Debates over free speech have simmered, and occasionally boiled over, on university campuses for decades. But in recent months, the clash over words and phrases has reached a flashpoint, reaching beyond classrooms and quads as far as the halls of Congress. College and university presidents have faced fierce criticism — chronicled in extensive media coverage — over how they’ve handled protests over the Israel-Gaza conflict and other activities at their schools, including who can or should speak at events and how to foster a sense of community safety. 

Looking ahead, what can colleges and universities do to protect the fundamental principles of free speech and academic freedom while simultaneously creating an atmosphere where everyone can learn? When can speech be considered threatening, and who decides where the line is? How can journalists cover a topic so rife with nuance and rhetorical complexity? And as this debate continues, how much influence should alumni, donors, and political leaders have on campuses, private and public? 

In this episode, Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky leads a panel discussion about these important questions with three experts who approach the topic from different angles:

• Geeta Anand, dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Rutland Herald, and Cape Cod News during her 27-year career as a journalist. She began teaching at Berkeley in 2018 and became the journalism school’s dean in 2020. 
•  University of California, Irvine, Chancellor Howard Gilman, an award-winning scholar and teacher with an expertise in the American Constitution and the Supreme Court, with appointments in the School of Law and the departments of Political Science, History, and Criminology, Law, and Society. He also provides administrative oversight to and serves as co-chair of the advisory board of the University of California’s National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.
• Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. Sykes focuses on First Amendment free speech protections. From 2019-2020, he was also host of “At Liberty,” the ACLU’s weekly podcast. Before joining the ACLU in 2018, he was a legal advisor for Africa at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, and assistant general counsel to the New York City Council, where he contributed to the council’s friend-of-the-court brief against the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” program.

About:

“More Just” from Berkeley Law is a podcast about how law schools can and must play a role in solving society’s most difficult problems. Have a question about teaching or studying law, or a topic you’d like Dean Chemerinsky to explore? Email us at morejust@berkeley.edu and tell us what’s on your mind.

Production by Yellow Armadillo Studios.

For a transcript, please visit the episode page on the Berkeley Law podcast hub.

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