Freedom of speech

We've chatted in class about some recent freedom of spech issues. Mostly we've considered whether it was right for the university to allow Iran's president to speak, or about Iran's president's right to speak. Here's Stanley Fish's interesting argument about the appropriateness of the University President's introductory remarks:

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/the-administrative-imperative-always-lower-the-stakes/index.html?hp

Fish's theme of the separation of a teacher's role -- between her academic duties and her rights of free speech as an American citizen -- has been a regular feature of his NYT blog. It's a teacher's role to teach thatthere is a controversy, and the history of that controversy, but not to comment on the controversy. Critics will say that "saying nothing" is filled with meaning, is similar to tacitly agreeing with the "evil side." Fish doesn't claim that the teacher shouldn't talk about of the schol buildings, just that she shouldn't use the classroom as a political forum.

A history of the "always academize" theme on Fish's blog can be found here:

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/academicize/