A LOSS FOR YALE: “Yale lecturer whose email ignited a debate about racism has decided not to teach there in the future.” via Business Insider.

Erika Christakis, the faculty member at the center of a racially charged debate at Yale, has decided not to teach at the Ivy League school going forward. “I will not be teaching at Yale in the future,” she told Business Insider in an email Thursday.

Christakis’ decision came after weeks of backlash against the lecturer and administrator over an email she sent to students suggesting that Yale shouldn’t tell them not to wear offensive Halloween costumes.

That backlash included an open letter criticising her signed by hundreds of members of the Yale community.

Recently, 49 faculty members wrote their own open letter defending Christakis against allegations of racism.

FIRE has been following this case since the very beginning. As I wrote in The Washington Post: “If either professor steps down now or in the coming months, it must be understood to represent Yale’s glaring failure to live up to its own glowing promises to protect and honor freedom of speech on campus.”

More on this on Monday.

‘HUNTING GROUND’ FILMMAKERS CLAIM HARVARD LAW PROFS’ CRITICISM CREATES A ‘HOSTILE CLIMATE’: Last month, a group of Harvard Law School professors issued a press release denouncing the film The Hunting Ground as being misleading. Now the filmmakers are claiming that the professors’ criticism may constitute actionable sex discrimination in violation of Title IX. Check out what FIRE’s Samantha Harris has to say about this claim in her new article.

FREE SPEECH IS NO ‘DIVERSION’: If you’re looking for a weekend #longread, check out this piece by FIRE Executive Director Robert Shibley taking on attempts to dismiss the free speech issues arising out of the current campus protests.

DEPT OF ED SHOULD ACKNOWLEDGE THE PROBLEM WITH AFFIRMATIVE CONSENT POLICIES:  Last week FIRE wrote to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and requested that OCR ask colleges and universities not to use “affirmative consent” standards that violate the due process rights of students accused of sexual assault.

Affirmative consent policies are generally overbroad, vague, and unfairly shift the burden of proof to the accused. And how would an innocent student demonstrate he or she received affirmative consent? As Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, co-author of California’s campus affirmative consent law, said: “Your guess is as good as mine.”

You can read FIRE’s letter over on our website and learn more about the letter over at The Torch.

Also be sure to watch students struggle to define what affirmative consent even means in this video:

NOT ALL COLLEGES ARE TRYING TO LIMIT FREE EXPRESSION: Chapman University has recently taken several impressive steps to prove its commitment to free speech on campus. First, it developed and ratified a statement on free speech modeled after the University of Chicago’s free expression policy statement. Then, last weekend, Chancellor Daniele C. Struppa wrote a fantastic piece in The Orange County Register on the meaning of free expression and the recent efforts on college campuses to censor offensive speech. You can read more about the Chapman statement and Struppa’s article over at The Torch.

INSOMNIA THEATER (FIREFLY EDITION): I hope you all had a very happy Thanksgiving! As a celebration of the holidays, today’s post features a fun blast from the past: legendary author Neil Gaiman takes a look at an absurd case at the University of Wisconsin – Stout that combined two of my passions—freedom of speech and the beloved, yet short-lived sci-fi series Firefly.

Back in 2011, UW-Stout tried to censor the posters Professor James Miller had put on his office door, including one featuring a quote from Firefly. Stout stood by its actions until FIRE’s advocacy campaign on Miller’s behalf inspired Gaiman, along with Firefly actors Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin, to take to Twitter to encourage their millions of followers to contact the university with their support of free speech.

You can check out the video below, as well as my write-up of the whole Stout-Firefly debacle over at The Huffington Post.

DARTMOUTH REFUSES TO STOP RESTRICTING SPEECH, LOSES ‘GREEN LIGHT’ SPEECH CODE RATING: I am sad to report that after failing to heed FIRE’s warnings that its “Bias Incident Reporting” protocol impermissibly threatens free speech on campus, Dartmouth College has lost the “green light” speech code policy rating it has held since 2005. For those of you who are unfamiliar with FIRE’s policy rating system (a “green light” is our highest rating), check out our website.

As FIRE’s Samantha Harris said today in The Torch:

Examples of bias incidents, according to Dartmouth’s Office of Pluralism and Leadership, include “telling jokes” and “stereotyping.” This policy is inconsistent with Dartmouth’s claim to be an institution that “prizes and defends the right of free speech.” If every joke or provocative remark about politics, religion, or culture is potentially subject to a formal investigation, Dartmouth students are not truly free to speak their minds.

