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The volume of central-bank warnings about the rise of private cryptocurrencies and the potential impact on the ability of central banks to conduct monetary policy has become ear-splitting. This criticism only serves further to convince libertarians that reducing the power of central banks and governments is desirable. Certainly, the hostility of Chinas authorities towards private cryptocurrencies can be presented as evidence that they are viewed by the state as a defence against intrusive social control. But whether that point of view is correct, or where it concerns monetary control rather than social control it is dangerously naive, there is another, undeniably serious problem with cryptocurrencies. Its a problem so far only hinted at by central banks, but about which libertarians should be the most worried. The problem is about bubbles.

There are now many bubbles in the world but they differ in nature and consequences. An equity bubble can be perfectly rational. The price of equities can keep rising without end, assuming that real (adjusted for inflation) interest rates do not go up and stay up. Assuming a growing global population, the supply of greater fools to sell to at a higher price is theoretically endless. The idea of a bond bubble is harder to rationalise. Unlike equities, virtually all bonds have a terminal date their maturity date. If you buy a bond with a negative interest rate (a negative yield), you know for sure that you will suffer a nominal loss if you still own it when it matures (the loss will be even worse in real terms). So if you are worried that other assets are overvalued and might crash, why not just hold cash?

Yet many professional investors currently own bonds trading on negative yields. This only makes sense if they expect rates to go even more negative, producing a capital gain (bond prices and bond yields move inversely to one another). But even then, the price of the bond must eventually go back to par (its face value), inflicting a capital loss on whoever had bought it at a price above par. Implicitly then, the expectation is that the ultimate greater fool will be the central banks, who are not motivated by returns and can expect to be re-capitalised by their governments albeit at considerable cost to their independence should capital losses threaten their solvency.

Bubbles both in bonds and in equities are symptoms of a deep-rooted disequilibrium in todays advanced economies. The downward trend in real long-term interest rates which has persisted throughout this millennium and has only been accentuated by the pandemic, fuelled the bubbles which have been needed to regain and maintain full employment and fend off deflation. Why has this happened?

Interest rates are intertemporal price signals they balance supply and demand for money across time. When these signals go awry, it results in the misallocation of resources across the economy. Our current disequilibrium stems from the second half of the 1990s. Then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan failed to allow real long-term interest rates to rise at the right time in response to very buoyant entrepreneurial expectations in the internet-driven new economy.

As a result, not enough spending on consumption was deferred during this period. Indeed, the dotcom-era equity bubble boosted spending even further. As a result, when extra new economy supply came online, there was no pent-up demand from previously-deferred spending (ie, savings) to take it up. That error, combined with the far less innocent catastrophe of monetary union in Europe, ensured that intertemporal price signals ie, interest rates went badly wrong and have been wrong ever since. A secular trend to ever-lower rates and ever-bigger bubbles was put in place.

The equity bubble, in particular, has created the illusion of wealth. It is illusory for economies as a whole because it is not based on vastly increased future productive potential (if anything, estimates of such potential have persistently been cut). The political implications of the resulting wealth inequalities are disturbing, but have not so far produced serious trouble. Thats because they have not caused overheating in the economy: the extra spending generated by this illusory increase in wealth has offset the drag of the intertemporal disequilibrium (in which past bringing-forward of spending from the future leaves a hole in demand as the future becomes the present).

But if dangerously high levels of public investment spending produce inflation as many fear they might in the UK and, particularly, in the US some holders of equity wealth might think they should spend more of that wealth before its real value falls. But the only way they could do that without producing a spiral of ever-increasing inflation, is if everyone elses spending were to fall. Distributional concerns then really would become a major political issue.

Yet there is another, even more dangerous bubble that has developed in the past few years. This is one that, if unchecked, is bound to produce cataclysmic changes in wealth distribution. That bubble is in private cryptocurrencies. As with equities, cryptocurrencies have no terminal date. So a bubble can be rational in the same way. However, once the macroeconomic context is considered, it becomes clear that the bubble must pop.

Why? Either the market price of bitcoin, for example, can become infinite or it cannot. If it cannot, then at some point the only possible change in the market price of bitcoin is negative. At that point, all holders would want to sell (unless central banks as with bonds were expected to support the bitcoin price indefinitely!).

