by jpitney | May 15, 2022 | Civility, Debate
Tish Harrison Warren at NYT: Our tendency to adopt polarizing and moralistic patterns of speech is turbo-boosted by a social media architecture that encourages animosity toward outgroups. But this hatred toward our opponents and the accompanying habit of moralism is...
by jpitney | Apr 25, 2022 | Debate, Deliberation, Higher Education
Eleventh Circuit decision in Speech First, Inc. v. Cartwright: speech policies at the University of Central Florida likely violate the First Amendment. [In] determining the propriety of preliminary injunctive relief[, we consider, among other things, whether plaintiff...
by jpitney | Apr 13, 2022 | Congress, Debate, Deliberation, House of Representatives, Senate
Kevin Kosar at The Hill: . The citizen who dares to turn on C-SPAN 2 to watch our national representative democracy at work is all but certain to be disappointed. John Q. and Jane Q. Public will see committee hearings wherein legislators are bickering with one another...
by jpitney | Oct 21, 2021 | Civil Rights, Debate, Free Speech, Higher Education
Michael Powell at NYT: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology invited the geophysicist Dorian Abbot to give a prestigious public lecture this autumn. He seemed a natural choice, a scientific star who studies climate change and whether planets in distant solar...
by jpitney | Jul 23, 2021 | Biden, Civility, Debate
By Hannah R. Pitney I’ve been on my school’s debate team for over three years. In that time, I’ve competed in many different debate formats, and I’ve watch teammates participate in the types that I haven’t done myself. There’s Public Forum, Lincoln Douglas,...
by jpitney | Jul 9, 2021 | Civic Education, civic virtue, Congress, Debate, Deliberation
Daniel Stid at National Affairs: American politicians must do more to defend our political system. One way to do so is by upholding the range of competing viewpoints as a feature, not a bug, of our democracy. The diversity of views that will inevitably characterize an...
