Free Speech in a Polarized World Giving Everyone a Voice

colleges are meant to be a Marketplace for ideas to to be challenged to be learned from to refine our um our understanding of the world in a highly polarized world is this Marketplace thriving or is it collapsing I'm going to start with that question good morning everyone and welcome to this session my name is neli Lano and I am very happy to be in my home state of Texas and before I get started I actually want to greet one of the most important persons that I've ever presented in front of my mom who's just up

here with my sister Ola M hi sis um I'm from Delio Texas and I am honored and humbled to be here at South by Southwest with you all today I am while humbled I'm also very vulnerable to be in this space so thank you for coming and sharing this um this platform with me I am U Been In The International Education industry for about 15 years both domestically and abroad I am dare I say this an advocate for social justice and diversity equity and inclusion I currently serve as a vice president for the Robertson Center

of Resident Life and Intercultural development at uh UC Berkeley international house and um at international house we believe that open discourse is important to challenge uh different assumptions to promote critical thinking and to Foster an understanding for a more just and peaceful world free speech has always been on a pendulum swinging from more uh restriction to less restriction depending on the political social and cultural climate if we look back at the Free Speech movement in the 1960s at UC Berkeley students were pushing universities to have less restrictions for uh policy advocacy on campus decades later

we've seen a shift where students are asking universities for more restriction on dialogue or speech that they find harmful or challenging for others the pendulum has swung yet again with the administration the current Administration while executive orders are being signed to restrict government censorship di programs are being dismantled bringing again this conversation or this debate about the balance between free expression and government policies us colleges have always been an EP Center for different dialogues for challenging conversations for controversial conversations if we look at historically universities were created with the idea of um ideological and religious

education this has evolved to promoting critical thinking promoting intellectual diversity and exposure to different um ideas this very shift has caused a challenge between between balancing Free Speech inclusion and productive dialogue the central attention has really become balancing um giving people the idea to have open and free discourse while also giving a challenging um educational perspective and being respectful of different identities right this is the Big Challenge in this growing debate the question that we have at hand here is can we maintain open dialogue in an increasingly polarized world now this is a challenge that

not only higher institutions but Society at large are grappling on a daily basis while many struggle with this there are some models that we can reflect and look back [Applause] at one of these models is international house international house at UC Berkeley is a community that was built on the very principle of Intercultural exchange Mutual understanding and open discourse free speech is not just a theory at I house it is actually a lived experience we have diverse perspectives that come together not to silence but to engage Challenge and learn from one another we are living

in learning environment that house about 700 residents from 80 different nationalities and endless identities so you can imagine just think about that for a second so how do we navigate these complexities and what you know can we learn in the for the broader context of this free speech debate founded in 1930 IH house was way ahead of its time we broke barriers by being one of the very first co-ed and interracial residences from it Inception it has become a Haven for diverse perspectives fostering dialogue across cultures for nearly a century we have been navigating difficult

conversations from civil rights to Wars to geopolitical debates and modern day conflicts as we reflect on IH House's Legacy we have managed to bridge cultural divides and navigate dialogue free speech by upholding civil Discord course while honoring culture sensitivities while this is no easy task by any means it is at the core of everything that we do to give you all context I want to provide a story short story so uh my very first year at I house a group of residents came to connect with me about a one of our events that they were

doing they were going to celebrate devali festival of lights they came to me and we were going to talk about this um this this event and how we're going to plan it and they were very concerned about something that had happened last year the swasa it is also known as the Buddhist mangi the swasa derives from the Sanskrit word swastika meaning good fortune and well-being it has actually been a symbol a sacred symbol in Buddhism jism and Hinduism for thousands of years however as many of us know this very symbol was distorted by the Nazis

stive rotated and the four dots were removed forever linking this very symbol to genocide and to hatred as part of the Dali decorations they do Rangoli and this very symbol was decorated at the footsteps of I house as you can imagine this caused a little bit of confusion and uncomfort in the community so I asked my students what would you like to do this year one of them looked at me and said this has been something part of that is part of my culture part of my community for so long it's not fair that this

was taken away from us and now we cannot use it took a moment I paused and I told her let's do it I said this very moment is an opportunity for dialogue for understanding it's an i house moment she looked at me she's like are you sure you weren't here you don't know what happened I was like yeah this is why we're here at the same time though I did give her comfort in saying I'd like to provide provide a space for us to have this conversation to provide context we created these critical conversations which

