SPEAKER_01
Hello, and welcome to .edu, the Higher Education Policy Podcast from the American Council on Education. A little later in the episode, we're going to be talking with Michelle Georgeman, who is the executive director of the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.

And I think quite possibly the first repeat guest we have had on the show. So we have to give her special kudos for that. But before we talk with Michelle, you know, we are coming back from the holiday break.

I am joined by my lovely and illustrious colleagues, Mishita Gunja and Sarah Spreitzer. And so I have to ask, we're back from the holidays, we're getting back in the workflow. How are your holiday breaks, guys?

SPEAKER_03
Mine was great. And I feel like we still are in holiday breaks. We still have our Christmas tree up.

And we had a conversation last night about when that was going to come down. And the kids lobbied for Valentine's Day. And my wife lobbied for this weekend.

So.

SPEAKER_01
Was this a tree? Is this a fake tree? What is the nature of the tree?

SPEAKER_03
John, it is very fake. And it is. It's exactly what you would think a fake tree would look like.

But it also has lots of ornaments made by Cindy's, my wife's four-year-old students. So it's cute. It's adorable.

I guess I should. Let's see if the listeners of this loyal podcast have recommendations or ideas about when the tree should come down. Please send them my way.

Sarah, how was your break?

SPEAKER_00
It was good. But Mishita, I was going to ask, last year during quarantine, didn't you leave the tree up till about March? It was very festive. I remember at your house when we were doing Zoom meetings.

SPEAKER_03
Yeah, the question was, were we going for festivity or were we just like a little bit lazy?

SPEAKER_00
I thought it was more festivity.

SPEAKER_01
I mean, it could be both, right? Like they're not mutually exclusive.

SPEAKER_03
Yeah. Very true. Sarah, how was your break?

SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was good. And folks in the DC area probably know that we got a little extra break because we had a few snow storms, which was really fun for all of us and especially for the kids. And so it feels like this is actually the first week back, right? Because we don't have any snow.

Kids are back in school, hopefully. And so, yeah, this really feels like the first week back.

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I strongly disagree with the idea that we got extra break. The kids got extra break. That actually even shortened my break by somewhat, by, you know, having to watch kids and come back to work.

So, you know, it's not my favorite. So for snow day, I haven't enjoyed it in a long time. Yeah, we haven't gotten much recently.

SPEAKER_03
John, you were traveling and did your flights get canceled and you made it back? Okay.

SPEAKER_01
So I made it back. Okay. I'm here with you all. But my flight did get canceled.

We got caught in that wave of cancellations right before New Year's. And it allowed me to spend two and a half extra days with my in-laws, which they're lovely people and more time with them is always great. I talked about this podcast during the holiday break, so they might be listening.

So I will just emphasize how great it is to spend a full week rather than just five days with them, lovely people and always a pleasure to see. But happy to come back to DC and get my life in order and get started on things as well. So happy, happy holidays.

Lots of COVID tests throughout the holidays.

SPEAKER_03
Well, I was out in California for part of the break and the weather was not quite as warm as it will be in March, in early March, where we are having our annual meeting. We're having our annual meeting. You see the annual meeting from March 4 through March 7.

I hope many of our loyal listeners will find their way to San Diego, but we are making good progress on this meeting. I think the content's coming together really nicely. We're going to have a whole set of issues that I think a whole set of sessions that I think will be of significant interest to listeners of this podcast.

Lots of good public policy conversations, one with the Chronicle of Higher Education, one with Inside Higher Ed. And then our Senior Vice President, Terry Hartle, will be making a couple of presentations. We have a plenary session with Kristin Soltis Anderson, who will be talking about sort of her latest polling and the state of education.

So that's going to be great. I hope everybody's going to be able to come.

SPEAKER_01
And the numbers are actually, I think you're telling me last week, the numbers for attendance are really good. I mean, I'm happily surprised by what it's looking like.

SPEAKER_03
I think people are excited to get back and get to see each other a little bit and learn from each other. You know, the virtual meetings were okay, you know, we're pretty good. But there's something about actually getting to talk to folks and wear your sunglasses and flip flops that you just can't quite get on Zoom.

SPEAKER_01
This is my friendly reminder. Much like this is my friendly reminder, Ted has twice promised to buy me flip flops and he has yet to deliver on that. So, hold on.

