Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Educational Studies

Midlevel student affairs professionals are integral to supporting the mission of higher education institutions. These professionals work closely with a diverse array of campus stakeholders, helping to implement strategy and facilitate information throughout the organization. Yet the midlevel nature of their role can be a source of frustration for these professionals. Despite their talent and expertise, midlevel student affairs professionals often feel as though they have few opportunities to provide input on the policies they are asked to implement and enforce (Donaldson & Rosser, 2007; Rosser, 2004; Wilson et al., 2016). In recent years, many scholars have explored tensions associated with free speech events on college campuses (Ben-Porath, 2017; Chemerinsky & Gillmam, 2017; Morse, 2017; Palfrey, 2017). Few, however, have studied this topic from the perspective of midlevel student affairs professionals. This is an oversight because midlevel professionals comprise the majority of staff in student affairs organizations (M. B. Cooper & Boice‐Pardee, 2011). Furthermore, the midlevel nature of their position within the campus hierarchy suggests that these individuals can illuminate tensions and conflicting priorities associated with campus free speech events in ways that have been previously unseen. The purpose of this grounded theory study was to illustrate how midlevel student affairs professionals navigate the personal and professional tensions that arise through their involvement with campus free speech events. Research questions included: 1) What policies and practices inform the ways in which midlevel student affairs professionals navigate campus free speech events?; 2) In what ways do campus free speech events create conflict for midlevel student affairs professionals concerning their professional roles and individual values?; and 3) How do systems of power shape the ways in which midlevel student affairs professionals negotiate these tensions that arise th (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Susan Jones (Advisor); Tatiana Suspitsyna (Committee Co-Chair); Ann Allen (Committee Member) Subjects: Education Policy; Higher Education Administration

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2020, English

This thesis examines the ideological values of the modern American university through an analysis of two student movements centered on speech rights at public universities: the Free Speech Movement (1964) and the CUNY Student Fee Movement (2018). My analysis of these movements draws upon public sphere and social change theory along with a sophistic framework grounded in the ancient rhetorical concept of nomos. I find that student-speech movements provide a valuable example of how student activists use the nomoi of student-as-citizen and the university as a site of critical discussion to elevate the importance of free speech at the public university. Based on an analysis of student activist rhetoric, this thesis calls for additional institutional support for student participation in critical debate.

Committee: Jason Palmeri (Committee Chair); James Porter (Committee Member); Michele Simmons (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Composition; Rhetoric; Social Research; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2009, Philosophy, Applied/Institutional Theory and History

This dissertation presents a perfectionist argument for viewpoint neutral free speech. It is argued that developed states ought to maintain or adopt the Viewpoint Neutral Principle: As a matter of public morality, any public institution is disqualified from intentionally aiming to hinder the expression of any viewpoint by suppression except for purposes of temporary censorship to prevent clear, present, and imminent danger. This principle allows for regulation but does not allow for censorship due to objectionable viewpoints. After demonstrating how the standard justifications for free speech are not sufficient for the viewpoint neutral principle, I construct a Millian self-development argument drawing from the oft neglected justification of freedom of speech in On Liberty. Mill argues that a person is not deserving of confidence in his opinion unless he has engaged in certain practices of justification for his own opinions. These practices are the only way to acquire the intellectual virtue of justified belief-forming, and censorship undermines these practices. Furthermore, the intellectual virtue of justified belief forming informs moral virtues which include dispositions to express praise or blame. Censorship can undermine and, in some cases, make impossible the practices of justification. If the state engages in viewpoint specific censorship of public speech, it undermines the individual pursuit of justified opinion to the extent that it hinders critical reflections, adjustment, and exposition of opinions. After explicating the argument itself, I apply the justified opinion argument to one contemporary example. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights under the auspices of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations has passed articles 7/19 and 7/20. These resolutions violate the viewpoint neutral principle. It is argued that developed nations should reject these resolutions in order to preserve (among other things) inte (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Jacobson PhD (Advisor); Fred Miller PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Steven Wall PhD (Committee Member); Ellen Paul PhD (Committee Member); David Jackson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy

MA, Kent State University, 2013, College of Communication and Information / School of Media and Journalism

Responding to a growth in technology, young people often turn to social media and online communication as their primary means of expression and interaction. However, some of the content students create and post while at home can negatively affect the school environment. School administrators have, at times, disciplined students for their off-campus online speech. This act has raised legal questions about how much control schools can and should possess over speech that originates away from the school's physical boundaries. Some students and their families have sued their respective school districts when they perceive an overreach in school authority for such discipline. Despite this issue's gravity among First Amendment scholars and advocates, the general public probably has little direct experience with these legal questions beyond what it learns through news reports. Because news is a basic social learning tool, the way journalists present information can profoundly affect the public's understanding of any given issue. This study examined how the news media portrayed four court cases pertinent to this issue: Layshock v. Hermitage School District, J. S. v. Blue Mountain School District, Doninger v. Niehoff, and Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools. The researcher used textual analysis to investigate the frames found in 76 news stories by examining the way journalists presented the following items: legal context, the actions of the student litigant, the actions of school administrators, and the online speech itself that initially led to school discipline.

