The First Amendment, academic freedom and free speech were the menu over lunchtime on Oct. 5, when the UCI’s Year of Free Speech Kickoff Event encouraged the UCI community to seek opportunities to engage in thoughtful discussions throughout the year to better understand the concepts and create space for meaningful dialogue.
“I have learned that the meaning of free speech and academic freedom is not self-evident to most people,” said UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman, who is a scholar on the topic. “It’s no one’s fault that there is a lack of basic understanding, because these values are not intuitive. They must be taught and reflected on, discussed and debated – not just by experts, but by the entire university community, since we all have an obligation to create and maintain the norms and values that are central to our mission.”
The bulk of the event was a panel moderated by Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Willie Banks and included discussion among Jun Jang, president of the Associated Students of UCI, Tiffany Lopez, dean of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, and Megan Enciso, director of student affairs at the Sue and Bill Gross School of Nursing. Banks asked them each three questions:
“Why is free speech expression important to you?”
Jang shared that free speech governs how we can express ourselves, from day-to-day interactions to how we protest and demonstrate.
“Students will always be tied to the free speech movement,” he said. “It began at Berkeley, so UC has always been at the forefront.”
Lopez said that, “creative expression is the lighthouse of everything we do at Claire Trevor. Artmaking gives us the space to process what’s going on.”
To support the notion that universities bring free speech into the community, she shared how UCI does that through the hundreds of events produced each year that share multiple perspectives…
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