YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → "Ideological Conformity and Censorship” with Eric Kaufmann

"Ideological Conformity and Censorship” with Eric Kaufmann — Transcript

by ASU SCETL · 13,817 words · 2,363 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00good evening
0:01i'm paul karis i'm the director of the
0:04school of civic and economic thought and
0:06leadership here at arizona state
0:07university
0:08and we're delighted to have you with us
0:11for the first event in this academic
0:13year
0:14in our civic discourse project
0:17it's a discussion of ideological
0:20conformity and the culture of censorship
0:23in america
0:24this year that is the theme in our civic
0:27discourse project
0:28ideological conformity on campus and in
0:31american society
0:33this is the school's sixth year in
0:36organizing this speaker series
0:38for the asu community and the phoenix
0:40community and a broader national
0:43audience
0:44and we are very glad we continue to
0:47rebuild
0:48in-person civic discourse after the
0:50pandemic
0:53we are grateful to continue our
0:55collaboration with arizona pbs on
0:57recording all the events in the civic
0:59discourse project
1:00all the events are archived on their
1:02website
1:03and we have pretty good hopes that
1:04arizona pbs will return to
1:06rebroadcasting episodes of the civic
1:09discourse project this year
1:11we also encourage you to explore
1:13the complete video archive that's
1:15available on the school's website
1:19all the webinars single speaker events
1:22dialogue events
1:24they're also on our youtube channel
1:26our website
1:28which has the full archive since 2017 of
1:30our civic discourse project events
1:32website is scetl.asu.edu
1:39and on the theme of civic discourse i'm
1:41very happy that tonight we have with us
1:43several civic leaders from the arizona
1:45community we also have some faculty and
1:47staff from other units i just want to
1:49mention a few names jenny clark of the
1:51state board of education
1:54eileen klein the past chair of the
1:56arizona board of regents now a member of
1:58our school's
1:59board of advisors the board of
2:00counselors
2:02jay heiler former chair of the arizona
2:04board of regents and now the ceo of the
2:06great hearts academies
2:08representative ben toma the majority
2:10leader of the arizona house of
2:11representatives
2:13and nedra eldridge who is co-chair of
2:15the phoenix chapter of braver angels a
2:18national organization that encourages
2:20robust civil discourse across divergent
2:24views
2:25school of civic and economic thought and
2:27leadership has worked for five years now
2:29to convene a high level conversation in
2:32this civic discourse project single
2:34speaker events like tonight dialogue
2:36events with two speakers or more
2:39an annual conference in the spring
2:41all together we're trying to encompass a
2:43range of academic and civic views
2:46the intellectual diversity we're
2:48featuring
2:49tries to exemplify civil disagreement it
2:52also argues for the importance
2:54of that civic virtue in higher education
2:57and in american society
3:00and this
3:01public project is the extension of what
3:04we're trying to do in our academic
3:05program in the school our curriculum our
3:08degrees
3:09the student experiences all trying to
3:11reconnect liberal arts education
3:13and civic education
3:16and with that introduction now to our
3:18speaker and i will also introduce my asu
3:20colleague who will be interviewing
3:22professor coughlin in the second part of
3:24tonight's program
3:26our guest tonight is eric kaufman who is
3:28a professor of politics at birkbeck
3:30college the university of london
3:32he's the author of several books on
3:34political and religious demography and
3:37on nationalism
3:38including white shift
3:41population immigration and the future of
3:42white majorities 2018
3:45shall the religious inherit the earth
3:472010
3:48and the rise and fall of anglo-america
3:512004.
3:53he's also the co-author of unionism and
3:55orangism in northern ireland since 1945
3:592007.
4:01he's also the co-editor of several books
4:03including political demography
4:06uh 2012 and wither the child causes and
4:10consequences of low fertility 2012.
4:13he's an editor of the academic journal
4:15nations and nationalism and he's written
4:18for many public venues including the new
4:19york times the times of london financial
4:21times newsweek international foreign
4:24policy and prospect
4:26he also posts essays on
4:29unheard
4:30and quillet
4:31and he has a pretty lively twitter feed
4:33at least my view
4:36and now to our moderator for this
4:38evening to introduce him now you'll get
4:40to see him later peter dimarnov is a
4:43member of the organizing committee for
4:44this season of the civic discourse
4:46project he is our colleague in the
4:49philosophy faculty at asu within the
4:51school of philosophical
4:53historical philosophical and religious
4:55studies peter's scholarship is in
4:57political philosophy on the philosophy
4:58of law
4:59his publications include topics on
5:01individual rights government paternalism
5:04constitutional interpretation drug laws
5:06and polygamy
5:08he is the author of liberalism and
5:10prostitution 2010 and co-authored with
5:13douglas cusack of the legalization of
5:15drugs 2005.
5:17peter's been a visiting fellow at
5:18princeton university their center for
5:20human values at the safra center for
5:22ethics at harvard and at stanford
5:24university
5:26so our format tonight is that professor
5:28coffin will speak for about 40 minutes
5:30then in part two the evening peter will
5:33join him here in in the chairs
5:36for a thoroughly aggressive interview
5:39and then the third part of the evening
5:41eric will take questions from the
5:43audience that's the microphone in the
5:44middle aisle so be thinking of questions
5:46you might have in mind and so for a
5:48discussion on the question
5:50ideological conformity and censorship
5:54existential threats to the university
5:56and liberal democracy question mark
5:58please join me in welcoming eric coffin
6:01[Applause]
6:09okay well thanks paul and i first off
6:12have to apologize for not having a
6:14british accent i am canadian but i i can
6:16put on an english accent if you want me
6:18to but i won't um so yeah i i thanks
6:21very much paul and i'm delighted to be
6:23here it's my first time in phoenix um
6:26and uh i thought it was fitting and
6:28coming over here in a golf cart that's
6:29the sort of that's a first for me
6:31for an academic talk so how fitting that
6:34is
6:34but
6:35what i would say is i'm very honored to
6:37be here and i also think that schedule
6:39if i can use that uh acronym is is quite
6:42a unique formation in in the global
6:44academic landscape and i think it's a
6:46real
6:47you're really fortunate to be part of an
6:49initiative i think that is that is uh
6:51bringing a sort of much-needed viewpoint
6:53diversity into academia and could be a
6:55model i think for uh future reforms in
6:58other um institutions and and in the
7:00united kingdom as well
7:02what i want to talk about today is uh a
7:04broad societal trend which especially
7:07impacts universities um and this is
7:09really reflecting
7:11um let's just make sure this is
7:14working sorry um
7:18okay um so it's really reflecting a new
7:22collision between two sets of ideas
7:25uh the first of which uh i refer to as
7:28cultural liberalism which is sort of the
7:30traditional idea that held sway
7:32in the academy which values
7:35free speech due process equal treatment
7:38without regard to cholera or creed
7:40scientific reason and objective truth um
7:44what jonathan rausch would call the
7:45constitution of knowledge truth-based
7:48order
7:49against that i think we have um an
7:50emerging ideology which is attaining a
7:53position i would argue of uh hegemony
7:56within the academy and within elite
7:58culture in the west which i call
8:00cultural socialism
8:02and this ideology privileges equality
8:05over liberty to put it very crudely uh
8:07over liberty and the pursuit of truth um
8:11within the high culture now terms such
8:13as
8:14you know some of the terms such as
8:16wokeness and the successor ideology and
8:18intersectionality all of these terms i
8:20think are not uh
8:22they're not as useful in a way because i
8:24think really what we're talking about is
8:26something simpler than all of these
8:27ideological contortions and labels um so
8:30just as in the cold war we had a clash
8:33between sort of a free market economic
8:35liberalism um and a sort of socialism
8:39which was based on redistribution of
8:41wealth to achieve equality
8:44i think likewise what we have is a kind
8:46of cultural cold war between a cultural
8:48version of liberalism and a cultural
8:50version of socialism the cultural
8:52version of socialism really seeks to
8:54redistribute
8:56goods but in this case cultural goods
8:58self-esteem
8:59power and also economic resources
9:02to achieve equality between identity
9:04groups equality of outcome
9:06the second part of this is to protect
9:09cultural minorities again identity
9:11groups defined largely in race gender
9:13and sexual terms
9:14from harm not physical harm only but
9:16also psychological harm so we have these
9:19two elements which jonathan height which
9:22correspond to jonathan heights two moral
9:24foundations of care harm that is
9:27protection from harm on the one hand and
9:29equality equality of outcome on the
9:31other to the exclusion of the other
9:33moral foundations around for example
9:36group loyalty
9:38respect for tradition and so on
9:40and so what we have is for those who
9:42hold cultural socialism as a higher
9:45value that then tends to trump the
9:48cultural liberal values such as free
9:50speech due process equal treatment and
9:52so on when the two come into collision
9:55now they don't always collide but when
9:57they do those who sort of prioritize
9:59cultural socialism
10:01will tend to to move towards
10:03illiberalism and that's where
10:04progressive illiberalism happens is when
10:07that egalitarian impulse tends to lead
10:09to the to the sacrificing of the of the
10:11liberal impulse
10:13a lot of what i'm going to be doing
10:14today is walking through a lot of survey
10:16data that i and others have collected to
10:18try and flesh out where these tensions
10:21lie so we'll take to begin with a
10:23question that yougov has asked in
10:25britain
10:27to a very large number of people
10:28thinking about political correctness
10:31are you generally in favor of it it
10:33protects against discrimination or
10:34against it it stifles freedom of speech
10:38okay it's a simple binary question
10:40there is a forced choice there's a lot
10:42of benefit to forced choice questions
10:44insofar as they
10:45ask people to prioritize which are their
10:47higher values what you see in this
10:50graph if you just look at the
10:52this here where it says public that's
10:54164 000 individuals who have answered
10:57this question on the yougov panel 47
11:00percent are opposed to political
11:02correctness on this formulation and 37
11:06are in favor of it so you have a 4737
11:09opposition in the public
11:11but if we move to um
11:13academics here and these are academics