He might actually, oh no, you know what, I should note, Ted is probably the only other repeat guest on the podcast. So somebody did beat Michelle, but it's not really a fair competition since he's in house.

SPEAKER_03
What's happening in Congress guys.

SPEAKER_00
Not much yet, but they're team things up. Right, John, they have a lot of things done. Of course they kick the can down the road on a bunch of things.

And so I think February is when the funding runs out in the appropriations bills. So, um, debt ceiling still hanging out there and then what's going on with the build back better act, John.

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no, I mean, that's why I laugh. He said, what's Congress doing Congress is basically trying to clean up the mess they left before they went away right like the debt ceiling maybe the only thing they actually dealt with they and they dealt with it just by sort of punting it past the midterm election so they didn't have to deal with it before the midterm elections in November. Build back better is for all intents and purposes.

I don't know if you call it dead but it's on life support it's sort of resting there center mansion right before the Christmas holiday said that he couldn't go along with any of the proposals that were out there he's said in fact that he can't go along with his proposal that he made as a counter proposal so at this point the Senate's doing other things they're looking at voting rights and other issues really focused mostly on voting rights right now. So build back better will sit there's been lots of assurances from Democratic leadership that maybe we'll have a different looking bill maybe we'll have a smaller bill maybe we'll have a bill that's paid for in different ways that you know there's lots of options on the table. So nobody's really clear on what those will be and if you remember we are now almost a year into the build back better acts sort of inception to its postage.

You know, the odds as you get closer and closer to election it just gets harder and harder for them to do that so we'll see it's not dead but likelihood it's not great right now.

SPEAKER_00
I like the idea that it's resting. That's a nice way to put it as opposed to say like mostly dead. Right. It's just taking that. Yeah, taking a nap.

Well one thing that is moving or will likely move I think in the first couple months is the US Innovation and Competition Act which is the big China bill, which the Senate passed last year, the House passed pieces of it but the House and Senate seem to be really working on some sort of managers amendment or conference agreement I don't think it can really be called a conference agreement since they don't have House legislation that they're conferencing from, but producing some sort of, you know, massive bill that can be passed and obviously since already passed the Senate with bipartisan support they feel pretty good about the odds of passing it and this has a lot of new authorized funding for the federal science agencies which is great and something our institutions really care about. A lot of research security provisions, things like how do you define talent recruitment programs, and then some new reporting and transparency requirements for institutions of higher ed like section 117, and a couple other new provisions so I think that's likely going to move pretty quickly once they come to an agreement, because at least that will give them some sort of win going into 2022.

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and the other thing and you touched on a little bit Sarah the other thing that they're actually doing something on is appropriations federal funding. They before the holiday break kick the can down the road to February 18 that's when theoretically federal government funding will run out. But recently, all through last year, it was pretty much stalemate didn't move.

There's been a lot of positive conversations about what to do and in fact a few different proposals put forward for resolving the big issues which is really right now how much money you spend on defense. And what do you do about certain policy provisions particularly the use of federal funds for abortion or abortion providers. And so there's some, you know, positive noise about that.

They may not be able to actually get all of the federal funding bills wrapped up and agreed by February 18, but you're hearing more and more. Well, maybe they'll do another kick the can down the road by a few more weeks, maybe up to a month, but only in service of actually getting the final package put together so positive and then on that front they may resolve that relatively soon. It's big for us because both the House and Senate bills that we've seen both Democratic bills so obviously they won't be this in the final deal had huge increases for soon financial aid and scientific research so very good things.

If we can see something like that probably won't get all of it, but something like that in the final bills that will be really positive development.

SPEAKER_00
And that would be nice since we didn't get the build back better act so right now our students are looking at, you know, it had been proposed I think the highest increase for Pell grants. And now we're in 2022 and they haven't seen any, any of that that money so at least something right.

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no, that's the that's a good point because a lot of the big increase in Pell grants was funded through build back better, but there's still a big increase that's in appropriation so it's not what we want it's far short of what we need but you know it's better than nothing.

SPEAKER_00
And, and john we're both lucky that that we're not actually lawyers right and so we don't have to deal with one of the other days that came up already this week for higher ed and that's the issue of the 568 schools right much talk.

