Meaghan Emery Commentary on the First Amendment & Hate Speech In A Plural Democracy

Yes, hello. My name is Megan Emery and I am a professor of French at the University of Vermont. I have been there since 2002, so that makes 24 years. And from the very beginning, I have worked on uh plural France. Um that is the topic of my my dissertation, which I defended in 2001. It was titled Writing the Fine Line, Rearticulating French National Identity and the Divides. And I just wanted to give you this background um so that you could know a little bit about who I am. So, my dissertation focused on three groups within the French population. And I'm talking about the 20th and 21st century, so contemporary France, who are challenging the French to face up to troubling events of the recent past. That is collaboration with Nazi Germany and the extermination of millions of Jews and other undesirables, quote unquote, and the repression of that memory. The Algerian War and the difficult integration of the subsequent waves of citizens from overseas. And the ongoing decimation of the overseas departments, um primarily in the Caribbean, but also in the Indian Ocean and in French Polynesia, which are struggling with the consequences of departmentalization and their inception into Europe still to this day. So, I wanted first to thank Channel 17. Uh that's that's an old habit. Sorry, Town Meeting TV. Um I used to be on the board of Channel 17. I am a former South Burlington City Councilor. I served for 14 years. Um and served also as the president and treasurer of what was then the Channel 17 board. So, I um deeply, deeply grateful that this organization exists, that it brings uh local government to to people's screens so that they can hold their elected officials accountable, and that they can know more about their local community. It is a really essential service, what I consider to be an essential service, and I would hope all people out there watching agree with me. Otherwise, why would you be watching, right? Um So I I also wanted to let you all know that I am affiliated with the Jewish Studies and the Holocaust Studies programs at the University of Vermont. And I want to also let everyone know that I am not a specialist in US Jewish Studies or in US history for that matter. And yet, why am I here? I am here because of recent events that have occurred in South Burlington, that is my hometown. But also in the region and in our country. I wanted to specifically address hate crimes and hate speech and and like my dissertation outlines, it doesn't affect just one group. It affects the non-majority groups, right? And those groups that are just like in the French Republic, they are seeking to integrate into the American Republic. And it is you know, like a something that reoccurs in our history where from time to time non-majority groups have difficulty integrating into American society. And we have seen that of late. And I think that people who encounter this with the best intentions sometimes do not know how to react or what to say. And to be quite honest, quite simple. You condemn it. You condemn hate speech in all its forms. And in a free society, the best the best remedy is to respond with good speech. That is something that I've heard First Amendment specialists say at the University of Vermont, which is a public institution. Therefore, the First Amendment it applies in all that we do on our campus. And um we nevertheless do have rules and regulations that people must follow. Um, we are not the mall in Washington, D.C. We are a university campus. And uh we have rules uh that are put into place so that students feel safe. So that they are free to engage in in learning. Um, that is indeed our industry. Um and to that end um, I wanted to tell you that for what question. That's what any good professor will ask before they start any kind of discussion with a class. Why are we talking about this? Right? For what purpose? And so I wanted to give you some background um, about my area specialization, but what it has taught me with regard to possible responses to to hate speech, which are hate acts, and and can fall sadly over into hate crimes. Um, especially when there is harassment or there is physical assault um, or there is of course um, as as we have seen um, worse uh with regard to loss of life, uh the burning of of an edifice and so on and so forth. Um so let's get to it. I wanted to to also tell you some courses that I've taught. I think that's that's important. Um I have some books here laid out in front of me. I might show them to the screen. I tend to um like to bring books because they are my companions. I spend a lot of time reading. And when I teach, uh because I am not an historian, I'm a cultural studies specialist, we are reading literature. We are reading people's ideas about what is happening at the time of the writing of that literature. And it's fascinating. Um I also wanted people to know that whenever I'm putting together a course, I focus on um discourse of hope in addition to discourse that is quite realist and can be quite jarring. Um we're dealing with histories uh where there are millions of people who were enslaved, uh who were persecuted, who were killed uh maliciously. Um and uh today they are still uh seeking to be included. Um the majority group is is very jealous of of you know it's it's power. So, some of the courses I've taught uh in 20th century French literature, a course called resistance and memory with a focus on World War II, um and the response of French intellectuals at the time when Jews and others, including French resistance, uh but also the handicapped, the homosexual population, the disabled, they were being rounded up not only by German soldiers and officers, but by French police officers as part of the Holocaust or what um professionally we'd call the Shoah. I also uh teach a course called multiethnic France, and that's based on 20th and 21st century French literature with a focus on authors arising from the experience of immigration. The French tend not to see their country as a country of immigration like the United States. It's