Freedom of speech is important, but so is a commitment to listen

Former James Cook University physics professor Peter Ridd. Photo: Jamila Toderas

Two fine principles – freedom of speech and its cousin, intellectual freedom – are gaining ground in Australian universities.

Recent court decisions have buttressed the right of two people, at opposite ends of the political spectrum, to say what they want.

First, there’s Peter Ridd. Although the former James Cook University physics professor lost his case for damages against the university in the High Court last week, the court strongly upheld his right to intellectual freedom.

Ridd is famous for expressing his view that the Great Barrier Reef is not being damaged by global warming or agricultural run off. His right to say this was confirmed but he lost the case over breaches of confidentiality clauses in the university’s code of conduct.

Then there’s Tim Anderson, the former political economy lecturer the University of Sydney sacked after he published a slide with a swastika superimposed over an Israeli flag. In August, the federal court, on appeal, reversed an earlier decision and declared that academics have a right to be protected from disciplinary action for exercising their intellectual freedom. Whether Anderson gets his job back is still to be decided.

On top of these two cases is the endorsement, by all universities, of the model code for free speech in universities written at the request of the federal government by former High Court chief justice Robert French.

It’s great that these gains for free speech and intellectual freedom in universities are strongly supported by both the right-wing Institute of Public Affairs and the left-wing National Tertiary Education Union. And the fact that the NTEU’s enterprise agreements with universities contain guarantees for intellectual freedom has proved to be one of the legal buttresses that courts have found give protection to academics.

Thus we can celebrate the fact that protection for free speech in universities is getting stronger. Likewise, we can welcome the increasing protection for intellectual and academic freedom – which is the ability to speak freely in your areas of expertise.

But this, in itself, is not enough. We should also examine whether freedom of speech – both inside and outside of universities – is serving its desired purpose. And, if not, how do we change that?

The free speech ideal is that it creates an environment in which all ideas, and all views, are debated and tested. It leads to free speech being both a pillar of democracy and a foundation of science. It does not, and nor should it, lead to universal agreement, but there’s a tacit understanding that everyone is free to express and assert what they please within boundaries of respect.

The interesting thing is that speech has never been freer than it is now. We all have devices connected to the internet that allow us to say pretty much what we please. There are very few limits, particularly for the anonymous.

But the result of this extreme speech freedom has not been the Enlightenment ideal of reasoned, tolerant debate and a knowledgeable populace. It’s been exactly the opposite. Autocracy is gaining on democracy, and ignorance is gaining on expertise.

It turns out that freedom of speech is not enough if it amounts to freedom to shout at each other, freedom to isolate or demonise those who think differently, and a supercharged ability for demagogues to whip up fear and deliberate misunderstanding.

So what’s missing? The answer is that, along with freedom of speech, there has to be commitment to listen; and to listen in a way that encompasses respect, curiosity and openness.

This is something you can’t achieve by law or regulation. No court ruling, code or piece of legislation will force differently thinking groups of people to listen constructively instead of trashing each other on social media.

In the end it comes down to culture. Do we all tacitly agree that the views of others – even those that a visceral instinct tells us are absurd and dangerous – should be listened to with respect and an attempt at understanding?

If we can’t do that, then freedom of speech alone will not bring the benefits we seek from it. The experience of 21st-century digital media tells us that.

What can universities do? Because they play a formative role in the lives of about half the population, what happens on campus influences broader culture. So it’s up to university communities – both academics and students – to cultivate not only freedom of speech but also the responsibility that comes with it.