SPEAKER_01
That's right. So much talk is our lawyer right. Yes, yes just clarify yes.

SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I am our lawyer and though, you know, I, this lawsuit took me a little bit by surprise so a set of students have filed a class action lawsuit earlier this week against a set of sort of highly selective institutions that are need blind. And this is sort of called a group of 568 schools. And, you know, I think what these students are alleging is some antitrust violations and collusion related to the financial aid packages that are given to applicants that are part of this, this school, the sets of schools.

So wait for discovery to come out to be able to really know all of the facts, you know, the allegations are that there's some price fixing that's happening. But you know, I guess I would just note that our institutions are really quite sensitive to antitrust questions of antitrust and questions of collusion and price fixing. And these, these allegations come up periodically, you know around admissions and around financial aid and have for for several years around the NCAA as well.

And, you know, our institutions typically are found by the courts not to have colluded, you know, they're pretty sensitive as I said so we'll have to see how this plays out I'll be keeping a close eye on it. And so, just going back to the annual meeting we have a session at the annual meeting about emerging legal topics so we can ask a couple of the, the actual higher ed lawyers, no stuff. A couple questions about this, you know, if it comes up then but for now we'll be keeping an eye on it.

Make sure to update everybody as we go forward.

SPEAKER_01
Great. And you know I want to actually also take this moment we're talking about things that happened while we're on the break. Although I guess this was a little bit more recent that but to give us credit for clearly changing President Biden's mind about the student loan forgiveness pause our discussion of that and in the increasing pressure he was facing and the arguments for and against, you know, the administration announced over the break that they were delaying the repayment pause was supposed to begin on February 1 and that was moving back to its April now right may may first may may I think through April.

Yeah it's through April and resumes on May 1. So, and interestingly enough, I think a couple other people noted this but when they announced that they were very clear not to say this will be the final extension of the repayment pause which they had previously they made a point of that, you know, up until February 1 would have been the final one so who knows there might be more. It's all part of this big conversation around student loan forgiveness which we talked about with Justin on our last podcast episode and, you know, certainly one that's getting a lot of attention but speaking of things campuses will be dealing with this year I think this is actually kind of transition we are an election year.

There's a lot of interesting things that are sort of percolating to the top of national tension in academia. And one of those is free speech academic freedom, what that looks like on a campus a lot of it's in the K-12 space but you know it's the same discussion same debates going on in higher ed. And I know we're going to be talking to show about that later but just sort of quick thoughts from each of you on on, you know, what where you think this is coming from and what you think it means.

SPEAKER_00
I think a lot of it has to do with lead up to the midterm elections. And I think this is going to be our, we're going to be working on so many different amendments on issues like critical race theory, academic freedom, diversity issues, because, you know, if you think of anything done, they're, they're still going to want to introduce things that that allows them to take a position that they can point to in the upcoming elections and so I just think this is going to be a huge topic that we're going to have to deal with with legislation.

SPEAKER_01
I think back to you.

SPEAKER_03
I agree with a lot of what Sarah said, you know, and there's a piece of Congress not being able to get things done that I think sometimes leads both people in Congress and maybe the public to start thinking about things that are sort of more social war, and future war issues, you know, and this fits perfectly right education, race, and how we talk about our past, you know our issues that have been with us for for decades and decades I think have sort of hot peaks and valleys and how prevalent they are but, you know, because we're not doing build back better right, or at least it's it's resting right now. I can totally see us spending a lot more time in the lead up to the midterm elections and maybe the lead up to the presidential in 2024 talking about whole set of culture war issues and this feels like it's could well be at the tip of the spear. What do you think, John?

SPEAKER_01
No, I would agree entirely and I'd say this is actually the perfect point to take a quick break and come back with an actual expert on these issues who can tell us where we're right or where we're wrong so I will be right back with him so do it from after the break. And we are back. We are joined by a wonderful guest, a repeat guest.

We were talking about this before you came on Michelle but you are our first external repeat guest on the show so we have to come up with some sort of award or trophy or something but for now anyway just our hearty thanks for doing this again again the fact that you're the repeat guest isn't because we haven't invited other people I think you're the first one willing to actually do it so

SPEAKER_02
Well, it's a pleasure to be here and I'll take a trophy on any time.