11:16that came out of a survey i did which
11:17was matched to the yougov panel you see
11:19that 64 percent of them are in favor of
11:22political correctness on this definition
11:24and only 31 percent opposed very
11:26different from the public as a whole and
11:28if we actually just look at currently
11:30practicing social science and humanities
11:33academics in britain it's 76 percent
11:35pro-political correctness 20 against
11:38again with this question wording so we
11:40have about a four to one lien
11:42against the cultural liberal position on
11:45this question
11:47of course attitudes are more complicated
11:49than that
11:50and i want to sort of explore some of
11:52that complication
11:53next by looking at a whole series of
11:55questions from different surveys
11:57so if we go back to that survey about
11:59political correctness we can see that
12:01social science humanities academics are
12:0376 to 20 pro-political correctness in
12:06britain
12:08but we can then move to another question
12:09is do you support equity and diversity
12:11statements mandatory statements that
12:13academics need to sign up to really in
12:15order to be considered for a job
12:1757 percent of academics in the social
12:20sciences in top u.s british australian
12:23and canadian universities are in favor
12:26of mandatory diversity statements so
12:28when we talk about
12:30the the these new equity and diversity
12:32initiatives that are moving through
12:34universities it is not the case
12:36that these are unpopular and everyone is
12:38just too scared to oppose them actually
12:41there is a very considerable reservoir
12:43of support in the faculty for these
12:46initiatives so 57 supporting 27 opposed
12:50again that sort of fits in with that
12:52first question about political
12:54correctness the cultural socialist
12:55values are overriding the cultural
12:57liberal values
12:59let's now move to a question do you
13:01favor
13:02race and gender quotas for reading lists
13:04the so-called decolonization of the
13:06curriculum agenda again drawing on u.s
13:08uk and canadian data we have 44 of
13:11social science and humanities faculty
13:13favoring gender and race quotas and only
13:1632 opposed again i would argue that this
13:19is evidence of cultural socialist
13:21sympathies
13:22and i'm not making a value judgment here
13:24but this is simply a description of
13:25reality of where we are in
13:29faculties in western countries
13:31however now as i start to change the
13:33question wording we can see
13:35this next question asks about finding
13:37foundational text versus quotas in order
13:40to match the student body and there we
13:42see a sort of more even split it's now
13:4447 opposed to 39 in favor
13:47do you favor which is more important to
13:49you social justice or academic freedom
13:52all of a sudden 56 percent of academics
13:54favor academic freedom
13:5627 only for social justice
13:59do you support or oppose firing
14:02controversial academics who do
14:04dissenting research
14:05suddenly 50 percent are opposed only 10
14:07percent
14:09support
14:11do you know in terms of reading lists
14:13should
14:14those reading lists be representing
14:16outside groups or should academics
14:17control the reading list suddenly 80 say
14:20academics should control so we have a
14:22number of questions there which would
14:23then indicate oh actually it seems like
14:25these academics are cultural liberals
14:27not cultural socialists i think one of
14:29the differences in the third the second
14:31group of questions is that they very
14:33strike very much to the heart of
14:35individual academics freedom to set
14:37their own reading lists and and when you
14:39word the question in such a way that it
14:41implicates
14:43the actual academic freedom of the
14:45individual
14:46or perhaps threatens their job then they
14:48are more on board with protecting
14:50liberals liberal traditions over
14:53cultural socialism however in general
14:56if you just talk about decolonizing the
14:58curriculum and diversity statements they
15:00think that's many of them will think
15:01that's wonderful because these are all
15:03positive things framed in positive terms
15:05and they don't see the cost to
15:06themselves
15:08so on balance their sentiment is very
15:10much on those uh early questions in
15:12favor of cultural socialism much more so
15:14than the general public as we saw
15:17so there is a genuine support base not
15:20it's not about fear there is a genuine
15:22degree to which um academics are
15:26supporting cultural socialist positions
15:29uh now i just want to then um i'm going
15:31to be talking uh
15:33to a lot of the survey data survey work
15:35that i've done in a number of think tank
15:36reports here a couple of reports
15:38academic freedom in the uk uh in 2019
15:41and in 2021
15:44which i did for the think tank policy
15:45exchange and then for the center for the
15:48study of um politics and ideology this
15:50report academic freedom and crisis from
15:53which a lot of the the graphs that i i'm
15:54going to show you were drawn and this is
15:56a 150-page report based on a whole range
15:59of different surveys that i conducted
16:02in terms then of the broad
16:04scope of this talk what i'm really
16:06looking at is this conflict and this
16:08clash between cultural liberalism and
16:10cultural socialism and what i see is the
16:12gradual ascent of cultural socialism as
16:15the dominant value
16:16in the high culture including in
16:18universities
16:20and the way uh what this result in
16:22results in is a loss of viewpoint
16:24diversity within the academy
16:26particularly at the faculty level
16:28this starts really with
16:31essentially censorship and punishment
16:33for
16:34speech whether in research and teaching
16:37or in public
16:38discussions what i call hard
16:40authoritarianism so that is essentially
16:43your administration
16:45either firing you threatening to fire
16:47you threatening to take you off a course
16:50making you stay away from the university
16:51for six months or even your department
16:53head threatening um to take away certain
16:56teaching or give you certain
16:57administrative tasks that you don't want
16:59in
17:01you know
17:02more or less to punish you for things
17:03that you've said in class or in your
17:04research or in public
17:07but that's only one part of the problem
17:10the other part of the problem is
17:12political discrimination what i call
17:14soft authoritarianism so heart
17:16authoritarianism is about getting fired
17:18soft authoritarianism is about not
17:21getting hired promoted published or
17:23people not sitting with you
17:25at lunch um so
17:27so
17:28and cass sunstein in his book conformity
17:30places a lot of emphasis on that sort of
17:32social pressure right so if you don't
17:34have the right views or you're seen as
17:36radioactive because of something you've
17:38said um then your your peers your
17:40colleagues uh can freeze you out and
17:43ostracize you and in a profession where
17:45we really rely on our colleagues to
17:47judge our work uh judge our promotion
17:49applications
17:50hiring applications that's extremely
17:52important
17:53so between these two forces the the
17:56discrimination on the one political
17:57discrimination and the institutional
18:00punishment on the other
18:01we then get to a point where these
18:04things chill speech
18:05leading
18:07dissenting academics political
18:08minorities such as conservatives such as
18:11gender critical feminists these
18:13political minorities are going to then
18:14not speak up they're going to hide their
18:16views they won't publish their views
18:19they'll perhaps seek
18:21areas of study that are less
18:22controversial
18:23we get then a self-censorship
18:26which then leads to political minorities
18:28minorities like conservatives selecting
18:30out of academia or not more importantly
18:32not selecting into an academic track
18:35um being repelled because of the hostile
18:38climate
18:39from academia and what that then does is
18:41it creates more of a monoculture
18:43it leads the political diversity to be
18:46forced out of the system and so you get
18:48conformity
18:50to orthodoxy and you don't get much
18:52heterodoxy and the more orthodoxy you
18:54get actually it worsens all of these
18:57problems so
18:58the fact that you then get conformity
19:00means
19:01heart authoritarianism becomes more of a
19:04problem why john ellis in his book the
19:06breakdown of higher education talks
19:08about the fact that when you get a
19:10consensus view a consensus around
19:12certain values the incentive moves
19:14towards
19:15exemplifying those values through
19:17fundamentalism and we see this in in
19:20other fields and i'd be happy to talk
19:21about this in the q a
19:23the more homogenous the value set the
19:26politics of an institution the more
19:27likely you are to get
19:29fundamentalism in the form of say cancel
19:31culture attempts and it's really that
19:34act cancel culture activism that drives
19:37the university to censor people and or
19:40perhaps to fire people so the heart
19:42authoritarianism problem gets worse
19:45with a more homogeneous faculty and less
19:48viewpoint diversity likewise with soft
19:50authoritarianism just imagine
19:52a situation where it's 50 conservative
19:55and 50 liberal in a room of people
19:57hiring you let's say you're a
19:59conservative so half the room will be
20:02biased against you and half will be
20:03biased in favor of you the two kind of
20:05wash out
20:06but if you're then in a situation where
20:08the room is 90 10 90 let's say liberal
20:11and 10 percent conservative
20:13um the prejudices of the 90 are going to
20:15count a lot more even if both
20:17individuals the conservative individual
20:19is as prejudiced against the liberal as
20:21the liberal is against the conservative
20:22the pure math of it is the
20:24discriminatory effect hits much harder
20:27on the political minority and that's one
20:28of the reasons why as the academy has
20:31shifted say to the left that's actually
20:34increased the political discrimination
20:36effect on political minorities and so
20:38what you're actually getting then is
20:39this cycle
20:41of the
20:42more homogeneous it gets the more the
20:44heart and soul authoritarianism increase
20:47increasing the chilling effects
20:49increasingly repelling uh political
20:51minorities from the system which
20:53increases the entire homogeneity and the
20:56cycle moves again
20:57okay i'm going to try and put some
20:59numbers from surveys that i've done on
21:02some of these processes and i want to
21:04start with hard authoritarianism or
21:06punishment
21:08now just in terms of some standard
21:10numbers which you may or may not be
21:11familiar with and i'm not going to spend
21:13much time on one is
21:15the fire scholars under fire database
21:17which really looks at attempts to fire
21:19academics or to punish academics um in
21:22terms of this database we've seen a rise
21:24from sort of under 30 incidents in 2015
21:27to 120 incidents by
21:292020. sort of four-fold rise in the
21:32number of these targeting incidents
21:34aimed at scholars
21:36um likewise with disinvitations the rise
21:39really starts in about 2015 we see a big