are opportunities for people to come together and have open and civil dialogue and learn from one another so this was one of the first things that we did and we brought in students from different perspectives to share and to um gra get an understanding from one another and provide that context at IH house we do not opt for censorship instead we create opportunities for people to share their perspectives to learn from one another to challenge assumptions this here is just one experience of many stories that I could sit here and tell you for hours of

the things that we live through right just because putting bunch of people from different um identities Under One Roof um is not enough right you need to work out on a daily basis and we have to do that now um if we go back and kind of think about what are some of the lessons that we can learn and how does I house compare to the nation you know National nationally um I'm going to look at a comparison between the fire survey and our very own free speech survey to just give you a little bit

more context um the the foundation of individual rights and expression survey surveys about about 55,000 students across 254 colleges and universities in the US and the I house has the results here that we have it's about for 20% of our population at the time the fire survey focuses on National Trends while the IH house one focuses really on the community and how we feel within our own space and I'd like to compare these two to just show you how we compare to the to the National trends so when looking at this I had to go

over through multiple times because I was just really amazed and surprised by all this we can see the comparison from um comfort levels and sharing difficult conversations or being able to speak up in different situations the support that people feel that they have from the leadership um on campus or at I house and then the tolerance for um for different convers difficult conversations that are being heard IH house reports that 94% of our residents feel comfortable sharing controversial opinions 94% of our residents feel comfortable with that compared to 50% of college students 91% of I

house residents feel confident in the leadership at IH house versus 42% of students in colleges and lastly we have 48% of college students would oppose to blocking others from attending speeches where 92% of our residents would definitely not want to block people from attending these um these um conferences or speeches overall 88% of our residents feel safe expressing their views um while fire it really r ranks universities um by different have you all heard of fire survey around here yeah great so Food For Thought here IH house is a living example of how diverse communities

right we talked about 80 plus nationalities and multiple identities can engage in open meaningful conversation across cultural political and ideological divides IH house helps create this by building intentional spaces where dialogue happens organically through our living and learning environment and our programming through our critical conversations our Intercultural events and then just natural conversations in the dining hall that happen every day we believe that this approach truly shows how open dialogue is possible and a commit in a space where people share a commitment to curiosity understanding and empathy [Applause] so as we've talked about these different

uh spectrums in the Free Speech debate um people as we said have attitudes towards alarm really focusing on um free speech open to scores While others feel like it needs to be restricted and limited in order to prevent harm one of the most contentious or highlights of this debate can be looked at by the the um the concept of deplatforming right the practice of resending invitations um or canceling events for individuals or view viewpoints that might be controversial Advocates argue that it is necessary for deplatform to happen in order to stop the spread of hate

speech misinformation while Critics on the other side truly believe that deep platforming can stifle open dialogue and promote ideological silos so it's it's to balance and it's a difficult conversation drawing this line is not just theoretical in 2017 um Berkeley the free the Free Speech movement the birthplace of free speech movement actually found itself in a modern-day Free Speech crisis anybody remember this 2017 when this happened yep um so what happened is we had several high-profile speakers maropoulos an Cutler and stev Bannon were invited to speak to Berkeley they were confronted by a lot of

protests tens and thousands of of dollars and damages there were security concerns and in some cases these events were cancelled critics argued that Berkeley failed to uphold its very principles to free speech While others have said that this was necessary in order to have um safety to do to safety concerns Berkeley by the way will stand firm that they did what they had to do so they'll never say that they they always stood by free speech is what they would say so this controversy really does bring out another question that I want you to think

about throughout this this time here I want to just plant different questions and perspectives does deplatforming protect communities from harm for Ric or does it set a dangerous precedence for silencing unpopular opinions now these questions whether deplatforming uh protects communities or stifles debates highlight the deeper challenge that institutions face how can we cultivate inclusive and respectful dialogue at Bur at in a society at at large we cannot Escape difficult conversations especially not today but rather than shutting them down we must try to learn to navigate these so in this next section I'd like to explore

strategies and how to engage in meaningful constructive discourse while upholding free free expression and inclusion we must create spaces that are not just safe enough for people to express themselves but brave enough to be able to challenge diverse perspectives and growth now the goal here is not to eliminate discomfort you don't want to eliminate that I want to create an environment where people can feel like they can engage in a difficult conversation without fear of being canell out or that they're going to be excluded or punished for saying the wrong thing or questioning something that

