Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Texas trib Cast for Tuesday,
Speaker 1: September sixteenth. I'm Eleanor Klibanoff Law and politics reporter, alongside
Speaker 1: as always editor in chief Matthew Watkins.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Thank you.
Speaker 1: I was extraordinarily tempted to not return to work after
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks off. I will tell you this,
Speaker 1: though I.
Speaker 2: Was in Europe and I've heard of it.
Speaker 1: I am alarmed to tell you that the Europeans very
Speaker 1: aware of Texas redistricting.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 1: I promise I did not bring this up.
Speaker 4: I promise.
Speaker 1: Say you're from Texas, you know Texas first of all
Speaker 1: the reactions it gets. I was with a traveling other
Speaker 1: friend from New York. It's like the two places people
Speaker 1: know in New York Texas, and and got a lot
Speaker 1: of reactions, a lot like oh man, Texas, Like oh
Speaker 1: what's going on there? Nothing makes me more patriotic or
Speaker 1: more Texas might bring my Texas allegiance out more than
Speaker 1: a European trying to tell me that they don't like
Speaker 1: how we're doing things here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I feel that it used to be they
Speaker 3: would associate it with George Bush. You know, they'd be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: you must be like a George Bush guy. Apparently now
Speaker 3: it's redistrict team, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and again in Europe, I am a George
Speaker 1: Bush guy. You know. Don't try and tell me how
Speaker 1: to feel about my elected officials. Yeah, yeah, no, So
Speaker 1: that was very alarming. I tried to escape it. I
Speaker 1: could not.
Speaker 2: Well, that sounds that's terrible, especially Germans.
Speaker 1: The Germans very alarmed about everything. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I gotta calm down a little bit. It's not really,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be fine anyway. That's not what we're here
Speaker 1: to talk about this week. We have for finally, at
Speaker 1: lease a little bit moved on from the redistricting haha
Speaker 1: and have found ourselves in another, you know, major national
Speaker 1: news story here in Texas. So this week we're going
Speaker 1: to be digging into sort of the college campus free
Speaker 1: speech wars that we've seen really bubbling up over the
Speaker 1: last couple of years that has culminated, perhaps that's optimistic
Speaker 1: in an incident with Texas A and M where a
Speaker 1: professor was fired after a confrontation with a student over
Speaker 1: gender identity content in a children's literature course. You know,
Speaker 1: this is just the latest in an ongoing series of
Speaker 1: clashes at Texas A and M at Texas universities more
Speaker 1: generally nationally, on college campuses over diversity, equity and inclusion,
Speaker 1: gender identity, what is taught and who can say?
Speaker 5: What you know?
Speaker 1: Similarly, the day after this incident, a Texas State professor
Speaker 1: was fired after he was accused of inciting violence while
Speaker 1: speaking at a socialism conference. So just a lot happening
Speaker 1: all at once. So joining us to talk through the
Speaker 1: nuances of these issues is Texas Tribune Higher ed reporter
Speaker 1: Jessica Priest.
Speaker 4: Jessica, thank you for joining us, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: Jessica is actually in Indiana this time.
Speaker 1: YEA.
Speaker 3: Loyal listeners of the podcast will know that snaeha last
Speaker 3: week I accused of being in Indiana, which he was
Speaker 3: actually in Illinois, So we said, Jessica to.
Speaker 1: Indiana, to Indiana, just to make sure we had one.
Speaker 1: We are also joined by Zach Greenberg, faculty legal defense
Speaker 1: counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Where
Speaker 1: are you, Zach.
Speaker 2: We're in the great city of Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. H, that's not Indiana or Illinois
Speaker 1: or Texas City Champions. Yeah, Jessica, let's start with you,
Speaker 1: and maybe you can sort of just give us an
Speaker 1: overview of what happened and where things stand with Texas
Speaker 1: A and M.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, where did we get? Okay? So I think
Speaker 4: it was Monday. State Representative Brian Harrison tweeted started a
Speaker 4: Twitter thread where he shared a video that was taken
Speaker 4: in a course, a literature course at Texas A and m.
