‘Deliciously Bewildering Dialectic’
“Without contraries is no progression,” William Blake wrote more than 200 years ago. And with that thought in mind, President M. Lee Pelton commissioned a series of essays exploring freedom of expression — a tenet of both education and democracy, and one that has focused the attention of the campus community for the past year and a half.
By Rebecca Brant
Events on and off campus during the 2006–07 academic year spurred discussion about diversity and social justice and led to passionate debate about freedom of expression and limitations on that freedom. In a letter March 8 to the campus community, Pelton wrote, “There is no official position to be taken except to promote — rather than squelch — the deliciously bewildering dialectic we commonly refer to as the ‘teachable moment.’”
Such moments have been varied and plentiful, including the formation of a Council on Social Justice and Diversity; Salman Rushdie’s opening convocation speech last September; a campuswide forum hosted by Pelton in March; curricular offerings including those of the American Ethnic Studies program; awareness training and mentoring through programming in residence life, student life and human resources; an increased focus on the Lausanne program to bring faculty of color to campus; and an ongoing series of speakers and films.
Pelton invited faculty, staff and students to write essays, and the Dean’s Council solicited and selected 12 for publication in Campus Conversations: The Role of Freedom of Expression in a Multicultural and Democratic Society.
The book launch, March 7, featured Richard Meeker, Pulitzer Prize– winning publisher of Willamette Week, who cited the “transformative effect of educational institutions” in the debate over freedom of expression, and praised college students and other young people for “getting it when it comes to questions of race, multiculturalism and freedom of expression.”
The essay series will continue each year, Pelton says, explaining that “future editions will establish a historical record of the compelling vision of what we could be if we were truly open to what Matthew Arnold called ‘the best of what has been known and said in the world.’” The next series of essays, based on the question “Who is my neighbor?” will explore the relationship between the individual self and community — considered locally, nationally, globally — and what duties and rights apply in that relationship.
Following are excerpts from essays in the first collection.
“We fail to appreciate that
freedom of expression is just one
democratic ideal that must be carefully
balanced with myriad other democratic ideals
such as equality and dignity.”
Warren Binford,
assistant professor of law, Clinical Law Program
director
When Free Expression Gets Expensive: Legalities, Liabilities and Realities
“… Increasingly atherosclerotic
notions of multiculturalism, diversity and
freedom of expression … limit the rapprochement
necessary to help us dispense with reified
notions and move forward with an inclusive and
just conception of plural community.”
Nathaniel “Nacho” Cordova,
assistant professor of rhetoric
and media studies
Between Freedom of Speech and Cultural Diversity of Expression: Bureaucratizing the Multicultural Imagination
“Citizens ought to allow
the widest latitude to
free expression, including artistic
and humorous speech that is odd,
evaluative, transgressive, and/or
shocking, but find intolerable
‘fighting words’ that are targeted
at and continue to be spoken even
though they transmit direct injury.”
Sammy Basu,
associate professor of politics
“To try things themselves”: Freedom of Expression in a Democratic Multicultural Polity
“When we hear the
phrase ‘freedom of
expression,’ we all too often
focus on the person speaking rather
than on the person who responds
to him or her. In actuality, communication
is a two-way process that is
complex, dynamic and highly reliant
on context.”
Cassandra Farrin,
interim director of community
service learning, TIUA
Listening as Letting Go of Comfort and Embracing Difference: Responsibilities of the Listener in Freedom of Expression
“Our society would
benefit from a greater
awareness of and respect for the
difference between what we are
allowed to do and what we
ought to do.”
Joseph Kaczmarek ’07
The Difference Between Can and Should: Protection and Exercise of Free Speech in a Democracy
“A deep
commitment to critical
thinking should
provide members of the
University community with the
intellectual tools to withstand
sometimes terrible assaults on
their personal sensibilities that
are a consequence of the free
expression of others.”
Peter Harmer,
professor of exercise science
The Lion, the Scarecrow and the Looking-glass, Darkly: Misadventures in the War of the Worldviews
“Transgressive expression serves
as the testing ground for free
speech in America because the right of unfettered
expression is only guaranteed
by those willing to actually test boundaries.”
Christopher Hanson ’08
Speech that Offends: The Treatment of Transgressive Expression and Hate Speech in the United States
“If we refuse to be
governed by our immediate and
emotional reactions to … events, we may
find value in expression that originally
disgusted us, and danger in speech that
initially seemed innocuous.”
Shannon Lawless ’07
Great Liberty, Greater Responsibility: Free Expression at Willamette University
“Our identity
development and
understanding of self are
closely tied to the way we
perceive the boundaries of
freedom of expression and react
according to these boundaries.”
Arminda Lathrop,
communications director and
project coordinator for
International Debate Education
Association (IDEA) at
Willamette University
Expression and Identity: Collected Voices on “Freeing Space”
“Freedom is at the core of what
makes it possible for one to become human.
Freedom distinguishes humanity from other
species in degree if not kind. It is the capacity
not to have to be satisfied with the world as it is
but to imagine and initiate the shaping of the
world as it can and should be.”
Douglas R. McGaughey,
professor of religious studies
Freedom of Expression
“Open dialogue has often been
described as a foundation of democratic
society because it is in conversation, and not
simply expression, that we test each other’s
beliefs while noticing and becoming responsible
for our differences [an examination of J.M.
Coetzee’s novel Elizabeth Costello].”
Tobias Menely,
assistant professor of English
“Forgive me if I am forthright,” or Conversational Freedom
“Unfortunately, this right
for which so many have
struggled, fought and died is
most often being used for celebrity
gossip, message boards and reality
shows. Important topics like race relations
have been reduced to shouted
slogans,
overreaction and perceived slights.”
Rich Schmidt,
interlibrary loan and electronic
reserves, Hatfield Library
Censor This Essay
Copies of Campus Conversations are available at the Willamette Store for $10, and the essays as well as Pelton’s preface may be read online.