21:41spike
21:42it drops in 2018 goes back up in 2019 i
21:45haven't had time to sort of um go and
21:48fill in
21:49the the subsequent years but we're at a
21:51sort of
21:52a sort of relative peak in terms of
21:54targeting incidents disinvitation
21:55incidents um and similarly in the uk
21:58we've seen since about 2018 a rise
22:00uh in targeting incidents many around
22:02the whole issue uh the trans issue and
22:04gender critical feminists who've really
22:06had it the worst in britain
22:09so now of course the retort to this as
22:11well what's a hundred incidents 120
22:13incidents a year when you've got you
22:15know a million academics it's a drop in
22:16the bucket it doesn't mean anything and
22:18i think that's a valid criticism that we
22:20have to address um because really the
22:22big issue is not no platformings so much
22:25as it is this chilling effect and
22:28self-censorship which affects hundreds
22:30of thousands of academics ultimately
22:32millions
22:34of staff and students within the system
22:36that is the much bigger issue
22:38now in terms of the literature on this a
22:40paper by
22:41uh professor pippa norris of harvard
22:44university political science or
22:46government department came out last year
22:48in political studies
22:50and
22:51this particular graph simply asks
22:54academics
22:55in the united states it was
22:57international but this is just the
22:58american
23:00data
23:01have the following got better or worse
23:03in the past five years pressures to be
23:05politically correct freedom to teach and
23:07research respect for open debate three
23:10questions from that she calculates an
23:12index if you're over 50 these things
23:14have gotten worse if you're under 50
23:15they've gotten better
23:17now even amongst the majority of
23:19academics who are far left or moderate
23:21left
23:22they even they say things have gotten
23:24worse on these three counts so they
23:26score about a 67 which is well above
23:29that 50 mark so even the left-wing
23:31academics are saying things have gotten
23:33worse in these regards but of course the
23:35other thing you see is this substantial
23:37difference between the left-leaning and
23:39the right-leaning academics the more
23:41conservative you are the more likely you
23:44are to report that these have gotten
23:45worse in the last five years so if you
23:47are very conservative here
23:50then you've got about a 95 percent
23:51chance of saying that things have gotten
23:53worse and i think we see this time and
23:55time again in the data which is that
23:57overall
23:58people are reporting self-censorship
24:00they are reporting
24:03potential punishments for speech but
24:04these things are much worse amongst
24:06conservatives than they are amongst
24:08those on the left
24:11well one of the questions we might ask
24:12then in terms of punishment is um
24:16for academics is do you support
24:18punishing academics for controversial
24:21research
24:22um and i suppose the good
24:25you know the positive finding here is
24:27that only about one in ten academics uh
24:30support firing people for uh doing
24:32controversial research and in this case
24:34what i've asked people is about
24:36five hypotheticals um someone who does
24:39research that shows that greater
24:40diversity in society leads to more
24:42negative social solidarity
24:45the british empire did more harm than
24:46good someone who fight who who uh does
24:49research that that argues that
24:51traditional parenthood is better uh for
24:54children's outcomes than single
24:55parenthood
24:56or that a higher share of women and
24:58minorities in an organization reduce
25:00organizational organizational
25:02performance this is not asking people to
25:04agree with
25:05these controversial stands it's simply
25:08saying you know if somebody did research
25:09and reported this
25:11should the university and students
25:13trying to force them out of the
25:14university
25:15and lastly just a more uncontroversial
25:18issue
25:19an academic
25:20a faculty member that happens to believe
25:22in restricting immigration should they
25:23be forced out of the university well
25:26again in blue here we find the share
25:28that want to force them out and it's
25:30only about one in 10 and i think that's
25:31pretty good news so the share of
25:33academics who actually would support
25:35actively firing of an an academic for
25:38holding these views or reporting this
25:39research is pretty low
25:41however it's not all good news um and i
25:44think if you look at this the gray here
25:46these are people who are not saying that
25:48they would support campaigns to fire but
25:50they're also not opposed to campaigns to
25:53fire they're on the fence that share is
25:55sort of around 40 for these three
25:57questions and 60 in this uh women and
26:00minorities lower performance the most
26:02controversial of these four
26:04whereas on the um faculty member who
26:06simply believes in restricting
26:08immigration you know 83 percent of
26:09people this is in a uk sample 83 said i
26:12would oppose any attempt to fire this
26:14person so the strong cultural liberal
26:16position emerges really only on the
26:18least controversial issue whereas on the
26:20more controversial issues sort of 40 to
26:2360 percent are sitting on the fence and
26:25that's actually quite important when it
26:26comes to the ability for these cancer
26:29culture campaigns to succeed they rely
26:31upon that cross-pressure group it's not
26:34just they're scared even on a survey the
26:36in in the comfort of their own home on a
26:38computer
26:40actually
26:41their value commitments are really
26:42cross-pressured and i think that speaks
26:44to kind of
26:45the value commitments that exist within
26:47the faculty and particularly in the
26:49social sciences and humanities there is
26:51a belief in free speech and academic
26:53freedom and cultural liberalism but
26:54there is also a strong belief in
26:56cultural socialism
26:59we see in the united states pretty much
27:01a mirror image of the uk results even
27:04though i'm using a very different
27:05methodology this is this is an opt-in
27:08survey the other one was not
27:10okay um so just kind of take a mental
27:13snapshot of those five different uh
27:16scenarios and we're just going to move
27:18to a more summary graph where
27:20i'm looking at the us the uk and canada
27:23these are social science humanities
27:24academics all have been asked those five
27:27questions in the past
27:29the share that favor firing is typically
27:31only around
27:3210
27:33in both the u.s uk and canada pretty low
27:36um it's higher on that minority and
27:39lowering organizational performance
27:41question but still yeah 18
27:43now 24 overall would say yes to at least
27:47one of these firing campaigns so we have
27:49kind of like a one in five one and four
27:51chance of saying yes to at least one of
27:53these cancel campaigns for
27:55academics
27:57however if we then look at phd students
27:59in uh mainly in the united states we're
28:01seeing almost 50 of those phds um
28:06supporting at least one of those
28:07hypothetical campaigns to fire and
28:08academics was much higher amongst
28:11the sample of phds than it is amongst
28:13academics what's going on there that's
28:16not great news and as i'll show in a
28:18minute
28:19a lot of this is related to age younger
28:22academics and graduate students are
28:25considerably more censorious
28:27considerably more likely to support the
28:29cultural socialist position compared to
28:31the cultural liberal position i ran some
28:35statistical models looking at
28:38correlations and what you see is there's
28:40two main factors that really predict
28:42whether someone is going to support a
28:43cancel campaign to fire
28:45a particular academic for controversial
28:47research the first is those who are very
28:50left
28:51so those who are very left are much more
28:53supportive of firing than those who are
28:56somewhat left the center left really is
28:58more cultural liberal the very left are
29:01more cultural socialist
29:03but even if we take ideology out of the
29:05picture
29:06age really matters so a young very left
29:09academic
29:11a very left-wing academic who's under 30
29:13is a lot more sensorious than a very
29:16left-wing academic who's over 50.
29:18a ver a centrist academic who is under
29:2130 is much more sensorious than a
29:24centrist academic over 50. so even when
29:27we take ideology out of the picture age
29:29really matters and that's sort of saying
29:31something which is a bit uncomfortable
29:33which is that actually this issue is not
29:35a blip it doesn't matter if you've had
29:37an editorial in the harper in harpers or
29:39new york times that's not necessarily
29:41going to end this problem
29:44and the problem is not just within the
29:46faculty it's not just on campus it
29:48reflects a pattern in the wider society
29:51so i've also asked this to non-academic
29:53samples and you can see very much the
29:55same picture this wasn't a i didn't have
29:57a left-right question but i had
30:00strong democrat weak democrat et cetera
30:02the weak democrats are much less
30:04sensorious than the strong democrats but
30:06even if we take that out of the picture
30:08age really matters young people a lot
30:11more sensorious a lot more likely to
30:13endorse firing campaigns than older uh
30:16people even when we take ideology into
30:18account and the way then the way that
30:21looks then when we look at the faculty
30:23is there is a huge difference between
30:25faculty sort of 50 and over who have
30:28about a 0.1 to 0.15 likelihood of
30:31endorsing
30:32one of these firing campaigns when we
30:34control for other factors
30:36and that rises to close to sort of
30:380.35.4
30:41over twice as sensorious amongst the
30:43academics 35 and under so academics 35
30:46and under
30:47are twice as intolerant as academics 50
30:49and over
30:50um
30:52controlling for ideology so that is not
30:54great news it suggests that as these
30:56academics enter the system
30:59the faculty is going to be leaning more
31:01and more and more in that cultural
31:03socialist direction now i know some of
31:05you will say well there's their life
31:06cycle changes and people get older they
31:08change their views i think that's a
31:10reasonable
31:11a reasonable counter-argument i'm going
31:12to be happy to deal with that in the q a
31:15for various reasons i don't think that's
31:16going to be the way it works out
31:20again this is reflecting patterns in the
31:22broader society academics are if
31:24anything more pro-free speech than the
31:26average person in society it's just that
31:28they're also more pro-cultural socialism
31:30than the average person in society and
31:32that is why we see the patterns that we
31:34do so for example if we if you remember
31:37the case of james damore or the google
31:38engineer who's fired for uh an internal
31:41memo questioning the gender politic
31:43policy of the company
31:45you know we gave a little blurb to
31:46people we asked them what they thought
31:47of this firing
31:49those under 25 in britain 68 supported
31:53google's firing of james demour compared
31:55to only 25 percent of those over 55. in
