Welcome to You Op to Know, The Daily Orange Opinion section’s weekly podcast.  

Assistant Editorial Editor Michael Sessa, Liberal Columnist Brittany Zelada and Conservative columnist Michael Furnari discuss President Trump’s executive order addressing free speech on college campuses.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to submit a letter to the editor at opinion@dailyorange.com.

LEARN MORE:

• What the free speech debate misses
  
• Free speech should not be a partisan issue
  

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TRANSCRIPT

SESSA: Welcome to this week’s edition of You Op To Know, The Daily Orange’s Opinion section podcast. I’m Assistant Editorial Editor Michael Sessa and this week I’m joined by Conservative columnist Michael Furnari and Liberal columnist Brittany Zelada.

FURNARI: Pleasure to be here.

ZELADA: Thank you for having me here.

SESSA: Tonight we’re going to talk about each of your most recent columns addressing President Trump’s proposed executive order on free speech. The order is designed to essentially withhold federal funding from universities that don’t uphold free speech standards. What was your initial reaction to hearing about the order?

FURNARI: My first reaction actually was that it was kind of a bone to Charlie Kirk actually, who is the head of Turning Point USA which is a conservative student organization. Charlie Kirk’s been a big defender of President Trump. And he was on stage, and they were kind of smiling together with the bill. And it seemed kind of like a symbolic little gesture, like a thank you for supporting him these last few years.

ZELADA: Well my initial reaction to the executive order is mixed because, you know, some may argue that it does equal the playing field for both, you know, sides, whether it be liberal or conservative, on campus culture and campus rhetoric. But at the same time, it kind of puts in question governmental interference in campus ideologies and campus regulations which is inviting big government instead of having universities who have set speech codes based off their values and their students. You know, it kinds of puts in question that.

SESSA: You argued in your column that it could be viewed as the government overstepping their bounds into regulating what kind of speech is allowable. Tell us a little more about that and what you think is so dangerous about that.

ZELADA: So when we think of free speech, I think that it should benefit everybody regardless of conservative, liberal or your background in essence. I feel like the main protections of free speech pertain to everybody. It shouldn’t pertain to one partisanship over the other like a power dynamic. I feel like with this governmental interference on free speech, it invites free speech to be turned into a partisan issue and for a political gain, in essence.

SESSA: Michael, you argued that the focus on government censorship might actually be misplaced. Who do you think’s actually the bigger threat to free speech, and what can be done to challenge those players?

FURNARI: I did. Now, I think for the last 30-40 years in this country and really everywhere in the western world, people have talked about free speech as if the government is going to come in and tell you what you can say and what you can read and all that. Very, again, you think about “1984,” the George Orwell book. And, there is a big threat to free speech now, but it’s actually, I don’t think it is that big overbearing government, I think it’s tech companies. And I think that, you know, it would’ve been unimaginable say 100 year ago, 150 years ago, if Alexander Graham Bell’s companies could’ve regulated what you said on the phone. But the truth is, is that in 2019, Facebook can regulate what you say to people on their platform. Now, of course, it’s not a public utility so it’s not quite the same, and that’s what they hide behind. But the truth is, is that a majority of our communication and a majority of our political platforms are controlled, and speech that is allowed and not allowed is up to about 5,000 people behind the scenes at Google and Facebook and not up to us, not up to the people we elect. It’s really a very undemocratic process. And that’s kind of what I was touching on I think with regards to free speech.

SESSA: You both actually agreed on a few points. One, that Trump’s executive order probably won’t actually have that much of an impact, but you also agreed that there are some universities that are on a slippery slope when it comes to regulating free speech. What do you think has gone wrong on college campuses, and what can students do to fight for the speech they believe in?

ZELADA: Well, pretty much, I do acknowledge the issues because I do see that conservative speakers and organizations on campus aren’t getting the same representation as other organizations on campuses which I do agree that they should have more rights to representation on campus. But I don’t necessarily agree that an executive order is the answer for that. I feel like the answer is, pretty much, more dialogue on free speech because everybody’s perspective on free speech is different. So, I feel like when we’re talking about free speech and advocating for it, I feel like we should focus on the demographics who don’t have the platform that most people get and those are underrepresented groups who are marginalized because of their identities. And, regardless of partisanship, I feel like free speech shouldn’t be a partisan issue whatsoever because it’s protecting everybody. And I feel like we should focus on protecting students who are in underrepresented groups who aren’t being necessarily heard by our government or in an institution.

FURNARI: I think basically the answer is just, well the root cause, I’d argue, is that, at least in academia, there really is a real domination in that field by liberals. And, so you go into social sciences, you go into any of these fields, you look at the teachers there and the vast, vast majority of them, less than 10%, 5% in most surveys, are registered Republicans. And that’s a selection problem on some level. But, I think the biggest thing that students can do is, is that you shouldn’t be afraid to speak up, and that the way to create a world in which it’s a little more acceptable for conservatives to voice their beliefs is a world where conservative kids are less afraid to do it. You have to go and I think you have to make that change in your own life. So that means write a column or ask a pointed question in class or something like that. So I think it’s more a question of just making sure that people find themselves in academia and aren’t hiding their beliefs or kind of staying behind closed doors with what they believe just to kind of get through their four years and get out. If you speak up a little more, I think you can see that change in your own life.

SESSA: Cool. Good points on both sides. Thanks for joining us. And as always, if you have any comments, questions, or if you’d like to send us a letter, you can email us at opinion@dailyorange.com. We’ll talk to you next week!

Published on April 15, 2019 at 8:12 pm

Contact Michael: msessa@syr.edu | @MichaelSessa3