YouSaid · the spoken record

Harvey Silverglate

lines on the record: 109
first: 2023-05-16
most recent: 2023-05-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“This is a debate whether it's a mistake. They took money from him. Is it a mistake to take money from bad people You have to do a morals test of a potential donor? I don't think so.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“a large margin in what I call the real world, which is the world outside the campus, but academics are afraid they'd be criticized. They're incredibly thin-skinned, when I say academics, I mean academic administrators. They're very thin-skinned, politically correct, holier than thou. As I said, I would fire 95% of them and I would be more careful in who I elected to lead these institutions. I said Pauline Gay is probably going to be a disaster at Harvard.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They feel that they would be criticized by students and parents and donors. I disagree with that. I actually think there are more people out there that agree with me than agree with them.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're ashamed that they feel they have no choice because they feel that they would be criticized for racism, homophobia, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not because he was anti black and anti Semitic, because the trustees were as well, but because he just was insufferable, he drove the faculty crazy. And they got him out. And so Princeton was thinking of changing the name. I wrote a letter to President Iskrim, Princeton saying, you know, this is part of the university's history. You don't want to rewrite history falsely. Woodrow Wilson was the president of this institution. He was one of your predecessors. He never answered me either. I think these people, you know, they know they have no answer. The reason I didn't get a response from President Iskruba is the same as the reason I didn't get a response from the headmaster of Milton Academy. They understand that what they're doing is violative of the fundamental precepts of academic institutions.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And if it reminds people that the money was earned through selling opioids, that's good. That's good that people understand. That's where the saclists got their money. They should be bonded in my undergraduate alma mater, Princeton, there's a movement to remove the name Woodrow Wilson because Wilson was president at Princeton before he became governor of New Jersey, before he became president of the United States, how he got to be governor of New Jersey was he was so insufferable that the trustees of Princeton got on the nomination to run for governor of New Jersey. We got to get this guy out of here.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let me say this. I believe that universities, if somebody was, for example, donate to a university and donates on the requirement that the building be named after them. If the university is taking donations and the person is funding a building and wants the building named after, the building should be named after him or them. Harvard is facing this now at the Sackler building because the Sacklers have become now persona non grata because of their role in producing the opioids that caused huge scandalous opioid addiction. There are people who wanted to have removed the name, the sacchar from the saccharine, however. Baccow, the president of Harvard, to his credit, has refused to do that.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Against it fire sounded the alarm. And then in the end, the universities were, I believe Abbott was invited to come back. I think he turned them down. He shouldn't have turned him down, but he did. When the light is cast upon these situations, the university is back down because they're so embarrassed. And the newspapers, because newspapers depend on the First Amendment in order to exist, newspapers tend to give pretty good publicity to these cases of censorship.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is not the only incident. There have been incidents all around the country of academics, professors who have used it don't comport with the great Lily Helm and another friend of my late wife. She said she refused to cut her garments in order to fit the fashions of the day. Dorian Abbott didn't cut his suit to fit the fashions of the day, his intellectual suit. And so this has happened at Princeton. This has happened at Harvard. This has happened at MIT. The great universities in the country have decided that the clash of ideas is not such a good idea because some people's feelings will be hurt. Well, there was quite a revolt.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An affirmative action basically, and what it does is it allows the system of elementary and secondary education to be bad because they could say, oh, we got our kids into Harvard. Yes, but you haven't educated them. It covers up the wound. And I think we will never improve as long as we're able to cover up the wound. And as I said, affirmative action is going to be abolished by the Supreme Court. It's a clear violation of equal protection, what Sandrich Day O'Connor understood, but ignored. Intentionally, but as an experiment And I believe it's going to be abolished, or that's going to force. Elementary and high schools to get serious.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If the educational system in the elementary and high school levels is improved, we wouldn't need affirmative action. These kids would get good educations”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“These negotiation sessions. I thought that was absolutely outrageous. But I understood why, because these contracts are crazy. No Saiyan municipality should enter into some of these contracts. And so I have become an opponent of the National Teachers Association, the Cambridge Teaching Law. Cambridge Teachers Association. I don't think there should be unions for public employees because there's no real bargaining going on. And I think that the public school system will never be improved as long as the teachers are unionized.