SPEAKER_01
Excellent. Well, find something nice. Do you want to just tell our audience who might have missed the first episode a little bit about you and the center that you lead?

SPEAKER_02
Absolutely. I just want to say really excited to be here when I was my initial, my premiere performance. The center had really just been born.

Basically, people can remember way back to 2017 it feels like 100 years ago now. There was a couple of really highly publicized events on campus largely when Charles Murray visited Middlebury and when Milo, Yiannopoulos came to Cal and the media really focused its microscope on campuses and kind of manufactured this narrative of crisis. And then you see President Janet Napolitano use it as an opportunity to say you know what these are really important issues and let's focus on them and let's have the greatest public institution in the world focus on not just free speech but on the intersection of expression and engagement and democratic learning.

And the center also really focuses on what can be done to restore trust in the value of free speech on college campuses and within society at large. And so in the last, you know, three and a half years I've tried to grow the center to be a place to bring people together who are facing these issues and through research and programming and discussion, all of which is accessible at no cost. To create resources, especially for folks like your audience members who are in the field and who are having to deal day in and day out, you know, with these challenges.

SPEAKER_03
And Michelle, you know, we were facing a particular set of concerns as you outlined in 2017 about, you know, controversial speakers on campus. And in the last couple of years I feel like we're seeing a whole new set of sort of challenges so, you know, everything from President Trump's sort of executive orders on free speech and free expression and the prohibition of the use of diversity and equity and inclusion materials and some trainings to, you know, the language in the NDA. That was about critical race theory and sort of not allowing federal contractors to be able to use materials related to that to, you know, a whole set of state legislatures now, looking to introduce provisions that would ban the teaching of critical race theory or ban the 1619 project in particular.

So what are you seeing? Are those the issues that you've sort of been thinking about lately and generally, how are our campuses sort of dealing with this?

SPEAKER_02
That's a great question. And I absolutely agree. I think the nature of the problem has changed.

You know, when I took this job in 2017, there were a couple people who said, Well, you know, free speech on campus, that's a niche issue. And it's bad. It's going to go away.

Well, I don't think it's going away. If anything, I think it's becoming more insidious and concerning sort of like what you were saying, was struck that before sort of the Goldwater legislation and other things were focusing on outsiders coming onto campus. And I think now there are still outside influences like the state legislature, which I think it's a very severe threat, but also things that are happening with insiders.

This is about students, you know, do they know how to speak to one another, faculty, academic freedom. So I think now we're seeing a much more comprehensive set of challenges. And certainly, I think that the media is focused on all of the challenges is makes it really difficult to know whether it's really a new set of challenges or whether it's old challenges that are being amplified in a different way.

So I think all of the things that you talked about are things that folks on campuses are thinking about. I think that going back to the state legislation, I think that's really a focus. And it's concerning, because really what these bills about CRT and book banning and the 1619 project are is there really content discrimination.

And that's kind of state censorship. And, you know, they have two effects, right. One is the actual chilling effect, which is that a lot of schools after the Trump executive order and with the state legislation they're not even waiting to find out whether a lawsuit is going to happen, and whether they'll be able to be prosecuted.

They're just saying, you know what, it's too risky for us to continue our diversity programs or to use certain words in our curriculum or syllabi and so we're just going to put full stops dispensate. So that's the first piece which is sort of the self inflicted censorship. And then the second piece I think is what happens when the laws get passed, or which is that the stakes are a lot higher now we're talking about fines we're talking about people's fines in the Oklahoma bill that has to do with kind of targeting critical race theory and of course I'm using that phrase not to refer to the actual academic study but sort of the broad brushstroke that a lot of folks are using is teachers can lose their licenses.

And that's something really different, I think, and is concerning.

SPEAKER_00
You know, I remember when I started working in higher ed, and hearing about some of the things happening on on campuses like remember the bake sales that would happen. Yeah, from eviction bake sales things like that. It now seems that a lot of these efforts are so much more sophisticated.

And like at a national level so you see a bill introduced in a state, but then that language is copied in another state. Is that changing like how campuses are responding like our campuses leaning on each other to kind of learn best practices. And what do you see like from the national perspective, is it becoming more sophisticated and are these things being shared kind of across states.

