A14: Chicago Principles

Today we are going to do something a bit different and take a break from our climate change extravaganza. This topic comes as a request. In October of this year, Lehigh University decided to adopt Chicago principles. We are the 115th school to adopt Chicago principles or a substantially similar statement. What will this all mean? Let’s find out.

What’s Wrong with Free Speech?

We often hear that universities are the bastion of free speech. They provide a multitude of ideas enlightening our minds and ability to think critically. Yet, in these flowery words, hides the truth that their student bodies are terrified to speak.

A key study by FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) gathered responses from over 55,000 college students across 254 universities on free speech. Here were some key findings:

Many are too frightened to speak, while calls for violence and censorship are on the rise. Open debate has replaced the demands for safe spaces and hate speech laws. Free expression is of course still available, but only for those who hold the correct thoughts.

Often these calls for tolerance end in the denying of speakers on school platforms. In 2019 at Penn State Tom Homan was sent to discuss detention and deportation policies. Students outside the venue caused the abrupt end.

Such issues are not solely an issue with the educational domain, but also the political one with the only recent repeal of censoring with the right-ring speaker Nick Fuentes, to the shooting and subsequent death of Charlie Kirk.

Will Lehigh’s adoption of Chicago Principles open up the school for real discussion? Before we can answer this question, we’ll start with some history.

The year is 1891 and William Rainey Harper has been chosen as president at the University of Chicago. Appointed as the school’s first head he stated the right to open dialogue for professors.

The test of this principle would come quite quickly four years later in what would be known as the Bemis Controversy. Associate Professor Edward Bemis spoke pro-labor anti-capitalist views against the railroad industry. His speeches caused a serious decrease in donations from wealthy individuals to the school.

Eventually he was fired, with Bemis claiming that is was due to censorship, and the university stating it was from incompetence. President Harper supported the firing, stating that the protection of speech argument would only have applied if it was rigorously backed by evidence and not just personal pleading.

The next controversial event was in 1924 when Jane Addams, head the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, wanted to speak at the school. The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States and other military organizations wished the school to restrict socialist and pacifist faculty, as well guest speakers, from speaking. The school allowed Addams to continue.

More tension was brewing. In 1932, students invited William Z. Foster, presidential candidate for the Communist Party, to attend. While there, he called for capitalism to “be abolished with an open struggle for violence” as well as spoke of the rising dangers of fascism in the United States. Afterwards, his organization held the Internationalist Workers Athletic Meet (a counter-Olympics) on Stagg field.

In 1963, the school saw quite the opposite turn of events with students inviting George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party. While the event needed to be relocated due to bomb threats, all continued accordingly without problems.

Time and time again, the University of Chicago upheld its stance to allow all types of views from speakers on campus.

In 2012, due to rising conflict at school, Chicago Law School professor Geoffrey Stone drafted a statement outlining the importance of free expression and academic freedom on campus. From there, the University formed The Committee on Freedom of Expression which wrote the Chicago Principles highlighting free speech’s importance and the institution’s long tradition.

Could this be the change we are looking for? As the school adopted these principles, will we no longer be afraid to speak? If answering truthfully, no, not quite. Yes, this action may lead to a few more unique speakers, and the school might not come directly after you for your views.

Even still, all the data shows no matter what the school, the percentage of students that self-censor and do not feel comfortable expressing different views is about the same. If you weren’t comfortable speaking out before, you still won’t be now. Why?

To express the politically incorrect views is often seen as social death. Others will be quick to mock, silence, or condemn those who dare question the modern dogma. Labels like bigot, racist, sexist, or my personal favorite conspiracy-theorist will quickly enter the mix. This is not a problem that can be fixed by a bit more courage from individual students. What we see now is not an individual problem, but a nationwide one. Our tongue as a society has been cut out. Why? It was not defended.

Truth cannot live in a vacuum, nor can it hide under the bed. Without the will to act, it will be crushed by the forces of darkness in this world. When Prince Phillip faced off against the wicked Maleficent to save the lovely Aurora, what did he carry with him? Why it was the Sword of Truth, and the Shield of Virtue. A story this may be, but reality still enflames its tale.

These traits (truth and virtue) must be wielded in our arms. They must be brandished across our breast. Any attempts to creep and secretly surprise the enemy will be crushed. Only by sallying forth and facing the forces of evil head on and without fear, can victory be wrought. Only then can we gain the life we desire, and the hand of the fair maiden trapped within.

What we need now, is not mere acts of bravery, but a rekindling of the American heart, to reawaken those heroes of antiquity in our modern era. Unless this is done, free speech shall continue to wither away and die.

Dedicated to the woman who stole my heart

Oh my lovely Venus, how far away you be,

with lips soft like peaches, eyes bluer than the sea.

How you hair so dazzles, like the glowing sun,

a face as an angel, paralleled to none.

Oh, what such a distance, oh how my heart does rend.

In so grand a manner, your gaze alone could mend.

Oh my lovely sapphire, majestic, like a queen,

What so great desire, you arouse, like caffeine.

As you can probably tell, I am no longer at Lehigh. It’s about time to tell you why, and no I did not run just because the ovens got a little hot.

The week before Thanksgiving, the Deans asked my family to come and take me home early. From there, they desired me to finish the rest of my semester online, since I was causing (exposing) a few too many problems for them.

I guess exposing the deception with Lehigh Dining, highlighting the school’s anti-Christian agenda, or showing them how to properly run a library doesn’t make the school look so great.

There was a backdoor, however, I could return if and only if I stop all my action. I could even still write, just nothing else. Why, why not take this route? If you are allowed to write, why does anything else matter?

It matters because words without actions are meaningless. Everyone today wants to talk. People act like they know how to fix the world. However, when it comes to acting, almost all cower away. Now, one could speak for 1000 years, but nothing would change. If I were not allowed to make positive change, it would mean being muzzled like a dog. It is in action that our lives can be fixed, it is in action alone that we can save this nation.

After speaking with my family, I decided to take the next semester off (Don’t worry, I am a semester ahead all thanks to them). Whenever the school wishes get down from its guise of its own perfection, and actually want to solve the problems at the school that we can all see, I’ll be waiting. In the meantime, we’ve got work to do.

After coming home, I realized the desperate state of my county, so it’s about time to fix it. Progress, no matter how slow, is what we will achieve. Take notes Lehigh. I am going to show you how to properly run things.

Now my good people, I will admit I demand from you only the highest of standards. However, no one will say that I am not fair. I will never demand of anyone else, anything that I am not willing to do myself. Hold me to that, hold me to that statement.

If nothing comes from my labor, and I show by my action that I am mere fluff, then cast me aside. I would no longer be worthy of your ears, your eyes, and your very hearts. However, if I do fix my hometown, you must fix yours.

Just as a teaser, one of our towns just lost tens of millions of dollars with no accounting system in place. Who said politics wouldn’t be exciting.

God Bless.

Your humble servant, Francisco Pereira

Much of information for the first article was found on the University of Chicago’s website which can be found here.