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We argued with taxpayers. We have a kid in the school and we have, his best friend lives with us and goes to school with him. We have a real interest. And the school committee walked out of the bargaining session. The city council then reconsidered its vote and they voted that citizens. Taxpayers, parents of kids in the school could not show up.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Teachers who are really skilled will be able to get jobs, they would not have to worry about. Long since have given up really creative teaching, and we have to improve the public educational system. In my late wife and I had a classmate, we have a son who's now 44 who went to the public schools in Cambridge. He has a friend, first name Eugene, who was a black kid from Roxbury, whose mother understood that the schools in Roxbury were terrible. The schools in Cambridge were pretty good He lived in our house, and Monday to Friday, and he went to school with Isaac in the Cambridge Public Schools Elsewhere and I would show up, the school committee meetings when there was bargaining between the teachers union and the school committee. The teachers union objected to our being there.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Quality of elementary and secondary education And one way to do it is to hire teachers who are fabulous teachers rather than necessarily members of the Union. I have come to oppose the Public workers' unions I am a very strong supporter of unions in the private sector. Why do I think there's such a difference between unions in the public sector and the private sector? In the private sector, management is arguing bargaining with its own money and with the money of shareholders. In the public sector, there's only one side. There is the teachers union, and then there's a school committee that is dealing with the taxpayers' money, not their room. And so it's a very skewed Power valves. So as supportive as I am of private sector unions, I am in opposition to public sector unions. They're very destructive. And I think without teachers union,”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Members of racial ethnic minorities, and we have to try to get them into colleges. So I think it should be approved for 25 years, and in 25 years it should have performed its role. Well, it hasn't. And the 25 years is coming up. I think it's three or four years left. The Supreme Court is going to abolish it. You can take my word for that. It's such an obvious violation of equal protection. Why does affirmative action come into play? Because the secondary and elementary schools are so bad, public secondary and elementary schools are so bad. Why are they so bad? Partly because of the control that the teachers union. Has Randy Weingarten runs the public school system in the United States? And what I have suggested is that The effort should be to, this is an emergence, it's a national emergency, to improve”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are two cases joined together, one of a public university and one of a private university. The private university is Harvard. I predict that the Supreme Court will vote 6 to 3 to abolish affirmative action. It is on its face. It is a violation of equal protection of the law. Some groups are favored because of race or ethnicity. It is a classic violation of equal protection clause. When affirmative action was approved, The deciding vote was just the Sandra De O'Connor. She wrote a very famous opinion in which she said I am hesitate to vote to keep up to affirm the notion of affirmative action because it's such an obvious violation of equal protection. But we have an urgent problem in the society. We are not educating our”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, let me tell you, first of all, this may surprise a lot of people. I am opposed to affirmative action. And I think that what it does is it Labels people by their race. Their religion and by their national origin. Precisely what we don't want people to do is be pigeonholed in those categories. The reason that affirmative action has become the way that universities decide on who gets admitted is because historically people in what's called marginalized groups Blacks gaze Hispanics. Have been discriminated against in the admissions process. Now, what I have suggested is that instead of affirmative action, and by the way, Here's a prediction the Supreme Court is going to abolish affirmative action. Is it a case pending? It's Harvard case.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Somebody asked me once about what books I would have is required reading in literature courses. And I listed mine conf and they were horrified. And I said, well, it's one of the most important books of the 20th century. Six million Jews died, an enormous number of other people died because one guy wrote a book called Mein Kampf and took it seriously. It's one of the most important books ever written. How can an educated person not have at least breezed through Mein Kampf?”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Number two, as I think I said earlier, if people, students are not allowed to be frank with one another, they don't really learn about one another. And I've given a lot of lectures in which I said, and I think students now understand it. Much more interested in hearing from the people of Haven than the people who love me. I'm much more interested in knowing who disagrees with me than people who agree with me. That's how I learn, and that's how they learn, the clash of ideas. Which is the theory behind the First Amendment. Truth will somehow emerge, or if not truth, at least a better truth, a truer truth, a more useful truth, if ideas are allowed to clash.