Speaker 4: It's important to note that the video and the class
Speaker 4: in question that he shows happened over the summer. So
Speaker 4: it was a summer class, and it was about children's literature,
Speaker 4: and it was for college students, for juniors and seniors
Speaker 4: in college, not children. And the video depicts it doesn't
Speaker 4: show anyone's face, but it's clear from watching the video
Speaker 4: you hear a student talking to the professor and you know,
Speaker 4: respectfully asking or asking or confronting her about why she
Speaker 4: is teaching about gender in the course. The student says
Speaker 4: that it's, you know, against her religious beliefs and argues
Speaker 4: that it's also against President Trump's executive order. We haven't
Speaker 4: spoken with the student, but I believe she's referring to
Speaker 4: an executive order the president issued in January that basically says,
Speaker 4: you know, the federal government only recognizes two genders and
Speaker 4: instructs the federal agencies directs them to not fund any
Speaker 4: projects that, in his view, would promote gender ideology. So
Speaker 4: it's not this executive order is not a law. I
Speaker 4: think that's also important for people to know. So my
Speaker 4: reporting has been that there is no federal or state
Speaker 4: law that prohibits, you know, a college professor from teaching
Speaker 4: about gender. That was a very long.
Speaker 3: Explation that being said Brian Harrison, the state representative who
Speaker 3: posted this, who is an aggie and also perhaps the
Speaker 3: most conservative member of a very conservative.
Speaker 1: Legislature and a social media recontoire right right like he is,
Speaker 1: gets much of what he is known for is sort
Speaker 1: of identifying these things on college campus, is highlighting and
Speaker 1: demanding for significant penalties, including firing.
Speaker 3: Right and has has been pretty effective, particularly at his
Speaker 3: alma mater, of drawing attention to these things and bringing
Speaker 3: changes to it, really pushing the idea that these universities,
Speaker 3: particularly A and M, in his mind, are promoting an
Speaker 3: ideology that doesn't align with the values of the state
Speaker 3: or or what he thinks the university should be teaching,
Speaker 3: and therefore that you know, what he would call in
Speaker 3: doctor nation should be should be stopped and eliminated, especially right,
Speaker 3: and in.
Speaker 1: This case he did sort of by escalating this. He
Speaker 1: called for or Jessica to talk a little about like
Speaker 1: what the HR side of this, Like what happened then
Speaker 1: in terms of penalties.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So in the tweet thread, so in addition to the
Speaker 4: video of the student, you know where you hear the
Speaker 4: student and the professor talking, he also shared what appears
Speaker 4: to be like a recording of either a phone call
Speaker 4: or an in person meeting with the university president, President
Speaker 4: Mark Welsh. And in the video, President Welsh appears to
Speaker 4: defend the teacher or the professor and what she's teaching
Speaker 4: and initially tell the student that, you know, it's not happening.
Speaker 4: Firing her is not going to be happening. It's important
Speaker 4: to note that we don't have the full conversation, We
Speaker 4: don't know the full context, but you know, it appears
Speaker 4: that he initially was was hesitant to discipline in this case.
Speaker 4: But after the so that conversation we believe took place
Speaker 4: like over the summer, and then this tweet was in September,
Speaker 4: and you know, within days of this kind of going viral,
Speaker 4: he appears to have changed his mind and demoted the
Speaker 4: dean and the department head and ultimately he terminated the
Speaker 4: professor in this In this case, and the cited reason
Speaker 4: was that the course did not align with the course
Speaker 4: content did not align with the course catalog description. He said,
Speaker 4: it's it's about academic responsibility rather than academic freedom, Like
Speaker 4: we students should, I guess when they're looking at the
Speaker 4: catalog know what they're signing up for. So yeah, Zach, let's.
Speaker 1: Bring you in on this. I mean, what what do
Speaker 1: you sort of make of this whole incident and the
Speaker 1: you know, this students argument, the faculty argument, and the
Speaker 1: administrator's argument.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we defend academic freedom here at Fire, the idea
Speaker 5: that professors have the right to discuss these controversial issues
Speaker 5: in class areas, within their expertise and any breathing room
Speaker 5: to discuss these issues. And it's really sad to see
Speaker 5: professors being fired for their in class teaching and pedagogy.
Speaker 5: I know there was a dispute with the student and
Speaker 5: the professor about what exactly the law was the student's
Speaker 5: disruption in class, but we do feel that universities should
Speaker 5: resolve these issues taking a new account the societal importance
Speaker 5: we have for academic freedom and the free change of
Speaker 5: ideas at a public university bound by the First Amendment.
