[RYAN BISIO, "DEEP FAKE"]

One small step for man.

Bring me

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Hello and welcome to Free Speech With CR. I'm Molly Blakemore, and I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Keith Flamer.

KEITH FLAMER: President.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: College of the Redwoods.

KEITH FLAMER: Thank you. And it's a pleasure being here today. And I would like to have our guests introduce themselves, please.

NATALIA MARGULIS: John.

KEITH FLAMER: John, do you want to start?

JOHN JOHNSTON: Sure. I'm John Johnston. I teach philosophy here at CR. I've been here for 23 years. Originally came as an English professor, and then moved over to philosophy some number of years ago.

KEITH FLAMER: Wonderful.

NATALIA MARGULIS: And we're lucky to have you, John. And I'm Natalia Margulis. And I can't believe time flies. This is my 10th year at CR. Originally, I am from the East Coast, and I'm finding myself more and more of a West-coaster and almost a Humboldt native.

KEITH FLAMER: Almost a Humboldt native.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Yeah.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Though originally, you're from the Soviet Union.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Originally. I'm from--

JOHN JOHNSTON: Oh, sorry.

KEITH FLAMER: And you're from where, originally? That John opened up about that door, there.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Well, originally, I was born in Moscow. And it's actually quite a story for another time but I came here as a teenager. I came to the United States without my family, and being from a pretty sheltered background, that was quite a shocker. Let's just say I expected like a Hollywood welcome.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Look-- But yeah, close. But you landed in New York.

NATALIA MARGULIS: But I landed in Virginia. You know. Yeah. And later New York, and then LA. And now I'm in Humboldt.

KEITH FLAMER: Thank you both for agreeing to come and talk to us today.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Thanks for having us.

KEITH FLAMER: Absolutely. Let me just lay the groundwork for why we're here today. The conversation about free speech and the conversation that surrounds academic freedom in this country has been under attack by several states and as well as the Trump administration. And we have been awfully careful about how we maneuver through the challenges that we're seeing. And I have been on record to say that the administration will protect academic freedom at all costs, that that's the hill that I'm willing to die on.

And so that is why we're here. We want to have an honest conversation about academic freedom, what it is, what it is not. Some of the concerns that faculty have in the classroom. And so I'd like to start that conversation off, if we can. So one, John, can you talk to us about what is, actually, academic freedom, and how does it differ from free speech?

JOHN JOHNSTON: OK, that's a big question. That's a good one. So academic freedom as a concept is usually broken into three areas. So area number one would be the freedom of professors to research and publish. And the second area would be the freedom to speak on their subjects in the classrooms. And then the third area is a little broader, which is the freedom to speak on matters of public interest, matters of institutional interest, and later that becomes to speak in forms of shared governance.

As a concept, just broadly speaking, academic freedom has been around since at least the 13th century. The folks in the monasteries would talk about the importance of being able to be free in their theological pursuits. So it was as-- the idea of being a free inquiry has been around in intellectual circles for quite a bit. It gets kind of its first formal articulation by the philosopher Immanuel Kant in the very late 18th century.

KEITH FLAMER: I read Kant.

JOHN JOHNSTON: OK, great.

KEITH FLAMER: I had to read Kant.

JOHN JOHNSTON: OK. Yeah. He's--

KEITH FLAMER: OK, I guess.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Yeah, and he wrote a paper, I think it was called "Conflicts Among the Faculties". I think that was what it was. And he argued that you could break up the faculty and the university into two broad categories, the higher and the lower. And the higher faculty were in law, medicine and theology. And he argued that these people are servants of the public. And so they really have to be tightly bound in their inquiries and their pursuits. But those, what he called lower faculty, which included philosophy, art, music, math, they needed to have the freedom to pursue their ideas and not have to be bound in by the same strictures as those higher faculty.

Then in the late 19th century, as universities are really spreading across the country, here in America, there starts to occur conflicts between members of the public, powerful members of the public and universities. So you, say, see professors coming out and they're speaking in favor of trade unions, or they're speaking in favor of a particular religious perspective. And this rubs people in the community, some of the community, the wrong way. They appeal immediately to the university president, say, I don't what that person is saying, and then that person might be punished, might be terminated, might have the whole program demolished.

And then in 1915, after a number of these events occur, the American Association of University Professors comes out in 1915 and they say, look, we need to embrace academic freedom in those three areas that I articulated initially. And they issued a formal paper. And this starts to spread. And then in 1940, it really starts to spread. They issue a sort of revised version of this statement called-- I think it's called Statement on the-- or "Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure".

KEITH FLAMER: It is, yes.