If instead the price can and does move towards infinity, then the use of an infinitesimal amount of a single persons bitcoin wealth would exhaust all the worlds productive potential; that is, each holder could command all the worlds resources by being the first to sell and spend. The rise in the general price level towards infinity as bitcoin holders competed for resources would impoverish everyone else.

It is clear that many governments most relevantly the US government now want to produce huge wealth transfers. Whether they are right or wrong is a matter for debate. The key questions are: how to distinguish in practice between what I have called acceptable wealth (wealth whose possession does not entail a reduction in lifetime consumption possibilities for everyone else) and unacceptable bubble wealth, whose possession does reduce lifetime consumption possibilities for everyone else?; and how to eliminate unacceptable wealth without crashing the economy.

But whatever your view, the wealth transfer that bitcoin threatens to produce is definitely not the one that the US government or any other wants to produce. When the bubble is growing, it does not create extra wealth in the form of future productive potential for an economy as a whole. It simply transfers wealth to existing holders of bitcoin from everyone else. That creates pressure on everyone else to join in.

To avoid serious social and political discontent, leading to unrest and ultimately sociopolitical breakdown, the authorities will have to burst the bitcoin bubble before its macroeconomic importance becomes much greater. The similarity with bank runs is rather clear. If none of, say, the ten biggest providers of liquidity to Lehman Brothers had withdrawn their funding, in all probability no-one else would have done so. If those ten withdrew their funding, in all probability everyone would do the same. Similarly, as the ratio of illusory-wealth-to-potential-income in the economy gets bigger and bigger, the temptation for someone to jump ship and be the first to use their assets to acquire real resources becomes greater and greater.

Indeed, one can view the inverse of this illusory-wealth-to-potential-income ratio as the equivalent to a banks capital ratio during a financial crisis. That ratio moves in the wrong direction as the illusory nature of many of the banks assets becomes apparent. In turn, the incentive for its debt-holders to withdraw grows ever greater. It is deeply ironic and tragic that while the reaction of central banks and regulators to the financial crisis (which they themselves created) was to insist on higher capital ratios for banks, monetary policies have operated, and continue to operate, to weaken the economys capital ratio. Barring a radical change in the policy framework, the likely result will be a devastating economic, financial, social and political crisis far worse than anything that might have been produced by the 2007-9 financial crisis. Marxists might rejoice in such a prediction. Libertarians should be anxious to prevent it from coming true.

The longer that central banks wait before taking action to prevent a swelling of cryptocurrency bubbles, the more difficult they will make their task. Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has warned bitcoin investors that they risk losing all of their money. But if the bubble first gets much bigger, its bursting will have significant macroeconomic effects, as spending financed by borrowing against bitcoin wealth vanishes. Worse, devastating losses will be inflicted on speculators, among whom will be more and more ordinary households. The fact that they have been warned will not prevent potentially seismic reactions.

Central banks and regulators thus now have an unenviable choice. Presumably, they will not want to be blamed by crypto investors for a burst bubble. So they may hope that it subsides of its own accord, then regulate it out of existence. But if the bubble keeps growing, they must grasp the nettle and inflict losses now, or face a future sharp-elbowed scramble to convert crypto holdings into goods and services, which will produce hyperinflation and destroy society.

Continued here:
How a bubble in bitcoin could lead to hyperinflation - MoneyWeek

When it comes to online censorship, few voices outside the Western mainstream are safe. Not even a US president. Now, this near-total lack of accountability among tech giants is pushing states to develop sovereign internet spaces.

Over the past few years, China and Russia have taken the lead in nationalising the internet, putting their own mark on the online world and championing alternatives to foreign platforms. As a result, somewhat predictably, both governments have been accused of attempting to clip the wings of the supposedly ultimate space for freedom of expression, turning it into an instrument of government power.

Increased state control over the digital space deserves scrutiny and, in many cases criticism. But the efforts in Moscow and Beijing to assert national control over what goes on online is a reaction to what is perceived there as increasing digital authoritarianism on the part of the US.