Speaker 3: Zach, I want to ask you a little bit about
Speaker 3: to kind of dive into this question of First Amendment
Speaker 3: freedom of speech and academic freedom and how that kind
Speaker 3: of fits in there, right, because we, of course know
Speaker 3: the First Amendment protects people's right to say things, including
Speaker 3: things that are offensive, and not be punished by the
Speaker 3: government for it, except for you know, small example of
Speaker 3: the whole like yelling fire in the crowded movie theater
Speaker 3: and all that kind of stuff. But then there's the
Speaker 3: separate kind of conversation around academic freedom, right, and this
Speaker 3: idea of not wanting the government to interfere too much
Speaker 3: with the the you know, what's being taught and what's
Speaker 3: being researched. I mean, this is a state school. How
Speaker 3: does the concept of academic freedom fit into the You know,
Speaker 3: this isn't a professor who got fired for going out
Speaker 3: on the street and saying something offensive. This is something
Speaker 3: that was said. Yeah, we're going to get to that
Speaker 3: that this was something that was said in the classroom.
Speaker 3: So how, if at all, should we or the courts
Speaker 3: look at how that played out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the Supreme Court said that academic freedom is a
Speaker 5: spectual concern of the First Amendment, which doesn't tolerate laws
Speaker 5: that cast a palid orthodoxy on the classroom. And the
Speaker 5: general idea is that academic institutions in America should be
Speaker 5: places where students and professors are the most free to
Speaker 5: discuss their ideas, more so than any other institution in
Speaker 5: our society, just because of the purpose of the university
Speaker 5: and the importance of these institutions to our society. And
Speaker 5: so when it comes to these disputes of what professors
Speaker 5: say in class, you know, the professors teaching and their research,
Speaker 5: and there the main discussion of ideas that's really the.
Speaker 2: Core of their job.
Speaker 5: Dute is their job responsibilities, and they're trying to engage
Speaker 5: our students to try to get them to discuss these
Speaker 5: ideas and really participate in these debates we're having in
Speaker 5: our society. And for a university to fire professor for
Speaker 5: having this discussion, even if it may be offensive to
Speaker 5: students or controversial out there, it's really the opposite of
Speaker 5: the goals of the university.
Speaker 2: And that use a free speech and academic freedom.
Speaker 3: How does that break down though, because I think that
Speaker 3: there's there is a question here in this case about
Speaker 3: was she teaching what she should have been teaching in
Speaker 3: the course? Right? I am also a text saying a.
Speaker 1: Graduate, we we've made it what eight minutes before?
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's been a very long time since I've been
Speaker 3: in the classroom, and I know a lot of things
Speaker 3: have changed, But I do remember a very specific class
Speaker 3: at A and M. It was a philosophy class, I
Speaker 3: think maybe even an intro to philosophy class, and it
Speaker 3: was taught by a lecturer whose research interest was truth commissions,
Speaker 3: you know, this whole like you know, South Africa or
Speaker 3: other places having these and their effectiveness and everything like that,
Speaker 3: and she decided that this course was going to be
Speaker 3: about that as opposed to like more broad philosophy, which
Speaker 3: it was an interesting course, it was also not the
Speaker 3: course I signed up for. And it doesn't seem like
Speaker 3: completely unreasonable for a you know, AA student to be
Speaker 3: upset about something like that and be for a school
Speaker 3: to be like, no, you need to like teach what's
Speaker 3: actually like on the syllabus and what we're asking you
Speaker 3: to teach here that seems to be somewhat the case
Speaker 3: that Welsh the President is arguing is that she didn't
Speaker 3: teach how this course was advertised. How do you sort
Speaker 3: of see that factor in this conversation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're right, and that if you have a physics
Speaker 5: professor and all they do is talk about political issues
Speaker 5: the entire time, I think you can make an argument
Speaker 5: the professor is not teaching the course as it's supposed
Speaker 5: to be taught, actually, depending on what is in the
Speaker 5: syllabus and what is the purpose of the course. And
Speaker 5: of course backing members need some breathing room to go
Speaker 5: off topics some of the time, just to share their
Speaker 5: expertise and make the class a little more engaging.
Speaker 2: And our argument is.
Speaker 5: That the determination of what is taught and how it
Speaker 5: should be taught, that's to be made at the university
Speaker 5: academic faculty level, right at cheap, a determination by the
Speaker 5: factory member that apartment and share the people who are
Speaker 5: most well versed and experts in this category. It was
Speaker 5: made by administrative politician. You can see that can be
Speaker 5: very easily abused to target professors who talk about controversial issues.
