Fall is here and students are back in the classroom and free speech is back on the agenda. Just a few weeks in and already the hottest topic on campuses across America is free speech. In particular, my alma mater - the University of California, Berkeley (UCBerkeley) - is at the heart of the controversy to bring 'conservative' speakers to campus in what is being billed as Free Speech Week. It can either be seen as ironic, or a full circle revisit, that UC Berkeley is in this place, given its role in creating the free speech movement which grew out of a series of protests during the 1964-1965 academic year. It is now focused on right-wing ideas while back then it was focused on the protest speech of the left. It was as a place for radical ideas that I got to know most about UC Berkeley as a young girl growing up in Jamaica, and one of the primary reasons I chose to attend. The flood of articles that focus on the issue of free speech in the academy almost seems reminiscent...
Thinking critically and writing provocatively about the implications of policy for people, places and politics. No fancy words, no jargon, just the facts, some questions, some answers and a whole lotta rant.