very I would say common for the French to say that they are a country born from the monarchy and that gives them a very different perspective on the question of what it means to be a plural democracy. Uh The next course based on French culture was called France's culture wars and that focused on the painful birth of the French Republic. We all think of Bastille Day, right? July 14th, which was just under a month ago and that is the day when there were Parisians who took a nearly empty uh prison in Paris and violently attacked the guards, beheaded them, put their heads on stakes. It was considered to be one of the the first acts of that revolution which did not succeed within that 18th century. It took indeed nearly a century for that revolution to succeed and that is what I cover in that course and that goes uh even beyond 1880. It goes through 1940. Uh so, you know, a century and a half later after the revolution where we have the the French Parliament voting to instate a dictator um in response to the German invasion of France in World War II. And that dictator named Philippe Pétain uh who was not considered a president, he was considered head of state. He was elected by the Parliament, not by the French voters, and they have direct suffrage. No electoral college there. Um, he was in fact a very eager collaborator with the Nazi regime and went over and above what the Nazi regime, the Third Reich, was asking of the French. Uh, not only did he send men, he sent women, separated them from their children, he sent the elderly, and then he finally sent children themselves, separated from their parents. And these are crimes that have that had been kept silent. It was for 30 to 40 years after the liberation in 1945. And so the course that I taught called the French Jews Revolution, which was a sophomore seminar in the Honors College at the University of Vermont, um, that's what I discuss is how Jewish writers broke that silence and and made the French face the crimes that had been committed uh, in the name of the French state and therefore the French people. Um, so that's some of my background. I just wanted you to know, uh, that before I start. The other part of this discussion, and I'm not used to discussing all alone by myself, I usually have people around me. Um, so hopefully, um, I um, I'm able to discuss with myself in a way that is interesting to you all. Um, it's the First Amendment, right, to our US Constitution, and it is the first of the first 10 Bill of Rights. Therefore, uh, just like Article 1 outlining, uh, the duties of of the the legislature, our US legislature, um, in Washington now. It is the most important one and let me read it to you in full. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. So, there's a lot there and as someone a good friend said to me, there is a reason and I'm quoting him. There is a reason that these rights were lumped together under the first amendment. We can't pick and choose and expect the rest to survive. And that is indeed true. If we assume that we can exercise our free speech and trample on people because of their religion, we will have lost all of the rights guaranteed under that first amendment. If we expect that we can speak freely and yet we restrict the press our free speech rights will soon be curtailed. If we think we can speak freely but we don't allow people to gather and to protest peacefully our free speech is in danger. And that includes petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. So, that means holding our elected officials accountable which can take form forum actually the forum can be various it could be within the legislative hall and chamber itself. It could be through a letter. It could be through social media. That is one way that our elected officials speak with us. And and if they are speaking to us through social media, that is a That is an avenue for the constituents to to hold that elected official accountable. And if that elected official denies that right, well, then our free speech rights are in fact at risk. So, I do encourage all Americans and and those of you watching here in the Burlington area to to hold this First Amendment and all of the rights, right? Freedom of practicing any religion or no religion, right? Abridging means that they cannot stop us from speaking freely. They cannot stop our press, right? They being those in power, right? And they cannot stop us from assembling or from petitioning the government and holding our elected officials accountable. All of that together in one, right? We cannot remove one and expect the others to survive. And I love that expression from that friend of mine. All right. So, we have uh witnessed in in South Burlington, um what I would say is two crimes, um recently, within the month of July. Most recently, there was a woman who was physically assaulted on our City Center street, Market Street, around noon. The police responded and it is being dealt with as a hate crime. And I think that is just and right. Um this is a woman who was wearing a hijab and a woman of color. And um all of this was captured on tape, a friend's cell phone. Um and we have learned that those cell phones come in handy these days. Um also in the month of July, there was a candidate's forum held at our municipal offices at 180 Market Street. And Town Meeting TV was there like a good public servant um to record and make sure that the public could see uh the various candidates who were up for election and that included for our State Senate um and that night it was for Chittenden Southeast because that is South Burlington is in that district and the candidates for governor. And it was a Democratic Committee so these were the Democratic candidate candidates. And very sadly um there was a man uh who I would call a former friend um who stood up and targeted one of the candidates on stage uh because of her identity. I differ in his opinion that it was because of things that she had stated in social media uh because there are other members uh of the uh South Burlington delegation who were sitting on that stage uh so who we've elected and the