Austrian Economics Research Conference, Citation by Wall Street Journal Editorial Page

I spent Thursday through Sunday at the Austrian Economics Research Conference, which is sponsored by the Mises Institute. The Mises Institute is next door to Auburn University.  The conference is small but lively, and the speakers were excellent. I was delighted to meet Bob Luddy, the founder of CaptiveAire Corporation; Hans Herman Hoppe, who received an achievement award;  Sam Johnson, who is a retired Exxon executive who adjuncts at Auburn University; and the founder of the Mises Institute, Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

I gave a presentation on the historical evolution of political groupthink and intolerance in higher education. It went well, and I am looking forward to further exploring the data that I presented. 

While I was at the conference, someone from Boston emailed me to ask for links to the work I've done on faculty political affiliation because the Wall Street Journal (paid access) editorial page had cited my research on Friday.  I was thrilled to get the cite, but I disagree with the editorial.

According to the Journal,  President Trump's executive order has the right impulse, but the executive order is unclear.  It merely mandates that a list of federal agencies review incursions on free speech on campus.

The Journal argues that absent the executive order markets will correct for incursions on free speech, but the institutional history suggests otherwise.  Colleges have received enormous institutional support from government and from tax-exempt foundations, and much of this support has had ideological strings attached. Such support extends to tax-exempt endowments that shelter the leading colleges from market concerns.  As well, monopolistic media that collude with and ideologically support Antifa extremists on campus support the reputations of colleges that abuse free speech. The major media outlets take their cues from and collaborate with campus Antifa terrorists.

As it is written, the executive order merely encourages agencies that oversee funding to colleges to consider whether the colleges are violating federal laws, including the First Amendment.  One of the laws is Section 501(c)(3), which prohibits tax exemption for political or ideological advocacy.  Although when in power the Democrats may abuse these provisions, they have already abused their privileges to an unlimited extent, so that the current intolerance on college campuses can hardly be increased.  Hence, there are limited downside risks from the Democrats, who have shot their wad.  When Republican administrations are in power, they now have some impetus to enforce the law and at times to revoke tax exemptions of endowments.  Although the threat to colleges may be intermittent because it is limited to Republican administrations, colleges need to think long-term because it is difficult to change programs and policies.  Hence, an intermittent threat is almost as good as a permanent one.

An additional step that the Trump administration might take is to make explicit that all federal aid is contingent on compliance with the First Amendment and that when colleges violate First Amendment Rights affected individuals have a cause of action that includes punitive damages.

Letter to President Trump in Support of Free Speech Mandate for Colleges

Dear Mr. President

I applaud your announcement that you will sign an executive order mandating adherence to the First Amendment by colleges and universities that receive federal funds.  I support extending First Amendment mandates to all colleges, private and public, that receive federal money. However, I suggest that a limitation be placed on religious colleges when free speech would violate the religious beliefs to which the college adheres.  In other words, freedom of  religion should receive deference equal to freedom of speech. 

I was surprised to see that my good friends at the National Association of Scholars take issue with mandating that private colleges adhere to the First Amendment.  I cannot imagine that a college that wishes to restrict freedom of speech deserves public support--with the exception of religiously affiliated or otherwise religious colleges for whom certain forms of speech will violate their religious beliefs.

Otherwise, I urge you to extend the First Amendment mandate as far as possible. Private colleges, especially elite ones, have led the march toward intolerance and suppression, and they should be included in the mandate.

Sincerely,




Mitchell Langbert

It Is Time to Force a First Amendment Debate on the Democrats

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I have discovered in recent weeks that the left wing of the Democratic Party increasingly opposes the First Amendment.  Emily Ekins of the Cato Institute reports a 2017 survey that finds that, while 71% of Americans believe that political correctness has tended to cause Americans to silence important discussions, opinion is split along party lines:  52% of Democrats favor restrictions on the First Amendment.

The survey also finds that 65% of Americans believe that students who prevent speakers from speaking at universities should be disciplined and that 72% of Republicans and 60% of independents oppose government restrictions on the First Amendment.

