Dean's Note

On Supporting Free and Respectful Academic Speech

Defining the limits of speech to help make space for debate that is truly open and inclusive.

Over the last few years, I have written several times about speech in an academic context. It is a topic which reemerges fairly regularly in our space, a natural result of working in a community of ideas supported by the values of free inquiry and expression. It is healthy to revisit these first principles, to ensure we are living up to our core ideals and that these ideals do indeed continue to reflect the best we can do as a community. Few principles are as fundamental to our community as our engagement with speech, the expression of our ideas.

The work of public health is, in large part, the work of acting on ideas and data that emerge from a context of free inquiry and open debate. This is reflected in our school’s mission to “Think. Teach. Do.” We are able to do because we can think and teach in a context where our minds can be truly open to the ideas and practices that shape a healthier world. It is important, then, to continually reexamine what we are doing to ensure our community supports such a context. With this in mind, today’s Note will be the first of a two-part reflection on speech and our community. Today will focus on the challenge of defining and engaging with objectionable speech and those who express views with which we do not agree. Next week will address how we speak collectively as an institution on issues of consequence, including issues of speech.

As an institution dedicated to the exchange of ideas that create a healthier world, we are committed to shaping a community in which all feel able to engage in discussion, disagreement, and debate. This commitment animates everything we do, from our writing, to our pedagogy, to the conversations we have among ourselves in hallways, offices, on Zoom, and on Talbot Green. It was in the spirit of this commitment that we began our series of Public Health Conversations, now many years ago, and it is in this spirit that we actively seek out perspectives which challenge our assumptions and cast a critical eye on the work of public health. Speech and thought are not truly free if they always make us comfortable by reinforcing what we already believe. That is why our community has, as a rule, pursued the kind of engagement that is shaped by a range of perspectives, towards the goal of better understanding issues of consequence for health.

In past writings, I have engaged with the challenge of how we, as a community, might define exceptions to this rule, consistent with our aim to support a respectful, inclusive academic conversation. I articulated these limits in the interest of defining them clearly, but also narrowly. We make these exceptions to fundamentally prove the rule—a rule that says we should be a community that values free speech. We define what is unacceptable to draw a distinction between what is truly beyond the pale of respectful discourse and what is merely heterodox thinking, the latter being something we encourage, indeed something we cannot do without. For this reason, if we are to place limits on speech, we have a particular responsibility to err on the side of doing so with great care, putting forward well-defined criteria for taking such steps. These criteria are, it seems to me, as follows.

First, speech must be open to rejoinders by other speech. We are under no obligation to provide a platform for speech which is not open to reasoned reply. This includes speech which embraces name-calling, speech which seeks to shout down attempts at rebuttal, and speech which refuses to acknowledge alternate perspectives. Speech can only shape a healthier world when it is part of a dialogue in which we maintain open lines of communication, sharing ideas in the spirit of conversation and civility. When speech is closed off to dialogue it is no longer a constructive or welcome influence in our community.

Second, there is no home in our community for speech which implicitly or explicitly endorses violence. The purpose of free speech is to provide a space for at times spirited disagreement without the threat of violence. We sometimes take this for granted, but it is a relatively recent advance in human history, a history which is in large part a catalogue of violent conflicts between groups that began where, as Hannah Arendt wrote, speech ended. It has taken us a long time to do better but we have done better and maintaining this progress means recognizing that violence is inimical to a context of free speech and open debate and should not be tolerated anywhere.

Third, we are a community that is built on a foundation of data and intellectual honesty. It is speech that ascribes to these principles that we should prioritize, and we are under no obligation to give a platform to speech that traffics in provable falsehoods advanced dishonestly as objective truth. When speech is dissociated from the foundations for fact and data, it has nothing to offer the public debate, muddying the waters and preventing the deeper understanding that advances progress. A school has a responsibility to elevate speech which sheds light rather than heat by being grounded in facts, reason, and scientific truth. This is the kind of speech we will continue to amplify as a community, and speech which runs counter to these principles will not receive our endorsement.