incumbents who have likewise uh supported in this case Israel. Um so for one person to be targeted um was a clear violation I would say of uh this right of the people to peaceably assemble and to engage in free speech and free discourse and respecting the rights of people who worship a religion different or the same. Um in this case it was a Jewish man who was targeting a Jewish woman. So I think that the rules um are something that we need to to think about. Uh first of all, local rules with regard to the Democratic Committee and they have discussed and I think it is unfortunate, um having to uh you know preview and review questions on cards prior to them being asked of the candidates sitting on stage. Um that is already an obstacle, right? To to free speech rights. There those would be a curated set of questions. And so the officials who would be leading that discussion um would be in effect censoring, right? Playing that role of deciding which questions deserve airtime and which questions do not deserve airtime. And and that is quite a power to hand to a a party or or any um official uh acting in in you know in that way. Um So the first thing that I did, I was witness to this, I was sitting in the auditorium, was I asked uh the person recording um so the town meeting TV crew member if there could be an edit to that tape because as a scholar and here I'm going to refer to Declining the Stereotype by Mireille Rosello, okay? I got this from the UVM library. And I used this book when I was writing my dissertation that any kind of seed that is planted in the mind, a seed of hate, even though we respond with good speech afterwards, and fortunately the candidate who was targeted did respond with good speech. Um but any seed that is planted, right? It will grow. It will fester, and it will grow. Declining the stereotype means um it's in fact it's a it's a play on words um that we might say, "Oh, let's not use that stereotype." That's good speech, right? Condemning bad speech. But like in any good um German student's mind, declining also means that it takes on different forms, and that it can be um used in different ways once it's put out there on the airwaves. And indeed, that is what has occurred. Um that initial instance of hate speech has been amplified uh not only through YouTube, because town meeting TV recordings are are placed at the right uh free to it's free access on YouTube, um but that uh man who asked that question, uh he finally got to the question after after attacking the the candidate on the stage, uh he then pursued her uh through various means. Um so, from Front Porch Forum, and not just once, uh and not just him, he had a whole group of people uh who had, in fact, I believe, instigated him to to do this and to an effect ambush the the candidate on that stage. And so, some of those people uh they have amplified it further, again through Front Porch Forum and Facebook, Substack, and it goes on and on. Uh those are the those are the those are the ones I know of. I'm not going to name names here today. Um I am happy to take questions. Uh you all can find me. I'm a professor at the University of Vermont, so you can all find me if you wish to to ask questions. Um but I was very disturbed by what I believe to be a setup, and it was politically motivated, and I I'm going to leave it at that. So, what I did was I engaged um when the crew member said that they could not edit the tape. I engaged with the executive director, Megan O'Rourke. I hold great respect. I hold her in great respect. And I I raised the concern that I just outlined to you about how stereotypes that once that seed is planted, it grows in in ways that we just cannot control. And um she Megan O'Rourke, she went on then and um forwarded this all to the Anti-Defamation League. And in fact, the Anti-Defamation League um has been very very critical of hate speech, particularly since COVID, when meetings moved online, and there was an outbreak of what is called Zoom bombing, right? Where people maliciously would appear on screen or without the camera on, and would disrupt an otherwise orderly meeting or discussion. Um often with very graphic or racist or anti-Semitic hate speech. And so we have as a society had to come to uh accept uh different means of of access to those public discussions, right? So for instance, um we no longer have screen sharing with people who are in the public. Um we no longer uh allow threatening messages in the chat boxes. All of that is very closely monitored. Um and there is also um the locking meetings after they have begun. There are now waiting rooms. We turn off the private chat, etc. etc. Um so I did liken what occurred on July 9th in that auditorium in a a meeting uh and candidate forum that was being taped to Zoom bombing. And I uh unfortunately um could not do much more than that other than raise a concern. And very graciously, Megan O'Rourke invited me to come here today and to speak. Um so here I am. So it's very difficult to regulate free speech even in broadcast media. So the radio and TV. Um in fact um the FCC even though they have guidelines stating that hate speech cannot occur, what they call indecent or profane speech cannot occur uh between the times I believe it's 8:00 a.m. uh to 10:00 p.m. Um it's still very difficult to to restrain it. And that speech uh sometimes uh leads to fines. Um that has not been done in this case. Um so what I I therefore wanted uh to say is that it comes down to us and it comes down to what we can Sorry, it's 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Not 8:00 a.m. 