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And be comfortable. First of all, it is impossible if liberal laws education is taken seriously. It's impossible for students to feel comfortable. Why? Because one of the roles of college is to challenge all the beliefs that they grew up with, which mostly are the beliefs inculcated by parents and by elementary school teachers. And the idea is to be able to challenge those thoughts, those ideas. And if you don't have free speech and academic freedom, those views get reified. They do not get challenged. So it violates the fundamental role of higher educational institutions to have any restrictions at all. That's number one.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“S-I-L-V-E-R-G-L-A-T, you know, when my grandparents arrived from Russia, the name in Russia was something like Zilboglit. And the immigration officer had several choices. He could have said Silvergate. Gate is a real. Silver and gate are real English words. He could have said silver glade, G-L-A-D-E. Those are real English words. That's how my name is often dispelled, either Silver Gate or Silver Glade. Silverglade is a nonsense syllable. And why the immigration officer chose to transliterate Zilbaglid as Silvaglade, I'll never understand, and it is the cause of endless mistakes in my name.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You could vote online or you can vote by paper ballot. You could request a paper ballot. And all I could say is that the hard part is getting the message out. My name doesn't appear on the ballot because I couldn't get enough signatures.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The alumni were educated in an era when these concepts were taken more seriously. And before the administrators took over. So I do think if I get my message out, I'm going to win the seat. And if I win a seat, I will have a great perch for trying to convince the real power that beat, which is the Harvard Corporation, to do the things that I'm suggesting, you know, get rid of 90% of the administrators, get rid of their speech codes, reduce tuition by 40%. All of these salutary benefits, can you imagine if Harvard became the most affordable college in the United States?”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is what I call Harvard's not so subtle means of candidate suppression, not voter suppression, candidate suppression. And everybody can vote, but not everybody can run. It is ill becomes a liberal arts college where the clash of ideas will produce the truth. What about the clash of ideas on the board of overseers Board of Overseas is important. It doesn't have the same power and authority as the Harvard Corporation, the so-called president and fellows of Harvard College. But it's very influential and very important. And it would be a great perch for me to try to exert influence for the university to get back to where it was before it was taken over by the administrators.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is my second run. The first time I got enough silicones to get on the ballot, then the Harvard alumni association sent out a letter to all living Harvard alums. Recommending that they vote for the officially nominated candidates that excluded two petition candidates of whom I was one Wrote to the Alumni Association and I said, You have now sent out the curriculum Vitaes and the policy positions of all the officially nominated candidates. There were two petition candidates on the ballot. I would like to be able to send out my Positions to the voters. They wrote me back saying, Our policy is to only send out the policy positions and the platforms of officially nominated candidates. Can you believe that? Well, this is a liberal arts college, right? Where from the clash of ideas truth emerges. Well, really.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not happy with the appointment of Claudine Gay, and it has made more essential my attempt to get on the board of overseers.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Harvard has done fairly well under the presidency of Lawrence Backhau. I have had a couple of meetings with Baque. I like Bakow. I have donated to Harvard a print of my late wife took a picture of Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsburg when the Rolling Thunder Review got to Harvard Square. And it's sort of an iconic photograph. She called it the music lesson because it's got Dylan teaching Ginsburg how to play the guitar. And I donated one of those to Harvard. It's hanging in Backhouse office. He, the new president, Claudine Gay, is not known for respecting academic freedom and free speech. People have said to me, Well, give her a chance. Well, I'm willing to give her a chance, but she does have a record. And she's a bureaucrat. I don't think she believes in free speech and academic freedom. I think she's a progressive, not a liberal.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, first of all, I have a prediction. In about five years, they're going to probably change the name because overseers reminds people of the slavery era. And we're in such a politically correct era now that the English language is being restricted, corrupted is the way I put it, because certain words are forbidden. We have some problems in this country, and I think part of the problem is the educational system has lost the sense of what academic freedom and free speech are all about. And I think it's essential that the educational system begin to take more seriously what free speech and negative freedom really are. That's why I'm running for the Harvard Board of Overseers.