31:58the u.s it's pretty much the same thing
32:0067 percent of the under uh 18 to 25
32:03supporting the firing of of des moines
32:05only 36 amongst the um over 50s and so i
32:09think what we're seeing in the faculty
32:12in the university is just reflecting
32:13what's happening in society more broadly
32:15the university isn't really any
32:17different it's just that it has more of
32:18a concentration of people uh on the far
32:20left and that's part of the reason we're
32:22seeing more of this phenomenon on campus
32:24than elsewhere
32:27so i've talked a lot then about firing
32:29and support for firing campaigns and
32:31punishment and censorship uh but the
32:33other prong that i want to look at is
32:34political discrimination that soft
32:36authoritarianism so not the hard
32:39institutional level censorship and
32:41punishment but the softer peer-to-peer
32:44conformity
32:46that leads you not to get hired not to
32:48get promoted not to get published etc
32:51so what do we see when we do these
32:52faculty surveys about people's
32:54willingness to discriminate against the
32:56other side politically well what we find
32:59in the u.s using a what's called a list
33:01experiment method which gets at people's
33:03concealed preferences
33:0640
33:07of um academics that i um
33:10collected uh that i surveyed in the
33:12united states would not hire a trump
33:14supporter for a job 40 in canada that's
33:1745
33:19in britain we asked about a brexit
33:21supporter
33:2232 percent of of british academics would
33:25not hire brexit supporter for a job
33:27these are massive amount i mean if this
33:29if we actually had this level of bias
33:32against people on race and gender
33:33grounds in a survey i mean that would be
33:35a scandal it'd be staggering there's
33:37very high levels of uh political
33:40discrimination so of course if you are a
33:42brexit supporter at a british british
33:44university you're going to keep your
33:45mouth shut if you want to get a job i
33:46mean
33:47it's just it'd be insane to actually and
33:50actually we've also asked you know
33:51faculty whether they think a brexit
33:53supporter
33:54would actually reveal those views to a
33:56colleague feel feel free to do that and
33:58it's about two in 10 academics think
34:01that that would be the case so clearly
34:02academics know that yeah people probably
34:04wouldn't say it if they voted brexit
34:07or for trump for example
34:09um so we have
34:10this issue of hiring discrimination
34:12against political minorities
34:14um and equally there's a we can ask
34:17about would you discriminate against a
34:19right-leaning
34:20paper grant application or promotion now
34:23this research has been going on since
34:24about 2012 with the inbar and lammers
34:27paper so there have been a number of
34:28studies that largely find the same thing
34:31between about 15 and 50 percent of
34:33academics would discriminate uh against
34:36a right-leaning uh paper grant or
34:37promotion application now in this case
34:40i'm only asking about people would you
34:41you know would you openly admit that you
34:43would discriminate and it's only about
34:45ten percent
34:46of uh us canadian and uk whoops and uk
34:49academics um who would openly
34:51discriminate but when it comes to
34:53a grant bid it's more like 20
34:56and these are what people will admit and
34:58as we saw with the last slide on using
35:00the list experiment i think we've got to
35:01inflate these numbers by about 100 so
35:05i think we're looking more at like 25
35:07percent to 50 percent uh willing to
35:09discriminate and it's higher amongst
35:11phds i mean phds a third of them would
35:14openly admit they would discriminate
35:16against a right-leaning grant bid so not
35:18a good situation in terms of political
35:20discrimination
35:22what that's doing is it's contributing
35:24to this atmosphere then
35:26of uh self-censorship right in in
35:29academia and again i don't think this is
35:31because academics are any worse they're
35:33not i've done surveys outside of
35:34academia it is as bad or worse outside
35:37academia so academia is reflecting the
35:40pattern that exists within the wider
35:42society um you know for example there
35:45have been surveys of students would you
35:47date somebody who is a republican
35:50or a brexiteer or or you ask people who
35:52are asked would you want your daughter
35:53to marry you know how comfortable would
35:55you these sorts of questions and they
35:57all kind of show
35:58a cut an asymmetry where
36:01the right if you like broadly construed
36:04is not as intolerant as the left in
36:06terms of political discrimination it's
36:08almost a two to one asymmetry in a lot
36:10of these questions whether it be dating
36:13having your child marry et cetera now
36:14you could say you know this is because
36:16people have the right to date whoever
36:17they want it's a free you know free
36:19country
36:20the problem is that the people who say
36:23that
36:24i would not date a brexit supporter
36:27are also significantly more likely to
36:29say i would not hire a brexit supporter
36:31right so you you have a leap from
36:34cultural dating preferences to hiring
36:36preferences and that is where the
36:38problem really arises is if you have a
36:40sort of pervasive issue of political
36:42discrimination then that's going to be
36:44have quite a severe effect within the
36:46society
36:47so this combination then of um
36:50willingness to fire being higher amongst
36:52younger academics
36:54and certainly willingness to oppose a
36:56firing campaign
36:59being sort of limited by the fact people
37:01are cross-pressured between their
37:02cultural liberal and cultural socialist
37:04values
37:05the combination of this hard and soft
37:07authoritarianism is to chill uh very
37:10much um those who are political
37:12minorities and in this case if we look
37:15at
37:15one of the questions we asked here is do
37:17you sell have you ever self-censored in
37:19teaching research or discussions
37:22in the united states which is the orange
37:24line 70 percent of right-leaning
37:27academics yes there are a few of them 70
37:29percent of them say
37:32they have self-censored 42 percent of
37:34moderates say they have self-censored
37:37and about 25 percent of those on the
37:39left
37:39so it's higher uh very much higher on
37:41the right that's same pattern in britain
37:4350 percent of right-leaning academics
37:46said they self-censored compared to a
37:48much lower rate among centrist and
37:50left-wing academics
37:52and that's also echoing what we saw in
37:54the pippa norris data and there was a
37:56recent study by matt goodwin that showed
37:58about 76 percent of u.s uk canada
38:01australia academics at leading
38:03institutions said they self-censored
38:05compared to 35 percent overall so we
38:07have this
38:08serious problem of self-censorship
38:10amongst right-leaning academics and to
38:12some extent centrist academics
38:14particularly in the u.s
38:16and so you've got this
38:19political discrimination and punishment
38:21the hard authoritarianism combining to
38:24lead to self-censorship
38:26and the perception that one's department
38:28is a hostile presence a hostile climate
38:31for your political beliefs uh and when
38:34we ask people you know is your
38:35department a supportive or hostile place
38:38for your political beliefs uh something
38:40between 60 and 75 percent of
38:43right-leaning academics in the uk canada
38:46and u.s said it was a hostile climate
38:49for their beliefs for moderate academics
38:51it's sort of 25 to 35
38:54so 35 percent of centrist moderate
38:57academics in the u.s say their
38:58departments are a hostile climate for
39:01their beliefs as well so we've got a big
39:03problem uh with right-leaning academics
39:05and a moderately sized problem with
39:08centrist academics
39:10in terms of that perception that it's a
39:12hostile climate and you've got a
39:13self-censor
39:15okay
39:17um so when we've got self-censorship
39:19going on and we've got the threat of
39:21punishment for speech going on that
39:23leads to this
39:24self-censoring perception of a hostile
39:27climate that then creates it sends
39:30signals to the next generation of
39:31potential academics about whether this
39:33is a welcoming place where you want to
39:35build a career or is it a place that
39:38actually is
39:39is where you go if you're left-wing
39:41if you're not left-wing you really don't
39:42want to become an academic in the social
39:44sciences and humanities
39:46one way of getting at that is
39:48i conducted a survey we had about 900
39:51respondents
39:53based on a crowdsourced survey platform
39:55called prolific
39:56and we simply asked
39:59masters and phd students whether they'd
40:01be interested in a pursuing an academic
40:04career
40:05and which of the following statements
40:08they agreed or disagreed with in terms
40:09of influencing their decision one of
40:11which would be oh you can't make enough
40:13money in academia another might be i
40:15don't want to sort of move away from
40:17where i live so we had a whole series of
40:19reasons one of the questions buried in
40:21there was my political views wouldn't
40:23fit which could make my life difficult
40:25and you can see
40:26it's no great surprise that
40:28those um who are very conservative 62
40:31percent of these graduate students are
40:32very conservative say
40:35yeah i agree my my political views
40:37wouldn't fit that could make my life
40:38difficult and so part of what's
40:40happening is these conservative leaning
40:42graduate students are very aware that
40:45it's not
40:46a welcoming climate for their beliefs
40:48in academia and that is influencing
40:50their decisions so i found a significant
40:52relationship between
40:54conservative masters students
40:56not phds i think once they
40:58moved to the phd level they've kind of
41:00accepted the system can work within it
41:02but amongst the right-leaning masters
41:04students there you saw a significant
41:06link between
41:08right-leaning master students not
41:10wanting to pursue an academic career
41:14okay
41:15so
41:16this then leads to the viewpoint
41:18diversity problem one of the things
41:19that's occurred has been a shift
41:22to the left within the professoria now
41:25we know that academics have always
41:27leaned left a little bit but in the mid
41:291960s the surveys showed about one and a
41:32half on the left one on the right now
41:34that's including the sciences and
41:36engineering it's including all levels of
41:38academia down to uh two-year colleges
41:41um so but but as we fast forward to
41:45the 2010s we've gone from one and a half
41:48to one
41:49one and a half left to one on the right
41:52to six on the left
41:53to everyone on the right
41:55as recently as the late 1980s the ratio
41:58was only about two to one
42:00so it's really changed since sort of
42:031990.
42:05in the social sciences and humanities
42:06the change has been uh of the same
42:09magnitude but in it started from a
42:11higher base so about it was probably
42:13about two to one or three to one left to
42:16right in the mid 60s in the softer
42:18social sciences and humanities
42:20those numbers are now at around sort of
42:2213 14 15 to 1.
