Hacker News Reader

Comment by jrm4 | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotally, I was in college for 95-99, and I think we are in a much better place, free-speech-wise, than back then. I think perhaps a LOT of people underestimate the extent to which a lot of the biases that e.g. people of color discuss today were so pervasive that one could not even bring them up without reprisal back then.

And by reprisal I mean the following: if I were to merely discuss --as in, not advocate for, but merely discuss as a concept -- reparations, I'd immediately be dismissed and generally forever known as the angry black guy.

Of course, not to purely blame white people I suppose, that was just the "way things were." In retrospect, the line someone like me had to walk was far narrower back then.

We do have problems today, but I do not see a huge gap between those then and now.

View on HN

> And by reprisal I mean the following: if I were to merely discuss --as in, not advocate for, but merely discuss as a concept -- reparations, I'd immediately be dismissed and generally forever known as the angry black guy.

As someone who was in college at roughly the same time, this doesn't sound like what I remember. Google scholar shows lots of academic discussion around reparations at that time (I'm assuming you mean for slavery, so I searched specifically for that) [0]

I'm sure it depends on what institution you were at and who you spoke to, but I don't think it was at all a taboo concept generally speaking in American academia.

Edit: Further googling found that there were even state legislatures creating legislation or resolutions in favor of reparations in the 1990s[1]: "In 1990, the Louisiana House of Representatives passed a resolution in support of reparations. In 1991, legislation was introduced in the Massachusetts Senate providing for the payment of reparations for slavery, the slave trade, and individual discrimination against the people of African descent born or residing in the commonwealth of Massachusetts."

[0]: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=reparations+for+slavery... [1]: https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/reparations-has-the...

This is the difficulty of trying to get someone else to see through your eyes, right? The fact that it shows up in books/papers can be a universe away from the actual space of a classroom.

Sure. I can definitely believe that in a given classroom setting being the advocate for reparations was uncomfortable. But even as that has become more acceptable, being an advocate for other things that would have been considered mainstream in the late 90s has now become uncomfortable. The acceptable range of discourse in college classrooms has shifted, but I'm not sure it has grown.

In any case, those scenarios are different from academic freedom in what I think of as the more typical sense, in terms of scholars being allowed to pursue and publish on whatever research topics they like. Reparations were not (I believe) outside the realm of academic freedom in the 1990s that sense.

I agree, it hasn't grown and there are problems to consider. But ngl, from my point of view the discussions (inside the realm of "academia," i.e. purely in the papers) have gotten far less stupid.

> if I were to merely discuss --as in, not advocate for, but merely discuss as a concept -- reparations, I'd immediately be dismissed and generally forever known as the angry black guy.

So people would dismiss you? Did they do anything else?

Did they try to get you punished? Did they try to get you kicked out of school? Did they try to shout you down or pull fire alarms to prevent others from hearing what you had to say? Did they physically attack you?

Even if people merely socially alienated him for placing an idea into consideration, that's a restriction on freedom of speech, particularly as academia is supposed to be a place where people can freely consider and debate ideas without worry of reprisals.

What would your alternative be? Force me to listen to someone I disagree with? Aren't you now limiting my freedom? Freedom of speech doesn't mean you're guaranteed an audience.

In the context of a university classroom... yes?

I support government subsidies (either explicit or through beneficial taxable status) of academic institutions in the hopes that they can create a liberal culture where any and all ideas are open for consideration. If as institutions they don't want to create a place where freedom of thought is paramount, that's fine; but at that point I don't see any particular reason they should be eligible for subsidies.

As for you, you should feel free to attend or not, but I'm not interested in subsidizing you sitting in a classroom but only hearing ideas that never challenge you.

Lol. Bruh, I'm from "The Bell Curve" era. Yeah, you're gonna have to listen to people you disagree with. And I fully believe this goes both/all ways.

Say what? People should be allowed to disagree with you and even ignore you, that's what freedom of speech is about, be it in academia or wherever. What you imply should be the norm is a "safe space" -- which is the opposite of freedom of speech, because in a "safe space" you are only allowed to say "nice" things, "nicety" being evaluated by an authority. That's kindergarten, not academia.

There's a difference between being allowed to disagree with someone--that's not merely acceptable but desired--and facing social repercussions for making an argument.

If you are talking about being ignored as a social repercussion, you are wrong -- nobody is entitled to force opinions onto others. If they don't like you, they can ignore you as much as they want, that's freedom. What you propose is fascism.

I'm not trying to complain on behalf of myself; I'm trying to paint you all a picture of "what it was like." Social and cultural spaces were different back then.

What you're doing is trying to isolate and relate what I was going through, but through your own lens and you can't much do it that way.

For example, I was fortunate to go to an Ivy League school and as a black person that felt like a huge privilege, one that I damn sure was going to stay within a certain set of behaviors to keep. You can't measure "academic freedom" without that kind of context.

Again, maybe I/we misread and perhaps had more room to speak than we thought. Probably did. But again, just painting the picture for you.

There is no way you'd had faced formal repercussions for just discussing it in the late 90s. While I can't prove this, I would be stunned if you got much more than a few eye rolls and the like, essentially all in private. It is conceivable that some faculty member may decline writing a letter of recommendation, which could be significant. I am speaking about good Canadian schools and American ivies.

The suppression today involves professionally disasterous public things like firings, censures, formal censorship, pressure to sign petitions, reputational destruction, doxing, physically threatening pressure and screaming and possibly violence, etc. If only it were eye rolls.

You are correct that it wouldn't be formal. You are WAY OFF in thinking that informal isn't just as, if not more important.

Specifically, you're missing how then, e.g. white conservative majority power didn't need formality to suppress. That's how majority power works. It can just good-ol-boy network its way to suppression. (And note how it doesn't need to be precise when it's like that. It doesn't have to "make an argument," it can, e.g. just deny tenure to the loud black lady on some random grounds.)

Formality is usually what the WEAKER side must resort to. Now I think there's a reasonable argument that that process is much stronger in a negative way today -- but context.

But that doesnt infringe of academic freedom. It infringes when you have some mechanism that removes it. Such as censorship or punishment.

Your (and others) use of "mechanism" is telling; your mind is likely pointing to something visible, formal and therefore publicly addressable, and what I'm trying to get at is that the oppression we dealt with is none of those things. Majority type power can oppress without that.

Once again -- this has nothing to do with academic freedom. Are you trying to derail the topic on purpose?

You appear to be under the absolutely ridiculous illusion that "academia" as a space for discussion is a self-evident isolated bubble of safety. I wish it were that, and I literally work most days to try to make it that way, but it ain't that way.

You keep saying words that appear to make sense but actually don't in the context of this post. Pretty much like politicians do. What is your point exactly? You said that academia is more free now than in the 90s -- is that your point? If so, this point is incorrect, because in the 90s there were no political witch hunts against academics that are prevalent and widespread nowadays.

And I'm telling you that even though there were no visible witch hunts, there absolutely were forces that suppressed certain types of thought, only they weren't framed that way. It was simple racism/sexism/homophobia etc.

Simple metric. Look at the makeup of "tenured faculties" back then. Overwhelmingly white and very male. Do you seriously believe that such a make up could nonetheless provide a diverse cross-section of thought?

To me diversity in itself has no intrinsic value. Such make up means white males were more rigorous in their pursuits, that's all. Also, I don't think your numbers are even accurate -- a quick google shows that 44% of tenured are female.

If you define it that way then people with non liberal views have an even stronger case. I agree completely that social expectations have a large ramifications, such as self-censorship, which is artificially propping up liberal ideaology in the Universities.

Your example has nothing to do with academic freedom whatsoever.

The ability to engage with unfashionable topics in an academic context has nothing to do with academic freedom?

There is no academic context here in the parent comment, only social context. This example would fit the topic if it were about writing a thesis on reparations that was rejected or if the author was actively dissuaded from writing it.

If we exclude the social context in which academic discussions occur from "academic context" then I guess there won't be very many cases where academic freedom is infringed upon.

The original commenter did not mention being banned from any academic discussions -- his freedom was not infringed. It is the other people's freedom to ignore him that he wanted to infringe. He wanted to force other people to engage with him. That's the opposite of freedom.

And now for a case of real infringement of academic freedom:

https://quillette.com/2018/09/07/academic-activists-send-a-p...

No, I just wanted to paint a broad picture. Maybe I failed in that regard for you specifically, but I think other people got it.

The broad picture you painted is that society nowadays is somehow more free because less people disagree with your views. That's absolutely incorrect and has nothing to do with the concept of academic freedom to boot. I'm getting tired of reiterating.

You started with an argument-free assertion and your point seems to rely (as far as I can tell) on a pretty specific meaning of "academic freedom," which you've only defined by telling us that various aspects which one might expect to fall under "academic freedom" don't quite qualify. So it isn't that surprising that you've had to "reiterate" a bit.

I think we'll probably all agree that the juice isn't really worth the squeeze here, though.

Academic freedom is a relatively well-defined term, and requiring other people to acknowledge you and your ideas is not a part of it. Forcing your ideas onto others is fascist and the opposite of freedom.

It has everything to do with academic freedom because "academic freedom" is never in a vacuum. You're just showing that you're insulated from it. Be smarter, please.

What am I insulated from? Academic freedom? Vacuum? Social derision? Mayhap I am indeed dumb, but I don't follow your line of reasoning. What your original comment distills to is that you were socially shunned for holding certain opinions -- and yes, this has nothing to do with academic freedom. You were not censored or cancelled -- that's what's important. And you can't just force others to accept your views. Trying to is fascist.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com