Taking down the videos does seem a harsh response, but I guess cutting all ties to Dr Walter Lewin means nothing of his can be hosted on anything that is owned by MIT.
Does feel a little like a book burning, but I get why they cut ties with him.
> I guess cutting all ties to Dr Walter Lewin means nothing of his can be hosted on anything that is owned by MIT.
This really doesn't logically follow. It's perfectly reasonable for a university to, say, host a video-taped panel discussion with folks who have committed crimes, or publish a book by someone with immoral views.
The defense of taking down these courses is ostensibly based on the idea that they need to prevent new bad behavior from taking place, i.e., that the on-going courses actually represent a danger.
> MIT says it removed Lewin videos for fear of continued harassment
But of course, there is almost certainly a way to do that while preserving the course material.
Yes, but it's course material that sets him up in a position of authority. It's fine for people to study Nazi-ism, but people would probably question MIT if Joseph Goebbels were giving the lectures.
TL;DR; context matters, he's not a unique snowflake the sum of human knowledge hasn't been impacted.
> people would probably question MIT if Joseph Goebbels were giving the lectures.
If Joseph Goebbels had something useful to say that would add to the intellectual discussion, then MIT should host him. This could be him trying to defend himself, or it could just be him lecturing on a topic completely unrelated to his horrific views.
Some people would surely strongly object, but they would be wrong.
I have something to say which I think would add to the intellectual discussion. Should MIT host my comments?
In any case, there's no need to reach towards Nazis - plenty of people protested when the war criminal Kissinger wanted to teach at Columbia. See https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19771108&id=... for example, where he made it in to Georgetown but mention that 135 faculty and 1,000 students at Columbia "registered their disapproval and Mr. Kissinger withdrew from the negotiations."
> I have something to say which I think would add to the intellectual discussion. Should MIT host my comments?
It doesn't matter whether you think you would add to the intellectual discussion, it matter whether MIT think so.
> In any case, there's no need to reach towards Nazis
Agreed. There are many real life cases. There are lots of things that go into who you should hire as a professor (which is obviously distinct from who you should host for a discussion), but there mere fact that a bunch of people registered their disapproval doesn't much speak to them.
The logic is that having the Videos and Lectures it is than seen that students would seek out Dr Walter Lewin for help in a healthy student - teacher relationship which Dr Lewin has shown to have to engage in unhealthy relationships.
But you can make this argument about hosting content from any immoral public figure who's not dead. "I saw a talk by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, so I sought him out to ask a follow-up question."
The danger of the student-teacher relationship is that the teacher has administrative power over the student in terms of grading, recommendations, etc. That's what has to be eliminated, by removing him as a professor. On the other hand, you're just arguing that, as a former teacher, he would be source of knowledge or an intellectual authority that a student would seek. But that possibility exists for any unpalatable intellectual.
Would MIT not publish a textbook by an immoral teacher because a reader might seek them out? Etc.
This is a clear case of free association. MIT does not wish to have any association with Lewin, and has no obligation to host Lewin's lectures on its public-facing web servers.
While you might believe there is a free speech issue, we know that the materials are available from other sites which aggregate free lectures. The MIT library also has many materials which are available to on-site visitors which are not available on the web site - it may well be that these lectures are still available to the public via that mechanism. Remember, free speech does not obligate organizations to use all possible means to disseminate information, but is foremost a prohibition on government restraint on speech. In the US Constitution's First Amendment, free speech is on par with free association.
Your hypothetical is incomplete or misdirected. We know details from news reports like https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/23/complainant-u... that it is not the case that students contacted Lewin but the opposite - Lewin actively sought out many women who were self-learning using his videos, including joining in with Facebook groups.
In addition, Ahmadinejad is not a professor at MIT, nor are interactions with him covered under Title IX.
Quite clearly MIT will not publish a textbook by Lewin should he decide to write one, so the answer to your final question is "yes".
Again, this is a free association question. If no publisher is willing to take on the book, nor any web hosting company, nor other organization, then it might be a free speech issue. But that is not the case for this specific example.
Presumably Ahmadinejad is also able to publish a book through any number of mechanisms, and not limited to the MIT Press.
> This is a clear case of free association. MIT does not wish to have any association with Lewin...
Ha! Yes, I suspect you're right. But this isn't the reason MIT gave. They said it was for the danger he posed.