As Washingtons power in the world wanes, the US has become increasingly inclined to use its role in the global economy, its international companies and its place in major international institutions to coerce both adversaries and allies to uphold its former authority. The natural consequence is that its rivals have sought to reject American influence online, as well as offline.

The internet rolled out around the world at the height of US power, when globalisation meant organising the world around American technological platforms. Other nations are now worryingly dependent on its digital exports, and at the mercy of seemingly unaccountable decisions about what needs to be removed or de-listed, and what should be published and applauded.

The creeping censorship by US tech giants demonstrates the dangers of concentrating communication technologies in the hands of a few American corporations. Censorship was first justified by merely targeting a few radicals spreading hate and disinformation. Predictably though, the definition of radicalism, hate and disinformation has only continued to widen.

As well as direct censorship, foreign entities are also targeted by undisclosed manipulation of algorithms, with shadow-bans and other tools. There is little pretense that this isnt political Mark Zuckerberg has explicitly offered to ally Facebook with the US government to target Russia, Iran and other bad actors, which is a euphemism for Washingtons adversaries.

Censorship on social media platforms soon spread to banning people from online payment and funding services. Alternatives to many of these digital institutions are few and far between, with digital corporations marginalised in the US, and even domestic rivals such as Parler facing being purged from the internet.

Whats surprising about this is that the web is a decentralised network, and the decisions that make the most difference here have been taken by a host of private companies almost in unison. But the bits of the internet that governments can control are also being weaponized.

A key part of digital infrastructure is the Domain Name System, which connects the user with the correct server. The Domain Name System is controlled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which supposedly became an impartial, neutral and non-political organisation in 2016 to promote trust in a unified and centralised internet.

However, ICANN recently proved itself to be an instrument of the US government, as it seized the web domain of Irans Press TV state broadcaster and 32 other websites in a blatant assault on the media. This represented a continued escalation of US digital authoritarianism, although it does not necessarily come as a surprise to anyone who has watched how the SWIFT financial messaging system underpinning international transactions has also become an instrument for US economic sanctions. Thats despite it being officially neutral and non-political.

Digital authoritarianism will become an ever-growing threat in the current Fourth Industrial Revolution, as tech giants expand from communication technologies to industries that previously belonged to the physical world.

The digital behemoths that once just provided search engines, social media and e-commerce are now reinventing and revolutionising transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, the medical industry, restaurants, energy, finance, currencies, armies and almost every aspect of the economy and society. The potential reach of digital coercion becomes difficult to grasp and represents a profound security challenge.

American efforts to establish dominance require the destruction of the competition, and 5G technology is a key focus as a foundational block of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Alternative providers that have a handle on the hardware underpinning it are seen to be profoundly unacceptable. For that reason, the US began its attack on Chinese tech-rivals such as Huawei by arresting its CFO, sanctioning the sale of computer chips, suspending Huaweis Android license, pressuring countries to ban or limit Huaweis participation in developing 5G infrastructure and making Huawei a central focus of in the anti-Chinese information war.

China and Russia have taken the lead in breaking away from the US digital ecosystem to reduce the growing risk associated with digital dependence on Washington. Initially, technological sovereignty entailed ensuring that domestic digital platforms were dominant, such as search engines, email providers, social media, e-commerce etc.

Cooperation between China and Russia also aims to strengthen their national digital ecosystems and circumvent sanctions by, for example, developing alternatives to Android. As Russia develops domestic alternatives, it also has greater negotiation power vis-a-vis US tech giants to demand they store local data within Russia and establish offices in the country to ensure they can be held accountable to domestic laws and pay taxes.

The rise of US digital authoritarianism is also creating the splinternet in which the online sphere becomes divided and regulated by different countries. Trust in a responsible US administrative role in the World Wide Web has been lost. As a result, China and Russia have taken the lead in moving from digital dependency to internet sovereignty with ChinaNet and RUnet. These initiatives mean they can potentially isolate their national internets from the wider world. To underpin this, China is laying new internet cables to connect the wider world to their domestic digital environment, creating new regional networks.