JOHN JOHNSTON: OK. And this becomes just a flashpoint, not just in America, but worldwide, because universities start to look at this statement of the importance of academic freedom and tenure, and they start to embrace it. But the problem was, is that the most that could be done is to censure a university that they believed had violated these principles of academic freedom. It's not like it's a legally binding document. It's a set of principles that they've articulated that they think universities should adhere to. And if there is a charge that a university wasn't adhering to those principles, then they would do an investigation. And they might put a university on the naughty list but that doesn't have a lot of teeth to it.

And so then, to get teeth into the principles of academic freedom in the 1960s or so, individual faculty unions start to establish, in their working contracts, either individually or collectively, their bargaining agreements, start to establish these principles of academic freedom. And then they become contractually enforceable.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah. So at what-- go ahead, Molly, please.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Well, I was just going to say-- I was going to ask, so that's an understanding of where it came from. But what are the practical implications of it in the classroom? Why is it important to have this academic freedom in the classroom?

NATALIA MARGULIS: Well, I mean, I was just going to add to what John was saying because the initial question was the difference between academic freedom and freedom of speech. We were asked that question. And it's hard to see in a nutshell because, of course, they walk together and then they branch out. But if it were to be reductively formulated, I think it's the difference between the pursuit of knowledge and knowledge within a field. So within a guided parameters, pursuit of knowledge and truth, this would be academic freedom side, right? Versus freedom of speech, it would be the ability to express your ideas and opinion no matter what. As long as this-- without persecution from the government.

KEITH FLAMER: So may I take that a little further then?

NATALIA MARGULIS: Yeah, please. By all--

KEITH FLAMER: So are you suggesting, then, that faculty, even though they have academic freedom within the classroom, they don't actually have the freedom of speech within the classroom? Is that what you're arguing?

NATALIA MARGULIS: Whether they have a freedom of speech within the classroom. Kind of. And this is more of a legal distinction, because I think the condition of time and place applies both to faculty and to students alike. So, yes, the professor can set, it's like my turf, my classroom. They set these rules, and these rules align with the rules of the academic institution. But I believe, and this is an interesting question, that a professor may not express, let's say, hate speech within the classroom. But as a private citizen, they would be able to express it, let's say on X, formerly known as Twitter. As a private citizen. So this is the distinction I see. Does that answer your question?

KEITH FLAMER: Yes, sort of. Which leads to other questions. John, were you about to add something there?

JOHN JOHNSTON: Well, I think that the distinction between just freedom of speech and academic freedom within the confines of the classroom, the classroom is a particular environment where faculty are there to operate as professionals. And there's a professional-- there are professional guidelines for our behavior. So like Natalia says, I can't go into a classroom and start engaging in harassing behavior, harassing verbal behavior with students, because that's in conflict with my professional standards of teacher. And I wouldn't be able to claim that, well, I have the freedom of speech to call students whatever names I want to. That's my freedom of speech. And somebody would say, well, no, there are ethical standards of behavior that you are obliged to adhere to when you're in that classroom of students.

Where I think it gets a little trickier is when you have a faculty member who's in a classroom with students and they are bound by the standards of the discipline, so the professional standards of their subjects. So I'm a science teacher, for example, and there are certain expectations of what the content is that's going to be taught in a particular science class.

NATALIA MARGULIS: And so this is a really good point because, let's say, as a science professor, I don't believe I have the academic freedom or logical freedom to come in and start talking about fairies in my class. This is because it is outside the bounds of dominant research within my discipline. Does that make sense?

JOHN JOHNSTON: But there's a fine line here, because one of the things that academic freedom is supposed to protect is the professor's ability to challenge disciplinary orthodoxies.

KEITH FLAMER: Exactly right. Yeah.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Right? So, as Natalia says, yeah, I can't go into the science classroom and start teaching, here's why evolution isn't true. Oh, I could go in and teach, here are the arguments against evolution. But I would assume the assumption in a science classroom is we're going to operate off of these established scientific principles.

NATALIA MARGULIS: This is what I was trying to say. And even though new ideas can be uncomfortable, new ideas about fairies are not just uncomfortable in a science class. They are inappropriate because they exist outside all research and hegemonic discourse.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Right, but somebody might come forward at some-- not to fairies, I don't think they'd come forward. But somebody might-- OK, so a--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Like proof of fairies. No.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Well, they might forward with a very revolutionary idea that perhaps reality isn't constituted only of physical, material things. Not necessarily pointing at fairies, but maybe based on some research that they've done, they think they can make a compelling argument that there are limitations to science, let's say, for example.

NATALIA MARGULIS: I think this is within-- well within the bounds of academic freedom.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Yeah, I think it is as well. And then the problem becomes, well, what happens when that faculty member's colleagues don't agree with these challenges to the established principles or orthodoxies of the discipline?

NATALIA MARGULIS: But that's because academic freedom is not absolute. It exists within the field of power within its own discipline. So within art history, there are some hegemonic discourses that place more emphasis on certain ideas over others. And to stay on the right side of that-- If you don't, I mean, you risk the wrath of your colleagues.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Absolutely.

NATALIA MARGULIS: And the establishment. Now, it happens left and right.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And also, isn't it true that you can't be teaching philosophy in a science class, or you shouldn't be? You to be bound by the subject matter that you are the expert on. So you're not going to take politics into a math class, or that's not protected.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Well, certain pairings are better than others.

KEITH FLAMER: But what if you can do that, actually?

NATALIA MARGULIS: Because science is deeply philosophical at its core. You can, of course, teach math and art together as well. These are fantastic interdisciplinary connections, but some of them are more logical than others, absolutely.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Well, I have heard-- so an example I've heard about where you think that there wouldn't be any justifiable crossover between politics and another discipline. I've had math faculty in statistics in particular talk about the pushback they would get from students when they would give them statistical problems to analyze that had to do with incarceration rates or some other political issue. And so, are you going to make statistics meaningful? Well, if you want to, you're going to have to have it apply to the real world. And it instantly becomes political.

KEITH FLAMER: And then what's our stand?

JOHN JOHNSTON: What's our stand?

KEITH FLAMER: Yep.

JOHN JOHNSTON: In terms of--

KEITH FLAMER: OK. For example, in our world today we have parents, students, communities that are questioning what we teach in the classroom, and how much influence should that actually have? And what-- please.

NATALIA MARGULIS: I want to ask you.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah.

NATALIA MARGULIS: As the administrator who, I think, at the end of the day, answers for the health, well-being and standing of the entire institution, and shields the institution from the risks, both internal and external. So I just wanted to flip it and see what you think.

KEITH FLAMER: That is a great question, one that I actually think about every day, because I know it's coming. And it has come a couple times to my desk, is I will always protect the faculty's right to teach their [INAUDIBLE]. And the outside world would not have any-- should not have any influence over that. Now, I would rely on the faculty union and the senate to take a look at that and give advice on what the next steps should be. Because I don't want CR to go the way of other schools like Harvard or Brown or Texas schools, to say that if someone lodges a complaint about a faculty member's teaching this, and my kid doesn't like it, therefore the faculty should be fired. Because that happens way too often in this country. That should never happen. And that will not happen.

NATALIA MARGULIS: And what are the-- I'm going to throw a very comfortable what-if hypothetical at this. So in a vacuum, this is an honorable and just direction. But considering that today's influence is exerted, not just by a single email or a few opinions expressed in private, everything happens extremely publicly.

KEITH FLAMER: It does, yeah.

NATALIA MARGULIS: And that's the foremost challenge that we have to contend to as instructors as well. What if the pressure exerted on administration came in the form of threats? A social media storm, TV cameras showing up in scores at our doorstep, saying-- they're not going to tell you, change or else. But the pressure is going to be so public and so uncomfortable that some action might be necessitated. This is a hypothetical. We don't have to go there.

KEITH FLAMER: No, actually, it's a great question because again, I think about this every time I turn on my computer. Some email comes to me and two things. One, we will always protect the freedom of faculty in the classroom. And we will always protect the freedom of every CR employee outside of the classroom. They have free speech rights and no one should abridge those rights. And that's something that we will always stand on, even though it does get uncomfortable.

NATALIA MARGULIS: So you're saying it's a dichotomy sometimes, but you're willing to navigate it.

KEITH FLAMER: We have been willing to navigate. This is not hypothetical. This is some things that we've all been through.

JOHN JOHNSTON: I think at a higher level, there's a-- related to your original question. One of the things that-- I think it would be foolish if we ignored this. And that is academic freedom is tremendous power.

KEITH FLAMER: Yes.

JOHN JOHNSTON: And with all the things that have tremendous power comes tremendous responsibility. And when members of the--

KEITH FLAMER: [INAUDIBLE] That was in Spider-Man.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Right.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Is that right?

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah. Yeah, I do.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Good one.

JOHN JOHNSTON: You asked or set up this scenario where you have members of the community who are complaining about what's being taught in the classroom.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah.

JOHN JOHNSTON: And if academic freedom is abused, and I think it can be, and the public no longer-- or some segment of the public no longer sees higher education as serving the common good, and they lose confidence in us as taxpayers, then we could be in real trouble. We have to have the confidence of the communities we serve, and that requires us to use our academic freedom responsibly and not to use it as an excuse for advancing a personal perspective or a personal political agenda. And if you look at studies over the last five or six years, there's been an increasing number of the population that is-- in fact, I think I read it this morning. There was a Pew study that was done in I think, 2019.

KEITH FLAMER: Actually, yeah, we've used that one, yeah.

JOHN JOHNSTON: OK. And it said it was like 32% of the population thought not that universities weren't serving the common good, but they were actually doing harm.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah.

JOHN JOHNSTON: And that, if we ignore that problem, we're in serious trouble.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: But the converse is also true, that if you cave to outside pressures within the classroom, you're going to lose a lot of respect and credibility at a professional level. So it is that fine line between balancing what the public wants and what you believe is your--

KEITH FLAMER: You know, I think about this question as I woke up in the 1960s in this country, that if-- I don't think that I would be sitting here if the universities kowtowed to the pressures of society.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Are you referring to McCarthyism?

KEITH FLAMER: Absolutely. But also anything in Jim Crow.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Jim--

NATALIA MARGULIS: Crow. But a bunch of faculty were fired during that time.

KEITH FLAMER: Exactly. And so where would we be if the universities didn't stand up and say, no more? We will teach what's best. Right? And so there is a push-pull on freedom of speech and academically.

JOHN JOHNSTON: There are some faculty-- not here at our institution that I'm aware of, but Judith Butler is a famous example, who have this perspective that faculty are-- the term they use is uncommon beings.

KEITH FLAMER: Yes.

JOHN JOHNSTON: And their stance is that professors are put in a really unique role. It's not-- it's to advance the common good, but it's to advance the common good against the sentiments of common opinion or popular opinion. And that's positioning professors as these institutionalized rebels of a sort, the primary principles driving the profession are not necessarily the standards of the discipline, but of something like democracy or universal human rights, and that higher education, ultimately, is serving those principles rather than the specific disciplinary requirements of their discipline.

KEITH FLAMER: Honestly, I agree with that sentiment. Or that whole argument is, faculty, and you're right, faculty are uniquely in a position to protect critical thinking and protect the backbone of what democracy is.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And I think this gets back to the idea of freedom of speech and as opposed to freedom of-- academic freedom, in the sense that there are hierarchies of ideas within the classroom, whereas in freedom of speech, everybody has the right to say whatever they want, regardless of whether that idea holds merit or it's quantifiably true.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Yeah. I can say whatever dumb things I want outside.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: But you can't do that in the classroom. And in the classroom, you can actually-- you are able to say, no, that idea is not as good as this idea when you're thinking about science. Because [INAUDIBLE] science. And so--

NATALIA MARGULIS: That's a good point, Molly. I mean, I wish we had more time to talk about how this plays out in the arenas of, like, R1 research institutions versus community colleges, and also with the contemporary tendency to see our students more and more as our clients.

KEITH FLAMER: Why don't we take the time and explore that, Natalia.

NATALIA MARGULIS: We just had a five-minute--

KEITH FLAMER: I know that, we have the opportunity of going for an hour, I think it's a half an hour. Just speak, if things are going, then, well.

NATALIA MARGULIS: What specifically did you want to talk about here?

KEITH FLAMER: Let's explore it. Would you?

NATALIA MARGULIS: Well, just talking about-- I always ask to see the trail of money. This is always, this is how the sausage is made, if you will. And it's also a question of what Harvard, Yale, Brown, as in, their students are paying for, versus what our community college students are paying for. And so we can see the split, or at least I think there's a split between the luxury, if you will, that R1 institution students have to attend in person and spend time with the interplay of ideas, almost like watching fireworks, and having fun with it and taking their sweet time versus a community college student who is strapped for cash, has a family, time. They're taking all these credits in the same time. They need this degree and they need it now in order to increase their earning potential for their survival.

So when we were talking earlier about challenging our students, and at the same time, serving our community, that's a tension as well, because a part of our community comes from more conservative backgrounds. And what are they here for is a question in my mind. If they're going through the police academy, for instance. Are they here-- and I don't want to make any generalizations. It's a question. Are they here to be challenged in their worldview? Or are they here to get--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Skills--

NATALIA MARGULIS: Skill. Just skills and get out.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah, so let me follow up there.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: And I don't think this is what you're saying, but let me ask you.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Sure, sure.

KEITH FLAMER: It's there. Are you saying, then, that we have to make a choice between satisfying what our community expects and giving-- or, and challenging our students' way of thinking.

