Here are the actual questions on that free-speech survey we were talking about yesterday — the one the University of Wisconsin system decided to delay until next fall.
Please go to the link and view all the questions — it's quite long! — then answer my survey:
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57 comments:
i vote for
It does Little or Nothing to help students perceive the value of free speech
Thirteen UW campuses!! Big business!
Nebraska only has six and two are tiny.
"If a student says something in class that some students believe is harmful to a particular identity group, should the students report that student to the university?"
If this was the case when I was in school (still a Dem), I would have been expelled.
The right answer to the poll is whatever the minority answer to the poll ends up being. Minority answers first. Nobody is going to out progressive moa.
Serious Questions:
How, could ANYONE, think that it is "important for colleges to"
"Prohibit the expression of ideas if some students feel"
????
So,
we should Prohibit expression of peace love and togetherness; because SOME students feel that is harmful?
There are a LOT of sick motherf*ckers out there, and SOME of them feel ANYTHING is Psychologically Harmful
“threats, intimidation, and harassment” could there EVER be a more open ended category,
than “threats, intimidation, and harassment” ??
Hearing people talk about U Mich basketball is PROBABLY intimidating to MOST Badgers. i wouldn't know.
i neither know nor care about a conference that allows the University of Iowa City to be a member
That's the kind of kitchen-sink Liekert scale survey that academics like to inflict on the helpless.
In my college days self-respecting students would answer these at random or to a nice pattern.
Guerilla politics.
As usual, your survey does not contain my opinion. Mind you, I am not implying that making my opinion an option on your surveys is your responsibility. I just find it interesting that my view usually doesn't even occur to you as a possibility.
What is this stupid exercise supposed to accomplish, anyway? They are going to discover, that XX% of the student would cheerfully lynch anyone they disagree with, and YY% feel like their fellow students would cheerfully lynch them. And so what? Are they trying to decide whether to allowed concealed carry on campus?
This is an absolutely typical research survey in a conventional content format (loose to tight items, followed by demographics). The statements are framed as agree/disagree, so it must include the full range of extreme speech attitudes.
I'd expect the authors to create basic analyses with means (averages) and low to high score ranges, but the really interesting findings would be any potential belief/attitude clusters.
Despite the conventionality of this survey and research utility, I'm not sure whether its deployment would result in more harm than good. Knee-jerk social media posts can't capture the nuances and will lead to all kinds of bizarre reactions out of context. This shows the clash between established methods versus "the innocence of youth," and the emerging theme of our era. Children are born into a extremely mature technological society built on so much from the past that they can't comprehend how we got here. So, they can only jerk their knees like children.
"but only if those views are not offensive...."
Critical Race Theory - It's racist if I say so!!!
I think the poll needs work. Consider "Imagine each of the following circumstances happening to a student at your university. Please indicate whether you interpret each one as a violation of the student’s First Amendment free speech rights as those rights are currently understood by the courts." Is this a test?
It's impressively well-balanced and neutral.
You can't have free speech at our school. In fact, you can't even research whether there is such a thing as free speech at our school. You right-wing domestic terrorists are way out of line!
What bothers me is the repeated use of the "some people" standard. What "some people" think has little to nothing to do with my right to free speech. Or yours.
I think it was well balanced. It will be up to the particular administrators to determine if this survey has any acceptance at all. I don't hold out much hope that this will have much of an impact.
If it is a poll about free speech, it is confusing since it asks about "views" that people "hold." That refers not to speech, but to thought.
None of your poll answers cover it. The survey is specifically designed to show that free speech is intolerable in society.
Free speech as enshrined in our Constitution as part of our natural or God given rights (which what’s her name doesn’t believe in) doesn’t exist in any other nation. Oh they all pay lip service to free speech. But fail to mention things like the opening of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Guarantees all the rights and freedoms- subject only to such reasonable limits as prescribed by law. Which means the entire Charter is meaningless.
“Congress shall make no law” is different then “subject to such reasonable limits prescribed by law”. Not just different in degrees, but different altogether.
Article 52 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union: “Any limitation on the exercise of the rights and freedoms must be provided for by law and respect the essence of those rights and freedoms.” A loophole big enough to drive a Mack truck through, and fundamentally different than “Congress shall make no law…” Article 5 prohibits slavery and forced labor. Article 35 guarantees the right to health care. So if someone can’t afford health care and you force others to provide it.. There are other contradictory rights.