Speaker 2: So you're right, it's definitely an issue.
Speaker 5: It's definitely a limited academic freedom of not teaching the
Speaker 5: class as advertised, not giving students proper notice of what's
Speaker 5: being taught. But if that is going to be a
Speaker 5: determination the professor is unfit to teach, that should be
Speaker 5: at the academic level.
Speaker 1: I mean, just to sort of widen this out beyond
Speaker 1: this incident, I mean, we have seen I mean, if
Speaker 1: you just take chexas A and M, we've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of these classes. But also, you know, statewide and nationally,
Speaker 1: why are college campus is such sort of hotbeds of
Speaker 1: these free speech issues? And it has that always been
Speaker 1: the case, or are we seeing are we in a
Speaker 1: moment of particular clashes?
Speaker 2: I guess I think it's really always been the case.
Speaker 5: You can think at stories about the founding fathers, you know,
Speaker 5: raising hell fare universities, the first free speed zones to
Speaker 5: put in place at the combat protests against the Vietnam War.
Speaker 5: So I think the university has really always been areas
Speaker 5: where students and factor members feel free to express themselves
Speaker 5: and discuss their ideas, and naturally then involves some opposition
Speaker 5: from those on campus and off campus too. Is happy
Speaker 5: at the universities because they are taxpayer funded, right, They're
Speaker 5: part of our communities, part of our society, and so
Speaker 5: you're always going to see the precarious situation of universities
Speaker 5: in our society how they operate. Which is why having
Speaker 5: academic freedom for both the institution and for the individual
Speaker 5: professor is so important because in many ways they are kind.
Speaker 2: Of majoritarian principles.
Speaker 5: Right, we have this freedom to discuss ideas that are
Speaker 5: controversial at our offensive we're talking about things that everyone
Speaker 5: agrees with. Tops two equals four, the sky is blue.
Speaker 5: You don't need academic freedom of free speech. You need
Speaker 5: it when you do draw the ire of politicians and
Speaker 5: government officials who want.
Speaker 2: To censor you. Disic.
Speaker 3: I wonder what you make of Welsh's specific argument here.
Speaker 3: I mean, we talked about it like how it could
Speaker 3: present a different case. On the other hand, you know,
Speaker 3: the firing happened months after the incident happened, as you mentioned, Jessica,
Speaker 3: And also you know, I think there are probably a
Speaker 3: lot of people within the INN faculty and another university
Speaker 3: saying like, Okay, is this actually the reason or is
Speaker 3: this a convenient excuse to get rid of someone who
Speaker 3: is bringing a lot of intense political pressure to the
Speaker 3: university from people like Brian Harrison, but even more so
Speaker 3: from folks like Governor Greg Abbott who has tweeted about
Speaker 3: this and other leaders. They don't want this kind of
Speaker 3: attention right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So your question is what I make of.
Speaker 3: His decision and his explanation for the decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that university presidents, I mean I would
Speaker 4: not want President Welsh's job right now, in a very
Speaker 4: difficult job. So it's like he has kind of he
Speaker 4: has a lot of constituents, right, so he I feel
Speaker 4: like he needs to make lawmakers happy to keep his job,
Speaker 4: but he also needs the trust of the faculty and
Speaker 4: so so I think he that may be why he
Speaker 4: decided what he decided.
Speaker 3: He also the very conservative Board of regents.
Speaker 1: Shows like who has the power here?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Is like too, you know, event should just sort of
Speaker 1: say like well this and again, based like you said,
Speaker 1: on the limited view we have of this meeting where
Speaker 1: he originally said like we're not going to fire this
Speaker 1: this professor, then we have a social media backlash led
Speaker 1: by state lawmakers and the governor and others, and then
Speaker 1: the professor is fired. It's like it shows like the
Speaker 1: levers of power that that influence.
Speaker 4: Until I started reporting on Higher Ed, like I didn't
Speaker 4: really understand all those levers, and I think it's important
Speaker 4: for people to know that, Like, you know, these boards
Speaker 4: of regents are appointed by the governors, so there in
Speaker 4: many cases like in lockstep with him.
Speaker 1: And this comes after a legislative session where once again
Speaker 1: Higher Ed sort of saw some of it's some of
Speaker 1: that freedom curtailed. In Texas, they passed a The law
Speaker 1: goes into effect in January, so it's not in effect yet,
Speaker 1: but there will be a law in effect that gainst regents,
Speaker 1: you know, these govern governor appointed regents more control over curriculum.