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. It comes down to us and how we act with our fellow citizens. And um I I think that it's really important that we cherish our free speech rights. And in order to cherish those rights, we should not censor ourselves. But we should be thoughtful about how we engage with one another. And that is why I brought the plague. All right. So this is by Albert Camus. He is one of my authors. And in the plague um he uh gives an allegory for the French intellectual resistance and how they were combating not only the the Nazis but also the French collaborators and this this element of hate, right? He compared to a little bacillus, right? The plague bacillus. And just like declining the stereotype, once it infects, it grows, right? And how can we stop that growth? Well, what he suggests is that it comes down to good doctoring. And the main character is a doctor who tends to the ill. And he's not alone, just like the French resistance, there was a group of people from various backgrounds and walks of life who were engaged in resisting the the hate that was an epidemic in France and in French territories during World War II and indeed in in Western Europe. Um and what is the antidote in addition to being good doctors and doctoring and working every day and trying to tend to the ill and to ensure that hate is not left to fester, that we find remedies for it which come in the form of dialogue and good speech, right? So, dialogue. That means not just talking but also listening. There's an exchange to that. Okay. But in addition to dialogue, it means that we can be militant about our ideas. We can be very very forceful when we have strong emotions which we do, particularly when there are injustices all around, right? Um but we also need to remember that we are human and we need to identify in the person that we are angry with their humanity. And our own humanity. Which means that we make sure that there is not harm that could lead to unintended consequences. So that we are constantly reminding ourselves that we live in society and that that person that we feel great anger toward is a human being with a family, right? And perhaps a symptom of something greater. So perhaps not the true target, right? Um but we also have to remember our own humanity. And for that we have to be kind to ourselves. We have to laugh. We have to find joy. We have to as Camus' character, the doctor and his good friend who put together these sanitation teams um do one evening um they go for a swim in the Mediterranean. Um and it's a moment that normally would not be allowed, right? People were not allowed to go into the water and to swim because of that illness, right? We all remember what COVID-19 was like. And they because of their situation as doctors, they're the one doctor, the other is not. Uh they're able to get past the guard and they are able to swim in unison and to feel alive and and to feel the the coolness of that water and to feel the harmony of their strokes. And so when we are fighting for rights, when we are fighting for justice, and these are righteous fights, right? And we need free speech in order to do that. We have to respect the right to free speech of the other. We have to respect the humanity of the other. We have to respect freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the the right to to practice any religion, the freedom to assemble, right? And also, we have to hold our elected officials accountable, right? And all of that we should do with joy in addition to >> [laughter] >> laser-sharp focus, right? And that's basically what I wanted to say today. And if it ever comes before uh a legislative body again or some kind of body of of, you know, some weight in our community, I would hope and I would demand that our leaders speak out clearly in condemning hate in whatever form it takes, and that they back it up with good speech, right? So, I'm I am happy to uh speak with anyone. Um I I guess I I will just say just a couple more things, and I I did bring this with me, and I I I'm going to say it because I have been in contact with people, um and they they did um respond positively to this. So, I am going to um site um just a passage from chapter six in this book. It's called Zionism an emotional state. It's by Derek J. Penslar. He was invited to UVM to speak about 2 years ago. And in the section titled Hating Zionism, Hating Jews, he wrote, "If you If you define Zionism as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and Israel as central to contemporary Jewish life, and if in your view the only legitimate expression of Zionism is Jewish sovereignty and hegemony within the land of Israel, then someone who opposes Israel as a Jewish state is ipso facto an anti-Semite. Yet, the act of cementing diasporic diaspora jewelry with with Israel and arguing that all Jews do or must support the country in its current form open Jews worldwide to accusations that they are responsible for Israel's actions. In fact, most American Jews do feel emotionally attached to Israel, but the depth, intensity, and valence of those attachments vary greatly. The same can be said for Jews within Israel itself. Hostility toward Jews founded on assumptions about their bonds with Israel are clearly anti-Semitic. Violence, harassment, or discrimination against Jews is criminal, whether its motives are anti-Semitic or not. And I want to say to all of the members of the Jewish community that did ask me to work on these kinds of forums. So, it was not only Megan O'Rourke's invitation that brought me here today, it was members of the Jewish community who are hurting since July 9th. I want you to know that I hear you, and I hope that you can listen to one another as well. I hope that we as a country can listen to you. I hope that we all listen to the Palestinian voices. And I hope that we as Americans recognize our place in this conflict. We cannot battle this conflict here in our country against the American Jews and the American Muslims. This is not for us to to uh place this and litigate this on the backs of our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters. And I ask everyone out there in the audience to love the Americans who are struggling and who are in deep pain over what is happening in the Middle East, just as we all are, but we must understand that it's much more difficult for those who have historical and emotional ties to that part of the world, right? And let us focus on the peacemakers. Let us be peacemakers. And let us make sure that peacemaking happens in our streets and in the auditoriums and in our schools and in our classrooms. Thank you very much.