five. The groups included students who believed free speech was more important than inclusivity and those who believed the opposite. There were also students who were neutral or unsure on the question.
Initially, the hosts attempted to form groups based on students’ membership in political organizations (such as Carnegie Mellon Republicans and Carnegie Mellon Democrats), but almost no students were part of such organizations.
After SPEAK leaders distributed free boba tea and the group members introduced themselves, they discussed the topic at hand as Cullen and students from SPEAK offered discussion questions.
Hurewitz and Otten plan on hosting SPEAK events at least once per semester. These events will explore topics that may be hard to discuss in a civilized manner.
“The purpose should not be to bring the heat to the topics, but just like, bring the information,” Otten said. After college, “we’re never going to be in an environment with a more diverse group of people who have a more diverse set of viewpoints,” but for him and others he’s talked to, college can often feel like a suppressive environment where these diverse viewpoints are hard to discuss.
SPEAK will be hosting various speakers in the future and trying out different formats for hosting civil discussions.