ANN ARBOR, MI - The University of Michigan is presenting a free online "teach-out" series open to anyone focusing on free speech on college campuses, in journalism and in sports.
Building off the historic teach-ins staged on its Ann Arbor campus more than five decades ago, UM's Office of Academic Innovation will lead a series of online discussions featuring experts discussing interpretations of the First Amendment, if safety trumps free speech and if universities should punish students who shout over and disrupt speakers whose views differ from their own.
UM President Mark Schlissel said free speech issues remain one of the hottest topics on college campuses across the country, but extends beyond the university.
"The common theme is tensions around free speech and the causes of those tensions and ways to mitigate them - instances where maybe people will disagree whether free speech is more important than their feeling of value and personal safety," Schlissel said in a video explaining the teach-out series. "These are front-burner, front-of-mind issues, not just on college campuses, but in workplaces, in communities, in religious organizations and sporting events."
The series kicks off on Feb. 26 with a teach-out focusing on the college campus, prompting participants to think critically about the role of free speech plays on university campuses and how discourse shapes the broader narrative about free speech protection across the country.
On March 12, a teach-out will focus on the roles of journalists in a free society. Questions posed in the teach-out are expected to include how the rights of journalists are threatened, whether new modes of reporting like social media and citizen journalism have made the press more vulnerable and what are the broader societal implications of a restricted and diminished press.
The final teach-out available beginning April 9 prompts participants to think about whether sport is an appropriate venue for social and political activism and what the implications of free speech are for athletes, managers and fans.
Delivered on the Coursera online platform, teach-outs take advantage of current technology to engage learners. Participants can enroll and move through the learning opportunities at their own pace for the few weeks they are posted online.
The free speech teach-outs are part of a larger "2018 Speech and Inclusion: Recognizing Conflict and Building Tools for Engagement" series sponsored by the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and several other campus units.
Leaders of the teach-out series will include:
- UM President Mark Schlissel;
- UM faculty from the Law School, School of Education, School of Information, School of Kinesiology and College of Literature, Science and the Arts;
- Faculty from American University and Michigan State University;
- Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation;
- UM students and members of the media, including a journalist participating in the Knight-Wallace Fellowship program at UM.
UM is hosting the teach-out series while still determining a date it can host white-nationalist Richard Spencer, whose National Policy Institute requested to speak at the university in the fall. The two parties have not yet been able to determine a date and venue for the speech, agreeing to continue negotiations after the winter semester.
Spencer will speak at Michigan State University on March 5 after the university reached a legal settlement NPI, which sued MSU in September after the university, citing public safety concerns, denied a request for Spencer to speak on campus.
During the fall semester, UM's chapter of the College Republicans and the American Enterprise Institute University of Michigan Executive Council hosted controversial author Charles Murray.
The author, who has drawn criticism for his views on the role of IQ shaping America's class structure in his 1994 book "The Bell Curve," was met with chants, music, intentionally annoying cell phone sounds, an overhead projector displaying an arrow pointing to him along with the words "white supremacist," and hostile questions from students during his visit.
Despite pushback from student protesters who initially shouted Murray down, his appearance did include dialogue with students. There were no arrests at the event, nobody was ejected from the venue and Murray was able to finish his speech after many of the protesters left.