is different and this is something that's happening very very very often I see it every single day people need to get it this requires people pushing outside of their comfort zone and as cliche as the sound being comfortable being uncomfortable right by the way it took a lot for me to come up to the stage being comfortable being uncomfortable so U but I felt that that was necessary right to do intellectual challenge is essential for learning as we all know but it should be guided with respect curiosity and willingness willingness to hear opposing opinions now

we believe that that at I house um we need to create these intentional structures and strategies in order to um to build these spaces so I'd like to share with you all our six best practices that we use at IH house are we ready yeah all right so the very first one we go is to establish ground rules very important to be able to to um establish ground rules of how we want this this difficult conversation to go for example some principles some ground rules that I tend to use with my students whenever we have

a critical conversation listen to understand not just to respond it's a big one I try to tell that to my sister all often since you understand disengage disagree sorry with with ideas not individuals assume good intentions but acknowledge impact avoid generalizations and engage with nuances avoid issues and engaging with nuances now these guidelines have really really helped us in um setting the ground where people come in into that neutral zone the next one I'll talk about is to establish act active listening and empathetic driven conversations so fully engage with what is being said before formulating

a response ask for clarifying questions to make sure you're understanding what's being said and reflect back on what someone said for example what I heard you say stepping into someone else's perspectives without immediately trying to win the debate all right this is a big one especially I know at at Cal I deal with students that are extremely competitive and all they want to do is win the conversation so this is a difficult one for us as we just say this is not a win or loose it's not you know we are here to learn understand

from one another number two number three develop moderating strategies so redirecting personal attack back to the Topic at hand encourage quieter voices to contribute summarize key points to keep the discussion focused recognize emotional responses while guiding partic participants towards a understanding of each other and most importantly neutrality as facilitators as Educators it is so important to present a neutral to come into it with a neutral perspective if you come in with one very strong perspective you're automatically going to shut somebody down so neutrality is important number four Foster authentic engagement this is I very close

to my heart here but encourage participants to share their personal experiences instead of ideological sound bites right speak from your own experience encourage curiosity instead of immediate condemnation help people move from reactionary emotions to thoughtful responses number five encourage diverse voices without tokenizing perspectives so while diversity enhances conversations it is extremely important to avoid tokenization wherever possible all the time some practices to do that is to ENC encourage self-representation rather than impos narratives let students choose how they want to contribute recognize that not one voice speaks for an entire group it's very important one we

all carry multiple identities and Foster a culture of curiosity rather than expectation invite perspectives without demanding them last but not least leveraging Global perspectives so many fre speeches in the in the US revolve around our own historical context allowing um International students into the conversation brings in fresh perspective that will actually challenge the binary thinking for instance a student in Germany can discuss how hate speech laws might differ based on their own historical context someone from India might be able to speak to how religious religion and Free Speech intersect someone from China I spent seven

years living in China and um again different perspective what does free speech mean right they can also talk about government censorship what does that entail and how does that differ so bringing these diverse perspectives will allow people to look beyond their own cultural competence now we believe that that following these best practices will help create space spaces where free speech is upheld critical dialogue flourishes and learning is truly Global we ensure that diverse perspectives are not just tolerated but valued I have to say this this would have been very useful a few days ago at

the Oval Office talk to them sorry had to say it I had to say it all right so called action creating a safe and yet Brave spaces and fostering open and civil dialogue are essential in G giving everyone a voice in a really really polarized World however this does not happen by accident it requires intentional effort structured support and a commitment from both individuals and institutions what can Educators and institutions do it starts with institutional commitment not just to free speech my friends but to structured programs that help students navigate these complex situations because let's

be reminded that once they leave our institutions they're going to be part of that Society at large and if we start here it's a ripple effect so some concrete steps that I believe universities Educators and leaders should take are the following number one Implement structured dialogue pro programs on campus critical conversations for example reminding ourselves to set up all of those steps beforehand right Foster critical thinking over cancel culture let's not cancel each other anymore this is why we're in this place sometimes equip students with the tools to navigate these conflicts so I pose the

question to you all can free speech and inclusivity truly exist I think so and I think it should but as I said earlier it requires commitment from Educators all of us here in this room all of us here is in this conference institutions and individuals we need to create spaces where diverse voices are not only heard but genuinely valued and as I close this session I want us to reflect on the role of Education in shaping the future where open and civil dialogue is not just encouraged but rather expected thank you all for coming to

my I will be happy to hang out around around if anybody wants to have a chat um I'd be very very happy to learn from you all as well thank you again friends e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e