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And usually, by the way, by experience has been that the insults have generally not been as smart as the people they have insulted. And that's probably one of the reasons they insult them, because they feel inferior. I mean, I'm not trying to be a psychoanalyst here, but a lot of the people who are the haters are pretty low down on the intellectual scale.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that's true. I think of the insult or eventually will wear out his or her welcome. I do, but I like to know who the insulters are.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They protect you from physical assault. If somebody physically assaults you, then they get punished. But they shouldn't protect you against insult because that is a violation of academic freedom, the freedom of the insulter to insult you. And also, as I said, it's very useful to know who doesn't like you. It's useful for the so-called victim. I think as I said, I want to know who doesn't like me. It's as important to me as knowing who likes me.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To being insulted, Jews are accustomed to being insulted. Women are accustomed to being insulted. And it's very good to know who doesn't like you. It's useful. It is essential information to know who doesn't like you. If everybody is forced to say, I love you and nobody can say I hate you, you get a false view of what life is all about.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, just in terms of the cost. Maintaining there are more administrators in America higher education than there are faculty members. The cost is enormous. Number two, they are inimical to the teaching enterprise, and they feel that their job is to control things, to make sure there are no problems, that nobody's feelings are hurt. Being called before a dean because you said something that insulted somebody is something that shouldn't happen in American higher education, yet it happens because you have these administrators who think it's their job to protect people from being insulted. You insult a black student, you insult a woman. There's a disciplinary hearing. Well, there shouldn't be. Black people are accustomed to.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it would create a whole different atmosphere on the campus. And the same set of MIT or any other place. I think administrators are a very bad influence on American higher education.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“These are very dire developments. I wrote about them in the Shadow University in 1998 and tried to deal with them in 1999 when I started Fire. Co-started Fire. I would fire the reason I'm running currently for the Harvard Board of Overseers is what I'd like to do is convince the Harvard Corporation, the so-called president and fellows of Harvard College, the Chief Governing Board of the University with the real power The Board of Ovis is a secondary body, but quite influential. To fire 95% of the administrators, it would have a salutary effect on the academics of the university. It would have a salutary effect on free speech and academic freedom. It would cut tuitions by about 40%.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is the theory. Academic freedom is supposed to be the highest degree of free speech You should be able to entertain all kinds of hateful, threatening ideas. And the way I put it is, there's something wrong when you can say something with complete abandon without any fear in Harvard Square, whereas on the other side of the fence, you can't say it in Harvard Yard. It should be the opposite. And what happens is universities from the best to the worst, from the most famous to the least well-known, have been taken over by administrators. Administrators do not really subsume academic values. They know nothing about the Constitution. They know nothing about free speech. They know nothing about academic freedom. They feel that their job is to keep order. And so they develop speech codes, kangaroo courts to enforce the speech codes.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do, and nobody can force us to sit in a room and listen to a radio program that we don't want to listen to. Nobody can force us to read a book that we don't want to read. The whole motion of freedom of speech means that people have autonomy on their choices”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, at times the Boston Globe has said something about me that hasn't been accurate. They have invariably published my letter to the editor. I'm also not bashful about getting in touch with the reporter. They're at the end of every column they give the reporter's email address. And I know people say that I have more access to the media than most people. All that means is I get the fame more than most people.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Start a riot, people would be crushed trying to get out. So that's one of the exceptions of the First Amendment, as the Supreme Court has defined it. There are very few exceptions, and defamation is an exception. I'm not a fan of that exception, frankly. But if you say something about somebody that has serious implications in their life and their ability to earn a living, if you say accuse somebody of being a pedophile when it's not true, that person can sue you. My own view is I think that's an unfortunate exception, but I'm the Supreme Court. I think that I'm with... A friend of mine was Nat Hentoff. Nat Hentoff, who wrote for decades for the village voice in New York. He was a friend of mine. He was a free speech absolutist. And he wrote a fabulous book called Free Speech for Me But Not For Thee.