Speaker 1: This comes after they banned any programs related to diversity,
Speaker 1: equity inclusion at colleges and universities. I mean, really seeing
Speaker 1: a tightening of you know, of the control over what
Speaker 1: is taught.
Speaker 3: It's been amazing to watch how much the governance and
Speaker 3: culture has changed these universities in recent years. I mean
Speaker 3: going back to twenty nineteen when lawmakers passed their sort
Speaker 3: of free speech on campus bill, and that bill was passed,
Speaker 3: you know, largely out of concern that conservative voices were
Speaker 3: sort of being shouted down and that they needed to
Speaker 3: be protected, and that you know, administrators and professors and
Speaker 3: other leaders at the universities were too liberal. We had
Speaker 3: twenty twenty happen after that, you know, the George Floyd protests,
Speaker 3: the reactions there, and there's just been so much of
Speaker 3: a swing back, whether it's who's leading these universities. You've
Speaker 3: seen a lot of different university presidents leave and politicians,
Speaker 3: very conservative politicians being put in a lot of those
Speaker 3: major you know, president or chancellor positions you have, you know,
Speaker 3: new you mentioned the DEI rules, some of these rules
Speaker 3: about what can and can apt be taught, and just
Speaker 3: a much swifter reaction to you know, any kind of
Speaker 3: incident like this, It does very much seem whether it's
Speaker 3: at Texas A and M, whether it's at Texas State
Speaker 3: with the professor you mentioned earlier, there was an incident
Speaker 3: on the Texas Tech campus where a student was expelled
Speaker 3: very quickly and removed after you know, saying admittedly some
Speaker 3: pretty terrible things about the death of Charlie Kirk on campus, right,
Speaker 3: but the swiftness at which these administrators are taking action
Speaker 3: really feels like, Jessica, it has created a sort of
Speaker 3: culture change on these campuses in just like the past
Speaker 3: like half decade. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 4: Yes, I would agree with that. Yeah, and just a
Speaker 4: small correction, Eleanor like the law that you're mentioning, Senate
Speaker 4: Bill thirty seven, part of it has gone into effect,
Speaker 4: and that part the part of the law that has
Speaker 4: gone into effect basically either did away or significantly weakened.
Speaker 4: Like faculty representative bodies in higher ed so they're largely
Speaker 4: I mean, they've always been an advisory but they were
Speaker 4: elected by their other faculty members and advised the administration
Speaker 4: on academic matters, and now their power is significantly weakened.
Speaker 3: Zach.
Speaker 1: Have you felt this sort of pendulum swing and sort
Speaker 1: of free speech at the center of all of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like a political football, right.
Speaker 5: It's like whatever party is in power, whatever they believe
Speaker 5: the situation to be, they're gonna most likely abuse the
Speaker 5: free speech rights of those around them. It's almost like
Speaker 5: the parties don't really have any principles at all. That is,
Speaker 5: you know, it's all about the raw power, and so
Speaker 5: free speech ideally should be this societal wide neutral principle,
Speaker 5: general applicability that it protects everybody equally no matter who
Speaker 5: you are, what you say. But we're seeing free speech
Speaker 5: kind of be warped into a rallying cry for those
Speaker 5: outside of power, and then once they get in there,
Speaker 5: it's just everyone's a nail and there a hammer, and
Speaker 5: they see this happening, you know right now. He turned
Speaker 5: out on the Natate of America right saying that in
Speaker 5: a prosecute hate speech, like it's happening right before our eyes.
Speaker 5: That could be a woke talking point five years ago,
Speaker 5: and it's happening, you know that September sixteenth, you know,
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five. So yeah, we're literally seeing it in
Speaker 5: our in our lifetimes, our in our very short political light.
Speaker 2: What should I say?
