On Thursday, October 29th, Dr. Jonathan Zimmerman of the University of Pennsylvania spoke to the Texas State community via Zoom on “Impolitic Politics: Free Speech, Censorship, and Civility on Campus in the Age of Trump”. Over fifty students and faculty gathered in person to hear Dr. Zimmerman speak, and even more participated via Zoom. Dr. Zimmerman presented his research, starting with his focus on the topic of academic freedom and explaining how he became interested in political speech on college campuses after the 2016 election. After his presentation, Dr. Zimmerman took questions from attendees and discussed his project at length. He noted that he was impressed at the “buy-in” from the college’s many sponsoring departments, and appreciated the high level of participation from students and faculty alike. Dr. Shannon Duffy from the Department of History reported that Dr. Zimmerman was “very charismatic” and that his presentation started conversations about campus speech that are still going in her classrooms weeks later. The Department of Political Science’s Discourse in Democracy initiative was among the sponsors of the event.
Dr. Zimmerman’s lecture was recorded by the Department of Philosophy and can be viewed here: https://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/dialogue-series/Media-Archive/2020-DS-media/DS-Fall-20-week-6.html.
