In Berkeley Talks episode 209, renowned legal scholars Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law, and Nadine Strossen, professor emerita of the New York School of Law and national president of the ACLU from 1991 to 2008, discuss free speech challenges facing universities today. They covered topics including hate speech, First Amendment rights, the Heckler’s Veto, institutional neutrality and what steps universities can take to avoid free speech controversies.

The conversation, which took place on Sept. 11, was held in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, in which thousands of students protested successfully for their right to free political speech at UC Berkeley. Instead of having a moderator, the speakers were given a list of questions they posed to each other, and took turns answering them.

At one illuminating moment, Chemerinsky asked Strossen what steps she might take to reduce the harmful effects of polarized political speech on campus.

“I think that punishment is not an effective way to change somebody's attitudes,” Strossen answered, “which is what we are concerned about, especially in an educational environment. Treating somebody like a criminal or even shaming, shunning and ostracizing them is not likely to open their hearts and minds. So I think it is as ineffective as a strategy for dealing with discrimination as it is unjustified and consistent with First Amendment principles.

“But there are a lot of things that universities can and should do — and I know from reading about your campus, that you are doing … It's gotten justified nationwide attention.”

Strossen went on to emphasize the importance of education, not only in free speech principles, but in other civic principles, as well, like the history of discrimination and anti-Semitism.

Beyond education, Strossen said, “universities have to show support for members of the community who are the targets of hateful speech by raising their own voices, but also by providing psychological and other counseling and material kinds of support.”

The event was sponsored by HxA Berkeley and Voices for Liberty, of George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School. It was co-sponsored by Berkeley Law’s Public Law and Policy program, the Berkeley Liberty Initiative and the Jack Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research.

Read the transcript and listen to the episode on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

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In Berkeley Talks episode 208, three UC Berkeley professors from a wide range of disciplines — psychology, biology and ethnic studies — broach a deep question: What is understanding?

“When I think about it through the lens of being a psychologist, I really think about understanding as a demonstration of, say, knowledge that we have about the world,” begins Arianne Eason, an assistant professor of psychology, in this episode.

“But that knowledge doesn't necessarily have to be through what we say. It doesn't necessarily have to be explicit. It's really about shaping the way that we engage with the world around us, and with those around us, and being very flexible.

“I think, a lot of times, if we’re thinking about the college context, and what is understanding, people's first reaction might be, ‘I'm able to give an answer.’ But that's not really understanding. It's really about being able to apply it to different contexts that you may not have seen before.

“And I think kind of wrapped up in that for me is a recognition of what you don't know. To really understand also means to recognize what you don't understand, and where the limits of your knowledge are.”

The fall 2024 discussion also included Christian Paiz, an associate professor of ethnic studies, and Hernan Garcia, an associate professor of molecular and cell biology and of physics.

It’s part of a video series for Research, Discovery and You, a course for new students offered every fall semester by Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science. In the course, students are introduced to different ways of thinking and approaches to knowledge production as practiced across the college’s 79 majors.

Research, Discovery and You is taught by Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, professor of psychology and the college’s associate dean of student outreach and engagement, and Aileen Liu, the college’s director of curricular engagement initiatives.

The video series, part of the course’s recent redesign, was supported by the College of Letters and Science and the Division of Undergraduate Education’s Instructional Technology and Innovation Micro Grant Program.

Read the transcript and listen to the episode on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

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In Berkeley Talks episode 207, bestselling author and UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Michael Pollan discusses how he chooses his subjects, why he co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics and the role of storytelling in shifting our perspective.

“We're wired for story,” he told KQED’s Mina Kim, whom he joined in conversation at a UC Berkeley event in May 2024. “We're a storytelling and consuming people, and we remember better and we're moved more by narrative than we are by information or argument.

“The shorter journalism gets, the more it relies on argument to get any kind of heat. And I just don't think that's how you change minds. I think changing minds has to work at all levels: It has to work at the intellectual level, it has to work at the emotional level, and at even probably subliminal levels, and story does that.

“When you look at great pieces of narrative journalism, people don't even realize their minds have been changed by the time they get to the end of it.”

Pollan has written eight books, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2010), about the impact of our various food choices on animal welfare and the environment, and How to Change Your Mind (2018), an exploration of the history of psychedelics and their effects on the human mind. He recently retired from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he taught for many years.

Read the transcript and listen to the episode on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

UC Berkeley photo by Marlena Telvick.

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