A Free Press Is Like A Free Life

by Miles Maguire

[Note: On October 17, 2006 a panel of UW Oshkosh faculty presented their opinions on the topic of "Academic Freedom as a Form of Free Speech. The remarks below were delivered by Dr. Miles Maguire, associate professor of journalism and founding member of Oshkosh News. I thought his remarks were brilliant and I asked him if I could place them on my website. He graciously said yet. --Tony Palmeri].

"A free press is like a free life -- always in danger."

That’s a line from a 1952 Humphrey Bogart film called "Deadline U.S.A."

And, since I am a journalism professor, I think that’s an appropriate place to start talking about freedom in tonight’s context, which is academic freedom.

Without giving all the back story and plot of Deadline USA, let me just suggest that what the Bogart character in that movie is saying is that freedom is always at risk and that by extension unless we exercise our freedoms we are in danger of losing them. Over time enough encroachments can lead to the elimination of our freedoms.

Like a free press and a free life, academic freedom is always in danger. It is in danger here this evening as well. Even though we have come, I believe, to praise and defend academic freedom, I think the way that we are doing it is actually undermining academic freedom.

Just to cut to the chase here, I have to say that I disagree vehemently with a statement issued by Chancellor Wells last month in which he said:

“Members of a university community do not have absolute freedom of speech in their official capacities. They are free to pursue academic, artistic and research agendas essential to the university mission, but they must also contribute to an open and collegial environment that promotes reasoned inquiry, intellectual honesty, scholarly competence and the pursuit of new knowledge.”

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think the Chancellor set out to circumscribe academic freedom, and I certainly don’t believe that there is a grand conspiracy among university administrators to undercut the ability of instructors and students to engage in intellectual inquiry. I also recognize that we live in an age of great uncertainty about the threats we face from extremists of all kinds, including those who would like nothing better than to withhold our constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Nonetheless I strongly believe that if we allow these words to go unchallenged, then we are allowing the kind of small encroachment that over time will surely erode our freedoms.

I realize that it neither polite nor politic to criticize your host when you are invited to take part in a panel like this. But all I can say is that I am from the land of Mencken, Baltimore, Maryland, Queen City of the Patapsco Drainage Basin, where both he and I spent some years—though far apart in time—scribbling for a now-departed newspaper, The Evening Sun.

I worked at The Evening Sun, I am afraid, in its twilight, its final years. Mencken, by contrast, was the great luminary, who made the paper famous when he used it as a platform to launch his tirades and critiques of genteel society.

I assure you I am no Mencken, but in the Mencken spirit of risking wrath, I will proceed.

The first problem that I have with the Chancellor’s statement that we do not have “absolute freedom of speech” is that I believe it is inconsistent with the Faculty Constitution, which says that a faculty member is entitled to “full freedom of discussion in the classroom” and to “full freedom in research and in publication.”

Full freedom it seems to me is absolute freedom. We lack it only to the extent that we give it up or fail to have the nerve to exercise it.

The Chancellor’s statement also asserts that academic freedom is limited to areas that are “essential to the university mission.” The problem with this formulation is clear—what is essential to the university mission and who decides? Is water quality testing essential to the university mission while applying “queer theory” to literary texts not part of the mission? Where do you draw the line?

In my view you do not. Partial freedom is like partial pregnancy, a contradiction in terms, a physical impossibility.

Now its’ true that the faculty constitution provides some fuller context for exercising academic freedom and cautions that faculty members have special obligations to be accurate, to exercise appropriate restraint and to show respect for the opinions of others. Such statements are not, however, inconsistent with absolute or full freedom of speech.

Being accurate, appropriately restrained and respectful are, in my views, merely behavioral characteristics that do not limit the exercise of free speech or the range of topics and views that can and should be expressed on a college campus.

The question that we have to ask ourselves is whether we believe in academic freedom in fact or merely as a convenient way of shielding ourselves from criticism.

The test has to be whether we conduct ourselves in a way that is consistent with the claims and the statements about academic freedom that our found in the institutions’ governing documents.

If we look in Chapter One of the Faculty Handbook, we see this statement:

“To be free, a university must encourage a full examination of all viewpoints, but to remain free, the institution must avoid actions which advocate a particular viewpoint.”

I don’t see how what we are doing on this panel, and the one two weeks ago on “Why People Believe Weird Things” can be squared with that statement.

Rather than encourage a full examination of Kevin Barrett’s point of view, it seems to me that we are trying to overshadow and crowd out his appearance on campus. And in doing that we are advocating a particular viewpoint about his legitimacy.

Again quoting from the faculty handbook, our obligation is “to retain a neutral platform.” Why? Again I quote, “To do otherwise and lend its weight to a particular position would be to stifle the very freedom which it purports to encourage.”

Tonight’s panel is, I believe, part of an attempt to suffocate the point of view advocated by Barrett. I believe this strategy is wrongheaded for several reasons.

First of all, I don’t think that we are in any real danger from what Barrett has to say. His ideas have been given wide media attention, and they have failed the essential test of truth in that their particularities are not persuasive.

His “larger truth,” that the American people have not been told the full story of 9/11 is unassailably true—since even the 9/11 Commissioners have said as much. But that’s not surprising or particularly controversial. If agitations such as his on the fringe lead to the release of more information, that’s probably a good thing. And I don’t we why we shouldn’t encourage that.

But the bigger problem with this strategy is that we are backing away from the freedoms that are essential for academic advancement, the full and absolute freedom of expression and inquiry.

We are letting the enemies of free thought and free expression define what are the acceptable limits, when there should be none. If we really believe in our academic ideals, we would push for more vigorous scholarly disputation, knowing that through such efforts, however raucous they may be or ripe for outside criticism, we will arrive closer to the truth.

In Mencken’s day, the region of the country that received his sharpest and wittiest barbs was the south, which he labeled the Sahara of the Bozart.

If he were writing today, I wonder what he would make of the Upper Midwest, and I can imagine him calling us the Tundra of the Tuned Out.

From Fargo to Whitefish Bay and from Mukwonago to International Falls, this part of the country was once known for its progressivism and idealism, as well as its for thriving and well funded institutions of higher education.

What are we known for now? Cheesehats and conformism? Binge drinking, boosterism and beady-eyed moralism?

The editor of the local paper opined the other week that the UW System should keeps its mouth shut on controversial topics unless it wants to have its funding cut.

In other words, we need to let the bullies in the schoolyard decide what games we can play.

I think we’re better than that. Or at least that we can be better than that.

Academic freedom is in danger, tonight in this room and tomorrow in every classroom in America.

We have two choices. We can try to make academic freedom something that is small and unobjectionable so as not to challenge either those in authority or the comfortable truths we hold most dear.

Or we can try to live up to the words of Barry Goldwater, a man who was so conservative that he could sometimes sound like a raving liberal.

When he accepted the 1964 Republican nomination for president he said two things:

First, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”

And then, when the applause had died down, “Let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”