You can read more about why Dartmouth has been downgraded over at FIRE’s website, and if you want to share your thoughts on this with Dartmouth directly, you can reach out to the school on Twitter, Facebook, or via email.

INSOMNIA THEATER (ACADEMIC FREEDOM EDITION) – This week’s post features a video of University of Chicago law professor and interim dean Geoffrey Stone discussing his role in the crafting of the University of Chicago’s terrific statement on freedom of expression.

The events at the University of Missouri, Yale, Amherst, and so many other institutions over the past few weeks show just how important it is for schools to adopt a statement affirming their support for robust speech protections for faculty and students. The Chicago statement guarantees “all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn,” and makes clear that “it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”

FIRE endorsed the statement back in January and has written hundreds of faculty members, students, and student journalists at institutions nationwide encouraging them to do the same. Since then, the editorial boards of USA TODAY and the New York Daily News have both endorsed the statement. And now colleges and universities are beginning to follow suit— Princeton University, Purdue University, Johns Hopkins University, American University, and Winston-Salem State University have all either endorsed the Chicago statement or embraced similar sets of principles.

You can learn more about the Chicago statement from Geoffrey Stone in the video below, and you can sign on to the statement yourself over at FIRE’s website.

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON’S STUDENT GOVERNMENT DISCRIMINATES AGAINST STUDENT GROUP HOLDING PRO-GUN RIGHTS EVENT- Wednesday night, the University of Oregon’s student government, the Associated Students of the University of Oregon (ASUO), refused to fund a poker night event hosted by UO’s chapter of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) amid concerns the event’s pro-gun message and prizes “would make students feel uncomfortable.” This is the second time ASUO has denied funding for the event.

The funding YAL requested was intended to cover the cost of pizza and rental fees— YAL promised that no ASUO money would go toward covering the event’s prizes, which would include three firearms donated by local gun dealers. Additionally, YAL pledged that the winners would receive the firearms off campus and in accordance with state and federal law.

As Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) Senior Program Officer Ari Cohn said in our recent press release:

ASUO’s budget is subsidized by mandatory fees paid by students … As a result, ASUO must distribute its funds in a viewpoint-neutral manner. ASUO has clearly failed to adhere to this obligation. Since ASUO is an agent of a public university, the University of Oregon administration is legally and morally required to intervene to rectify the First Amendment violations perpetrated by ASUO.

You can read the full press release over at FIRE’s website. You can also join FIRE in writing to University of Oregon President Michael H. Schill to demand that expressive activity on UO’s campus not be subject to viewpoint-based discrimination, either by university administrators or by ASUO in executing its delegated authority to distribute student activity fees.

INSOMNIA THEATER (COMEDY DOC EDITION): This week’s post features an exclusive clip from Can We Take a Joke? a FIRE-supported feature documentary about the threats outrage culture poses to comedy and free speech. Considering everything that has been going on this week at Yale and the University of Missouri, it’s very fitting that on Friday, Can We Take a Joke? made its world premiere at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary film festival. There will be an additional screening of the film tomorrow, Monday, November 16.

Can We Take a Joke?, directed by Ted Balaker, is narrated by Christina Pazsitsky and features interviews with comedians including Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, Adam Carolla, and Heather McDonald, as well as free speech experts and advocates like Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Jonathan Rauch and First Amendment attorneys Bob Corn-Revere and Ron Collins.

If you weren’t able to make it to the film’s premiere, don’t worry— stay tuned for more news about the film by visiting the film’s Facebook page, following its Twitter account, and signing up for email updates at its website.

 And, in the meantime, you can check out this exclusive video outtake from the film on IndieWire’s website.

WAPO: ‘ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE FIGHT FOR FREE SPEECH AT YALE’: Glenn has written a lot about what has been going on at Yale over the past week.

By wild coincidence, I was on the ground at Yale last week when the campus erupted— I even managed to stumble into my own free speech controversy. In today’s Washington Post, I talk about what I witnessed while on campus. What’s been going on at Yale can be wild and hard to even keep up with, but I wanted to leave readers with a reminder of the most important point:

[T]he focus should remain on defending Erika and Nicholas Christakis’s free speech rights. In today’s campus climate, when professors find themselves on the “wrong” side of the culture war, even those with tenure can find their jobs in jeopardy.