It will be fruitful for Republicans to force a debate on the First Amendment, which will expose the increasing authoritarianism and extremism of the Democratic Party. Political correctness can be a wedge issue that pushes increasing support to Republicans, who are more mainstream on this issue.

For example, Republicans might propose a bill that withholds funding to universities that do not discipline students who disrupt public discussions, or they might propose one that ties federal funding of private universities to their complying with the First Amendment in personnel decision making.   Perhaps funding could be withheld from universities whose faculty members advocate abrogating the First Amendment.  Then, we might enjoy watching the Democrats complain that the bill violates the same First Amendment that they and their left-wing core wish to abrogate.
 
 Respectfully,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

Cc: The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Majority Leader
United States Senate

Russell Senate Office Building

317 Delaware Avenue NE

Washington, DC 20510

Left Wing Hate Speech Against Mitchell Langbert's Blog III: My Courses Fill at a Faster Rate Than in Prior Years

Within the past two months, a small-but-vocal group of radical students have engaged in hate speech.  Supported by a small-but-vocal group of left-wing alumni and the fake-news media, they have called for my sacking from my teaching job at Brooklyn College.  The calls for my sacking received a moral salute from the college president and provost, who sent around emails (carefully omitting mention of my name) condemning my eminently valid claim that the Kavanaugh investigation was baloney.   

A petition to fire me for disagreeing with and offending the Democratic Party bosses--who decide on the college budget--was posted on  the Action Network.  To date, more than a month after the news stories subsided, 447 students and professors have signed the petition.   

The total enrollment at Brooklyn College is 17,803, and the total number of full-time and part-time faculty is 1,480, so about  (447/18,250) or 2.5% of the active Brooklyn College community have signed, a proportion statistically not all that much greater than zero.  If you add the alumni, of whom there are at least 300,000, the proportion is minuscule. If you add the entire population of left-wing extremists in New York (the petition was not limited to those associated with CUNY), the proportion is smaller still. 

Yesterday, a student in one of my classes sent me this email: 

It's [name omitted], hope all is well.

What are my chances of getting into one of your online wait[-]listed classes for Spring 2019? [O]r do they generally stay full?

I would be willing to try online considering I'm familiar with who you are.

Let me know.

Thank you,

Usually, my classes reach wait-list status around Christmas, so the publicity has been of little concern to the majority of students who take my classes. In fact, my classes have filled earlier rather than later than usual.  Perhaps the vast majority of students at Brooklyn College simply do not care about the left-wing president's and provost's emails, the small-but-vocal group of left-wing demonstrators, or the left-wing, fake-news publicity.  Perhaps more students agree with me than disagree with me.

Neither the fringe students and professors who demonstrated against me nor  the media, administrators, and professors who supported them were interested in putting the sacking demands into perspective.  This contrasts with earlier free-speech controversies at Brooklyn College in which left-wing speech was called into question.  Then, the administration and media emphasized freedom of speech and the First Amendment.  These included a controversy about a speaker from BDS and a controversy about students who entered a faculty council meeting and made anti-Semitic remarks.  

The students who wrote pieces about me in the student newspapers likely represent the the more articulate among the demonstrators.   The chief rationale that they present in their opinion pieces calling for my sacking is that they disagree with me and do not believe that people with whom they disagree should be allowed to teach at Brooklyn College. Their logic does not extend much further.

For example, Assibi Ali complains that "Langbert had the outlandish idea to pen a satirical piece that proudly and openly supports Brett Kavanaugh, whose hearing he claimed to be a 'travesty.'" Ali contends, "What students would feel comfortable reaching out to a rape apologist? A man who empathizes with Kavanaugh because of the “defamation that he has suffered at the hands of the media…” 

In other words, according to Ali, the 38% of Americans who supported Kavanaugh's appointment (according to left-biased Time Magazine) should not be permitted to teach at Brooklyn College. As well, Ali didn't bother to check how many students I have taught (likely in the area of 5,000) and how many have complained about not being able to reach out (none).  Perhaps Ali's prejudices have been learned at the college because, according to my own data, conservatives have been consistently excluded from teaching posts by the same left-McCarthyite faculties who have trained Ali.