Speaker 5: You know, time spans over here that like, yeah, this
Speaker 5: issue is being very warped. And I think it would
Speaker 5: be worthwhile for university presidents, especially politicians who support universities,
Speaker 5: to have a backbone to be principal, to support free speech,
Speaker 5: even for those that they disagree with.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you mentioned already, Charlie Kirk. I
Speaker 1: mean I think a historian, you know, over the last
Speaker 1: that half decade even longer, like a real character in
Speaker 1: these debates, you know, Kirk obviously a right wing political
Speaker 1: activist who was assassinated last week in Utah while on
Speaker 1: a college campus, sort of doing what he became best
Speaker 1: known for, which was hosting these debates and coming to
Speaker 1: college campuses really trying to, you know, I think, in
Speaker 1: some ways, whether intentionally or not, like test the limits
Speaker 1: of these free speech protections for views that maybe are
Speaker 1: not as widely accepted on college campuses. Zach, can you
Speaker 1: just talk a little bit bit about you know, Charlie
Speaker 1: Kirk and Turning Point USA and sort of the role
Speaker 1: they played in this arena of college free speech.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, Charlie Kirk found it to a Point
Speaker 5: USA to provide a counterbalance to what he saw as
Speaker 5: a liberal bias on campus.
Speaker 2: It's the conservative student group.
Speaker 5: It's been around for you know a while now. They're
Speaker 5: an off censored group. We've defended them when they've gotten
Speaker 5: their funding revoked, when the group's got de recognized, their
Speaker 5: speakers get disinvited only because they do service as counterbalance.
Speaker 5: And yeah, and because of that activist activist, they've definitely
Speaker 5: gotten a reputation. You know, They've been opposed by many
Speaker 5: liberal groups of course, and I think the reaction to
Speaker 5: Charlie Kirk's assassination on the left is something we've seen
Speaker 5: against Your Point USA for a while. Now that you
Speaker 5: know this, he essentially got what was coming, and you know,
Speaker 5: this was a good thing. And that's you know, stand
Speaker 5: to see because it was a political assassination. It was
Speaker 5: a violent response to free speech. And you know, if
Speaker 5: you're going to defend a free speech if defended for everybody,
Speaker 5: even the groups, then individuals that you disagree with.
Speaker 2: I found it so interesting.
Speaker 1: I was looking at Fire's website or your group's website,
Speaker 1: the Students under Fire report that found that over the
Speaker 1: last five years and Turning Point USA was one of
Speaker 1: was the most targeted campus group, tied with Students for
Speaker 1: Justice in Palestine, which is interesting of just like you know, again,
Speaker 1: free speech, it's not about like you know which side
Speaker 1: you like, it's like both. It has to extend to everyone.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I stayed p the last couple of years, right
Speaker 5: with the Gods of Conflict. I feel like that that
Speaker 5: group's been around for while, they're very active on campus,
Speaker 5: they're able to organized. As a result, they get censored
Speaker 5: a lot, so so almost you put your neck out
Speaker 5: there and they're gonna get bopped un fortunately.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Jessica, how have we seen Texas lawmakers respond
Speaker 1: to the assassination of Kirk?
Speaker 3: I mean both.
Speaker 1: I think many of them were like personally friends with
Speaker 1: him and knew him and sort of supported him politically.
Speaker 1: But then also you know, on their their response to
Speaker 1: the social media responses, this is kicked off.
Speaker 4: I haven't talked to any personally, but just following their
Speaker 4: social media, you can see that they're upset when people
Speaker 4: are making light of Charlie Kirk's death or disparaging him
Speaker 4: in his legacy in some way, or I don't know,
Speaker 4: celebrating his death and calling for uh, for those people
Speaker 4: to be for those who are expressing those opinions to
Speaker 4: face consequences, whether it be firing or yeah, mostly just
Speaker 4: losing your job, like we've seen. I don't know that
Speaker 4: we've seen it in Texas, but I think nationally there
Speaker 4: have been professors who've been terminated for opinions that they've
Speaker 4: expressed online. And then here in Texas, a colleague of
Speaker 4: mine worked on a story about you know, the TEA,
Speaker 4: the Texas Education Administration Association administration, you know, I guess
Speaker 4: finding one hundred something teachers maybe did this and pursuing
Speaker 4: their teaching license.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think. I mean Mike Marath, the you know,
Speaker 1: commissioner saying that they would not just fire teachers who
Speaker 1: were found to have made you know, and come and
Speaker 1: say deemed inappropriate, but revoke their their teaching licenses. You said, yeah, which.
Speaker 4: Is kind of like, I mean, I still need to
Speaker 4: read up on that reporting. But that's kind of like
Speaker 4: extraordinary if you think about like our shortage of teachers
Speaker 4: like an extraordinary kind of act.
