美国大学向来是知识分子的乌托邦，各种不同的声音在这里激荡回响，但现在言论自由却越来越难以站稳脚跟。一向推崇言论自由的大学校园，为何不能容忍不同的声音？大学校园言论自由为何又起争议？
卑鄙与粗野横行之地
反思：大学校园的言论自由
译者：邵海灵&徐嘉茵
校对：王津雨
编辑：赵萌萌
An attempt to reconcile protecting vulnerable students with a commitment to unfettered debate has no easy answers.
如何在保护弱势学生的同时捍卫自由辩论的权利，答案并非显而易见。
本文选自 The Economist | 取经号原创翻译
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INCITEMENT to violence is one of few exceptions the Supreme Court has carved out from America's most celebrated constitutional right: the right to free speech. But on today's college campuses, struggles over speech extend well beyond expression that encourages physical harm. In 2015 a lecturer at Yale was excoriated—and felt compelled to resign—after she raised questions about the college's plea that students avoid
culturally insensitive Halloween costumes
. The next year the dean of students at the University of Chicago caused a stir by coming out against "intellectual 'safe spaces'" where students "retreat from ideas and perspectives
at odds
with their own". Students have repeatedly succeeded in having invitations to controversial speakers canc
elled, and even made
tenured faculty
fear
provocative
comments.
言论自由是美国宪法赋予公民的一项权利，且是最为著名的一项权利，但最高法院将少数行为排除在这项权利之外，煽动暴力便是其中之一。然而在今天的大学校园里，言论斗争引出的乱子，比起那些怂恿人们大打出手的言辞，早已经是有过之而无不及。2015年，耶鲁大学呼吁学生不要穿戴那些
以其他文化里的刻板印象为卖点
的万圣节装束
，而该校的一位讲师因为质疑学校的这一做法而遭受痛斥——甚至被迫辞职。第二年，芝加哥大学的教导主任因公开反对“学术思想的‘安全空间’”而搅起了一场轩然大波，所谓“安全空间”，即学生面对自己
不认同
的意见观点时，可以选择回避。而在取消讲座方面，学生也一再取得胜利，有争议的讲员即使已经受邀，也不得不放弃讲座计划。学校的
终身教授
都害怕招来学生的
挑衅性
言论。
culturally insensitive costume
wearing cultures that aren't yours as a costume which may subject those very people to the threats associated with those stereotypes and belittling their experiences.
穿戴其他文化或其他民族的服装以达到搞笑的目的，比如在万圣节假扮成浑身刺青的印第安人或戴草帽弹吉他的墨西哥人，虽然很多人的初衷只是搞笑一下，没有恶意，但有人认为这样做无异于公开嘲笑其他文化，其后果就是固化了人们（尤其是白人）对其他文化的刻板印象，从而加剧种族歧视。
at odds
in disagreement
不一致
provocative
[adj.]
气人的, 刺激的, 挑拨的
1. serving or tending to provoke, excite, or stimulate; stimulating discussion or exciting controversy
2. exciting sexual desire
These students think they are sticking up for the vulnerable, practising a kind of self-defence. Others wonder what happened to
the spirit of inquiry
that is meant to be the point of a university. Nearly half of students advocate some curbs on expression, and nearly a fifth think it acceptable to shut down unacceptable speech with violence. On October 9th, the president of Texas Southern University got in on the act, cancelling a speech by a Republican legislator in mid-stream after student protesters tried to disrupt it. The talk hadn't been scheduled through proper "university procedures", he said.
这些学生自诩弱势群体的守护者，摆出一副自卫的架势。也有人奇怪，本应作为大学立学之本的
求问精神
，如今到底遭遇了什么。几乎一半的学生都认同，言论应该受到一些限制，近五分之一的人认为，使用暴力手段中止他们无法容忍的演讲是完全正当的。今年10月9日，德州南方大学校长也加入这一行动，在反对派学生试图干扰会场后，取消了某共和党立法委员说到一半的演讲。他称这次演讲的筹备不符合正规的“大学流程”。
These developments are alarming, but it is a mistake, argues Sigal Ben-Porath of the University of Pennsylvania, to conclude that today's student activists have no serious concerns. In "Free Speech on Campus", a reflection on her time as chairman of her university's committee on open expression, Ms Ben-Porath urges a re-thinking of the battles over campus speech. Her book begins with a broad defence of free inquiry: "Speech, including controversial speech, is central to teaching and learning" and to campus life. She rejects speech codes, mandatory sensitivity training and systems whereby students report episodes of professor bias to administrators. She criticises the president of Williams College for stepping in last year to cancel a talk by a lecturer with racist views who had been invited by a student group. It is wrong, Ms Ben-Porath argues, "to
forgo
free speech for the sake of administrative order".