42:24and i can talk about data sources if you
42:26want so even though academic academia is
42:28always been left especially in the soft
42:30social sciences there has really been a
42:32shift
42:33now there's also been a shift in
42:35journalism in that that looks very
42:37similar to that shift in academia but we
42:39can talk about about that as well so
42:41academia then has very much moved to the
42:43left and i think this sort of
42:46confirms the kind of dynamic that i was
42:48talking about this sort of spiral
42:51what about students and i won't say too
42:53much about students except to say that
42:55you're not going to get the same
42:56selecting out because of course students
42:58have to go somewhere
42:59um so they will go to university and i
43:01don't believe they're select i don't
43:03believe conservative
43:04high school graduates are not going to
43:06university because they see university
43:08as a hostile environment for their
43:09police i think the evidence for that is
43:11very weak again happy to talk about that
43:14later so but
43:15there is still some selection that goes
43:18on
43:19around ideology so is it maybe the case
43:22that a conservative student in a red
43:25state
43:26may decide not to go to
43:29a liberal arts college because of the
43:31idea the ideology they may encounter
43:34at a place like smith college which is
43:36about one percent conservative
43:39as of 2020 2021
43:42so you have a one percent of um
43:44students and this is quite a decent
43:46sample that fire has collected several
43:48hundred um per university so we can make
43:51these statements with a relatively
43:53degree relative degree of accuracy the
43:55margin of error is at the most about
43:57five points so we have a situation where
44:00these liberal arts colleges like
44:02wesleyan and brown
44:03sorry wesleyan and smith college have
44:05about you know one two three four
44:07percent conservative and they're 80
44:1080 or some odd liberal so you've got
44:13essentially no viewpoint diversity in
44:14these liberal arts colleges
44:17if we move over to the ivy league there
44:19is some viewpoint diversity but it's
44:20sort of 10 to 15 percent conservative
44:23and it's 65 to 75 percent liberal it's
44:26still an environment where it's going to
44:27be pretty hard
44:29uh to deviate because there's going to
44:31be a lot of pressure
44:34um
44:35now arizona state university okay
44:39a lot more viewpoint diversity so i
44:41think that's actually a very good thing
44:42you're going to be more likely to be
44:44able
44:45to have an open conversation and not pay
44:47a social price for it
44:49at a place like asu which is sort of
44:52according to the fire data 45 liberal 25
44:55uh conservative in the student body
44:59it's at the 75th percentile of
45:00conservatism in terms of student body
45:02but even at asu it's 45 liberal to 25
45:06conservative so even that might be
45:08enough to to actually mean that people
45:10don't want to pay the price to actually
45:12come out as conservative i don't know
45:14you'll you'll be able to tell that
45:16better than i would okay so
45:20i returned to the model here um i've
45:22talked about punishment i've talked
45:24about political discrimination arguing
45:27that leads to chilling effects and
45:29self-censoring that repels conservatives
45:32and other political minorities from
45:34pursuing academia which leads to a more
45:37uh homogeneous uh orthodoxy which which
45:40leads to monoculture reduced viewpoint
45:42diversity which makes all of these
45:44problems worse so we get a cycle
45:47and that leads the faculty to move very
45:49much in a increasingly left-wing
45:51direction that shuts down a lot of
45:53conversations it just simply makes it
45:55too costly to have the sort of
45:57productive engagements we need now i
45:59don't have really time to get into the
46:00policy side we can talk about that later
46:02i think obviously what's happening with
46:04schedule is an example of the kind of
46:05thing that needs to happen to break this
46:07cycle
46:08i also think however that government
46:10intervention of the kind that we see
46:12with britain's higher education freedom
46:14bill
46:15the appointment of an academic freedom
46:16director which who will actually be able
46:18to enforce through a 10-person office in
46:22the sector regulator
46:24enforce the idea that universities are
46:26not allowed to abrogate academic freedom
46:28and they must not only
46:30protect it but they also have to promote
46:32it and are liable to finds if they don't
46:34do so i think that's an important
46:36legislative intervention but i also
46:38think we need interventions
46:39to deal with the viewpoint diversity
46:41side and i'm happy to talk about that i
46:43don't have time to get into it
46:46okay
46:48thank you
47:02all right um eric thank you so much for
47:04a really interesting talk
47:06thank you so um
47:08i want to start with a big picture
47:10question about academic freedom
47:14so you've just presented some evidence
47:15about faculty and student attitudes
47:18attitudes of left of center faculty and
47:20students to those on the political right
47:23and the attitudes of right of center
47:24faculty and students to their own
47:26situations within the university
47:28so assuming this data accurately
47:31reflects faculty and student attitudes
47:33my first question is
47:34what existential threat
47:37to these attitudes posed to the mission
47:39of the university
47:41there are different ways to understand
47:42the value of academic freedom
47:45one way
47:46to understand it is having instrumental
47:49value
47:50value as a means to the creation and
47:52dissemination of knowledge
47:54the idea
47:55is that when scientists and scholars are
47:58free to pursue the truth without fear
48:00this freedom functions to improve our
48:01understanding of the world over time
48:03as scholars pursue their intellectual
48:05curiosity wherever it leads
48:07so my first question is this
48:09what proof is there that the attitudes
48:12you describe
48:13pose a significant threat to the
48:15creation of knowledge or to our
48:17understanding of their world
48:19is there any important scientific or
48:21scholarly question that is not being
48:24considered or discussed due to the
48:26attitudes you've reported
48:28and if so can you give us some examples
48:31yeah a really good question peter yeah i
48:32think there's really two issues that
48:34spring up in terms of impact on the
48:37truth-seeking mission of the university
48:38one is
48:40unfashionable subjects like military
48:42history or classical architecture or
48:45studying shakespeare
48:47the original way it might have been
48:48studied or in a classical way those sort
48:50of aren't funded or they are fall out of
48:53fashion and so that research never gets
48:55done
48:56uh a second sort of set of problems
48:58which is perhaps more in the social
49:00sciences
49:01concerns
49:03well controversial
49:05subjects or at least controversial
49:06positions on existing subjects so if we
49:09were to assess something such as whether
49:12uh
49:13get you know gender gaps race gaps in
49:15terms of educational outcomes in terms
49:17of income
49:18um
49:19is that
49:20because of some kind of discrimination
49:23uh in the present
49:25or are there other explanations for that
49:27and i just think it is in in academia
49:29it's very very difficult it would be
49:31quite difficult to in in a sociology
49:34journal to challenge the view that
49:36discrimination is what underlies uh the
49:39wage gap or the wealth gap between
49:41different racial groups different gender
49:43groups and that's kind of just one
49:44example i mean we could you know we
49:46could talk about other areas that are
49:48anything that touches on
49:49the sacred values of cultural socialism
49:52around historically disadvantaged groups
49:54race gender sexuality is going to be
49:56tricky
49:57um and and so for you know how
50:00how how much is transgenderism affected
50:02by social construction i mean i'm just
50:04picking uh examples out of the air which
50:06happen to be controversial ones or or a
50:08critical study of
50:10the cultural left or the woke left him
50:12yeah these are going to be very hard to
50:14pursue uh in research and teaching in in
50:16the current environment
50:18so i guess the question is
50:20uh are there serious positions on these
50:23issues
50:24that are not being seriously discussed
50:27by serious scholars in a way that other
50:29scholars are aware of so there's a labor
50:32economist at harvard claudia golden
50:35who in fact argues that the gender wage
50:37gap can be completely explained simply
50:40by the incentives of working different
50:42hours without any appeal to uh any sort
50:45of discrimination so there's an example
50:48of a well-known scholar who takes this
50:50position and the position is known and
50:52it's debated so i guess my question is
50:55if these positions are nonetheless taken
50:58by prominent scholars and they publish
51:00their work and they're debated
51:03is there really a serious threat to the
51:05mission of the university well i think
51:07there's two questions there i mean one
51:09is
51:09uh how much of a pariah these people you
51:12know i talk about george borjas who's an
51:14immigration skeptic who's at harvard an
51:16economist
51:17um there are similar individuals in
51:19britain so some of these individuals do
51:20exist but they find it very hard to get
51:22published they generally aren't cited at
51:25anywhere near the level they probably
51:27should be given the robustness of their
51:29findings in order to get published with
51:32these kinds of findings
51:34you're going to be held to a much higher
51:36standard so there's going to be a lot a
51:38few fewer pieces published and you're
51:39not going to be cited anywhere near i
51:41mean so for example
51:42on the gender issue this idea of gender
51:45discrimination in academia for example
51:47there is one paper that shows
51:49gender discrimination against women
51:51there are a number of papers that show
51:53either no effect or gender
51:54discrimination against men those papers
51:56are very very not cited even though they
51:59often have much larger sample sizes and
52:01are more rigorous so the question i
52:03suppose is to what extent the the
52:05truth-seeking mission of academia is
52:06being distorted away from an accurate
52:09picture of what what actually exists in
52:11the world and i do think that distortion
52:14is there and it's also there perhaps in
52:16terms of the kinds of
52:17subjects that are funded and pursued so
52:20we've seen if you look at academic
52:21abstracts an explosion in terms of you
52:24know talking about uh systemic racism
52:27and transphobia and etc
52:29gender and race these sorts these sorts
52:31of topics have drawn a lot of attention
52:33and funding
52:35and that's fine i think those are
52:36important topics i'm very interested in
52:38in those issues myself however
52:40i just wonder whether in fact we're
52:42getting an academia which is pursuing
52:44the problems that
52:45in
52:46you know proper proportions
52:48um in proportion to their importance for
52:50the population okay thank you
52:53now i want to ask you a question about