Even smaller powers are taking action against the rise of US digital authoritarianism. Nigeria, with its more than 200 million citizens, recently pulled the plug on Twitter. The banning of the microblogging site was a reaction to the American social media giant deleting a tweet by the Nigerian president in a crude display of censorship and domestic interference.

As the US increasingly uses its digital leadership to police the world, its clear the world is looking for alternatives. Even the US-allied Europeans are growing weary of the immense power of tech giants as they are too big to be governed, have a dubious relationship with American security agencies and enable Washington to undermine European sovereignty with extraterritorial jurisdiction.

Economic sanctions represent government interference into the market to advance a foreign policy, and the sanctioned states predictably react by reducing their dependence on the belligerent power.

In the age of US digital authoritarianism, the predictable consequence has therefore been the development of parallel digital ecosystems and the splinternet, with countries like China and Russia breaking off and setting up their own sovereign national systems. Unsurprisingly though, it is these two nations most frequently accused of threatening freedom of expression online.

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As US social media giants censor free speech online, Russia & China lead the charge to break free from American control of the Web - RT

For many African writers, censorship can entail a lived experience as well as a current threat, even for those who emigrated to the United States.

Ghirmai Negash danced close to the flame of censorship several times before arriving at Ohio University. So re-examining the impact of censorship on the work and lives of African writers was an apropos culmination to his year as president of the African Literature Association, both as a conference topic and as a moment of introspection about his own journey.

A life of exile

"I consciously started reflecting and writing on issues of censorship and freedom of expression during my exile years in Europe in the 1980-90s," said Negash, now professor of English and director of African Studies at Ohio University. He was born and raised in Eritrea, a land with a long and complicated history of colonization and oppression.

Negashbelongsto the generation of Ethiopian and Eritrean studentswhofought against the feudal rule of Emperor Haile Selassie and later the Soviet Union-backed military dictatorship of Colonial Mengistu Haile Mariam.

Before ending up in exile Ihad been an activist, writer, and also composer of many song lyrics and poetry, he said.I left Eritrea in 1981,in the midst ofthe independence war. Like thousands of others who fled to Europe and the United States from the region then, I was physically escaping from the general situation of war and violence and not necessarily thinking about writing. On the other hand, even as a STEM student in high school and my early university years at the University of Addis Ababa, I have always been drawn to thearts and engaged with writing poetry and essays.

But independence brought no solace.

The post-independence state of Eritrea also, unfortunately, turned into one of the most oppressive countries in the world under President Isaias Afwerki and his inner circle, who have ruled the country since its independence in 1991."

Now Eritrea, a country in eastern Africa bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan and the Red Sea, is a presidential republic that doesn't hold elections and a perennial contender for the worst record on human rights and freedom of the press.

A moment of hope

Yet it was home for Negash, and it would draw him back several times, especially as the country fought and secured its independence from Ethiopia.

"In 1992, I visited Eritrea from the Netherlands. There was all around a sense of euphoria and excitement that a new era of freedom and hope was ushering in and some good things would happen. To be honest, I was hopeful, too, but also aware that it wasnt going to be easy, Negash said. "So when they asked me to give a lecture on the new-found freedom which I hesitantly accepted I decided to speak about the new openings and prospects for the political economy of culture, and especially the arts, but also the dangers and risks that could undermine that hard-won freedom."

His talk was titled The Freedom of the Writer, and it became a touchstone for conversations about censorship.

It has appeared and reappeared in several editions, including in The Freedom of the Writer (Red Press, 2006), a collection of essays by Negash in the Tigrinya language, and in Uncensored Voices (PEN Eritre/PEN International Publication). His talk can be read at The Freedom of the Writer at Warscapes. (Listen to Negash give this talk on YouTube.)

Interestingly, Negash delivered his talk on freedom at the Officers Club in Asmara, Eritrea, to an audience of Eritrean writers, journalists, and intellectuals, where he channeled Albert Camus' 1957 Nobel Prize speech:

History's amphitheater has always contained the martyr and the lion. The former relied on eternal consolation and the latter on raw historical meat. But until now, the artist was always on the sidelines. He used to sing purposely, for his own sake, or at best to encourage the martyr and make the lion forget his appetite, but now the artist is in the amphitheater."