宾夕法尼亚大学的西加尔·本·波拉斯（Sigal Ben-Porath）认为，事态的发展让人警惕，但并不能由此得出一刀切的结论，认为如今的学生激进分子都很肤浅。在担任大学委员会主席期间，她写了一本反思公开言论的书《大学校园的言论自由》（Free Speech on Campus），督促大家反思这些针对校园言论的斗争。此书开篇就对自由求问的治学精神予以了斩钉截铁的辩护：“讲台言论，包括受争议的言论，对教学和求学而言都是至关重要的”，对大学校园也是如此。她排斥所谓的“委婉表达”，反对强制的“文化敏感训练”和允许学生向学校管理层举报教授带有偏见言论的制度。她批评了威廉姆斯学院院长去年因某讲员持种族歧视观点而介入此事并取消讲座的行为，该讲员是受一个学生团体之邀来做演讲的。本·波拉斯认为，“因为行政命令而
放弃
言论自由”是错误的做法。
Still, she says, the activists have a point. As colleges become more diverse, the students they teach often find campus life
stifling or unwelcoming
. Any university effort to protect freedom of speech, Ms Ben-Porath suggests, is incomplete without genuine attempts to include all students in the speaking. She calls this combination of robust speech protection and harnessing all voices "inclusive freedom".
但是她也补充说，激进分子也有他们的道理。随着大学日趋多元化，他们所教的学生经常感到大学生活
令人窒息、不近人情
。本·波拉斯指出，大学在保护言论自由方面所做出的任何努力，如果没有真心诚意地考虑到所有学生的话语权，就始终是不完整的。她呼吁人们在坚定维护言论自由的同时，也要对“包括自由在内”的一切声音因势利导。
Though she
disdains
speaker disinvitations and other limits on speech, Ms Ben-Porath has no trouble with trigger warnings to alert students to a potentially troubling reading. These are "good pedagogy", not a "surrender to weakness and laziness of thought". She also speaks up for
much-maligned
safe spaces where students can find comfort in the company of others who share an aspect of their identity. But the university itself should not be one big intellectual safe space; protecting students' dignity is not the same as protecting them from challenges to their ideas.
尽管对取消演讲及其他言论限制
嗤之以鼻
，但本·波拉斯可以接受提醒机制，即预先警告学生，他们将要阅读的文章可能会令人产生不适。这些是“好的教育法”，而不是“向思维弱点和思维惰性屈服”。她也为
倍受诟病的
安全空间发话，安全空间是学生能够在其他人的陪伴下找到安慰的地方，这些陪伴者在某一方面与学生们怀有相同的身份认同。但大学本身不应该是一个大型的思想安全空间；保护学生的尊严跟保护他们的思想不受质疑可不是一回事。
disdain
[n.] 轻蔑, 鄙视; 骄傲自大
1. lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike
2. a communication that indicates lack of respect by patronizing the recipient
[v.] 蔑视; 鄙弃
1. look down on with disdain
2. reject with contempt
That is a sound analytical distinction, but it is not clear how it should work out in practice. Consider the
mêlée
in March at Middlebury College, where Charles Murray, best known for his 1994 book arguing that IQ variation between racial groups is a cause of inequality, was invited to speak about his book from 2012 on divisions between American whites. Hundreds of alumni signed a letter calling Mr Murray's invitation "unacceptable and unethical", and the students were never going to listen to him. After
jeers
made holding the public lecture impossible, he gave his talk in an
improvised
video studio. Afterwards, chaos erupted and Mr Murray's host, a Middlebury professor, suffered a concussion.
对于两者的区别，上述分析听起来可谓十分合理，但它并没有表明在实际生活中该如何操作。就拿今年3月在明德学院爆发的
混战
来说吧，查尔斯·莫瑞（Charles Murray）受邀来到这所学院，就他于2012年出版的一本书发表演讲，这本书是关于美国白人内部分裂的。莫瑞还在1994年写过一本书，认为不同种族的IQ差异是造成不平等的原因，他就是因为这本书而声名大噪。数百名校友联名上书，称邀请莫里是“不能接受的，也是不道德的”，这些学生打定主意，永远也不会再听他讲一句话。众人的
嘲弄
使得公开演讲无法进行，莫瑞于是在一个
临时
录音室里发表了演讲。后来混乱爆发，莫瑞先生的演讲主持人，一位明德学院的教授，在混战中被打成脑震荡。
【译者注】
今年3月2日，政治学家Charles Murray在美国佛蒙特的明德学院（Middlebury College）发表新书演讲。因其本人偏向保守的政治立场与带有种族主义嫌疑的著述，演讲过程中学生们组织了一场干扰并破坏演讲的抗议行动。
mêlée [n.]
a confused struggle especially: a hand-to-hand fight among several people.
jeer
[n.] 嘲笑; 戏弄; 讥讽
showing your contempt by derision
[v.] 嘲笑, 嘲弄
laugh at with contempt and derision
Violently disrupting a speech is
antithetical
to intellectual openness. But the protesters felt that Mr Murray's presence itself was an assault—in Ms Ben-Porath's words, a "dignitary harm" on minority students. Administrators often plead for civility at times like these, but Ms Ben-Porath argues that civility can mean privileging peace and quiet over vigorous challenges.
采用暴力方式破坏演讲，这种行为跟学术思想的开放性是
对立的