52:55something you introduced uh at the
52:57beginning
52:58uh the distinction between cultural
53:00liberalism and cultural socialism
53:03so you characterized soft
53:05authoritarianism
53:07as quote peer-to-peer norms enforcing
53:10conformity driven by an elite public
53:13morality of cultural socialism unquote
53:17and you characterize cultural socialism
53:19as involving the rejection of the idea
53:22of objective truth
53:24now personally i find it hard to believe
53:28that the academic elite in general
53:30rejects the notion of objective truth
53:33for one thing i don't think i personally
53:35know any serious scholar who rejects the
53:38notion of objective truth and i imagine
53:40that most academics whether in the hard
53:42sciences the social sciences or the
53:44humanities see themselves as trying to
53:47get at what they see as the objective
53:49truth
53:50also as far as they could see you didn't
53:52actually give any evidence that the
53:54rejection of objective truth is a common
53:57position among academics so what reason
54:00is there to think that what you call
54:02cultural socialism is dominant in
54:04academia okay yeah good question right
54:07so i think these are ideal types
54:09obviously i mean not every individual is
54:11going to take every one of these boxes i
54:13mean i think that however
54:15in these sort of critical theory studies
54:17discipline certainly this notion of
54:19lived experience
54:21um as being having some kind of a a
54:24superior standing to
54:26positivism let's call it uh is very much
54:28there and and certainly you could you
54:30know obviously post-modernism doesn't
54:32have the cachet it used to but still
54:34that tradition that continental
54:36tradition of kind of being more
54:37skeptical about
54:39objective truth i think is there now how
54:41we can talk about its prevalence within
54:44the faculty in different disciplines and
54:46and the balance is going to change
54:48depending on whether you're in
54:49anthropology where there's probably a
54:50lot of skepticism towards objective
54:52truth compared to let's say political
54:54science where there'd be more of that
54:56positivist tradition
54:58um but
54:59but again i would say that the sort of
55:01unalloyed cultural socialist position
55:03would generally be to say that the lived
55:06experience particularly of historically
55:08marginalized groups you know as
55:09exemplified by things like indigenous
55:11knowledge you know that that has an
55:13equal standing to
55:15sir equal or more of a standing and you
55:17can't really speak against that
55:19with something like a survey and so i i
55:21guess i would still argue that that's a
55:23very important challenge and and
55:25certainly in certain fields and
55:26subfields that is the dominant view
55:29so let's grant that it's the dominant
55:31view in some sub-fields
55:33do you think it's the majority of you
55:35and do you think you have any evidence
55:36for that
55:37i i think that i don't have the survey
55:40to prove it
55:41so apps it is a empirical question it's
55:44falsifiable uh with some more time and
55:46money i can do that survey so at this
55:48point can i prove that you know most
55:50people in in racial studies do not
55:52believe in objective truth or privilege
55:55standpoint epistemology over a poparian
55:58method no i don't i would say that that
56:01going into it my prior would be that
56:02most of them would take the standpoint
56:04of epistemology position
56:06but i don't have the data for you now so
56:09but within i mean um i'll move on slowly
56:12okay yeah just uh i mean let's grant
56:14let's just grant for the sake of
56:15argument that that is the dominant
56:17position within sub some subfields
56:20do you think it's the dominant position
56:22in the hard sciences and in the
56:24quantitative social sciences
56:26of course not no okay of course okay so
56:29it may well be a small minority of
56:32academics who actually hold this
56:33position
56:34i'd love to find out i mean we've also
56:36got to look at the humanities and and
56:38and there i think it would be higher but
56:40uh
56:41i don't have the number for you i think
56:43it would be really interesting to know
56:44that actually it's a good it's a good
56:46research topic all right well well okay
56:49i'll support your grand proposal
56:51um
56:52so another question about cultural
56:54socialism at the beginning of your talk
56:56you opposed what you called cultural
56:58socialism and what you called cultural
56:59liberalism but it seems to me that most
57:02of the elements of these two views are
57:04actually consistent and i imagine that
57:06many left-of-center academics endorse
57:09elements on both lists so i imagine that
57:11many would say that they're in favor of
57:13free speech due process equal treatment
57:16and scientific reasoning
57:18and
57:19that they're in favor of redistributing
57:21power and resources in order to protect
57:23minorities from psychological harm and
57:26they would disagree that the goal of
57:28redistributing power and resources
57:30trumps liberty
57:32scientific reason and equal treatment
57:33because they would hold instead that
57:35redistributing power and resources to
57:37promote greater opportunity for more
57:38minorities is consistent with liberty
57:42equal treatment and so forth so what
57:44would you say to someone who holds that
57:46hybrid position
57:48well i
57:50my view is that they would actually
57:52often prioritize the cultural socialist
57:54values over the cultural liberal ones i
57:56mean i use that example of being
57:58supportive of mandatory
58:00uh
58:01diversity statements in order to apply
58:03for a job and and the majority of
58:05academics in the social sciences
58:06supporting that now what that means is
58:09essentially those who disagree with
58:12the equity and diversity agenda are
58:15essentially barred from applying from a
58:17job and
58:18i don't see how you can be in favor of
58:20equal treatment
58:22by political creed for example and
58:24support that position now they would i
58:27think what often happens with the free
58:29speech issue you will often get people
58:31saying well
58:33by more or less silencing some
58:35conservative voices let's say
58:38we are empowering
58:40the voices of historically disadvantaged
58:42groups and giving them freedom i think
58:44that's actually a distortion of the
58:46meaning of the word freedom what they're
58:48in favor of is equal speech not free
58:49speech so they want to prioritize
58:52people's speech power
58:54and equalize speech power and for that
58:56for them that is more important than
58:58allowing somebody to say something that
59:00might offend
59:02a historically marginalized group so
59:04what they're actually doing is
59:05justifying to themselves that they are
59:07actually liberals
59:09even though they support
59:11clamping down on somebody's free speech
59:13because it might be quote unquote
59:14offensive or cause emotional harm or
59:17trauma
59:19their view as well but that gives more
59:21speech power to historically
59:22disadvantaged groups which improves
59:24freedom i think that's just semantics
59:25and i think it's actually not about
59:28freedom i think that's a violation of uh
59:30liberalism i don't think it is
59:32liberalism to say
59:33somebody owns a radio station and so
59:35they have a lot more speech power than i
59:37do uh we need to take away his radio
59:39station
59:40or not let him speak because he owns a
59:42radio station so that i'm on the same
59:44level with him and then we're equally
59:45free i just i think that's just a
59:47corruption of the meaning of freedom
59:50uh okay so uh back to this subject so
59:53the subject of freedom here's another
59:55big uh picture
59:56uh question
59:59um so the subtitle of your talk today
1:00:03was existential threats to the universe
1:00:06university and
1:00:07liberal democracy
1:00:09living is leaving aside the mission of
1:00:11the university for a moment do you think
1:00:14you've given any reason to believe that
1:00:16political bias in hiring and promotion
1:00:19at universities poses a threat to
1:00:21liberal democracy if so what is this
1:00:24threat and how exactly is it posed okay
1:00:28good not a threat to the universe by the
1:00:30way
1:00:30[Laughter]
1:00:33but yeah so
1:00:34uh beyond academia what is the what is
1:00:37the issue here yeah um i think you have
1:00:39first of all direct uh effects so the
1:00:43idea that more people are now saying
1:00:45that they don't feel free to share their
1:00:48uh political beliefs more generally
1:00:51right so i think the number who say they
1:00:53are afraid that that if their political
1:00:56political beliefs became known at work
1:00:58that could affect them uh professionally
1:01:01in the us is about
1:01:0235 or something in in britain it's about
1:01:0525 it's a bit lower so you have this
1:01:08sense of people saying they feel less
1:01:11free to speak
1:01:12their minds about their true beliefs
1:01:15at work for example or you know so that
1:01:17has increased substandard there's a
1:01:18bunch of surveys that show that society
1:01:20feels less free and that on its own
1:01:22matters i mean you know if you're in
1:01:24hong kong you could say to somebody in
1:01:25hong kong you've got a nice life
1:01:29the chinese communist party takes care
1:01:31of the economy i mean why do you need
1:01:33your free speech so free speech matters
1:01:35in and of itself but also there are
1:01:36these kind of downstream effects
1:01:39uh
1:01:40and this is one of the things i i will
1:01:42sort of talk about in the book is if if
1:01:44you can't have an open conversation
1:01:46about immigration if the main political
1:01:49parties in sweden
1:01:50can't talk about immigration levels
1:01:52because of these uh taboos
1:01:55that sort of
1:01:57would argue that you know
1:01:58in order not to make minorities feel
1:02:02uneasy we don't want to talk about
1:02:03immigration well what what what is the
1:02:05result of that the result of that is you
1:02:07have then taken that issue off um the
1:02:10table for debate amongst the main
1:02:12parties opening up a market opportunity
1:02:14for populist entrepreneurs like the
1:02:16sweden democrats who just had an
1:02:18unprecedented electoral result in sweden
1:02:21that's just an example of how
1:02:24populism i think is
1:02:26one of the reasons for the rise of
1:02:27populism is because of this narrowing of
1:02:30the everton window of acceptable debate
1:02:32another is polarization another might be
1:02:35can we have a an honest debate about
1:02:37issues like immigration crime uh
1:02:39homelessness uh you know
1:02:42these are the kinds of issues that don't
1:02:44actually get discussed properly and so
1:02:45we can't work out what is the best
1:02:47policy in order to improve
1:02:50racial equality of outcome can we can we
1:02:52come up with
1:02:53the most scientifically consistent
1:02:55policy to improve the condition let's
1:02:58say of african americans here or native
1:03:00america
1:03:00native canadians in canada where i'm
1:03:02from well that's going to be very tricky
1:03:04when you don't have an open speech
1:03:05climate so it's not just that society is
1:03:08less free and and universities might not