"By the time Camus gave that speech," Negash said in his talk, "World War II had long ended in 1945, after causing the loss of millions of people and the destruction of a vast amount of property; but it was also a period when new confrontations were looming, at a global scale. It was a moment when dark political and ideological clouds were haunting Europe, first slowly sowing the seeds of enmity, and eventually leading to the so-called Cold War between Russia and America, and their satellites. In general, the growing tension also brought an increased restriction, constriction, and violation of fundamental democratic and human rights of peoples and, in particular, adversely affected the plight of writers."

Negash's 1992 talk looked back at decades of colonial rule in Eritrea, but it also looked ahead at the predictable and inevitable crackdown on freedom of expression that would come in a country with so little experience as an independent state. It was, he wrote, also a country with no school of journalism, few printing presses and a shortage of paper.

Fast forward to 2001: Notes from an Exiled Researcher

"I went back to Eritrea in 2001 to teach at the University of Asmara. My colleagues and I were able to do some good work, including establishing a Department of Eritrean Languages and Literature, which I founded and led for four years," Negash said.

"But the situation in the country had dramatically deteriorated by then. Political figures were jailed; private newspapers banned, and journalists arrested (some ran away). And eventually the University of Asmara, the only national university in the country, was shut down by order of the president.

"I had to leave the country fearing for my own safety and came to the United States to work and raise a family."

Negash wrote in Notes from an Exiled Researcher, that "the trajectory of my academic life ... my vision, ideas, and pedagogy are inescapably connected, formed, and at times wholly informed by my migratory experience.

"Before traveling to Eritrea in 1992, I had other plans to research, but after the visit I made a commitment to myself to work on Eritrean literature. Entering the Ph.D. program in Leiden University, I embarked on an ambitious and largely unchartered area of Eritrean literature, to study the 100 years of oral and written history of Tigrinya literature in Eritrea."

A History of Tigrinya Literature in Eritrea: The Oral and the Written 1890-1991 became his contribution to the cultural empowerment of the Eritreans and peoples of the African continent.

A theme of censorship

Negash wrapped up his presidency of the African Literature Association this summer with a conference focused on censorship,while re-affirming the organizations central mission to actively support the African peoples in their struggle for liberation.

"To be clear, I did not initiate the idea of having a conference on censorship. However, it did resonate with me," he said."Censorship is specific and contextual in a number of ways. As many writers, including myself, who have experienced censorship firsthand know, its power is based on two mainstays. The first is the cultivation of 'self-censorship' from and within citizens and writers. The second is the imposition of restriction and suppression of freedom by the state. This second official form of censorship is contingent on and feeds and reinforces the first."

Negash notes that the conference presentations broadly focused on three lines of inquiry: (1) experiences of actual cases of censorship; 2) different strategies used by writers and activists working under regimes of censorship (political, social, cultural); 3) traditional and new technologies of censorships and evolving forms of resistance.

And now?

Does the weight of censorship still bear upon Negash's shoulders?

"I can only be ambivalent about this question you raise. Yes and no! Of course, I feel I have more freedom now living in the West and being able to pursue a decent life of scholarship and personal freedom, he said. "At the same time, I cannot say I feel entirely free because I am deeply concerned about the most disturbing abuses and violations of human rights in Eritrea and across Africa generally. Moreover, although living and working in the West is freer and easier in many ways, it is accurate to say I experience that the liberating structures and effects of the West, even within academia, do impose visible and invisible constraints, sometimes in profound ways.

Original post:
Ghirmai Negash talks about censorship and liberation, the life of an African writer - Ohio University

Free speech on American college campuses has been in a free fall for years. From high schools through law schools, free speech has gone from being considered a right that defines our society to being dismissed as a threat. According to polling, the result is arguably one of the most anti-free-speech generations in our history. The danger is more acute because it has reached law schools where future judges and lawyers may replicate the same intolerance in our legal system.

A recent controversy at Duke Law School highlights this danger. Law & Contemporary Problems is a faculty-run journal that recently decided to do a balanced symposium on Sex and the Law including transgender issues and asked Professor Kathleen Stock of the University of Sussex (who has criticized transgender positions) to participate.

