Abstract
In recent years, trigger warnings, microaggressions, speech codes and safe spaces have made their way into U.S. universities and gradually into universities around the world, seriously challenging academic freedom. What are the risks of excluding controversial questions from university debate? The chapter examines academic freedom, free speech and democracy in a pedagogical perspective, in search of a clear mission of universities in these uncertain times.
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Notes
- 1.
Cohen (2014), p. 25. For further considerations see Ferguson (2017) and also the Free Speech Movement Archives, http://www.fsm-a.org/, last accessed 20.10.2020.
- 2.
- 3.
Baer (2019), p. 95.
- 4.
Lukianoff (2014a).
- 5.
Lukianoff and Haidt (2015).
- 6.
- 7.
Khazan (2019).
- 8.
Moody-Adams (2018), p. 42.
- 9.
See Levinovitz (2016).
- 10.
Gust (2016).
- 11.
- 12.
Lukianoff and Haidt (2015).
- 13.
Lukianoff (2014b), p. 38.
- 14.
https://www.thefire.org/, last accessed 20.10.2020.
- 15.
Lukianoff (2014b), p. 38.
- 16.
See Texas Tech University, Student Affairs Handbook, 2002–2003, p. 15, quoted in Lukianoff (2014b), p. 39.
- 17.
Lukianoff and Haidt (2015).
- 18.
Lukianoff (2014b), p. 62.
- 19.
American Association of University Professors (AAUP), Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, 1940, https://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure.
- 20.
https://www.afaf.org.uk/, last accessed 20.10.2020.
- 21.
https://www.spiked-online.com/free-speech-university-rankings/, last accessed 20.10.2020.
- 22.
Arendt (1951), p. 301. And so, continues Hannah Arendt: “our political life rests on the assumption that we can produce equality through organisation, because man can act in and change and build a common world, together with his equals and only with equals”.
- 23.
Baer (2019), p. 6.
- 24.
Baer (2019), p. xi.
- 25.
Baer (2019), p. xiv.
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
Kors and Silverglate (1999).
- 29.
Hayes (2020).
- 30.
Whittington (2018), p. xi.
- 31.
Berner (2020).
- 32.
Whittington (2018), p. 7.
- 33.
- 34.
Curtis (2000).
- 35.
MacDonald (2018).
- 36.
- 37.
Horwitz (2013), p. 107.
- 38.
Obama (2015).
- 39.
Executive Order No. 13864, 21.03.2019, Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency, and Accountability at Colleges and Universities, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/03/26/2019-05934/improving-free-inquiry-transparency-and-accountability-at-colleges-and-universities, last accessed 20.01.2021.
- 40.
- 41.
- 42.
Mill (1859), pp. 97–98.
- 43.
Mill (1859), p. 102.
- 44.
“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind”, Mill (1859), p. 30.
- 45.
“Absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral or theological”, Mill (1859), p. 22.
- 46.
Mill (1859), p. 60.
- 47.
Mill (1859), p. 17.
- 48.
Marcuse (1965), p. 88.
- 49.
Popper (1945), p. 265, note 4.
- 50.
Lackey (2018), p. 3.
- 51.
Arum and Roksa (2011).
- 52.
Dewey (1902), p. 3.
- 53.
Dewey (1911), p. 105.
- 54.
Dewey (1915), pp. 407–408.
- 55.
Dewey (1936).
- 56.
Lackey (2018), p. 14.
- 57.
Woodward Report (1974).
- 58.
Newman (1852), discourse 7, para. 10.
- 59.
Newman (1852), discourse 6, para. 1.
- 60.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-1712, last accessed 20.10.2020.
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Magni, F. (2021). Trigger Warnings and Academic Freedom: A Pedagogic Perspective. In: Seckelmann, M., Violini, L., Fraenkel-Haeberle, C., Ragone, G. (eds) Academic Freedom Under Pressure?. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77524-7_18
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