1:03:10pursue truth as squarely it's also these
1:03:13kind of downstream effects on on the
1:03:15society as a whole is it a threat to
1:03:16democracy well if you consider
1:03:18polarization and and
1:03:21populism to potentially pose threats to
1:03:23democracy then yes i would say this does
1:03:25flow from a narrowing of the ability to
1:03:28have these debates eric thank you very
1:03:30much for asking answering my questions
1:03:33and now we're going to um
1:03:35open up the mic
1:03:37uh to questions uh from the floor
1:03:40um
1:03:41as paul karis likes to say we uh we
1:03:45welcome brief questions
1:03:47and that means that your question should
1:03:50be brief and it should also be a
1:03:53question
1:03:54so
1:03:55if some of you start lecturing or going
1:03:58on and on i will i will interrupt you
1:04:01and ask you to get to the question and
1:04:03please don't think i'm being rude
1:04:05so all of the data shared this evening
1:04:09takes up sort of a survey of the masses
1:04:11at the university that you know the
1:04:12students phd students and the professors
1:04:16and all of us obviously these live in a
1:04:19liberal democratic society but the
1:04:21authority structure of the university is
1:04:24much less democratic and so at the end
1:04:26of the day
1:04:27the people it's not it's not as though
1:04:29all the professors get together and vote
1:04:31about the curriculum or the the whole
1:04:32aim of the university whether it's
1:04:34public or private so my question is
1:04:37do we think that the you know the
1:04:40higher-ups at the university
1:04:42the michael crows the different leaders
1:04:44in the administration
1:04:46are they on board with the same kind of
1:04:47ideological preferences or
1:04:50do they not do they no longer feel as
1:04:52though they can have a backbone to
1:04:54disagree with the masses at the
1:04:56university and then has it compromised
1:04:58the structure yeah a really good
1:04:59question um
1:05:01i think that the top levels of a lot of
1:05:03universities are not ideological in the
1:05:06same way as
1:05:07activist faculty and students are in
1:05:09most universities but they're very
1:05:11sensitive to bad publicity and
1:05:14also you have often an equity in
1:05:17diversity you have an equity diversity
1:05:18bureaucracy don't have that in uk so
1:05:20much but you have it in the u.s you also
1:05:22have faculty committees for equity and
1:05:24diversity and if they make
1:05:25recommendations and often the kinds of
1:05:28people that are on these committees very
1:05:30much are of the cultural socialist
1:05:31mindset if they make recommendations if
1:05:34they threaten to raise a stink
1:05:36then the university will often
1:05:39capitulate
1:05:40so i think it's the activism coming out
1:05:42of the faculty and students pressuring
1:05:45the administrations to capitulate
1:05:48including firing people
1:05:50whether that be open letters whether
1:05:52that be
1:05:53internal complaints you know against
1:05:56somebody if that is strong enough then
1:05:58the administration will often capitulate
1:06:00and one of the questions is how do you
1:06:02actually fortify these administrations
1:06:05so that they can say no to
1:06:07the activists and that's one of the
1:06:09reasons i favor
1:06:10government intervention particularly in
1:06:12state-run public institutions if the
1:06:15government says you must protect and
1:06:17promote free speech as with the uk
1:06:18higher education freedom bill the
1:06:20administration in the universities can
1:06:22just tell the activists sorry our hands
1:06:24are tied the legislation prevents us
1:06:26from doing anything about it go away
1:06:28that's sort of the position i think we
1:06:29need to get to
1:06:31but right now without that kind of
1:06:33legislative framework uh
1:06:35and and bureaucratic framework in place
1:06:38i think the incentives are very much for
1:06:40the administration to capitulate uh to
1:06:42this kind of pressure
1:06:44thank you okay yeah
1:06:48thank you very much um
1:06:51one sentence question one sentence
1:06:53follow-up
1:06:56given that the situation
1:07:00when i went here from 1959 to 1964
1:07:04was quite similar
1:07:06except it was the other way around
1:07:10um do you think given
1:07:12the way this university has grown
1:07:14that we might survive the situation
1:07:17scholarship will survive etc okay
1:07:20um
1:07:21my statement is i can match all the
1:07:23horror stories
1:07:25with horror stories from my era
1:07:29and um
1:07:30i'd be glad to share those these are
1:07:32things i witnessed i experienced
1:07:35and my wife experienced
1:07:37which would get campus demonstrations
1:07:40people fired etc now but nothing
1:07:44happened then for us
1:07:46so do you think we'll survive
1:07:48uh are you talking about mccarthyism
1:07:51what what type of oh oh oh
1:07:54what are we yeah oh my god
1:07:56no you don't want me to do this oh okay
1:07:58um
1:07:59just briefly
1:08:01very briefly what was your character
1:08:03how about categories is that okay
1:08:05open
1:08:06uh
1:08:07courting of
1:08:09by university professors open i mean
1:08:12right there okay
1:08:14my wife a black student getting regular
1:08:18c's finally decided to ask a white
1:08:21student to trade papers sure enough you
1:08:24know
1:08:25my wife got to see
1:08:26on the a paper the a student's paper but
1:08:29vice versa right
1:08:30um
1:08:31three catholic
1:08:33middle-aged ladies in a history class
1:08:35being so overwhelmed by the ridicule
1:08:38and that the professor
1:08:40heaped on catholics that they went to
1:08:43him to complain he
1:08:45oh well i'm sorry and that was it and
1:08:47there was nothing else but she he
1:08:48because he just by the way i love that
1:08:50professor and um
1:08:54the
1:08:55jokes told in class which would again
1:08:58probably get now would get the professor
1:09:01my point being that there was nowhere
1:09:03for us to go
1:09:05don't you think now that students
1:09:09conservative students will call them
1:09:11do have a recourse do have a place they
1:09:14can go maybe that higher administration
1:09:17that's worried about offended does that
1:09:19yeah okay okay yeah yeah so uh you know
1:09:23i'm certainly not saying that that there
1:09:24was some
1:09:25golden era where there was never a
1:09:27problem in the past and of course you
1:09:29could you know mccarthyism is another
1:09:30example where these professors were
1:09:32hounded out entirely so that's but those
1:09:34would all be what i would consider
1:09:35violations of cultural liberalism the
1:09:37equal treatment uh free speech academic
1:09:40freedom so yeah that that was occurring
1:09:42but from the conservative direction and
1:09:44some of that is occurring now from
1:09:46off-campus conservatives so there is an
1:09:48off-campus conservative threat to free
1:09:50speech as well or to academic freedom um
1:09:53so yeah i think it's happened in the
1:09:54past now of course there was a little
1:09:56something called you know desegregation
1:09:58civil rights and which which brought a
1:10:00lot of improvements and in a way
1:10:04what i think civil rights showed was
1:10:05that you know governments intervening in
1:10:08the affairs of universities to
1:10:09desegregate them for example
1:10:12is justified in the name of liberalism
1:10:14and i think you can make a similar case
1:10:15now that government intervention in the
1:10:18name of uh for example universities not
1:10:22suppressing people's liberty or firing
1:10:24people is a justified
1:10:27stance in which the government can
1:10:28protect liberty and so again i would
1:10:31support those sorts of policies for the
1:10:33same reasons i would support
1:10:35desegregation policies in the civil
1:10:36rights movement
1:10:38yeah thanks
1:10:42thank you both very much um professor
1:10:44kaufman thank you especially um i was
1:10:46struck by how you began by saying that
1:10:49you're you're discussing a
1:10:50societal trend impacting universities
1:10:53which i thought was very interesting
1:10:54because
1:10:55that's not
1:10:57how it's how this question of you know
1:11:01university conformity free speech has
1:11:03often been presented to me um
1:11:06it's usually portrayed as something that
1:11:08was created in the universities
1:11:10especially the elite universities sort
1:11:12of the upper crust and then from there
1:11:13it trickles down to
1:11:15um well first a lesser universe lesser
1:11:18universities and then to society as a
1:11:20whole um so so i i appreciated you
1:11:23sort of making the point that this isn't
1:11:26this
1:11:27this is a trend that is reflected in
1:11:29universities but that is broader you
1:11:31know with things like dating choices and
1:11:33that sort of thing but is it is it true
1:11:35and this may be a question that's too
1:11:37big that
1:11:39all of this did begin in the university
1:11:42or
1:11:43is higher education just one of many
1:11:45casualties
1:11:47um no different from any other
1:11:48institution in public life thank you
1:11:50good yeah interesting question and you
1:11:52know again with more time i could have
1:11:54shown other graphs but
1:11:56the answer to you is it did begin in
1:11:57universities
1:11:59if you look at academic abstracts uh a
1:12:02lot of the mention of
1:12:05the social justice terminology dates
1:12:07from the 70s or 80s it was already at a
1:12:09high level from the 1980s
1:12:12starting in the sort of early 2010s
1:12:15media mentions of these terms converges
1:12:18with what we see in the academic
1:12:20abstract so there was a shift
1:12:22essentially a line of influence from the
1:12:24academy into the media
1:12:26and into the broader society so that has
1:12:28certainly happened now the other thing
1:12:30that's occurred as is impacts on
1:12:32education
1:12:34impacts on popular culture and that's
1:12:36shaped youth culture and so
1:12:39young people even those who don't go to
1:12:41university
1:12:42actually are quite cultural socialist in
1:12:44their outlook uh in terms of allowing
1:12:47speakers who are controversial to speak
1:12:49you know critics of blm for example so
1:12:51that sort of attitude is not something
1:12:54the university itself does not actually
1:12:56change people's views very much so the
1:12:58university doesn't actually do much
1:13:00people are coming to the university
1:13:02already with these beliefs
1:13:04which i suppose are now baked into
1:13:06popular culture and into the education
1:13:08system so they're already arriving
1:13:10with these beliefs uh and so that's just
1:13:13and similarly they're now in the media
1:13:14as well
1:13:15so even though academia did was the
1:13:18first mover in this
1:13:19it influences the culture which now
1:13:21saturates everybody including academics
1:13:24that's how i'd explain it yeah
1:13:28uh hello mr kaufman i'd just like to say
1:13:30thank you for coming out i hope
1:13:31arizona's been kind to you it has yeah
1:13:34i i was wondering uh when you were
1:13:36mentioning that the number of
1:13:38conservatives in academia might be going
1:13:40down over the years if you have any
1:13:42theories about where academically minded
1:13:44conservatives might be going
1:13:46rather than academia and if you if you
1:13:49have any ideas about that that would be