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The First Amendment Prohibits speech, which is liable to produce imminent, imminent violence. So, for example, the exception is yelling falsely, falsely yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. A lot of people misstate it. They say, oh, the exception is yelling fire in a movie theater. If there's really a fire, you're performing a real important function by yelling fire. It's falsely yell”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Correct. If you don't allow hateful ideas, I mean, when scientists do experiments, nobody says to them, oh, you know, don't do that experiment because it would be a very bad if that turns out to be accurate, that outcome. That's not the way it works. Every point of view is thrown into the marketplace, whether it's science or whether it's non-science.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And if there is censorship on campuses, it's highly destructive of the educational enterprise and ultimately to the entire society. We have in the sciences, we have a scientific method. Scientific method is you try experiments and you see which ones work and you develop theories based upon the results of experiments. Well, this is not much different from every other aspect of life. You have to entertain different views on different subjects. You hear all the views and you make a decision as to which one's accurate and which one's not. So scientific method I apply to non-science, to history, to journalism, to all of these things.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With one of my Princeton classmates, Alan Charles Coors, who's now an emeritus professor of Enlightenment history at the University of Pennsylvania. I only taught for one semester, and I can go into that later, the reasons I did not continue to teach in colleges. It was Harvard Law School. I taught a course in the mid-1980s. But in any event, the college campuses are one of the most important of all fora for free speech because it's where people get education. And if you don't really get a good education, if certain points of view are not allowed to be expressed, because education comes from the clash of ideas, and you then have to decide this is how you become a thinking adulbe. You have to decide which ideas make more sense to you, which ones you're going to follow. College experience is transformative.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's important everywhere in the society, but it's most important on college campuses. Why? Because that's where we educate our young citizens. And if you are educated under a notion that some dean can call you on the carpet because you say something which is considered racist or you can say something which is considered dangerous to social cohesion, then it's not a liberal arts college. The theory that I used in the Shadow University”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You have to defend yourself using more. We're big, we're through freedom of speech and we're big boys and girls. You have to defend yourself. In some societies, if you say something, right now if you say something nasty about Putin, you'll end up in the gulag. If you say something nasty about Biden, you end up in the New York Times. Where would you rather be?”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, there are some exceptions to First Amendment. Libel and slander is an exception. Direct threats or an exception. If you say such and such, I will murder you. That is not lawful. If you say about somebody, oh, you know, you beat your wife, that is not lawful if in fact the person knows you don't beat your wife. There are some limits. Defamation is one. Direct threats or another. So it's not absolute, this is not The First Amendment is not absolute, but it's more absolute than it is in any other society, and it's pretty near absolute. For example, fraud. If you would sell somebody a car and you say, oh, this is in great running shape. And in fact, it's an old jalapi and it's not going to make it more than 10 miles. That's fraud. That's not free speech.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. Nobody's going to die. Remember, death threats are not protected. Nobody's going to die. People are going to be a little bit insulted. That's the price you pay for living in a free society. And it's a small price, in my view. Some people don't have as tough a hide as others, then develop it. I don't mean to sound cruel, but you're living in a free society. Develop a tough hide.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so it's one of the few things that both sides of the political spectrum agree on. The only people who don't are the people way over on the right that I call the fascists and the people way over on the left, who are the communists. But with respect to most people on the political spectrum, Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Libertarians. They agree on the primacy of free speech because it protects them when protection is needed.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But you know, we've had revolutions in the modalities of communication. After all, newspapers were the first challenge. Radio and television. Posed a new challenge. The FCC tried. Ultimately, gave up the attempt Control obscenity, for example And the Supreme Court has been pretty close. The one thing that liberal and conservative Supreme Courts, right now we're in a conservative era due to Trump nominations. During much of my life, the Warren Court, it was William O. Douglas, Brennan, the Liberal Court. One thing they agree on is free speech. They don't agree on much else, but they do agree on free speech. And I think the reason is that they recognize that, well, my group is in the ascendance today, but it may not be tomorrow, and I want to have objective, clear rules so that when I'm in the minority, I'm able to voice my opinion.”
2023-05-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #377 – Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source