I have seen time and again university administrations press faculty to resign for their controversial expression. The university usually tries to make the resignation look like it was the professor’s own decision. If this were to happen at Yale, it would be a chilling warning to future faculty and students that if you even mildly question the prevailing orthodoxy on campus, you will have hell to pay.

Yale students, alumni, and members of the public must demand that the Christakises face no threat of punishment, and if either professor steps down now or in the coming months, it must be understood to represent Yale’s glaring failure to live up to its own glowing promises to protect and honor freedom of speech on campus.

You can read my full op-ed over at The Washington Post, as well as a summary of last Thursday’s events over at FIRE’s website.

INSOMNIA THEATER (SILVERGLATE EDITION): This week our beloved co-founder of FIRE, Harvey Silverglate, decided to step down from his position as chairman of FIRE’s Board of Directors. Harvey served as chairman for ten years and will remain an active board member. I encourage everyone to read Harvey’s official comments on the founding of FIRE, his ten years as Chairman, and what his future holds.

On a personal note, Harvey is the man who found me post-law school and brought me to FIRE. He has been a mentor and friend to me ever since, and I am deeply honored to know him.

This week’s video features Harvey discussing the importance of free speech and academic freedom, as well as Harvard’s deception when it comes to academic freedom.

INSOMNIA THEATER (AFFIRMATIVE CONSENT EDITION): This summer New York became the second state to pass an affirmative consent—or, as I like to call it, “prove yourself innocent”—law, which requires college students to demonstrate that they received “clear permission” to engage in “sexual activity.” We at FIRE were curious how many students were aware of the new law and understood its implications, so we sent FIRE’s Shelby Emmett to New York University in New York City to ask the students themselves.

What Shelby found during her visit to the Big Apple, however, were more questions. Students were very confused about many of the key elements of the ambiguous law, such as what constitutes a “sexual act,” what demonstrates consent, the law’s requirements when one or both parties have been drinking, and, most importantly, how you would prove you got consent after the sexual encounter had already occurred.

Some of the students were not only confused, but also worried about the law. As one student said, “That’s what scares the sh*t out of me. Because if anything happens, if someone says I did anything or something is misconstrued, I’m automatically the villain, I’m automatically the bad guy, and it’s up to me to prove that I’m not—which is interesting, because in America it’s supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.”

You can read more about Shelby’s interviews over at FIRE’s website and watch the video below:

NEW SURVEY REVEALS ALARMING STUDENT ATTITUDES ABOUT FREE SPEECH—Yale University’s William F. Buckley, Jr. Program recently released a national survey measuring U.S. college students’ attitudes towards free speech on campus. The results were, ahem, troubling. It’s almost as if liberty is something these students are… unlearning.

Here are just a few of the highlights (lowlights?) from the survey:

• Nearly one third (32 percent) of students could not identify the First Amendment as the constitutional amendment that deals with free speech. 33 percent of those who correctly identified the First Amendment said that the First Amendment does not protect hate speech.

• More than half (51 percent) of students are in favor of their college or university having speech codes to regulate speech for students and faculty.

• 72 percent of students said they support disciplinary action against “any student or faculty member on campus who uses language that is considered racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise offensive.”

In less awful news, 95 percent of the students surveyed said that free speech is important to them. However, as I have long predicted and discussed, when you ask Americans if they like free speech, they nearly always say “yes.” But when you get into the nitty gritty details about what kind of speech warrants protection, you discover that some folks (especially college students) are more in the “I love free speech, but…” camp. And I fear the list of exceptions is growing larger by the day.

You can check out more from the survey over at FIRE’s website and look through the full results on McLaughlin & Associates’ website.

INSOMNIA THEATER (COLLEGE SPORTS EDITION): Earlier this week at Texas A&M University, two college sports heavyweights, ESPN’s Jay Bilas and NCAA VP Oliver Luck, debated the proposition “College athletes should be allowed to be paid” to kick off FIRE’s new program, FIRE Debates. Throughout the school year, FIRE Debates will continue to bring leading figures to colleges and universities for Oxford-style debates on controversial topics relevant to students. We hope the program will remind students that free inquiry and open discussion not only play a central role in both education and democracy, but are also healthy, productive, and even fun. Check out the video of the full debate below and take a look at our upcoming FIRE Debates!

