Asking Big Questions: March 30 Roundtable Event Will Focus on Free Speech

What role do college campuses play in debates about free speech?

Students, faculty and staff will have an opportunity to take up that big question at a roundtable to be held Monday, March 30, at 4:30 p.m. in Weinstein Auditorium.

“Say What?!: Speech Rights, Learning Communities and Academic Freedom” is the second in a series of forums organized by the Working Group on Campus Discourse. The event features a panel discussion followed by small-group conversations over dinner. Future conversations will be organized around the theme of gender matters.

The March 30 free speech panel, moderated by Provost and Dean of the Faculty Katherine Rowe, will explore historical and present-day disagreements on speech protections and limits, as well as the role played by educational institutions.

Panelists are Carrie Baker, associate professor for the study of women and gender; Ambreen Hai, professor of English language and literature; Dwight Hamilton, chief diversity officer; Marc Lendler, professor of government; and Marilyn Schuster, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and professor of the study of women and gender.

Beginning at 6 p.m., small-group conversations around the theme “How Are We Heard?” will be held in various locations in Wright Hall. Audience members will be invited to reflect about speech on campus with facilitators using the Ask Big Questions model of Ask-Share-Learn-Do.

Smith community members are invited to submit questions for panelists in advance to campusdiscourse@smith.edu.

Rowe said the panel discussion and the conversations that follow “will explore two complementary questions that many campuses are engaging: what are our rights and responsibilities as speakers in an open and diverse campus community, and what are our responsibilities towards each other as listeners?”

The Ask Big Questions format and the participation of faculty and staff with diverse expertise and perspectives on speech protections will offer “good opportunities for lively differences of opinion,” Rowe said.

She noted that the Working Group offered a similar series of small-group conversations after poet Claudia Rankine’s talk on campus last month, around the theme “How Are We Seen?”

Panelist Schuster said she is pleased to be part of a discussion that will explore the connections between speech rights, learning communities and academic freedom.

“Language is the very currency of education,” Schuster said. “As a college, we need to engage controversial issues and encourage productive conversations about high stakes issues that elicit strong feelings—in the classroom, the houses and at public events.”

Too often, media coverage of such issues fails to credit students with being open to understanding conflicting points of view, Schuster said.

“One thing I have always loved about Smith students is their willingness to take risks, to speak up and to listen,” she added. “The panel discussion will help us build on that vital aspect of Smith culture.”