Speaker 3: But on the other hand, Zach, I mean, I'm not
Speaker 3: you know, I wouldn't really want my kindergarten teacher celebrating
Speaker 3: the murder of someone on a college campus, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: walk me through how you think about this, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: I think there are reasonable reasonable there's a reasonable urge
Speaker 3: to be angry at the people who celebrated the murder
Speaker 3: of a human being for you know, exercising his free speech. Right.
Speaker 3: How do you view kind of that reaction, you know,
Speaker 3: when when you see things like what's what's what's happening
Speaker 3: in Texas?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, if you're a public university or a
Speaker 5: public employee in general, you have the right to comment
Speaker 5: on political using your private capacities and you speaking on
Speaker 5: social media talking about Charlie Kirk. As a legal standard,
Speaker 5: the government can come back and say your speech is
Speaker 5: disruptive to the institution that because your speech renders you unfit,
Speaker 5: the teacher fit to do your job, we can punish
Speaker 5: you for that. So it's really a balancing task between
Speaker 5: the individual's right to express their political views of the
Speaker 5: First Amendment and then the institutions interests and ensuring smooth operations.
Speaker 5: And that's a pretty high bar, right. You really have
Speaker 5: to clear, you know, show a lot of disruption, I
Speaker 5: really manifest the fitness to do your job to overcome
Speaker 5: someone fundamental first mode rights. An example is a university
Speaker 5: professor perhaps continually says, you know, I'm a racist. I
Speaker 5: can't teach black students. You know, the students I certainly
Speaker 5: feel uncomfortable of gobal into the university and being part
Speaker 5: of the class because the professor has these racial views.
Speaker 5: But many of the situations it is a teacher or
Speaker 5: a public employee just expressing themselves, particularly just express themselves
Speaker 5: about Charlie Kirk, in their views about him, and unless
Speaker 5: the university or the institution shows that, you know, this
Speaker 5: individual can longer be a functioning teacher or a nurser
Speaker 5: can't do their job and teachings effectively, then I think
Speaker 5: the university, then the university intitutions shouldn't allow the person
Speaker 5: to keep their job, because you know, we want to
Speaker 5: preserve this right to comment on political views, even if
Speaker 5: it is offensive to others.
Speaker 3: It's been a disappointing week, you know. I mean, of course,
Speaker 3: like the assassination of Charlie Kirk is a terrible, terrible
Speaker 3: event that and of itself makes for a terrible week.
Speaker 3: You would hope in a healthy and functioning democracy in
Speaker 3: society that it wouldn't then immediately break down into this
Speaker 3: side does this, this side does this, This side is worse,
Speaker 3: and we would maybe view ourselves on the side of
Speaker 3: maybe people who think we should be able to talk
Speaker 3: about things and not be murdered for them, and people
Speaker 3: who don't someone that yeah, right, and not try to
Speaker 3: cast blame on anyone other than who's pushing for you know,
Speaker 3: who's who's condoning or supporting that kind of violence. We
Speaker 3: do not seem to be at that place right now
Speaker 3: as a society or state or anywhere else. And I
Speaker 3: would love to see us.
Speaker 2: Get to that.
Speaker 1: Place, right, I mean, it's I mean, and we have
Speaker 1: the same conversation on some I mean, obviously, the assassination
Speaker 1: of Charlie Kirk is such a you know, unprecedented thing,
Speaker 1: but it is like it does remind me in some
Speaker 1: ways of the conversations we have after like a school shooting,
Speaker 1: where it's like, can we not just like grieve this
Speaker 1: and talk about you know, like how does this become
Speaker 1: politicized so quickly? But on all sides, And it just
Speaker 1: feels like we are not at a high point of
Speaker 1: being able to discuss you know, horrible human tragedies and
Speaker 1: politics in the same conversation without sort of devolving into
Speaker 1: our worst our selves at that.
Speaker 5: Point, we're really We're going to say at the cancel
Speaker 5: culture part of the tragedy cycle, you hear about this
Speaker 5: where like the tragedy happens, people express outrage or grief,
Speaker 5: and then people criticize those people expressing average and grief
Speaker 5: and they lose their jobs. The winner fires first case
Speaker 5: we ever had two thousand and one was a professor
Speaker 5: who said that nine to eleven was a good thing,
Speaker 5: that we're they're glad this win Towers went down and
Speaker 5: that you know, this is a happy thing, and you
Speaker 5: can imagine the reaction that got in two thousand and one, right,
Speaker 5: and so seeing happening right now, right, you have a tragedy.