1:13:51interesting to hear
1:13:53i mean if you if you are to look for
1:13:55kind of conservative
1:13:57intellectuals you know think tanks would
1:13:59tend to be a place where a lot of them
1:14:01would go
1:14:02because the think tank world if we
1:14:04compare that to the university world
1:14:06if anything the think tank world leans
1:14:08right and so there are more successful
1:14:11right wing think tanks so i think that's
1:14:12one now of course it's a drop in the
1:14:14bucket in terms of personnel and careers
1:14:15compared to universities um so i mean
1:14:18that would be one area i guess
1:14:21media even though media has also shifted
1:14:23left considerably
1:14:24the balance is maybe not as extreme as
1:14:27in as in academia and so i think that
1:14:29might be another area particularly
1:14:31online alternative kinds of media
1:14:34um
1:14:34but i i just think a lot of
1:14:37conservative
1:14:39graduate students might simply opt out
1:14:41of a sort of intellectual profession
1:14:44because of that perception that this is
1:14:46not really what conservatives do it's a
1:14:48bit like nursing is typecast as a sort
1:14:51of female profession so maybe academia
1:14:54is typecast as a left-wing profession
1:14:56so i can't quite say that there are any
1:14:59large institutions where
1:15:01intellectual conservatives are going no
1:15:04thank you okay thanks
1:15:10hello
1:15:12uh i don't think i'll just leave it i
1:15:14think you can hear me um thank you for
1:15:16coming oh sorry
1:15:19sorry about that
1:15:20i can just hold it awesome
1:15:23okay uh thank you for coming uh i guess
1:15:26i had two similar questions the first is
1:15:29on
1:15:30i guess just the term censorship
1:15:33uh
1:15:34censorship i feel has become a very
1:15:36politicized term but we all self-center
1:15:39from birth just as humans you know i
1:15:42don't say oh i hate your shoes you know
1:15:43like we sell center so do you think
1:15:45there's any time in academia where
1:15:48censorship actually is a good thing and
1:15:50does lead to
1:15:52more productive conversations and then
1:15:54kind of going
1:15:56along with that
1:15:57um
1:15:58we'll actually answer that one first
1:16:00because the other yeah i think this is a
1:16:02really good question because you're
1:16:04right like if i don't like my
1:16:06mother-in-law
1:16:08maybe it's better for me not to say that
1:16:09and of course society has norms around
1:16:12being courteous and polite which is kind
1:16:14of like saying that you are going to
1:16:17suppress truth or freedom in order
1:16:20maybe not to hurt somebody's feelings so
1:16:22that does exist and this is partly why
1:16:25we don't i wouldn't reject absolutely
1:16:28everything that cultural socialism
1:16:29stands for i mean it's like with the
1:16:31economy you know we have a mixed
1:16:32capitalism so we have adopted some ideas
1:16:35from socialism but just haven't gone as
1:16:37far as
1:16:38command and control for example uh
1:16:40and likewise i think there is a place
1:16:42for
1:16:43norms of politeness and courtesy which
1:16:45would mean that you know it might be
1:16:46frowned upon for me to say what i think
1:16:49about
1:16:49an individual who i don't like or
1:16:51whatever what i notice about them so i
1:16:53think there's a place for that what i
1:16:54think the where it i think becomes a
1:16:56problem is once that makes its way into
1:16:58speech codes
1:17:00something formal and institutional i
1:17:02think the institutions should remain
1:17:04essentially uh
1:17:05liberal and and freedom-dominated but
1:17:08you can have
1:17:09uh norms of book behavior which sort of
1:17:13regulate the degree to which someone
1:17:15will state their true views i think that
1:17:17can be productive it's important for
1:17:19social interaction um however i think at
1:17:21a university i think when that starts to
1:17:23interfere with
1:17:24the pursuit of truth that's when i think
1:17:27actually it's counterproductive to have
1:17:28those kinds of speech norms
1:17:31okay and then just really quickly going
1:17:32along with that i think hostility also
1:17:35can
1:17:36uh push truth down and not make it as so
1:17:39i wanted your views on that uh
1:17:42you know times where people may feel
1:17:44silly towards them they don't want to
1:17:45speak up as you have said but also on
1:17:47other sides um but then
1:17:50with my first question
1:17:52it seems we're kind of
1:17:54considering or talking within a gray
1:17:56area do you think there is any time
1:17:58within academia that
1:18:01the more forcible actions should be
1:18:03taken uh like is there a spot when yeah
1:18:07that's not okay around speech yeah
1:18:09around speech around speech yeah i mean
1:18:10you can have you know individual
1:18:13harassment of individuals
1:18:15in a classroom you know so so you have
1:18:17first of all you have the the law so uh
1:18:20incitement to violence
1:18:22harassment defamation so these sorts of
1:18:24areas i think should obviously i mean
1:18:26that's breaking the law
1:18:28should universities be able to go beyond
1:18:30the law i think you can have norms but i
1:18:33am uncomfortable
1:18:35with universities drafting codes
1:18:38that move beyond the law i think you can
1:18:40have norms of politeness norms of
1:18:43academic
1:18:44comportment but i think
1:18:47writing that into regulations
1:18:49i think is a bad idea okay that's
1:18:51helpful thank you
1:18:54hello and um thank you both very much
1:18:58um i was just wondering because you
1:18:59mentioned uh using like government
1:19:01intervention for public universities
1:19:04more specifically what exactly would
1:19:06that entail and are you worried about
1:19:08like government overreach and programs
1:19:10yeah um
1:19:12so okay
1:19:14yeah i'm not
1:19:15i think the risks are are worth it uh
1:19:18for the rewards i mean you could get a
1:19:21government which is
1:19:23hostile to free speech in power
1:19:26okay they may decide that they're going
1:19:28to clamp down on free speech and
1:19:30universities and institute speech codes
1:19:32um
1:19:33okay fine but then the electorate knows
1:19:35that the media knows that it's subject
1:19:38to scrutiny people know what they're
1:19:39what they're getting when they vote for
1:19:40this uh i think the problem right now is
1:19:44that this is all happening behind closed
1:19:45doors there's no transparency
1:19:49if a university wants to sort of clamp
1:19:50down on free speech haul people through
1:19:52disciplinary processes uh of which i've
1:19:55been through a number just a single
1:19:57complaint is enough to instigate one i
1:19:59mean that sends a real chill on an
1:20:01individual right so
1:20:02i would rather have that be open to
1:20:04scrutiny and be regulated and i'm much
1:20:08less worried about government
1:20:09intervention than some people i think if
1:20:11you take a real hands-off libertarian
1:20:13position on this issue you are just
1:20:15empowering the spread of uh this sort of
1:20:18censorious cultural socialism within
1:20:20your institutions i think you actually
1:20:22have to engage through regulation now
1:20:24you also want to have
1:20:26initiatives like scheduling you want to
1:20:27have university of austin you want to
1:20:29have uh
1:20:31you know institutions that are outside
1:20:33the system in some way
1:20:35yes you want to have that but i think
1:20:36universities are not like
1:20:38uh small tech firms for example um in
1:20:41the sense that there are powerful
1:20:43network effects
1:20:44based on reputation endowments people
1:20:47have an incentive on maintaining the
1:20:48prestige hierarchy within the system it
1:20:51is going to be very very difficult for
1:20:52new institutions
1:20:54to enter the system and disrupt the
1:20:56system this is not a
1:20:58free market there are a lot of reasons
1:20:59why
1:21:00universities are not a free market so i
1:21:01think you have to work largely within
1:21:04the system to reform it and the only way
1:21:06that's going to work is if governments
1:21:08actually do it because universities
1:21:09aren't going to reform themselves we've
1:21:10had almost 40 years of speech codes yeah
1:21:14they'll do the minimum they have to with
1:21:16to comply and not get sued but
1:21:18i don't believe lawfare also is it's too
1:21:20expensive costly and time consuming also
1:21:24during the time somebody is under
1:21:26investigation before they decide to
1:21:27challenge that in the courts it's
1:21:29incredibly disruptive and and what that
1:21:32does is it chills anyone who has the
1:21:34idea that they're going to challenge
1:21:36orthodoxy is going to look at that and
1:21:38go i don't want the hassle of going
1:21:40through this disciplinary process
1:21:41psychologically i don't want to have to
1:21:44crowdfund a legal campaign so i just
1:21:46don't think the legal option which a lot
1:21:49of libertarians favor i just don't think
1:21:51that's realistic i think we have to have
1:21:53a something like the uk's academic
1:21:55freedom director with a mandate and a
1:21:57staff to essentially proactively enforce
1:21:59this
1:22:02all right thank you for all your
1:22:03questions paul
1:22:05if you value this kind of exchange of
1:22:08ideas um
1:22:10which i i tend to agree with eric is not
1:22:14entirely welcome in all departments or
1:22:16all places in all universities
1:22:17especially the united states
1:22:19we hope you'll consider supporting the
1:22:21school
1:22:23we need support for student scholarships
1:22:26for student enrichment
1:22:27experiences
1:22:29and also support for this kind of public
1:22:31programming we hope you'll look for our
1:22:33podcast
1:22:34which is called keeping it civil
1:22:37wherever you look for podcasts you
1:22:39podcast listeners on podbean and itunes
1:22:42and wherever you find podcasts
1:22:45and finally
1:22:46tonight a thank you and a public
1:22:48farewell to the school's associate
1:22:51director for public programs for the
1:22:52past five years dr carol mcnamara at the
1:22:55beginning of september she took up a
1:22:57position as senior director
1:22:59in the new center for constitutional
1:23:02design at asu's o'connor college of law
1:23:05carol's been the main founding architect
1:23:08of the civic discourse project these
1:23:09past five years
1:23:10she was a leading founder of other
1:23:12programs in the school so we thank carol
1:23:15for her many contributions
1:23:17and the school looks forward to
1:23:18partnering with her and the news center
1:23:20and in fact
1:23:21for
1:23:22next monday's constitution day lecture
1:23:25which all of you will attend
1:23:27the new center for constitutional design
1:23:29is a co-sponsor of that event
1:23:32and with that
1:23:34let's thank our terrific guest and our
1:23:36moderator one last time and we hope you
1:23:38will join us for a reception

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of "Ideological Conformity and Censorship” with Eric Kaufmann by ASU SCETL, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 13,817 words across 2,363 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to choose a caption track available on the video.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, caption language selection, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.