There are precious few remaining forums where we can experience a frank exchange of views anymore. Legacy media is completely devoid of balance. There are a few podcasts that try- most notably Bari Weiss’s Honestly is probably one of the best, along with The Glenn Loury Show. Of course, on most college campuses, divergent views are no longer welcome.
While Wokeness has made some inroads at The University of
Chicago (it recently graced Critical Race Theory with its own department – Race,
Diaspora and Indigeneity), it remains one of the few places where those
conversations can take place in public. Last
weekend, I returned to campus at the University of Chicago for a debate between
Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry
Krazner (now being impeached by the Pennsylvania legislature) moderated by
University of Chicago law professor Emily Underwood. Before I get into some of the content, let me
just say that for all my dismay over the direction of the school over the past
three years, the discussion was conducted in a very civil and respectful
manner. Early on, a few in the audience
made some noises but Underwood moderator was quick to tamp it down, and it did
not recur. Despite dipping its toes in
the Wokeness waters, The University of Chicago more or less adheres to the
Chicago Principles of Free Speech. Ms. Underwood remarked that, “The one thing
that we can all agree on is that The University of Chicago changed all of us.”
Krazner opened by rationalizing the horrendous incident at
Stanford a few weeks ago in which some Stanford law students shouted down Judge
Kyle Duncan, with some students shouting such vile things at him as “I hope
your daughter gets raped.” In the
incident the school’s DEI instructor took the microphone and admonished the
judge, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”
In other words, was it worth having him speak? Krazner trashed the Federalist Society (who
sponsored the event), the judge for “taking away rights” and for his non-Ivy
League credentials, stating “he has no business being on the 5th
circuit” and “doesn’t look judicial” and managed to smear Florida governor
DiSantis along with him. He reluctantly admitted
a few students went too far but did not deserve suspension or expulsion.
Turley’s initial response was simply, “Wow” then went on
calmly to admonish Krazner for rationalizations that go back centuries. There is a long history of making excuses for
silencing others. “Speech is harmful”
allows for endless tradeoffs ending in the government’s labeling of
misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (true speech used to
mislead). Turley’s flat declaration was
that the solution to bad speech is good speech.
He considers the current attack on free speech to be the greatest threat
to the country. He characterized
Krazner’s core argument as “the students went too far but it was his [Duncan’s]
fault.
Turley said that we were living in an “age of rage” but that
rage is addictive, giving us a license to silence others. This country was born in rage and silencing
others is a troubling trend. It is the
most intolerant environment he has ever seen.
On almost all college campuses, conservative and libertarian faculty,
which were always in the minority, have been largely excluded entirely.
Krasner further downplayed the Stanford incident, claiming that
an incident is not a trend. But Turley shot
back that there have been many than one incident and he tracks them. The data do no support Krasner’s defense.
Krazner then attacked the Supreme Court itself, with a claim
that the court is taking back rights, that it has become polarized and
politicized, and people have lost a lot of faith in the court. He cited “absurd” decisions about the 2nd
Amendment and railed about not adhering to precedent and kicking stare decisis
to the curb. He complained about the
undue influence of the Federalist Society on the court and the “trickery” that
was used to keep Merrick Garland off the bench.
Turley countered by stating that he had a lot of faith in
the system, that Krazner misportrays the court. In the vast majority of the
cases, the decisions are unanimous. “The
justices are not robotic idealogues,” he said., “Furthermore, we want judges to
be intellectually consistent.” He disagreed with the characterization of the
court taking away rights. Rather, these
decisions involve collisions of rights.
As the stare decisis, he commented tongue in cheek that “thankfully
Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal) is still good law.” He reminded Krazner that the Warren Court
overturned 30 precedents and no one at the time claimed that was a threat to
democracy.
My bias clearly is in favor of Turley and I make the
following observations about the program:
·
Turley went out of his way to express his
fidelity to the Constitution, rather than a political party. “I haven’t liked a president since
Madison.” Turley did not even mention
Biden and only mentioned Trump in the context of discussions of the appropriateness
of impeachment.as a remedy (Turley, by the way, opposes Krazner's impeachment). At no point
did Turley disparage “liberals” or Democrats as a whole or any members of the
Supreme Court. He went out of his way to
make complimentary comments about Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. Krazner, on the other hand, ripped into the
Federalist Society, and the right wing of the court. His account of the
incident at Stanford in which he smeared Judge Duncan and excused the Stanford
law students for the shoutdown was utterly disingenuous. Duncan had a right to
speak without the “heckler’s veto.”
Period.
·
Krazner boasted that he was the first
progressive DA (Soros) and that the progressive DA’s now serve 20% of the U.S.
population and will soon expand to 30%.
He rambled on about the criminal justice complex, claiming that in areas
like Pennsylvania which lost its steel industry, that has been replaced by the
prison industry, disproportionately affecting blacks. He conveniently failed to address the crime
surge in his district and the excess deaths by violence as a consequence of his
posture.
Later in the day, I ran into Turley at the bookstore and had
an opportunity to have a chat with him, and I thanked him for his work on free
speech matters. He completed my “world
tour” of free speech scholars – Turley, Nadine Strosser (formely of ACLU) and Jason
DiSanto (Northwestern).
And while I enjoyed speaking with Turley, the most
interesting conversation I had that afternoon was with a HVAC technician. As I returned to my car, I passed two
maintenance guys- a white 50ish fellow having a cigarette break and a 30
something black fellow. They saw my
alumni badge and the older fellow said “Welcome back.” So I stopped and engaged them in conversation
for a bit. The older fellow had to take
a call and I continued with the younger guy, and we talked about careers. I told him I was less committed to college as
the right path as I once was and he lit up and told me about his own
journey. He went to a Chicago Public
High School (CVS) and grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes. He talked about the fact that CPS stopped offering
vocational classes and he thought that was a huge mistake, “Why go to college
when you can become an apprentice, make money right away and not have loans to
deal with?” We talked for a good half
hour about this. I felt so encouraged by
this conversation. I had more in common
with this young black man from the projects than I did with the smug, bombastic
Larry Krazner.
The civilized debate between Turley and Krazner and the
conversation with young maintenance guy left me with more hope than I have felt
in awhile. Free speech survives in this
redoubt, along with a bright young man from the projects that now has a bright
future in front of him.
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