> Remember, free speech ....is foremost a prohibition on government restraint on speech.
This is a very neutered and ahistoric conception of free speech. The actual reasoning that led folks to endorse things like the first amendment is certainly not restricted to just matters of law or government. It is a normative claim that applies, in particular, to private citizens dealing with each other. If this idea is foreign to you, I highly recommend reading John Stuart Mills' classic work on this, which is about a hundred pages and available free online.
> Lewin actively sought out many women who were self-learning using his videos, including joining in with Facebook groups.
Very interesting (and creepy)! I didn't know. All the same hypotheticals go through, though.
> Ahmadinejad is not a professor at MIT
Neither Lewin nor Ahmadinejad should be professors at MIT -- Lewin even more so.
> Again, this is a free association question.
Again, I think you misunderstand the deep justification for the principle of freedom of speech, and how it interact with MIT's mission. After all, freedom of association would apply just as well to Ahmadinejad.
If MIT was in some business other than the pursuit of knowledge, your point could be fine.
Yes, they don't want to be associated with someone who might use that association to emotionally harm others. I don't see the contradiction.
I don't understand your point about being 'ahistoric'. Private organizations are allowed to prohibit certain types of speech. That is part of what freedom of assembly means. Quoting Mills, it's the "freedom to unite for any purpose not involving harm to others". Or earlier in the same paragraph, "the principle [of expressing and publishing opinions] requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like".
If we don't like someone else's opinion, we don't have to express it for them.
Like I said, freedom of speech is on par with freedom of assembly. There can be a tension between them, certainly, but it's certainly not the case that freedom of speech historically trumps freedom of association.
Otherwise, a Perl conference will be forced to accept talks about C#, Google would be forced to accept and forward unsolicited commercial email, etc.
Quoting now from the Supreme Court in THOMAS v. COLLINS (1945):
> It was not by accident or coincidence that the rights to freedom in speech and press were coupled in a single guaranty with the rights of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances. All these, though not identical, are inseparable. They are cognate rights, cf. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364 , 57 S.Ct. 255, 259, and therefore are united in the First Article's assurance. Cf. 1 Annals of Congress 759-760. [323 U.S. 516, 531]
Similarly from N. A. A. C. P. v. ALABAMA, (1958):
> Effective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced by group association, as this Court has more than once recognized by remarking upon the close nexus between the freedoms of speech and assembly. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364 ; Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 530 . It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the "liberty" assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech. See Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 666 ; Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 324 ; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303 ; Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U.S. 313, 321 . Of course, it is immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by association pertain to political, economic, religious or cultural matters, and state action which may have the [357 U.S. 449, 461] effect of curtailing the freedom to associate is subject to the closest scrutiny.
How about you clarify to me what the freedom of assembly means, and its connections to the freedom of speech? Since the historical record seems to say they are aspects of the same sense of liberty.
> Yes, they don't want to be associated with someone who might use that association to emotionally harm others. I don't see the contradiction.
OK. I don't know how else to explain it.
> Private organizations are allowed to prohibit certain types of speech. That is part of what freedom of assembly means.
Sure, they are free to do this and no one should force them otherwise. However, if your mission is to pursue knowledge, then you should often engage publicly with people whose views you find repellant. (In other words, we are talking about a hypothetical imperative rather than a categorical one.) This is indeed MIT's mission, which is why MIT (and most universities) sometimes make the conscious choice to engage with despicable people in this way, even if they have a freedom of association not to.
The connection to Mills is not that he thought people were required to always associate with unsavory individuals, it's that he thought two things: (1) People shouldn't punish others merely for having bad views, including non-violent forms of punishment like boycots. (2) Empirically, human brains are led to the best and most robust beliefs by engaging with bad ideas rather than by being shielded from them; insofar as exposure to bad beliefs leads them to be adopted by human, this is a failure of their reasoning and preparation, not a failure of someone else to prevent exposure.
> If we don't like someone else's opinion, we don't have to express it for them.
I never meant to imply otherwise. The rest of your comment seems to think I did. Sorry if I was unclear.
> How about you clarify to me what the freedom of assembly means, and its connections to the freedom of speech?
Since that time, there was also a link to "Complainant in 'unprecedented' Walter Lewin sexual harassment case comes forward" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8937683 and "More details on the Walter Lewin case" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9384745 .