Protests erupted over allowing such intellectual diversity.

The new set of student editors demanded that Stock be removed from the symposium. The faculty board issued a statement explaining the importance of freedom of speech and academic freedom, particularly on a journal that serves as a forum for debates on contemporary issues. Students resigned rather than associate with a journal offering both sides of such issues.

Some legal columnists echoed calls to ban those with opposing views. The legal site Above The Law (ATL) published an article denouncing the faculty for supporting free speech. ATL editor Joe Patrice ran a factually inaccurate tirade against Duke for using academic freedom as a shield for professors to opine and behave in ways that marginalize others.

The ATL criticism of Duke was illustrative of the new anti-free-speech movement that is now taking hold in law schools and legal publications. Academic freedom and free speech are denounced as tools to marginalize others. Patrice sums up why both the student editors and the Duke faculty must be condemned: A vigorous and open exchange of ideas is valuable only to the extent it improves the academic mission of improving the human condition. Is Trans skepticism within that field? It shouldnt be, but here we are. In other words, you are entitled to free speech so long as you cannot be accused of marginalizing others.

While calling for professors like Stock to be barred from the publication for marginalizing others, ATL editors and other writers often stigmatize and denounce whole groups as requiring containment and condemnation. Elie Mystal, who writes for ATL and isThe Nations justice correspondent,for example, lashed out at white society and how he strives to maintain a whiteness-free life.On MSNBC, Mystal declared, without any contradiction from the host, that You dont communicate to [Trump supporters], you beat them. You do not negotiate with these people, you destroy them.

In such campaigns, there is little time or patience with trivialities like free speech.

Mystal was celebrated for his declaration: I have no intention of waiting around for them to try to kill me before I demand protection from their free speech.

Dangerous thoughts are ill-defined beyond being rejected by these writers. Under this approach, free speech becomes like pornography under the famous test of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. ButI know it when I see it.

Of course, free speech demands bright lines so that professors are not chilled in what they write or say. However, that is precisely the point. Whether Patrice and others can block the publication of Stock is immaterial. The fact is that most students and faculty do not want to be the subject of such a public campaign. Academics are notoriously risk-averse. They need conferences and publications to advance their careers.

The threat is to lose everything that academics need to be active intellectuals. This is the one-year anniversary of the move to force a criminology professor named Mike Adams off the faculty of the University of North Carolina (Wilmington). Adams was a conservative faculty member with controversial writings who had to go to court to stop prior efforts to remove him. He then tweeted a condemnation of North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) for his pandemic rules, tweeting that he haddined with six men at a six-seat table and felt like a free man who was not living in the slave state of North Carolina before adding: Massa Cooper, let my people go. It was a stupid and offensive tweet. However, we have seen extreme comments on the left including calls to gas or kill or torture conservatives be tolerated or even celebrated at universities.

Celebrities, faculty and students demanded that Adams be fired. After weeks of public pummeling, Adams relented and took a settlement to resign. He then killed himself a few days before his final day as a professor.

Law schools have seen repeated disruptions of conservative speakers with the support or acquiescence of faculty. CUNY law school Dean Mary Lu Bilek insisted that law students preventing a conservative law professor from speaking was itself free speech. She also insisted that a law student threatening to set a mans Israel Defense Forces sweatshirt on fire was simply expressing her opinion.Recently Bilek actually canceled herself and resigned after she made a single analogy to acting like a slaveholder as a self-criticism for failing to achieve equity and reparations for black faculty and students.

Last year, the acting Northwestern law school dean declared publicly: I am James Speta and I am a racist. He was followed by Emily Mullin, executive director of major gifts, who announced: I am a racist and a gatekeeper of white supremacy. I will work to be better.Such public declarations can fuel demands for more mandatory demonstrations by others or intolerance for those who dissent. At Rutgers this year, the student government ordered all groups to hold critical race theory and diversity programs as a condition for receiving funds. At the University of North Carolina, student Sagar Sharma, who is a student of color, faced a recall election as the first-year class co-president for simply stating that he did not consider an argument between two fellow students to be racist.