Such restrictions exist in the laws of every other political subdivision on Earth.
What a complete waste of time. How did the world ever turn w/out this survey or the known impact of students being stupid, insensitive or intentionally contrary?? The reason one of my kids couldn’t even finish an online class- let alone college: b/c the teachers word questions and steer class info one way and everyone else who thinks “differently” is penalized. Being a quiet kid- she’d never draw attention to herself to verbalize her points- of-view, let alone defend them.
Do you know what this means? It means she’s not cut out for college. Not now- maybe never. She didn’t have a hissy fit or play victim. She simply quit and cultivates her mind, body and soul in other ways.
Suck it up, Buttercup.
A lot of the questions seem to be variants of: "So you agree with the following statement? 'I am very open minded, and a strong supporter of free speech. The only circumstance in which I would favor limitations on free speech is when the speaker disagrees with me by making statements that I regard as racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and otherwise disturbing to people who might hear the statement.." So I interpret the questionnaire as subtly supporting this point of view.
I think the survey was fine as far as it goes, but here is my problem- I don't care if speech hurts someone's feelings, or ignores their viewpoints or their life experiences, or embarrasses or humiliates them. I don't care if they find it offensive or upsetting. I am a zealot only that speech not be constrained by government or, in the present world, corporate pussies and assholes.
Robert Cook said...
It's impressively well-balanced and neutral.
Can you think of a more damning condemnation of this poll; than the fact that Robert Cool thinks
It's impressively well-balanced and neutral.
Remember that Robert Cook is someone that doesn't think that ANY american politician is "left wing"
I almost always disagree with multiple choice surveys and believe they will misinterpret my answers (which they do in those rate cases where i get to find out how they interpreted my answers). Still, as surveys go, i didn't see anything wing with this one and voted accordingly.
Yes! They want to undermine concern about an inclusive environment for women and minorities
That is the choice least voted in favor (so far), thereby making it correct and most favorable, if you don't want to be summoned by Will Smith ��
A small number of people that I have discussed what the First Amendment means don’t understand it in its entirety. For Section 5: The First Amendment of this survey, I am curious to know what the overall students’ answers are to see if they truly know what the First Amendment means. Hell, I would want the UW System professors and administrators to take this survey and I want to see their overall Section 5 responses! UW and its employees are part of a government entity and shouldn’t be in the business of taking away anyone’s First Amendment rights to satisfy the mob’s demands to shut down speech. I want to see how much the professors and administrators themselves know the First Amendment (as well as respect it).
Haven’t been to Madison in quite a while. Has that “sifting and winnowing” nonsense been chiseled off the entrance to Bascom Hall yet?
"If it is a poll about free speech, it is confusing since it asks about 'views' that people 'hold.' That refers not to speech, but to thought."
What do you think "speech" is but the expression of thought that one holds?!
If you don't like my survey, you have no recourse. I did not need approval.
"Remember that Robert Cook is someone that doesn't think that ANY american politician is 'left wing'"
Not none, perhaps, but scarcely any, fewer than a handful in Congress, (at best). No "hard leftists" at all, (a term used frequently by a number of benighted commenters here). (Yeah, Bernie talks a good game, but his votes do not show commitment to his rhetoric, particularly his encouragement to his supporters in 2016 to vote for the hideous Hillary Clinton.)
My comment was towards the college survey- I think that might have been kinda obvious.
I read a few of the questions & if I had been a student I wouldn’t have answered. It’s private.
"I am a zealot only that speech not be constrained by government or, in the present world, corporate pussies and assholes."
Yes, well, the Constitutional protection of free speech does not apply to corporate pussies and assholes.
Typos and bad grammar hurt the impression this survey is trying to make.
Also, what a colossal waste of time and money to sound out students on a simple issue, namely, should we repeal the only rule that works: "Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Will Never Hurt Me." The fact that this survey seems to be needed, means that the hate-speech totalitarians have done their work well.
When doing statutory construction one rule stands out. Read the whole statute.
The UDHR lists all kinds of rights. E.g., Art. 18, freedom of thought, conscience and religion; Art. 19, freedom of opinion and expression.
Now no one in their right mind believes that anyone in the UN believes any of that. The UDHR operates from a faulty premise to begin with. Namely, that rights come from government, not from the Creator. As such, what government "grants," it can as easily take away.