INSOMNIA THEATER (PREMIERE EDITION!): Earlier this week I posted about the upcoming world premiere of Can We Take a Joke?, a FIRE-supported feature documentary about the threats outrage culture poses to comedy and free speech. The film will premiere at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary film festival, on November 13 at NYC’s IFC Center, with an additional screening on Monday, November 16.

Can We Take a Joke? features interviews with comedians including Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, Adam Carolla, and Heather McDonald, as well as free speech experts and advocates like Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Jonathan Rauch and First Amendment attorneys Bob Corn-Revere and Ron Collins.

I hope you can make it to the premiere—you can purchase tickets on DOC NYC’s website! But in the meantime, if you want to know more, check out this exclusive video outtake from Penn Jillette’s interview for the film:

NEW FILM ‘CAN WE TAKE A JOKE?’ TO MAKE WORLD PREMIERE AT NYC DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL – I am psyched to announce that Can We Take a Joke?, a FIRE-supported feature documentary about the threats outrage culture poses to comedy and free speech, will be premiering next month at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary film festival. The world premiere will take place on Nov. 13 at NYC’s IFC Center, with an additional screening on Monday, Nov. 16. As FIRE announced:

In Can We Take A Joke?, comedians Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, Jim Norton, Adam Carolla, Heather McDonald, Karith Foster, and more come together with narrator Christina Pazsitzky to explore what happens when comedy, censorship, and outrage culture collide. […]

Also featured in the film are So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed author Jon Ronson, free speech expert and Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Jonathan Rauch, and First Amendment attorneys Bob Corn-Revere and Ron Collins, who together in 2003 successfully petitioned the governor of New York to posthumously pardon Lenny Bruce of his 1964 New York state obscenity conviction.

Can We Take A Joke? is directed by Ted Balaker of Korchula Productions in partnership with the DKT Liberty Project and in association with Reason TV. To learn more about Can We Take a Joke?, visit the film’s Facebook page, follow its Twitter account, and sign up for email updates at its website. And, to purchase tickets to the premiere, visit DOC NYC’s website.

I hope you can be there! It’s going to be a fun night.

INSOMNIA THEATER (DIRE STRAITS EDITION): This week’s post features my recent interview with Ginni Thomas, columnist for The Daily Caller and wife of Justice Clarence Thomas. Ginni and I discuss how “The international situation for free speech is dire,” covering everything from blasphemy laws to the new wave of campus political correctness that Jonathan Haidt and I examine in our article “The Coddling of the American Mind.” Check out the video below or over at The Daily Caller.

INSOMNIA THEATER (DEPT. OF ED​. EDITION) – ​ICYMI, last week I posted a video of Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) challenging Department of Education (ED) Deputy Assistant Secretary Amy McIntosh about past statements made by Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary for ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Lhamon had testified that she expected colleges and universities to comply fully with OCR’s Title IX guidance, despite the fact that federal guidance is not binding. Huh?

McIntosh quickly backtracked from Lhamon’s comments, telling Alexander that “guidance that the Department issues does not have the force of law.” Then, in another congressional hearing just a week after this exchange, a second ED official, Under Secretary Ted Mitchell, also admitted that ED’s guidance “does not hold the force of law.”

I can tell you that after working on campuses for 15 years, I can’t think of one college that actually believes that following any ED ukase is optional, and I can’t believe that ED (which has power over federal funding of universities!) really believes that either.

This week FIRE’s Joe Cohn explained just how OCR’s actions both overstep its authority, violate the Administrative Procedure Act, and intimidate institutions into complying with its “non-binding” guidance.

You can watch the back-and-forth between Alexander and McIntosh in the video below or, for the hardcore issue fans, there’s also the full video of the hearing on the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ website.

SUPPORT FREE SPEECH ON CAMPUS BY SIGNING ON TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO STATEMENT – Today, FIRE is launching a national campaign asking colleges and universities to adopt the free speech statement produced by the Committee on Freedom of Expression at the University of Chicago earlier this year. The announcement comes after the Sunday Washington Post published an op-ed by FIRE’s Will Creeley and Geoffrey Stone, the current Dean of the University of Chicago Law School and one of the authors of the statement, urging universities to protect academic freedom and free speech:

Backed by a strong commitment to freedom of expression and academic freedom, faculty could challenge one another, their students and the public to consider new possibilities, without fear of reprisal. Students would no longer face punishment for exercising their right to speak out freely about the issues most important to them. Instead of learning that voicing one’s opinions invites silencing, students would be taught that spirited debate is a vital necessity for the advancement of knowledge. And they would be taught that the proper response to ideas they oppose is not censorship, but argument on the merits. That, after all, is what a university is for.