Faculty and editors are now actively supporting modern versions of book-burning with blacklists and bans for those with opposing political views. Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll has denounced the weaponization of free speech, which appears to be the use of free speech by those on the right. So the dean of one of the premier journalism schools now supports censorship.

Free speech advocates are facing a generational shift that is now being reflected in our law schools, where free speech principles were once a touchstone of the rule of law. As millions of students are taught that free speech is a threat and that China is "right about censorship, these figures are shaping a new society in their own intolerant images.

For now, the Duke symposium will include the offending article but the resignations and condemnations show why this small degree of diversity in viewpoint is increasingly rare on our campuses.

This is a single (and close) victory for free speech, but make no mistake about it: We are losing the war.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

The rest is here:
The rise of a generation of censors: Law schools the latest battlement over free speech | TheHill - The Hill

When Becky Pringle took the virtual stage at the National Education Associations annual representative assembly last week to deliver her first keynote speech as the largest teachers unions president, she had a lot of ground to cover.

Her members had just endured a grueling year of pandemic teaching, during which teachers stress levels spiked and morale plummeted. The union is now supporting efforts to resume full-time, in-person instruction in the fall, after months in which teachers unions were blamed for keeping schoolhouse doors closed.

Also, a national fervor over how teachers talk about racism and the countrys painful past has recently taken root in statehouses across the country, and the NEA has begun taking steps to defend its members. And on top of that, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests last summer, the nations schools are grappling with how to dismantle deep-seated inequities between white students and students of color.

In this moment, as we reflect on the obvious challenges and the often hidden or yet to be discovered opportunities, we must continue to imagine the possibilities, Pringle told thousands of delegates in her speech. We, the NEA, will lead a movement that unites not just our members, but the entire nation to reclaim public education as a common good, and then transform it into something it was never designed to bea racially and socially just and equitable system that prepares every student, every one, to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world.

Pringle recently spoke to Education Week about the unions efforts to rethink school policing, the debate around critical race theory in the classroom, and resuming in-person instruction in the fall. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The NEA board of directors proposed a new business item that will explore the role of law enforcement in education, which was approved by delegates. How do you feel about armed police officers in schools?

It was a comprehensive new business item that centered the safety of all of our students and centered race equity and economic equity. We know that our Black and brown communities are over-policed, which means our schools are over-policed. And we know that we have to create a safe environment thats conducive to teaching and learning.

So we are planning, through that new business item, to work on ensuring that all educatorsfrom teachers to support staff to [school resource officers] to our bus driversare trained in restorative practices, which helps to not only center equity and safety, but also to value and respect all of the cultures that come into our classroom and work with the community and our students to ensure that when they come into our schools, they feel safe, they feel valued, they feel respected. We have a lot of work ahead to do all of those things so that our kids have a safe place where they can learn and grow and thrive.

An Education Week survey found that nearly a quarter of district leaders, principals, and teachers dont believe that systemic racism exists. What do you make of that?

Well, as with anything else, when we talk about it, then we learn more. Thats why we are focused on honesty and education because all of us need to do that continuous learning. We know that not everyone sees the systemic racism that exists within all of our social systems. So you will hear me talk about the structural racism across systems, not just the education system, because everything impacts our students ability to learn.

Were talking about housing, and you know the history of redlining. Were talking about the economic system, and you know the economic injustice in this country. We know that our Black and brown and Indigenous communities dont have that kind of access to health care that others do, more privileged people do. All of those systems impact our students ability to learn. And so those are the kinds of things that we are trying to make sure that all of our educatorsand not just our educators, the entire community because we need everyone helpingcontinue to learn about, that structural racism thats built into all of our social systems. They compound on each other in ways that impact and limit access and opportunity for our kids. And so we just have to continuously make sure that everyoneeducators, parents, community, all of themhave that information so that we can do better for our kids.

Now, more than 25 states have proposed efforts to restrict how teachers talk about race in the classroom. What do you see as the NEAs role in those debates?