Another student, Kevin Limiti, claims that my blog is a threat to safety.   In contrast, Limiti is unconcerned by the violent threats I received from his classmates or the five campus police officers whom the administration saw fit to post outside my classroom.  I add that while the administration saw fit to complain that my blog post was outside the supposed "community standards" of Brooklyn College (thus claiming to arbitrate the speech standards of a publicly funded university), the same administration saw no need to complain about left-wing students' threats of violence. 

Like Ali, Limiti is unaware of how university personnel decision making ought to work, how university decision making works in reality, what the First Amendment says, and how the Supreme Court interprets the First Amendment.  At a phone meeting of the National Association of Scholars yesterday, several professors noted that the far left has frequently eliminated or subverted K-12 civics teaching so that students are unaware of how basic American institutions work.   Ali and Limiti are the result.

CUNY's bylaws state the following:

The City University of New York (“CUNY” or “the University”) is committed to academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas and expression of all points of view for members of the University community, including individual students, faculty, and staff and recognized groups of those constituencies. Such exchange is at the core of the mission of higher education. The ideas of different members of the University community will often conflict, but it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable or even offensive. Although members of the University community share in the responsibility for maintaining a climate of mutual respect, concerns about civility can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however disagreeable or offensive they may be to some members of the University community. The appropriate response to false or offensive speech is not to prohibit it but to respond with more speech.

The bylaws give some caveats, which entirely depend on the speaker's presence at the college, which was not the case with a blog written off campus and with no purpose of addressing campus-linked issues.  Limiti's claim that my blog perpetuates violence is characteristic of the kind of intolerance in which college students are increasingly indoctrinated.   

Extension of the First Amendment to Private Colleges

Concerning the controversy that affected me a few weeks ago, the First Amendment quickly became the chief stumbling block for those eager to fire me or anyone else who may violate their opinions.  The blog I wrote was not hate speech. However, even it it had been hate speech, it would still have had  First Amendment protection.  As Eugene Volokh recently wrote in Reason:

Of course, there is no hate speech exception to the Free Speech Clause, as the Supreme Court unanimously reaffirmed this year in the Slants case. Private universities aren't legally bound by this (except in California, where a state law applies Free Speech Clause rules to them); but public universities, such as Texas A&M and UT, certainly are.

In the 2017 Slants case, Justice Alito wrote (I'm quoting Volokh) :

[The idea that the government may restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend … strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.”

Expressing hate toward the Democratic Party is perhaps the archetypal form of hate speech--at least according to politically correct academics.  However, partisan speech is not hate speech.  The Democrats who sent me threatening emails, necessitating the presence of five campus police officers outside my classroom two weeks ago, certainly see anti-Democratic Party speech as hate speech.  Of course, in their view calling Republicans Nazis is not hate speech while posting a pro-Republican poster is hate speech.

Justice Kennedy drew this conclusion (again quoting Volokh) in Slants:

A law found to discriminate based on viewpoint is an “egregious form of content discrimination,” which is “presumptively unconstitutional.” … A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.

Hate-filled left wingers will define hate speech to mean any speech that does not agree with their educationist and socialist views.  Hence, it is important to push the limits of speech restrictions.

Happily, early in the sequence of events, I received a helpful email from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.  FIRE made clear not only that the speech in the blog was protected but also that any personnel action whatsoever, even an email, amounted to a violation of my First Amendment Rights.

In a 2016 piece, prior to Slants, Adam Steinbaugh of FIRE wrote about the Obama Justice Department's unconstitutional requirements of investigations of speech violations of Title IX.  For instance, in 1992 the Second Circuit Court of Appeals declared that the City College of New York violated the First Amendment by going beyond vocal condemnation and creating a committee to investigate whether "the professor's views, which have no place at the college, 'affected his teaching ability.'"

An extension of a California law that extends First Amendment protection to professors at private colleges might be a useful step to counteract the left-wing intolerance and prejudice that dominates American colleges.  Any private college that receives federal money should be required to comply with the First Amendment as would any public college.