Speaker 5: Try to Kirk assassinated. People comment on it now. There's
Speaker 5: a huge wash this out there. I think fifty thousand
Speaker 5: people that are being fired from their jobs or being
Speaker 5: contacted with their employers for what they say. So it
Speaker 5: is definitely a sad day for America and I think
Speaker 5: this should definitely stop happening.
Speaker 3: Do you have any thoughts? I hate to put you
Speaker 3: on the spot, but like, do you have any thoughts
Speaker 3: on what needs to happen to get us out of
Speaker 3: this cycle?
Speaker 5: I think it's kind of just of building a free
Speaker 5: speech culture, like recognizing that we're all human beings, will
Speaker 5: live in America, we all have free speech almost like
Speaker 5: a basic are sending of respect, like you wouldn't want
Speaker 5: this done to you in five years, don't do it
Speaker 5: to us, you know, Like we shouldn't have canceled the
Speaker 5: people that were criticizing George Floyd. We shouldn't cancel people
Speaker 5: that are criticizing Charlie Kirk. The next person contestinant we
Speaker 5: shouldn't cancel those people either, So I think that has
Speaker 5: to stop somewhere. And it said, it keeps kind of
Speaker 5: fueling and getting worse and worse. But I know more
Speaker 5: people that recognize the value of free speech. I think
Speaker 5: they'll understand why this is harmful to our sido fabric
Speaker 5: and our nation and they'll stop it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think in some ways the through line
Speaker 1: also is like you know, this professor being fired or
Speaker 1: of you know people sort of it's like this like
Speaker 1: intense blowback one hundred and eighty teachers investigated for speaking
Speaker 1: you know, ill of Charlie Kirk is like the people
Speaker 1: who never will be actually penalized for this right. They're
Speaker 1: not actually going to take one hundred and eighty teachers
Speaker 1: to you know, or open themselves up to that many
Speaker 1: lawsuits or whatever. But it's just sort of the effect
Speaker 1: on free speech again, whether it's someone something you support
Speaker 1: or something you don't of, Like, you know, I just
Speaker 1: won't share my opinion for fear that I could be
Speaker 1: penalized for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it.
Speaker 3: It would also just be nice to get to a
Speaker 3: place where, like we are, we're not just talking to
Speaker 3: each other, but we're talking to each other in a
Speaker 3: way where we're like seeking to understand and be understood
Speaker 3: as opposed to like scoring points and humiliating or caricaturing
Speaker 3: the other side. But we are not at that place
Speaker 3: right now. But I'm curious, like to your point about
Speaker 3: a Chilian effect and everything like that, Jessica, I mean,
Speaker 3: what do you think about what do you hear, if anything,
Speaker 3: from people on these college campuses. I mean, do you
Speaker 3: think that that Chilian effect is happening? How are people,
Speaker 3: professors and others reacting to what has happened in the
Speaker 3: last few weeks all of.
Speaker 4: This, Yeah, I mean it's a mix. Like I've heard
Speaker 4: from professors saying that they are themselves like courting their
Speaker 4: own lectures to kind of have as like evidence if
Speaker 4: anything were to be shared on social media so they
Speaker 4: could have the full context. I've heard some are self censoring,
Speaker 4: that they're just not going to talk about certain topics
Speaker 4: anymore because they don't want to get in trouble. And
Speaker 4: then there are others who feel like, I'm going to
Speaker 4: keep teaching because that's in the best interest of my students,
Speaker 4: and that's who I'm here for. The American Association of
Speaker 4: university professors put out a survey I think the week
Speaker 4: before this stuff with Texas A and m happened that
Speaker 4: found like twenty I think it was a twenty five
Speaker 4: percent of the respondents in Texas we're looking for jobs
Speaker 4: outside of the state just because of the political climate here.
Speaker 4: So it's not looking good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, Well, I imagine this is, like many things
Speaker 1: we talked about on here, going to be continuing to
Speaker 1: develop an unfold and nothing will be resolved. Despite your
Speaker 1: you know, your optimism about where we might all end
Speaker 1: up as a I.
Speaker 3: Didn't it was opts.
Speaker 1: I just wish yes, right, your fan fiction about the
Speaker 1: future of American democracy. Well, I just want to really
Speaker 1: thank Jessica and Zach you both for joining us and
Speaker 1: taking the time and appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: You can get the Trip Cast anywhere you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: as well as on YouTube. Our producers are Rob and
Speaker 1: Chris and we will see you next week.