This premise is entirely at odds with the thesis of our Founders. We recognize and state that rights, inalienable, come from the Creator and that the sole purpose of government is to protect those rights. The purpose of our Constitution is to limit the government, not the people.
Contained within the UDHR is itself the trapdoor that effectively flushes all of the vaunted UDHR "rights" away.
Article 29 reads,
(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
Do you see the “by law” trick? Rights are first granted, but then they’re made subject to limitations as set forth "by law." In other words, it's all a charade. In a UN world, which bears great similarity to an Islamic world, government comes first and foremost, with the people "allowed" to exist but only to serve the state.
The UDHR used as its model not the US Constitution (1787), but the Soviet Constitution which uses that same "by law" limitation trick.
"I am tolerant of other people’s views, but only if those views are not offensive."
If I say, "not at all like me", does that mean that I am not tolerant of other people's views, regardless? Or would it mean that I'm tolerant of all views, even ones that might be considered offensive?
I don't believe "there are not right or wrong answers". I would be willing to change my mind. Let me see the answers of the people who designed it. If there is a lot of variety, then there are no right or wrong answers. If there is a lot of similarity, then those are the "right" answers.
I too was disturbed to find myself in agreement with Robert Cook - but did he mean what he said? Oh, well. I thought the poll was well balanced - above all because The poll asked "if some students [say that X, y, z is hurtful speech] what should others do?" One now expects an academic study to prejudge the issue and ask: "if a right-wing, misogynistic, Christian racist-raper spews his bile and venom and damages fragile minorities should the Nazi be allowed to continue wrecking by those with a working conscience?"
Also the survey allows for a potential revelation of zones of anti-free speech zealots.
I would bet anti-free speech-chillers are clustered in the Humanities zone, especially in the literature departments. And that they are smaller in number than people now believe to be the case. And more likely to be non-minority/minority elites busy with status-keeping than students working for a place in the sun. And most students don't like the free-speech-chillers and their humorless, joyless, dumpy monitoring of student life. And I rather think that the survey was cancelled to keep these facts from coming out.
Critical Race Theory is the new Democrat attempt at White Supremacy. The Democrats have segregation nailed down - they're experts at separate but equal policies.
"Not none, perhaps, but scarcely any, fewer than a handful in Congress, (at best)."
No true Scotsmen either.
My really good friend, Schpak, looked at these questions and said 1 (one) word... "Illogical"
-JT Kirk
Ah, gspencer, many thanks for adding another document, this time an international one - the UNHDR - to my list of documents to show the USA is unique in it’s dedication to free speech.
DemoncRATs and liberals are constantly and consistently trying to emulate the rest of the world in limiting speech to only that which is officially approved. The fact that some can’t see it, and even highly educated law professors cannot see the danger to freedom of a SC justice who has openly admitted to disbelief in natural rights is troublesome.
I spend much of the time in my History and Government classes trying to teach the kids that it is OK to disagree, and even still be friends, and how to argue about something without becoming emotionally involved.
It's not easy.
"Remember that Robert Cook is someone that doesn't think that ANY american politician is "left wing"
He also believes that our rights are granted to us by the state.
Blogger hates me today. Trying again.
"There are no right or wrong answers." But every bright kid knows there ARE racist sexist LGBTQphobic answers, and most will trim accordingly.
Prof's survey was better than the Profs'. Much shorter for one thing.
Her last option was the one I chose, even though it lacked the eye-wateringly exquisite nuance of my own opinion.
OK Survey, not great. Many important issues for free speech were ignored. Such as that Rock that was removed, but to some potentially racist past.
What limit is there to making sure students are not "triggered" due to a Professor?
Can Rape, for example, even be discussed in a class without fear by a Professor?
Or Racial Discrimination?
Or the use of the N Word in a class?
Professors have been canceled due to this.
It would have been nice if they included a hypothetical, about if it's acceptable to shout down a speaker you disagree with. And what should the university do about that?
Or the issue of shaming / and how that is used with social media by a small group, to coerce social conformity, since everyone is afraid of being cancelled.
Are false accusations free speech?
I know that there are people in this world who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that.
-Tom Lehrer
Views that differ from my own make me feel uncomfortable.
Speech to which there is no objection need not be protected.
Yes, well, the Constitutional protection of free speech does not apply to corporate pussies and assholes.
UW is “the government”.
