"Free Speech on Campus" Lecture Description

Should campuses restrict student and faculty speech to prevent excluding, bigoted, or hurtful speech? In recent years this question became increasingly politicized, receiving straightforward and opposing answers from the right and the left. In this talk, Sigal Ben-Porath, author of Free Speech on Campus, discusses why simple answers to this pressing question will not do. Instead, she suggests focusing on the mission of the university to seek knowledge and to educate should guide our vision of campus free speech. She demonstrates how her concept of 'inclusive freedom' can help campuses resolve some of the most pressing speech controversies. 

Sigal Ben-Porath is professor of Education, Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Among her books is Free Speech on Campus [upenn.edu]  which she wrote in 2017 while chairing Penn's Committee on Open Expression. In 2020-21 she was a fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University [ethics.harvard.edu], where she has been working on a new book on free speech and political polarization (the book is tentatively titled "campus wars and the struggle for democracy.") In recent years she has offered guidance to many campuses on policy development and responses to controversies surrounding speech, and she is involved in campus organizations aimed at briding political divides.