SPEAKER_02
Okay, in terms of the actual, you know, legislative language, yes, I think that's been happening for a number of years starting with the Goldwater legislation in 2017 where I think it was like 15 states adopted language that was similar to that. And so I think we are seeing a lot of jumping off. I mean, the state legislation we're seeing, you know, late 2020 and you know early this year is very much a copycat of the executive order from 2020.

And I think Sarah your point, it was one of the points I was going to make which seems so simplistic which is that I think it's so important not to be reinventing the wheel whether you're a student or a faculty member or a president. Someone has been in your shoes. And so I do think that organizations like yours and like I hope our center and others are making it clear that there are so many resources available and so many people that you can rely on, but I think that's part of it which is just, you know, not being afraid to break out and say, Hey, how did you face this this is really challenging this is really hard.

SPEAKER_03
Hey Michelle you referenced the Oklahoma bill a couple of times for our listeners who haven't been following it as closely as you have would you just do a, you know, a minute sort of primer on what the legislation is and what it would do.

SPEAKER_02
Sure. So, Oklahoma is right now center stage with a lot of these different kinds of bills and I think they're also front and center because there has been a challenge to the bill which I'm going to tell you about which was House bill 1775. And basically it's asking elementary secondary and post secondary educators to quote avoid topics related to race or sex in class materials and discussions or risk losing their teaching licenses for violating the law.

So, it's very broad, and I think that probably all of us could come up with, you know, lots of places where topics related to race and sex are coming up in class materials. So, I think one of the reasons that this is, I guess I front and center is actually the ACLU has challenged this case and I'm proud to share that the person leading this legislative litigation sorry is Emerson Sykes, who is a former center fellow. And I think this is the first federal case to challenge this type of law and so I think everybody is sort of waiting to see what will happen and to your point Sarah, I think, again, this is, you know, this is this is the first, this is the first one.

And I think it's going to help determine where things go, right. I think in this case if things don't go as ACLU hopes I think it might be sort of open up again sort of the floodgates for people to say, okay, well, a federal court said we're good to go so let's go.

SPEAKER_00
And I guess, you know, seeing this play out in the K-12 area, and then these types of things being applied in higher ed that seems to kind of be the natural progression.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I mean I think, and I'm glad you raised that I know for me, I think that I would love to see more connection between K-12 and higher ed kind of systems because I think there really is sort of a pipeline of knowledge or lack thereof, both when it comes to education and government or about free expression, civic literacy, digital literacy. So I think that's, that's really key and I think the same way that the folks that are creating these challenges for higher ed, like you said are very well organized and they're going K-12 and then into higher ed. And I think folks who oppose these bills and oppose the sort of undermining of the core of the university, which is academic freedom and the freedom to think and publish and write and teach the way experts want to.

I think we need to be doing a better job of thinking about also that sort of trajectory and spectrum and how we can work with our K-12 colleagues.

SPEAKER_01
You know, we've been talking about this at the national level and you know I think Sarah was sort of hinting at this a little bit with it's much more sophisticated, seems much more coordinated. It's hard to escape the fact that we're also in a midterm election year and coming out of Virginia where a lot of strategists thought that the discussion of CRT and school curriculum drove the election to the Republican side, to a governor like Yonkin. Do we think this is something that is truly the beginning of an ongoing process or is this something that come December we're going to start seeing less interest in state legislatures, less interest at the federal level of putting this kind of legislation.

Is this really just political show or is this reflecting a will of a part of the population that wants to see things like this enacted?

SPEAKER_02
You know, it's a great question and I'm not sure that I know the exact answer. You know, I think certainly one thing that I can say is that higher education has been co-opted as part of the culture wars. And I think that's very unfortunate.

And I don't know that that's going to change after a midterm election. I certainly think that there are certain levers that are being pulled at this moment in sort of the political moment that we're in and the fact that we are coming up to midterm election and the fact that in Virginia it was very successful. It was a very successful way to engage voters and get them out to vote.

So I think that, yes, I think that as things change, right, once we're through the midterm elections, I don't know that they'll be using that lever in terms of engaging people, but I think there are other levers to engage people. And I think one of those has to do with things that are happening in the classroom. I think that, you know, listen, we're an evolving society and the question of acceptable discourse and what is acceptable discourse I think has really also been a great focus.

And I think that's something that isn't going to change necessarily with elections or not. And I'm not saying that I think that these issues are always worth front page banners. But I think the reality is that they're going to continue to show up, you know, on the front page and that universities need to be ready.

And I think that you haven't ended up sort of in the quote unquote hot seat you will. And I think going back to what Sarah was saying, I think that's where to create community where you can turn to a colleague and say, okay, you ended up in a virtual Twitter storm. What are the five takeaways.

I think we need to be doing more of that. And again, it's, it's sort of a very simplistic kind of piece of advice, but I think it leads to the helping to create a level of sophistication. Because I think that universities need to be ready, ready in terms of who's going to be when you end up, you know, in that virtual Twitter storm whether you it deserves it or not, who are the people that are going to need to be brought into it, who's going to write the communications message, how are you going to respond how are you going to give support whether it's to faculty or students who are being targeted.

I would say, rip up, rip a case study from the headlines and get people together on zoom or in a room and really talk it through.

SPEAKER_01
I think for my less expert opinion that sounds exactly right and really very thought I mean just thinking through it as you're talking to the idea of universities at the center of culture, you've already laid out you know we're going back to 2017 these are sort of things that are just keep you know the specifics vary but the general focus seems to be the same but particularly we're talking about building community a lot of what we've talked about so far is sort of externally imposed what state or federal government may do and things like that. How do you engage students in particular on the system a lot of the conflicts come from a student group invite speakers students are concerned with the expression on campus you know how do you engage students and what are sort of, you know the key things to keep in mind and with students as a constituency in this area.

SPEAKER_02
Okay, well you have to remember that, you know, I'm a lawyer and First Amendment to sort of my is my area so I'm going to go right to the Constitution into First Amendment education. I think that's one of the real keys so I do a lot of trainings and workshops it's something that I love to do. And I will tell you that when I go into groups, not just of students but of administrators to always have the people in the room don't understand how that hate speech is protected by the First Amendment and of course we're talking about the first minute we're talking about public institutions though I will add to the private institutional folks listening that most private institutions abide by the norms of the Constitution.

Because that's sort of the way that you transmit and create new knowledge. So I think that they're, I think there's two pieces one is like the actual knowledge about how the First Amendment works and how it applies, but then the harder piece. It's like, it's not enough just to know okay hateful speech is protected I think we really need to dig in deep to help students in particular understand why that is valuable, especially at a time now when we are so politically polarized where there is so much of a hard as in ship.

I think it's a hard, a harder sell to say to students, it's really important that we protect this really awful speech that's coming from someone in your class that's coming from someone outside that's coming from political folks right, but there's an essential tool in the toolkit in order to promote social change. So one of the things you know again, mentioning Emerson again he created a pilot program which we've been doing in a bunch of different schools. First Amendment for student activists.

So again, this is not a one and done I think that's also one of the keys strong is that a lot of people say we're going to talk about First Amendment and orientation for five minutes. So much is thrown at students and orientation so the question is how are we really going to integrate these ideas and these lessons into sort of more regular life, not just for five minutes when you're a freshman. And I think it's all about building muscles, right.

Which is that these muscles of understanding how to use your voice when to use your voice, how to have difficult conversations. They are things that have to be taught, you know, this is my this is what I do all the time and I'm always still learning and I think it's unfair for us to expect that we're going to take, you know, 17 and 18 year old young adults who spent K through 12 learning that words have impact, and, you know, we shouldn't use certain words because of the impact and drop them off on a public school campus and bring in Richard Spencer, and then everybody's surprised that the students are upset. And I really smart at this idea of sort of weak, that they're weak or that they're snowflakes, I don't think that's the case.

I think they're really strong and they're using the muscle that's been built we just haven't given them the other set of skills. So that's a long way of saying that I think education is really at the core and I think it can happen, curricularly I think it can happen extra curricularly. I think it can happen through clubs I think there are so many ways that it can happen and I want to add is happening.

And in fact, hopefully in the, in the show notes you can drop in we put together some back to school resources. And one of them was together, two different resource guides together and one of them is for having dialogue. I mean there are so many amazing groups who are doing this work and so we really put together in one place.

A lot of different ways that you can do that same thing for First Amendment their classroom modules. So I think, rather than reinvent the wheel the center really wanted to say there's a lot of wheels out there and there's going to be one for your institution, but you have to then commit to using it.

SPEAKER_00
So, Michelle, you talked on this isn't a new issue right a lot of these issues are not new, having these dialogues on a campus have been important for a really long time. Our campus is getting better at having those discussions and then is it just getting harder because the entire US is just becoming much more partisan, and the issues of having a dialogue is harder throughout our society not just on our campuses, like our campuses getting better, and it's just getting harder to do the work, or, or have they not moved forward, kind of over the past couple years as we've been having these difficult conversations.

SPEAKER_02
No I absolutely think there has been forward momentum and I think I just want to add that we have to also remember that campuses, especially in this incredibly challenging time, learning and expression, these things are happening every day on the campus, over the United States in the quad in dorms in the classroom. And again, it's it's sort of hard to pull apart Sarah, in terms of the issues whether they're actually more frequent or just more amplified, but in terms of moving forward, absolutely there are so many people who've done great thinking, you know we see the same thing in America, putting out guides, you see Nancy Thomas at Tufts thinking deeply about these issues, and you see, I think colleges and universities making tremendous efforts to meet these challenges. You know the problem is is that you know you can't solve in three years what has been going on, you know, for decades, you know when you think about these threats to academic freedom you know McCarthyism was a threat to academic freedom so again it's not that this is coming in a different form.

SPEAKER_03
Definitely does not seem like the solution to having productive and difficult conversations is the banning of subjects right I mean, I mean, the idea that we're just not going to be able to engage on issues of race and sex. And I mean, it's not really, you know, as in the Oklahoma legislation or you know critical race theory is 1619 project I mean that that feels like exactly the, the opposite way of to go, you know, it will cut off productive conversations, you know and and will make it difficult for students to be able to really engage with with ideas that are different from what they might already hold.

SPEAKER_02
And so it seems blatantly unconstitutional I mean I was just going to say to you I think that like, you know, I was going to say you know your, your expertise also. I think they are unconstitutional I think they ultimately will be found to be unconstitutional that is you know we should talk about like the laws of blunt instrument. And so you know we have to wait, while this goes through the litigation process, and that is hard because look some schools are going to have the resources and the ability to like wait it out and say you know, the executive order happened in 2020 and number of colleges double down and said we are not going to suspend our programs right, but you then put yourself in a position of having your funding potentially being cut and some schools cannot put themselves in that situation.

So ultimately, I do think that this particular vehicle will be sort of I think stopped or I hope it will be stopped if the Constitution still has a meaning. It may take a little while and again it may be state by state right so it's the Oklahoma case but somebody at somewhere else might say well you know what maybe our district court or appellate bench will make a different decision. And again I think, going back to what Sarah said I think the folks that are committed to sort of eliminating these kinds of discussions are very well organized, they're very well funded, and they're dogged in their pursuit of their perspective.

SPEAKER_01
And that raises just a really good question about part of what the Center focuses on obviously free speech but also civic engagement right so we we've talked a lot about things within a campus or things imposed on the campus. How can campuses be agents of change and reach out you know and sort of counter some of these narratives, you know speak to the real value of academic freedom, you know, true free expression. And so I think that we need to engage civic actors to help shift this debate and change the narrative.

SPEAKER_02
I'm really glad you raised that because I think, you know, the Center has its full name which is that you know that you see National Center for free speech and civic engagement and I feel like the first couple of years, it was like free speech and civic engagement right. And I've really been trying to, you know, promote the civic engagement piece of it. And I think that that is also going to be one of the keys, which is that, look, we just came out of a terrifying year for democracy, right where we watched, you know, people mob and ride at the capital and try to remind them peaceful transition of power.

And I think every sector in society is thinking about what that means and if democracy needs scaffolding. How can they help and I think that higher education needs to do that and is doing that. You know, Ron Daniels who's the president of Johns Hopkins just came out with a really interesting book called what universities oh democracy.

And I think that a lot of folks are starting to think about that. It's similar to free speech. It's about education.

Right, that civic engagement isn't just getting out the vote. Right, what does civic engagement mean, and how do we inculcated into the daily life of students and administrators and others. And I think there's, again, lots of ways that we're doing it, you know, at the center.

I'll just mention we have this voice program voice grant the valuing open and inclusive communication and engagement, and we're giving seed seed money. And this is to any UC staff, student or faculty who wants to find a creative or innovative way to further either dialogue or civic engagement. And I have to say that, you know, I can't take I'm very proud of what they've done even though all the center is done is give the money, but people have such interesting ideas about how to get their colleagues and friends and peers engaged, whether that's in the kind of city that they live in whether it's within their community, you know, civic engagement hackathons and vote cell and using music and using art.

And so I think that part of it is imposed, you know, from we need to mandate certain things but I think there can be also, if given the opportunity, kind of from the ground, I think a lot of people really do want to engage and make change.

SPEAKER_01
And hopefully what be able to post links to that because that sounds absolutely fast. I mean I think you saw us for sort of like nodding along and smiling and leading it as you're talking about that so I will hopefully have that in the show notes and sorry, I think I interrupted you.

SPEAKER_03
Michelle, I was going to say, you know, classes for many schools that are on a semester system are going to start the next week or two. You know, do you have, if you had one piece of advice for administrators or one sort of thing you wanted them to look at and then one for faculty members. Do you have a, do you have a ready sort of set of things that you might want faculty to say to staff and their, their first in their first class.

SPEAKER_02
I mean, I think a couple of things and I think I want to give a caveat and that's very lawyerly, which is to say that obviously, these issues are so important but right now there's also other issues that are taking precedence. You know, I imagine that there's probably a lot of discussion about, you know, pandemic related things but I think for faculty what I would say is I think that like the issues of, you know, political discourse and civic engagement, I think there's an opportunity to do it introduce them like all across the curriculum I don't think it has to just be political science or social science. I think that in any academic discipline there's an opportunity to talk about the disciplines impact on society.

And so I think I would just urge faculty to try to think about it with that broad lens, even if it's just one or two readings or even if it's just a series of questions, doesn't have to mean you pick the most controversial issue and drop it, you know, on the first day but to really think about that. And I think for students, I guess I don't remember if you said faculty administrators and students students I think it's just again really basic I think it's trying to come at things with a more open mind, and to try to really walk in the shoes of some folks who you might disagree with and try to really understand where it is that they're coming from. And, you know, for administrators, I, I guess I just want to validate that I think in some ways they have not the hardest job but a really challenging job, because there are the ones that are really interfacing, sort of with the students and the faculty, and that are often, you know, the ones that have to make really tough challenges that are really an ideal situation so I think to them I kind of want to say, you know, I think the be prepared.

And I think it's always really hard I know for me I'm always like, oh I'm going to get to that right it's in the future. And I think to really to really say to your team, you know what we need to do it now let's just sit down. And I think that's what you start to think because I think that once you start to think, unfortunately it might get harder before it gets easier but I do think it's worth the investment of time.

SPEAKER_01
And that is fantastic advice and a great place to give you your time back for the rest of the day. We will have show link or links in the show notes to a lot of the resources you mentioned and I would strongly encourage people listening to go and check them out and thank you so much Michelle for coming on.

SPEAKER_02
I just want to just give a quick shameless plug though for the center. Absolutely. We'll put the website obviously in the links but I just want to say that for any listeners that haven't visited our website that haven't been to our speech spotlight live programs that haven't looked at our resources.

I'm going to say please please go ahead and do that because we really one of my goals for the center is to really create resources and research that are usable by people like you in the field. So I would say look at what we've got and then I also would invite anybody who has things that would be helpful. If there's an issue you'd like to see the center take up if there's a resource that you feel like isn't out there that you would like to have created.

I urge you to reach out to me into the center because our work is to really respond to the like ongoing needs of students staff faculty and others that are in the field. This is such a pleasure. I could talk with all of you for so much longer.

I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely. And I have a feeling even though you have already set our record as the first out external or peak. Yes, that probably won't be the last time we'll be calling up and ask you to come out and talk.

SPEAKER_02
If I get another invite that means I did okay. Now the question is do I get another trophy?

SPEAKER_01
Oh, well, yeah, we'll have to think about that. But for you, we can probably work something out. So anyway, thanks so much, Michelle.

It was great having you on. Thank you. As always, you can check out earlier episodes and subscribe to dot edu on Apple, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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