It would like to reduce its obligation to that in line with the poll respondents.
That is, the protection of speech to which most don’t object.
"He also believes that our rights are granted to us by the state."
Effectively, they are, stirring rhetoric by the founders notwithstanding.
I didn't read the survey.
The question you Highlight in the post title tells me all I need to know.
If a leftist finds your words "harmful" - (and leftists define everything they disagree with as harmful) then what good is that question?
I didn't read the survey.
The question you Highlight in the post title tells me all I need to know.
If a leftist finds your words "harmful" - (and leftists define everything they disagree with as harmful) then what good is that question?
The Jeff Bezo's owned Washington Post published an op-ed (written by Ellen Pao) about Elon Musk's appointment to the Twitter board, saying we need to regulate social media platforms to prevent "RICH PEOPLE" (Jeff Bezos?????) from controlling our channels of communication.
How's THAT for Progressive wisdom??? You really can't make this shit up!!
The first question needs at least two followup questions:
1A) The term "harmful" in the third response is so broad as to make that statement meaningless. Agree or disagree.
1B) The term "offensive" in the fifth response is so subjective as to make that statement meaningless. Agree or disagree.
I would say YES but not for the reason postulated.
It's skewed against free speech itself by presenting it as a controversial issue about which one ought to have concerns. For example, they ask about the "consequences" of "free expression." That's a leading question. Most of the questions are like that.
This is a survey designed to elicit opinions about where to draw the line on free speech. (Which makes it dangerous -- it's not the stupid questions that are the problem, it's the message that the framing sends.)
I would say YES but not for the reason postulated.
It's skewed against free speech itself by presenting it as a controversial issue about which one ought to have concerns. For example, they ask about the "consequences" of "free expression." That's a leading question. Most of the questions are like that.
This is a survey designed to elicit opinions about where to draw the line on free speech.(Which makes it dangerous -- it's not the stupid questions that are the problem, it's the message that the framing sends.)
“What is this stupid exercise supposed to accomplish, anyway? They are going to discover, that XX% of the student would cheerfully lynch anyone they disagree with, and YY% feel like their fellow students would cheerfully lynch them. And so what? Are they trying to decide whether to allowed concealed carry on campus?”
The basic question is how much can the left silence any dissenters. Is it sufficient that the right (or center) hurt some leftist’s poor feelings, to force them to shut up? What’s a bit chilling is that the assumption seems very much to be that a small vocal minority on the left can legitimately silence any dissent through feigned hurt feelings.
Things would be going a long swimingly, then I would get jarred with, say,bad question about whether they should be able to silence anti-vax misinformation. How the F would they know that it was “misinformation” in the first place? Have they read the research? Could they read it? Maybe some Chem or Bio seniors, but probably no one else. It’s apparently hurtful to many at UW to point out that the “vaccines” only seem to work to prevent some of the old and those with serious comorbidities from dying (it doesn’t seem to reduce the spread of the virus very much, if any), while having sometimes fatal side effects that seem to appear most often in their own age group.
I figured something else out awhile back: “misinformation” is most often factually correct information that conflicts with a left wing narrative, and so must be suppressed.
UW is a state institution, and thus cannot, legally, police the speech of the students, even when it might hurt the feelings of some of the more delicate flowers there. And esp since those are mostly feigned sensitivities and outrage anyway. They should be protecting free speech, instead of letting left wing outrage silence it.
I found this interesting: U. Wisconsin Student Activists Celebrate Delay of Campus Free Speech Survey
“Student leaders on five of the system’s campuses — Eau Claire, La Crosse, Madison, Stevens Point, and Whitewater — had called on the system to delay or cancel the survey.”
It’s a pretty bad sign that left wing activists can potentially squash a survey as slanted to the left as this one was. Scary stuff on campuses today.
This isn't difficult people, harmful speech is any speech I disagree with. Disagreeing with me hurts my feelings, and is therefore harmful. So to make this space a safe one, it must be cleared of all harmful speech. Your so called "right to free speech" doesn't trump my feelings.
(/Sarc)
As some of you may have gathered, I disagree with nearly all Robert Cook’s opinions. But I agree with him about the poll.
Pretend that the actual content of the survey doesn’t matter and that this is really an experiment to see who objects to the very idea of having students think carefully about the subjects involved, and who is OK with it.
Who benefits from the absence of thoughtful reflection?
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