Fourth, it is reasonable for us to expect that speech in an academic community honor the principles of inclusion that underpin much of what we do. And, conversely, we have an obligation to call out speech that denies the basic dignity and human rights of others. This includes speech which calls for violations of fundamental rights such as the rights to autonomy, security, and equal protection before the law. I realize that this is perhaps the category of speech which calls for the most nuance in evaluating, as it has practical implications for how we advance a healthier world by engaging with the public debate. There are many voices within the mainstream of the public discourse calling for political policies that we might argue infringe on basic dignity and human rights. Preventing these calls from becoming settled policy means engaging with them in the idea space, to rebut them with what is arguably the best antidote to bad ideas: better ideas founded on better data. But we do so while being mindful that the speech engaged in these discussions includes all of us, without dismissing the personhood of any of us.

These principles address how we should define and engage with speech we find objectionable. A second, related issue is how we should engage with individuals who espouse ideas with which we disagree, whose speech runs counter to the four principles above.  While I am suggesting here that we may choose—judiciously, wisely—to rebut speech that is objectionable, the perhaps harder question remains, how do we interact with the speaker. Since after all, speech does not exist in a vacuum; it is an expression of human thoughts, and those humans may walk among us.  When we encounter such people, there is a perhaps understandable feeling that we should not associate with them at all, that they have no place anywhere near our community. This feeling is particularly understandable in the present moment, when we have seen many disagreeable ideas gain power in the political space, shaping policy in directions which undermine health. Why, we may well ask, might we allow people who argue in favor of such ideas in our spaces?  I offer three thoughts in this regard.

First, the presence of someone whose ideas differ, perhaps radically, from our own provides a perspective which may cause us to take a critical look at our own views, to revisit the empirical basis of what we believe to be true. It is easy to feel like our deepest convictions are self-evidently correct, that they need no such reevaluation. This is particularly the case when everyone with whom we associate seems to share these convictions. But the person with objectionable views likely feels equally convinced of the truth of their views. There is value to the presence of such a person in our community to help us to see the individual behind such views, to recognize how real human beings—as opposed to easily dismissed political abstractions—can think in ways we do not. Engaging with such individuals can motivate the reflections that make us better able to defend our views, to recognize and address any flaws in our arguments, and to resist the temptation to demonize and “other” those with whom we disagree, supporting a healthier public discourse and ultimately a healthier world. 

Second, there is always something to learn from someone who is willing to publicly contradict the prevailing notion within their own community. We live in a time of intense polarization, in which we often find ourselves divided into one of two political camps. Within each of these camps, it is common to hear the expression of views which would be regarded as objectionable by those in the other camp. What is less common is to hear within one camp ideas which go against the grain of those within that community. There can be a high social cost to saying something we know our colleagues, friends, and even family might disagree with. Yet as thinking people—as engaged members of a community of ideas—few of us have not had such thoughts from time to time. How do we travel the distance from thought to expression when doing so carries undeniable risks? In this, we might learn from having persons in our midst expressing views with which we disagree—even as we vigorously and robustly object to those views. While some individuals advance objectionable views out of obliviousness, heedless of the social context in which they speak, others speak well aware of the risk they run. In speaking anyways, they display what might fairly be called courage, showing a virtue in action they may not show in thought, a virtue that is well worth emulating.

Third, when it is possible for an individual to express objectionable views and still remain part of a community of ideas, it becomes easier for everyone else to speak their mind, secure in the knowledge that, if we tolerate the objectionable—and even engage with it from a position of intellectual curiosity and willingness to debate—there is certainly space for the merely heterodox—for the dissent and respectful disagreement that keep a community of ideas healthy. It is important to remember that, while we may hold the majority opinion today, tomorrow we may find ourselves in the minority, holding views we feel are right but that the community considers to be wrong. We should therefore treat dissenters the way we would wish to be treated when it comes our time to think differently. This is particularly important in our field, where the stakes are nothing less than the health of populations and we cannot afford the pitfalls of groupthink or the silencing of voices that could stop us from making mistakes that place health at risk.       

The conversation about speech in our community is a journey, with no destination we will reach any time soon. It reflects, shapes, and is shaped by the conversation in politics and in the broader culture. Such evolution makes it necessary to revisit, re-examine our values on a regular basis and to update, constantly, our engagement with what is most fundamental to our thinking. This includes balancing our values of free speech with our concern for civility, inclusivity, and respect. Thank you for being part of this community and the conversations that make it what it is. It is a privilege, always, to learn from our conversations.  

Warm regards,

Sandro

Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH
Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor
Boston University School of Public Health

Acknowledgement: I am grateful to Eric DelGizzo and Meredith Brown for their contributions to this Dean’s Note.