The Chicago statement guarantees “all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn,” and makes clear that “it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”

If you want your alma mater to endorse the free speech statement, I encourage you to sign FIRE’s pledge and write to your alma maters or local institutions. And make sure to check out Geoffrey Stone and Will Creeley’s Sunday Washington Post op-ed.

INSOMNIA THEATER (JARED POLIS EDITION): As devoted readers know, both Glenn and I posted a little while back about Colorado Rep. Jared Polis’ so-called “apology” for suggesting that college students accused of sexual assault should be expelled even if they are innocent.

Since then, Polis’ halfhearted mea culpa has only continued to generate criticism for its defense of dangerous ideas about students’ rights to due process. The Daily Camera, Polis’ hometown newspaper, published several responses to his apology, even devoting a whole page of its September 19 print edition to the topic.

FIRE’s Joe Cohn wrote his own retort in The Daily Camera, arguing that “By insisting that college administrators adjudicate serious felonies, Polis doubles down on a failed policy that threatens students nationwide.” And if you haven’t seen it already, or if you just want to reassure your memory that “someone really said that,” please watch the video of Polis’ now-infamous remarks and share with a friend.

You can see the full hearing on the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training’s YouTube channel.

SEN. ALEXANDER GRILLS DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ABOUT POWER GRAB – In a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) challenged Department of Education Deputy Assistant Secretary Amy McIntosh about past statements made by her colleague Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary for the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Lhamon had claimed that colleges and universities were expected to comply with OCR’s Title IX guidance, despite the fact that federal guidance is not binding.

FIRE has been saying for years that a lot of what OCR does violates the Administrative Procedure Act. We applaud Senator Alexander for challenging OCR’s abuse of power. You can watch the back-and-forth between Senator Alexander and Deputy Assistant Secretary McIntosh in the video below and the video of the full hearing on the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ website.

INSOMNIA THEATER (IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME EDITION): In 2013, Utah’s Dixie State University refused to recognize a local campus sorority because it used Greek letters in its name. Despite repeated efforts by students and FIRE, Dixie State continued to defend this unconstitutional policy, earning itself a spot on FIRE’s 2013 list of “The 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech.” As best as we can tell, the policy is still in place.

But the news coming out of Dixie State isn’t all bad. This week, Dixie State agreed to settle a First Amendment lawsuit filed by three students after the school refused to approve flyers promoting the students’ Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) group. As part of the settlement, Dixie State agreed to revise the policies targeted by the lawsuit to meet First Amendment standards, to provide training to administrators about the new policies, and to pay $50,000 in damages and attorney’s fees. As the Greeks might say: “Nike!”

REP. POLIS: ‘SORRY I’M NOT SORRY’ FOR BELITTLING STUDENT DUE PROCESS RIGHTS – Glenn posted this morning about Colorado Rep. Jared Polis’ so-called “apology” for suggesting that college students accused of sexual assault should be expelled even if they are innocent.

Although FIRE appreciates his “apology,” we found that Polis’ Daily Camera mea culpa misses the mark since he continues to defend misguided principles about how to best handle campus sexual assault allegations. FIRE has published a response explaining why these allegations should be dealt with by law enforcement. This opinion is not only shared by the vast majority of the American public, but also leading victim-advocacy groups and some of Polis’ fellow congressional Democrats.

You can check out FIRE’s full response to Polis’ statement over at The Torch. You can also watch the video of Polis’ now-infamous remarks in the video below or over at the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training’s YouTube channel, which has the full hearing.

INSOMNIA THEATER (BACK TO SCHOOL EDITION!): BRAINWASHING PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE—This week’s edition takes us back to 2007, when the University of Delaware’s Office of Residence Life used mandatory activities to coerce students into changing their thoughts, values, attitudes, beliefs, and habits to conform to a specific university-approved social, environmental, and political agenda. After FIRE waged a campaign calling attention to the Orwellian curriculum, the university terminated the program, effective immediately. Since that initial victory, however, there have been continued attempts to reinstate the coercive elements of the program. This video explains the program’s invasive thought-reform activities; the horrified reactions of students, faculty, and the press; and FIRE’s response.

If you want to learn more, you can also check out this award-winning article by Adam Kissel. The program was so bad I even devoted nearly an entire chapter to it in my book Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate.