First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams to discuss free speech on campus at ASU event


August 30, 2017

Floyd Abrams, the prominent First Amendment attorney who represented The New York Times in the landmark Pentagon Papers Supreme Court case, is coming to Arizona State University to discuss freedom of speech on campus.

Abrams is taking part in the “Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education and American Society” lecture series at ASU at 6 p.m. Sept. 12. The event will be located on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Free registration is available online on Eventbrite. Floyd Abrams First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams, who represented The New York Times in the landmark Pentagon Papers Supreme Court case, is coming to ASU on Sept. 12 to discuss freedom of speech on campus. Download Full Image

The event is sponsored by ASU’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, a new program in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that looks beyond time and borders to explore the fundamental questions of life, freedom, and governance. It also is co-sponsored by the Cronkite School and the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at ASU.

“We are delighted to have such a prominent national leader on First Amendment issues to launch this series,” said Professor Paul Carrese, director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. “The goal of this yearlong series is to convene leading experts on free speech and intellectual diversity in education, and leaders in American civic life, to explore the heated debates and clashes in higher education about free discourse, civility, diversity and inclusion.”

Abrams, a senior counsel at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, has argued high-profile cases before the Supreme Court on the First Amendment, the nature of broadcast regulation, the impact of copyright law and the continuing viability of the Miranda rule.

In 1971, Abrams represented The New York Times before the Supreme Court in a landmark ruling, which permitted the publishing of classified documents about American involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1998, he represented CNN in investigating and issuing a report on its broadcast accusing the U.S. of using nerve gas on a military mission in Laos in 1970.

Abrams also represented journalist Nina Totenberg and National Public Radio in the 1992 leak investigation conducted by the U.S. Senate arising out of the confirmation hearing of Justice Clarence Thomas and, in 2004 and 2005, New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time reporter Matthew Cooper in their efforts to avoid revealing their confidential sources.

More recently, Abrams prevailed in his argument before the Supreme Court on behalf of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell as amicus curiae, defending the rights of corporations and unions to speak publicly about politics and elections in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Cronkite School Associate Professor and First Amendment scholar Joseph Russomanno will moderate the conversation with Abrams. Russomanno, whose teaching and research have largely focused on First Amendment law and theory, has published several books and many in-depth research articles on the subject.

“When you consider the people who have made contributions over the past 40-plus years to the advancement and understanding of the First Amendment and free speech and press, no one has done more than Floyd Abrams, Russomanno said. “This includes not only his advocacy of First Amendment rights in our courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court — but also his many writings and talks where he shares his expertise. This event at ASU is another opportunity to learn from the best.”

“Freedom of Speech on Campus? A Conversation with Floyd Abrams”
Date: Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017
Time: 6–7:30 p.m.
Location: Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication – Arizona PBS Studio
555. N. Central Ave., Phoenix, AZ, 85004
RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/asu-hosts-freedom-of-speech-on-campus-a-conversation-with-floyd-abrams-tickets-36911146232?aff=es2

ASU In the News

Do pet sitters really need a license? How occupational licenses are hurting the economy


In New York City, you need a license to pet-sit someone’s dog (at least if you want to be paid). In Louisiana, you need a license to become a florist. Nine states require funeral attendants to be licensed before starting work.

License regimes emerge when states, cities, counties or the federal government regulate an activity, often in the interest of public safety. New York’s pet-sitting law, which requires licensees to buy insurance and use designated kennels, is meant to “ensure [the] health and safety of pets and reduce risks to public health,” the city’s Health Department says (though it very rarely enforces the regulation). “Licensing creates a fence that people trying to get into that occupation have to climb over, while, at the same time, protecting people within the fence who are already practicing the occupation.” [Source Image: totallyout/iStock]

“Licensing creates a fence that people trying to get into that occupation have to climb over, while, at the same time, protecting people within the fence who are already practicing the occupation, who would have to compete against them,” said Jason Wiens, policy director at the Kauffman Foundation, an entrepreneurship-focused think tank. “It’s an anticompetitive practice that has negative barriers to entrepreneurship.”

The effect is felt strongly by low-income workers, according to a study by Stephen Slivinski, a senior research fellow at Arizona State University. He finds that states with the most licensing requirements on low-income jobs tend to have the fewest opportunities for low-income workers. Louisiana, Oregon, and Mississippi have the most of these requirements, he says; Vermont, South Dakota, and Ohio have the fewest. In a 2012 report, the Institute of Justice looked at the requirements on 102 low- or moderate-licensed jobs. On average, they required nine months of training, at least one exam, and the payment of $209 in fees.

Article Source: Fast Company

Project Coordinator, Center for the Study of Economic Liberty

 
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New ASU school aims to elevate the political discourse

March 2, 2017

Public colloquium part of Friday's official launch of School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership

Editor's note: This story is being highlighted in ASU Now's year in review. To read more top stories from 2017, click here.

Editor’s note: ASU’s new School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership officially launched Friday. Here are highlights from the morning kickoff, which was attended by new school director Paul Carrese, ASU President Michael Crow, Gov. Doug Ducey and other elected officials. The full story that published Thursday about the new school follows below.

Paul Carrese

At Friday’s launch event, School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership director Paul Carrese said the aim of the school is “to develop a new class of leaders.”

“This distinctive school is a blending of tradition and innovation: great ideas with preparation for leadership service,” he said.

Gov. Doug Ducey

Free speech was a theme at the event, with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey quoting Frederick Douglass that “to suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”

“No one can ever accuse ASU of suppressing free speech,” Ducey said.

He also addressed the issue of a lack of diverse media exposure, saying, “We live in an age where it’s easy for people … to receive news from a single, handpicked source,” and that today’s university students are often encouraged to further insulate themselves from counter-perspectives.

“With this new school,” Ducey said, “ASU and the state of Arizona is bucking this trend. … As Americans, in times of great challenge, our heritage of rich intellectual discourse in the midst of different values and principles has served us honorably.

“The answer has never been less speech; it has always been more. Now at ASU and through the coursework at the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, this tradition can continue.”

Michael Crow

ASU President Michael Crow proudly introduced the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership as the 18th transdisciplinary school the university has launched.

“Education sits at the root of the core of the advancement of democracy,” Crow said, adding later that we “cannot advance the ideals of American democracy without intellectual combat.”

George Will

George Will (pictured above), a Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative political commentator, served as the keynote speaker of the event. He echoed Ducey’s statements on free speech, remarking, “Whatever else universities do, they shouldn’t attack free speech.”

He also touched on a number of hot-button issues concerning the current political climate, including cultural bias and immigration.

“Today, the temperature of politics is exceptionally high because the stakes are unusually high,” Will said. “We’re arguing about basics.”

The most crucial word in the Declaration of Independence, he said, is “secure.”

“Governments and institutions are meant to secure [basic human] rights. …That there is a fixed human nature, that we are not infinitely malleable,” Will said, because when you allow those in charge to assume we are infinitely malleable, “you license a very sinister political project. To make of human clay whatever the political class of the moment wants to happen. Our natural rights are essential to the flourishing of creatures of our nature.”

Will noted that American poet Robert Frost once said, “I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.”

“Arizona State and this new school within it is a way of letting the cream rise,” he said.

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(Original story below.)

The notion that strong leadership and civil discourse are necessary in public affairs is ancient, going back to the great Greek thinkers and debaters who laid the foundation for modern democracy.

Lately, though, Paul Carrese feels that notion is woefully overlooked.

“Our political culture is in very bad shape, regardless of partisanship,” he said.

It’s something he hopes to change as director of Arizona State University’s new School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. The official school launch will take place at 7:30 a.m. Friday in the First Amendment Forum of the Walter Cronkite building on the Downtown Phoenix campus.

Roughly 150 guests are expected to attend, including Carrese, ASU President Michael Crow, Gov. Doug Ducey and other elected officials.

“America and other liberal democracies need to provide space in universities to think about politics, public affairs, leadership and civic society in a way that allows for the search for common good,” Carrese said.

The School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership will combine the principles and ideals of two existing ASU centers — the Center for Political Thought and Leadership and the Center for the Study of Economic Liberty — to provide a unique curriculum that reinforces traditional learning of time-honored knowledge while encouraging students to get real-world experience.

“The mission of the school will be to introduce students to the great philosophical debates across centuries through classic texts, and to use those texts and debates to prepare them for civic-minded leadership in the future,” said Patrick Kenney, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and SciencesThe School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership is an academic unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences..

[video:https://vimeo.com/205962689 width:800 height:450 autoplay:0]

 

School faculty and staff also will help guide students toward internship opportunities, whether in government, business or non-governmental organizations, on both a local and state level. Carrese has identified four major metropolitan areas — Arizona, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C. — in which he hopes to eventually place students in internships.

Courses for the school’s bachelor’s degree in “Great Ideas and Leadership” are now available in the course catalog and will begin in the upcoming fall semester. More developments are underway, including a graduate program and a visiting-scholars program.

All of that will be supplemented by an extensive regular program of lectures and public dialogues to provide a model of civil debate for students, faculty, staff and the community at large. The value of reasonably and effectively working through disagreements is something we all need to be reminded of right now, Carrese said.

The first of such public colloquiums will take place Friday at the ASU Art Museum in Tempe. “Leadership and Politics in America After Election 2016” will consist of three separate talks: “The Meaning of Election 2016”; “Public Policy and the Common Good in the Trump Era”; and “Is a Contentious but Constructive Politics Possible?”

Kenney will moderate the first talk, scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m.

“When I look back, I still remember as an undergrad going to hear visiting scholars and public intellectuals and top-tier reporters come to my university and talk, and it just really enlivens campus discussions and supplements and enhances the learning process and the range of views that are out there,” Kenney said. “President Crow has dedicated a lot of time and effort to that kind of thing across the university. It’s about bringing the world to ASU.”

 

Top photo: Conservative pundit George Will delivers the keynote address at the launch of ASU's new School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, a transdisciplinary program with a goal of engaging students in building a democracy. The launch featured around 150 people at the First Amendment Forum at the Cronkite School on the Downtown Phoenix campus on Friday. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU Now

Public colloquium on leadership and politics marks launch of new school at ASU


February 23, 2017

Academic scholars from prestigious universities, a former senator and a political analyst, among others, will discuss leadership and politics after election 2016 for the launch of Arizona State University’s new school.

On Friday, March 3, the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership will host a public colloquium, “Leadership and Politics in America After Election 2016,” to mark its launch. The school will empower scholars to develop and advance elevated discourse regarding the fundamental questions of life, freedom, politics and public service. The School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership launch image The School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership will host a public colloquium to mark its launch. Download Full Image

Panelists will discuss the significance to particular patterns and results of the 2016 national elections, public policy and the common good in the early years of a Trump administration, and the traditional concern that republics or democracies tend toward self-destruction in factiousness or even civil war.

“This colloquium is the first of many school events that will feature prominent experts and diverse views about crucial questions of American politics and society, as well as international affairs,” said Paul Carrese, director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. “By restoring a curriculum of great debates about politics, economics and the big moral questions, ASU is innovating and building a foundation for students to become public servants and leaders in civil society.”

The colloquium will exemplify the new school’s themes of understanding the principles of America’s civic culture, political and economic order, and higher ideals of political leadership and statesmanship.

Delving into the great works of political thought, the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership will elicit vigorous debate in politics and civil society while developing statesmen and stateswomen for 21st century leadership and public service. In fall 2017, the school will offer its first courses toward a Bachelor of Arts degree or minor in Great Ideas and Leadership.

Find the complete event listing at the ASU Events site here.

Panelists include: Morris Fiorina, Stanford University and the Hoover Institution; Daniel Kessler, Stanford University and the Hoover Institution; William Kristol, The Weekly Standard; Jon Kyl, former U.S. Senator from Arizona; Harvey Mansfield, Harvard University and the Hoover Institution; Susan Shell, Boston College; Catherine Zuckert, University of Notre Dame; and Michael Zuckert, University of Notre Dame. 

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ASU In the News

How California's job standards worsen recidivism


In an op-ed, Stephen Slivinski, senior research fellow at Arizona State University talks about how California has one of the highest recidivism rates in the country.

The Golden State’s occupational licensing laws are stricter than most. In fact, the Institute for Justice ranks California as “the second-most broadly and onerously licensed state.”  Detainees line up at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic on March 11, 2015 Detainees line up at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic on March 11, 2015. Photo by Los Angeles Times

Whatever the state’s intentions, however, its onerous licensing laws have the effect of keeping ex-convicts out of licensed occupations. After years behind bars, they don’t have the savings needed to enroll in training programs, much less pay licensing fees. To become a licensed security alarm installer, for instance, an individual must complete 933 hours of training, which can easily cost upwards of $1,200. Many of the training programs, moreover, require a high school degree, which 2 in 5 inmates nationwide never obtained, according to a 2003 U.S. Department of Justice study.

To stay out of prison, ex-convicts need a way to provide for themselves legally. With so many barriers to employment, it’s no wonder that states with abundant licensing laws experience a higher recidivism rate.

In other words, the greater the licensing barriers, the higher the chances that ex-prisoners will be shut out of the job market and return to crime.

Article Source: Los Angeles Times

Project Coordinator, Center for the Study of Economic Liberty

Rehabilitating statesmanship

Paul Carrese, director of new ASU school on civic thought and leadership, brings passion for 'old-fashioned' concept


October 12, 2016

Paul Carrese thinks there’s an important concept missing from our current political lexicon: statesmanship.

It’s kind of an old-fashioned word, especially with something of a decline in statesmanlike examples in our hyper-partisan political environment and with the word’s implicit exclusion of stateswomen. Paul Carrese, director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership Paul Carrese wants to bring back the concept of statesmanship in American education, in the hopes of correcting what he sees as "great discontent and anger and polarization" in the country.

But there is something important there that Carrese wants to rehabilitate.

“In public affairs, I do think it would be helpful to bring back that old term and debate it,” Carrese said. “Why was that always held up as a term of honor and distinction?”

Carrese is well-positioned to consider statesmanship and all that it can mean. He is Arizona State University’s new director of the forthcoming School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, which will launch as a stand-alone academic entity within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in fall 2017.

One of Carrese’s goals for the new school is not only to create an environment for vigorous debate of topics in politics and civil society, but hopefully to develop some much-needed statesmen and stateswomen in the process.

So who exemplifies the virtues of statesmanship? Carrese notes that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln set an American standard, and says that more recent examples may include Ronald Reagan and former New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who also served as an ambassador and worked in several presidential administrations. There are also international figures like Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister of the United Kingdom during the 1980s, and Golda Meir, Israel’s prime minister from 1969 to 1974.

These are “men and women who are clearly a cut above in their commitment to service before self,” Carrese said. “It’s not that they’re not ambitious for greatness and distinction, but they’re committed to a larger set of principles, liberal democratic principles, in [the United States’] case.”

(When he refers to democratic principles, Carrese means democratic with a small ‘d’ — principles without preference for political party.)

Carrese himself could be considered something of a statesman. Not because of any political office he has held, but because of a dedication to the ideals of political thought, philosophy and debate that he has brought to his 19 years of service as a civilian professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy, his current academic home. (He starts at ASU on Jan. 1.)

His parents were both in serving professions: His father was a teacher and guidance counselor; his mother was a nurse. Neither was too far removed from the immigrant experience, and both felt gratitude to be in the United States.

As such, dinner-table conversation often focused on public affairs, politics and history, which, Carrese said, primed him to study the humanities when he got to college.

His CV reads as well as any: Rhodes Scholar, post-doctoral work at Harvard, fellowships abroad and at home, a handful of books authored and edited on political science and political thought.

At the Air Force Academy outside Colorado Springs, Carrese was charged with designing and administering an honors program for high-achieving cadets.

After the attacks of 9/11, Carrese and his team felt that for all the success the United States was having technologically and economically, there was something missing.

“We were having international and national leadership, political problems,” he said. “And so we needed to come up with the right balance of excellence in STEM with excellence in social sciences and humanities, the foundations for political leadership and military strategic leadership.”

What emerged was a successful program that led Carrese, who has spent his entire adult life thinking and writing and arguing about political ideas and leadership, inexorably to his new position at ASU.

The School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership will aim to prepare learners for future public policy and leadership challenges in several ways. One of the most important will have students explore the great works of political thought, and the great leaders of American history, with an eye toward turning their lives to contributing to the common good. There, Carrese can help.

“Paul’s background contains the exact combination of academic rigor and real-world problem-solving and leadership training that will make the new school such a success,” said Pat Kenney, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “As with most things we do, ASU is embarking on making a concrete, measurable difference in our society, and I am confident, with Paul’s leadership, we will.”

If successful, that difference has the potential to address a clear and present problem in American civic life: a political system that, to many, seems absolutely broken.

“There clearly is something not going so well with American political life right now,” Carrese said. “Great discontent and anger and polarization … So we all need to pull together as universities and civil society and government and public affairs to do better than we’re doing now.”

A challenge this university may be uniquely situated to address.  

“I’m very proud of ASU that it is innovating in this way.”

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