“Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.” – Benjamin Franklin
Each year, the Goldfarb Center chooses an annual theme that informs and shapes our programming. This year the Goldfarb Student Executive Board selected freedom of speech. We plan to cover a range of issues related to free speech ranging from constitutional rights, the role of social media and big technology, resisting hate speech, and campus policies. We will be bringing speakers to campus to help us explore these issues, ranging from civil liberties leaders like Nadine Strossen to activists who were on the frontlines of democracy in Hong Kong reacting to a crackdown on free speech.
The theme is the focal point for the Goldfarb Freedom of Expression Policy Symposium held in the spring, which offers a $2,000 prize for the best public policy student proposal. This page will serve as an information hub on free speech with resources, articles, and updates on Goldfarb-sponsored talks to help educate and inform students who plan to participate in the spring policy competition.
The Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs hosted a conversation featuring Jan Plan visiting faculty Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayers. The talk was a contemporary conversation about how to respond to the desires, demands, and questions in classrooms today. What contradictions and conflicts, complexities and controversies, emerge when we consider free speech in the classroom? This is part of a series of events the Goldfarb Center has hosted this year in line with its focus on freedom of speech.
Bernardine Dohrn, activist, academic, and children’s and women’s rights advocate, is a retired Associate Clinical Professor from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was the founding director of the Children and Family Justice Center for 23 years. Dohrn is an author or editor of “Race Course: Against White Supremacy”; “A Century of Juvenile Justice” and “Resisting Zero Tolerance: A Handbook for Parents, Teachers, and Students”. Willam Ayers, formerly Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago has written extensively about social justice and democracy, education and the cultural contexts of schooling, and teaching as an essentially intellectual, ethical, and political enterprise. His books include “Teaching toward Freedom”; “To Teach: The Journey, in Comics”; and “Demand the Impossible”!
The Goldfarb Center hosted a thoughtful talk with one of the nation’s top First Amendment litigators on free speech issues ranging from protest rights, Black student activism on campuses, and the recent string of state classroom censorship bills. The event was an open Q&A session where Colby students had the opportunity to ask Mr. Sykes anything, which might include discussing his current cases and free speech work, free speech protection trends, or the historical role of student activism.
The Goldfarb Center hosted a conversation with civil liberties leader and free speech expert Nadine Strossen. The event officially kicked off a series of programming related to freedom of speech, the center’s theme this year. Ms. Strossen engaged in a robust Q&A with Colby students, faculty, and staff on issues ranging from how to effectively resist hate speech to free speech on college campuses. She talked about constitutional rights, the role of social media, and much more.
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