NATALIA MARGULIS: I need a drink of water for this one.

KEITH FLAMER: Please. Take the pause because then it's getting into, in my mind, what the purpose of higher education.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Yeah, we're getting into the weeds here. Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: So actually, that's what we're here to do is getting into the weeds. It's this big conversation.

NATALIA MARGULIS: And I think of it in terms of, are you going for a certificate? Are you going for skills building? Or are you going for the degree that will lead to a transfer. And in that case, that's why we have you do all the other things that are more in line with the traditional idea of the university and the critical thinking and the exchange of ideas.

KEITH FLAMER: If it really matters if they're getting a certificate or degree.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yeah, we're trying to capture those students as well.

KEITH FLAMER: Still trying to [INAUDIBLE] and pushing them beyond what they're used to.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Yeah, we are. Just through all the CORs that we have here that I have seen. They challenge all the students regardless.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: But I'm saying, I see that what happens is sometimes students come for skills, and then they get exposed to all of the other things and they stay.

KEITH FLAMER: Just a matter of being in the classroom.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And yes.

KEITH FLAMER: [INAUDIBLE] Yeah.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And then they may go further in their education, which, I mean, that's part of what we're supposed to be doing, right? I think just getting to that question of what is a community college? As opposed to what is an R1 university?

NATALIA MARGULIS: I mean, I think regardless of the setting, as a teacher I'm not going to use the highfalutin word professor. As a teacher, as somebody who interacts with human beings, I have to exercise nimbleness. Nimbleness of thought. Nimbleness of reading the room. Nimbleness of how far I can push it at any given time. Going in small increments and so on and so forth. So there's no inherent contradiction, in my mind, in serving all communities. But those are, again, a kind of EQ that needs to be exercised.

KEITH FLAMER: EQ meaning emotional quotient?

NATALIA MARGULIS: Yeah. Emotional intelligence is the exercise, and there's no contradiction with that and academic freedom, in my mind. What do you think, John?

JOHN JOHNSTON: Yeah. No, I don't see a contradiction. I see a-- and maybe I'm reading too much into your questions, but I see this-- going back to your point, Molly, I see some potential problems in how we answer the question, what is the purpose of higher education? What is it this academic freedom is serving?

I think about colleagues that I've had, my wonderful colleagues who believe that our purpose is to make better people. And I've had colleagues say that expressly, explicitly. And whenever I hear that, I always think, boy, there's a lot of assumptions built into that. One, that you know what a good person is. And two, that you are so thoroughly knowledgeable about what a good person is that you can actually make more of them. And that's when it starts to slip off the rails a little bit for me.

So I'm thinking about your comments about the diverse community that we serve. And what I hear you saying is I've got to be able to look out at this group of very diverse people, and I've got to figure out how to meet all of their needs. And I've got to do it in a way that it advances their learning in a particular subject, which all makes sense.

NATALIA MARGULIS: Without alienating them.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Well, yeah. And without trying to co-opt who they are as people.

KEITH FLAMER: As people.

JOHN JOHNSTON: And to say, well, I'm going to use this classroom environment as a way of shaping their worldview so that it aligns more with what I think an appropriate worldview is. And that's where I think it starts to get dangerous.

NATALIA MARGULIS: It's not what I think my worldview is, it's the confines and the parameters of my chosen discipline.

JOHN JOHNSTON: No, I think you're right.

NATALIA MARGULIS: So I want to be very careful with that distinction.

JOHN JOHNSTON: Yeah.

NATALIA MARGULIS: I leave my worldview at the--

JOHN JOHNSTON: Yeah, not implying--

NATALIA MARGULIS: --for the most part.

JOHN JOHNSTON: No, I don't mean to imply that.

NATALIA MARGULIS: --comes through, but--

JOHN JOHNSTON: What I'm saying is, your perspective isn't necessarily as widely accepted as I think it needs to be. I do think that, yeah, I've got a little-- my mom gave me a birthday card years ago that I still have on my office wall, and it's a professor, and he's got his leg hiked up on his desk, and he's, like, dressed in this 19th-century garb and says, I was meant to lead a revolution, not teach. And that, I think, is a pretty common sentiment.

KEITH FLAMER: It is a pretty common sentiment.

JOHN JOHNSTON: And that's what I think is the risk. I think what you're articulating, what you're describing--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: We should wrap.

NATALIA MARGULIS: She's kicking--

KEITH FLAMER: That's it. This is sitting fine.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So I think we need to take a break, and then we'll be back with our guests.

KEITH FLAMER: In the second, the session two.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: OK.

[RYAN BISIO, "DEEP FAKE"]

You'll thank me bro