In the university world and particularly at the University of Chicago, the name Kalven is often reverentially invoked. Harry Kalven was a professor of Constitutional Law at the UofC. In 1967 he headed a commission that issued a report that called for the University’s neutrality on public issues. Kalven’s primary interest was freedom of speech, and the major argument of the Kalven Report was that if the University adopted a position on such issues, it would constrain the freedom of speech of those within the institution who disagreed with the position it had adopted. In 2015, the late president of the UofC, Robert Zimmer, received acclaim from a variety of strange bedfellows for restating his support for the Kalven Report.
On Sunday, February 2nd, the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed piece by Kalven’s son Jamie entitled “Is it time for the UofC to abandon cherished neutrality and join the fight?” I’m proud to call Jamie a friend. I have deep respect for the clarity of his thought and the integrity of the positions he adopts. He has won a number of prestigious journalism awards and is perhaps most well-known for bringing the police murder of Laquan Macdonald to public attention and linking it to patterns of police lawlessness directed at Chicago’s Black citizens.
In this op-ed piece, Jamie reminds us that he is in a unique position to address his father’s thinking on issues of free speech because he spent years after his father’s death completing Harry Kalven’s book on freedom of speech, an act of selflessness and self-education that is unparalleled in my experience. As a result, he is able to examine his father’s thinking represented in the Report and raise questions about whether it has become unintended dogma.
A close reading of his father’s words led Jamie to spotlight a qualifying statement which is rarely cited when the Report is invoked. “From time to time instances will arise in which the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and values.” (my emphasis)
Who can deny that Trump’s reelection is just such an instance? The issue goes far beyond the university. If our primary focus is the protection of free speech, the evidence mounts from day to day that in order to establish an authoritarian regime, the administration is acting to stifle the many areas of free speech that are within its considerable reach. This is evident in the harassing lawsuits it has introduced against both individual journalists and their publications that have spoken in opposition to the president’s actions. It is also evident in the steps underway to choke off the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS.
Closer to home, the shameful hearings, supposedly investigating antisemitism on campus, were really intended to stifle the free exchange of ideas about Israel/Palestine and the war in Gaza. The threats to punish schools that continue to pursue policies related to DEI by withholding federal grant support constitute a further assault on free speech. These threats exist across every area of our fragile society – universities, schools, the press, the media. To return to the theme of last week’s posting, a lot of the restrictions are self-imposed, the result of what Timothy Snyder has called “anticipatory obedience.”
For me, Jamie’s op-ed piece highlights an issue that is embedded in so many areas of resistance. Can we afford to continue to play by the same rules that have governed traditional public discourse and activity while our adversaries are creating an alternative playbook which virtually guarantees their success? When Elon Musk invades a government agency over which he has no jurisdiction and, in effect, shuts it down or, worse, takes it over, are our usual strategies of resorting to the courts or slowing and obstructing legislative processes sufficient? Mass action seems like the path to follow, at least until government force makes that a dangerous option. (If you look back at Paul Lynch’s book The Prophet which I posted about on December 1st, you’ll find a vivid description of the brutal crackdown on public demonstrations that marks a later stage of the solidification of authoritarian rule.)
We will be adding our bodies to a rally/demonstration downtown tomorrow. It’s not my favorite form of political action, but until we develop more sophisticated forms of resistance it’s what’s available. I’ll report back next week on how that went. Apologies for wandering from the free speech focus we began with, but it’s all related.