Were going to continue to talk about honesty and education. And heres why. We know that, first of all, our students are amazing, and theyre smart. And we know how important it is to make sure they have the knowledge, skills, and ability to be those critical thinkers, to be able to come together and collectively solve so many of our societal problems. For that to happen, they have to have access to all of that information. They have to not only know the history of this country, but they also need to have the chance to develop their critical thinking skills in a way that they can come together to try to solve those problems.

If we dont allow them to have those difficult conversations about race and racism in this country, then they wont be prepared to do that. And so well continue to do that. Of course, we will continue to work with our educators and make sure that they have the ability to lift up their voices and to fight for their right to be honest in the education that they teach. Well continue to work to make sure they have those rights. We will continue to assess the legislation thats proposed, as well as the laws that have passed, which are very different in different states, to ensure that its not limiting that right. For us, it is about saying no to censorship, and yes to teaching the truth. And thats what were going to continue to do.

Youve said before that the union is considering legal action over the restrictions. Could you expand on what that would look like?

Were considering all possibilities. Were in the process of making sure that we clearly understand the depth and breadth of the laws. They look very, very different. Its not only about the laws themselves, but also about the laws in those specific states that impact the curriculum in those states. Its a state-by-state analysis, and were in the process of doing that. And were going to just leave every avenue open, because we will defend our educators right to teach the truth. We will do that.

In hindsight, do you feel like the union could have or should have come out stronger against this movement earlier?

We have been fighting against this since it started. We have supported our locals and state affiliates who are on the front lines of the attack in speaking up. And this is not new. We know that this is an attempt to not only stoke fear and division, but to draw attention away from the fact that the politicians pushing these laws have failed our schools. They have not, for decades, provided the kind of resources we need so that we can have those safe and equitable schools.

Were not confused by that. We know whats behind these laws, and we know why theyre doing it. And weve been fighting that for certainly as long as I have been a leader within NEA. Every time they attempt to bring up some other way to divide us, and to stoke fear and to take [away] that light shining on them and what their failures have been, we will be there to call it out, to speak up, and to fight back.

As we look toward the next school year, given that COVID-19 is still circulating and some states have prohibited mask mandates, are you concerned about the ability to have safe in-person instruction?

Im not. I have worked really hard to ensure that we are ready for the fall to welcome back all of our students. The [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], I believe, will be issuing new guidelines shortly, and we have continuously said that we are following the science. We are looking at the guidelines that the CDC is using and working together to ensure that their students and educators are safe.

We dont know what the new strains will bring. But weve learned so much this year, and were continuing to learn. We were so appreciative of the president prioritizing educators to be vaccinated. The vast majority of our teachers and other staff are vaccinated, so they feel safer to go back to school.

And with the additional funding for [COVID-19] testing, well be able to stay open and isolate cases quickly. And we will avoid any shutdowns in the future.

Would you support vaccination mandates for teachers or students?

The majority of our teachers are vaccinated. [An NEA survey done in May found that 86 percent of members have had at least one shot, and only 9 percent dont plan to get vaccinated.] And the ones who arent, weve really worked hard to educate them and provide them with the resources. What we learned early on was that [the vaccination process] was confusing, and they werent able to get access. And so we worked on that. We did see a gap in [the vaccination rates of] white teachers and Black teachers. Weve targeted that, and with our recent survey [results], weve closed that gap, which is phenomenal. But its working directly with those communities to try to bring down that hesitancy and make sure they have access and opportunity.

Im not concerned about the mandates for the teachers, honestly. With [the vaccination rate] being so high now, for the most part, were just talking about folks who cant because of a medical condition.

With the students, our position at the NEA has always been that the more people, including students, who are in that education environment are vaccinatednot just for COVID, but all of those vaccinationsthe more healthy the entire community will be. And that continues to be our position. As with everything else, it is early to do that. [Only those 12 and older are currently able to be vaccinated.] We have to wait, follow the science. Theyre hard at work doing that testing [for youth vaccination] and just observing it, toogiving it time to see if there are any adverse impacts. And thats what we did in the past [with other vaccines], and then we talked about whether or not mandates were appropriate. At this point, we just dont know yet.

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Teachers' Union President: Say 'No to Censorship, and Yes to Teaching the Truth' - Education Week