Victory for Free Speech - Williams College's New Free Speech Statement Under Cuts Prior Sawicki Report

Thanks to Ephblog, I read a copy of Maud's e-mail to the Williams College community along with a statement on free speech created by the faculty steering committee. Her e-mail and the statement are available after the break. I read both a couple of times and then reread the iconic Chicago Principles. All in all, it looks to me like the faculty steering committee disregarded the suggestions in the earlier Sawicki Report and embraced the Chicago Principles after all. The document looks like a win for free speech advocates.

What's my hot take? All in all, the new statement seems to hit many of the main points stressed in the Chicago Principles while dropping some of the most dopey nonsense in the Sawicki Report including its unhelpful call for the protection of "dignitary safety," a concept which appeared to me and watchdogs like Jerry Coyne as a loophole that permitted the sort of speaker bans and speech restrictions and speaker bans favored by woke totalitarians.

My fears that the concept of "dignitary safety" would erase free speech from Williams College was inadvertently supported by the comments of Eli Miller '21, a student member of the Sawicki Report, who asserted that the report was not really a win for the advocates of free speech. In a Press Record podcast, he rebuked free speech watchdogs by saying "I don’t think those people are correct in assuming this report supports them."

Thankfully, the new statement appears to dump that blarney in favor of a more absolutist stance on freedom of speech, a stance which seems less likely to protect students from the supposed evil of inviting the mild-mannered John Derbyshire to share his views on campus.

Moreover, the statement is easier to read than the dense, encyclopedic Sawicki Report. Instead of mindlessly repeating existing campus policies, the statement saves time and space by simply providing a link to policies relevant to organizing campus events.

The statement's support for free speech includes a brief caveat aimed at protecting the community from "...speech that threatens, incites violence, or constitutes harassment..." This exception strikes me as reasonable and not too far off from the Chicago Principles which prohibit speech "...that violates the law, that falsely defames a specific individual, that constitutes a genuine threat or harassment, that unjustifiably invades substantial privacy or confidentiality interests, or that is otherwise directly incompatible with the functioning of the University."

This exception might be helpful in punishing the female Williams College professor who threatened to leverage her experience as an activist at UC Berkeley and bring riots and violence to the campus if the school adopted the Chicago Principles.

Likewise, I think the steering committee's insistence on regulating the time and location for free speech does not seem all that different from a similar statement in the Chicago Principles.

Surprisingly, the steering committee statement appears to place a higher priority on free speech than Maud herself. In her e-mail, she stresses the importance of two completely incompatible values - inclusion and free speech - and suggests we should knock ourselves out in the simultaneous pursuit of both. The steering committee, however, drops this theme in favor of a more subtle approach which describes an "inclusive environment" as one where "each member of our community is equally respected and equally invited to speak and to be heard." As such, the steering committee seems to broaden the meaning of inclusion so that it may ideological diversity too.

Laughably, Maud suggests steering committee statement was "based" on the Sawicki Report. This observation only makes sense if you define "based" to mean that the steering committee coughed up the Sawicki Report and spit it out.

Unfortunately, the existing campus policies undercut freedom of speech to the extent that they require the sponsors of a speaker to cover related security costs and further requirements requiring the disclosure of the funders for the event. Both of these policies could be used to make it harder for conservative speakers to appear on campus and result in continued bias against even mainstream conservative views. Finally, it seems odd that the statement forces students and speakers to include question and answer sessions at all of their events. This seems like an unnecessary intrusion on their rights to present their information anyway they see fit.

Nevertheless, our dear friend at Ephblog - David Dudley Field '25 - sees much to applaud in the final product. "All has proceeded as EphBlog forecast a year ago. Well done Maud!" he writes. "Now we just need two things. First, get FIRE to award Williams a green rating. I think we now merit a green rating and such a rating would assuage concerned alumni. Second, we need to bring John Derbyshire to campus. And that, at least, is going to happen, one way or the other."

For me, the final lines of the statement seem to indicate an opening for conservative students. The statement asserts: "We recognize that in the past these freedoms have not been equally available to all people and that inequity of access persists today. The college is committed to supporting equal access to these freedoms and pledges to continue working to realize this commitment fully."

I'm certain the authors intended this statement as a gift to the woke professors and students who sincerely believe the English department is a hotbed of violence and racism.

Nevertheless, I think it is telling that the statement does not single out privileged minorities (or even better highly privileged intersectional minorities) and simply focuses on people. I think we can read this passage as a long overdue acknowledgement that Williams College has a long history of undermining and repressing the opponents of identity politics including many conservative students, faculty and speakers. As I pointed out in an earlier article in Ephblog, the Sawicki Report appeared clueless about the untenable situation of conservatives at Williams College:

The report mentions, then thoroughly ignores, complaints that conservative views are absent on campus and that conservative students and faculty are fearful of speaking up. There is no sense of historical or political context either. It doesn’t seem to grasp the way dis-invitations have been solely focused on harming conservative speakers whose ideas interfere with the college’s institutional commitment to identity politics, feminism and critical race theory.

It would be wonderful if this statement represents straightforward endorsement of the Chicago Principles and a step away from the mushy views articulated in the Sawicki Report. Maud's e-mail and the text of the steering committee statement appear below the break. 

To the Williams community,

For the last year, members of the Williams community have been discussing how best to live up to our obligation to ensure both free expression and inclusion. Today I’m sharing a statement developed by the Faculty Steering Committee with my input, and reviewed with the faculty as a whole, that affirms our commitment to those core principles.

The essence of the statement is this: Freedom of expression and inquiry matters. Inclusion matters. Both values are essential to the health of any community, and especially to a healthy learning community. For Williams to continue reaching its highest educational aspirations, we need to maximize our commitment to both values. We need to run toward the hard things.

I’ve been gratified by the intelligence and passion that many of you have shown in discussing, debating and sometimes protesting this most crucial issue. My job as president is to guide that energy into helping Williams excel: delivering the best liberal arts education imaginable, and preparing graduates to set the standard for civic virtue and engagement.

I want to thank Steering for their careful work, as well as the faculty members who offered their views on the drafts, the Ad Hoc Committee upon whose report the statement is based, the people who worked to ensure that our college policies reflect our values, and all of you—students, staff and faculty—who added your views to the discussion.

Maud

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MEMORANDUM

To: The Faculty
From: The Steering Committee and President Mandel
Date: November 13, 2019

Inquiry, Expression and Inclusion at Williams College

At Williams, our educational mission requires us to cultivate an inclusive environment in which each member of our community is equally respected and equally invited to speak and to be heard. This goal unites the college’s core commitments to freedom of expression and inquiry and to building a community in which everyone can live, learn and thrive, as enunciated in our codes of conduct for faculty, staff and students.

The college extends the same opportunities for expression and debate to anyone invited to speak or participate in a college event. Visitors are welcomed and expected to participate in open discussion and robust deliberation while they are on campus. We expect anyone inviting an outside speaker to create such opportunities as part of the visit.

The college publishes clear administrative procedures for event planning and rules for the use of college property. The college likewise retains the discretion to impose reasonable limitations on the time, place and manner of speech by visitors to our community as well as by its continuing members. The college exercises this authority sparingly, and never with the goal of suppressing a point of view.

Williams College does not consider an invitation to campus an endorsement of the visitor’s views. Further, in our encouragement of vigorous dialogue and the free exchange of ideas, we acknowledge that discomforting encounters will occur. In that knowledge, we will continue expanding ways to offer support to all individuals and groups within our community, as part of our mission to equip every community member with the tools they need for effective discourse, debate and dissent. We also recognize that free expression has its limits: speech that threatens, incites violence, or constitutes harassment has no place in our community.

Our policies, which are intended to protect and promote the freedom of every community member to communicate, debate and peacefully protest, can be found here. We recognize that in the past these freedoms have not been equally available to all people and that inequity of access persists today. The college is committed to supporting equal access to these freedoms and pledges to continue working to realize this commitment fully.