Harvard's Largest Faculty Division Will No Longer Require Diversity Statements

I don't think this is true. These institutions did used to care about academic freedom and the ideals they were built around. They have become enormous and full of money and administrators who don't want to jeopardize the gravy train they're on. And now academic freedom is just a marketing term rather than something real

For loud movements above a certain size, this certainly rings true for me. Obviously there are a lot of people out there who truly believe in actual free speech - I’m one of them … but there’s some kind of fine line. It still feels a bit like harassment when groups on campuses (often not anyone with any affiliation to the school, bussed in by special interest money) are deliberately “getting in my face” as I walk between classes. I don’t mind them being there, but feels like they should have to stay 2 feet off the walkways and not go right up to people. I feel the same way about restaurant barkers/criers in the French Quarter though.

When I say “bussed in by special interest money” I’m not calling out “George Soros” or anything. And its not like 100 people or anything - just 1-5. I’ve seen it done across the entire political spectrum - PragerU, Anti-zionist groups, churches, nation of islam, DNC, etc. I spend time sympathetically talking with a lot of the groups and learn they’re often poor individuals who have a lot of time and moneyed groups take advantage of their time and convince them to heckle for their cause, and set up drivers / ride shares across the metro area to get random people to the campus.

For me its the aggression and attempts to incite angry responses which I find debatable: whether incendiary behavior should be considered “legal free speech”. Its often not just “speech” but body positioning and direct targeted aggressive engagement of individual passersby which feels calculated to make people feel aggressed while maintaining some degree of plausible deniability.

> "free speech" means speech that suits the claimant politically

Absolute free speech is not desirable or practical because it has real harms, like yelling fire in theatre and causing a panic, libeling people and destroying reputations, mispresenting products and scamming people. We do need and want rules for these sorts of things. But language, context and people are squishy so hard lines don't exist.

The free speech debate is important and on-going - as it should be. It will never be settled and will always be subject to groups who want more restrictions and those who want less.

In the words of Dr. Ichiro Serizawa, "Let them fight"

One person’s hate is another person’s calling out of powerful people. Those in the 80s on campuses who espoused anti-American sentiments said things that were “hurtful” to those on the right. Today, on college campuses, if you say there may be a genetic component to intelligence and that not everyone is capable of learning any given topic you will be silenced. Even just asking this question will garner retribution.

Just about everyone tries to regulate speech. I co-opt a saying from the pro-choice movement: The only moral free speech is speech that I personally don’t mind hearing.

You sound a tad biased my friend.