As recent conflicts at our university and at a
number of other universities around the country indicate, the debate about free
speech on campus – what it means, what is must and must not tolerate, who decides
what is tolerable and what is not – has reached Germany. Yet these conflicts, their
philosophical underpinnings, and their socio-political effects have been debated
in the United States for many decades, albeit in different cultural contexts
and on different legal grounds. In order to grasp the nature and nuances of these
debates, we will study their origins and historical development throughout the
twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. While we will generally take a broad approach
to free speech on U.S. university and college campuses, we will also focus on a
number of widely mediated recent controversies (Yale University, Middlebury
College, University of Florida, Bard College, etc.), treating them as case
studies through which we can channel our larger inquiry into campus free speech
debates today.
- Dozent/in: Daniel Stein