Committee: Candace Bowen M.A. (Advisor); Mark Goodman J.D. (Advisor); Danielle Coombs Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Leadership; Journalism; Legal Studies; Mass Media

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2024, Arts and Sciences: Classics

My dissertation investigates the relationship between tyranny and eloquence in Cicero, focusing on the majority of his corpus and the reception of his death in the Early Imperial Age. I question the long-standing idea that Roman sources did not grasp the incompatibility between tyranny and eloquence before Tacitus' Dialogus. Throughout his works, I argue, Cicero constantly reflects on the implications of political shifts in the Roman constitution for the state of oratory in the Late Republic. In Chapter 1, I explore Cicero's rhetorical theories during his early years and the beginning of his career as an orator under Sulla. After scrutinizing Cicero's ideas in De inventione, I address Cicero's Pro Quinctio and Pro Sexto Roscio to reconstruct his view about the constitutional form of the Republic and the role of oratory under Sulla's regime. I show that these two orations insist on the supposition that eloquence may fail against those who enjoy the dictator's protection. Chapter 2 analyzes the Verrines and the Catilinarians, which Cicero considered the pinnacle of his oratory under the “restored” Republic. I demonstrate how, in these two orations, Cicero tries to fashion his eloquence as a weapon to neutralize tyrannical magistrates who attempt to undermine the stability of the Republican constitution. Verres and Catiline are depicted as speechless and helpless when faced with the power of Cicero's rhetorical skills. Eloquence emerges as a tool to prevent the rise of tyrants and civil strife and to reinforce internal stability. Chapters 3 and 4 take into consideration the relationship between Cicero, the Triumvirs, and Clodius by analyzing the orator's Letters and his post reditum speeches. While the orations after Cicero's return highlight how Clodius' tyrannical laws attempted to eliminate public debate from Rome, the orator's private correspondence reveals a profound awareness of the monarchical turn impressed by the dynasts on the traditiona (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Markovich Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Christopher van den Berg Ph.D M.A B.A. (Committee Member); Kelly Shannon-Henderson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Caitlin Hines Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Classical Studies

PHD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration

This qualitative study used an interpretative phenomenological analysis framework (Smith et al., 2012) to explore the ways in which U.S. public university chancellors and presidents experience campus free speech and safe space. Six public university leaders with campus free speech and safe space experience participated in semi-structured interviews in 2022. The resulting analyses included exploration of participants' perceptions and sensemaking, in addition to the double hermeneutic relative to researcher sensemaking (Smith et al., 2012). The findings indicated that participants viewed free speech as foundational to civilized society. Participants emphasized the academy's role in protecting and promoting free speech, while fostering safe spaces for learning and intentional dialogue. The impact of sociopolitical, geographic, and historical contexts on participants' free speech and safe space experiences, perceptions, and sensemaking was highlighted, in addition to the impact of university stakeholders. Additionally, participants demonstrated similarities in their sensemaking relative to campus free speech and safe space, often engaging characteristics of balancing, collaborating, leading, learning, mentoring, and responding. The findings suggest several implications for university leadership. The development of deep and diverse stakeholder relationships, in addition to support systems with others experienced in the presidential role, would be useful for informing leaders' free speech and safe space sensemaking and decision making. Additionally, the need for leadership training on issues related to balancing campus free speech and safe space considerations was also identified.

Committee: Stephen Thomas (Committee Chair); Tricia Niesz (Committee Member); Tara Hudson (Committee Member) Subjects: Higher Education

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2020, Educational Leadership

Free speech movements in U.S. Higher Education are as old as the education system itself (Chemerinsky & Gillman, 2017; Hofstadter, 1970; Sun & McClellan, 2020). However, there has been a dearth of literature regarding the role of student affairs practitioners in managing issues of free speech events on campus. Further, recent works by Ben-Porath (2017), Chemerinsky and Gillman (2017), as well as Whittington (2018) highlighted the urgency in protecting free speech on campus as a democratic bedrock in the mission of colleges and universities. The purpose of this narrative inquiry study was to explore how new student affairs professionals engaged in sensemaking (Weick, 1995) about their roles and experiences with free speech events on campus. This study used a narrative approach (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) grounded in a constructivist paradigm which allowed participants the opportunity to name and vocalize their experiences. In total, 10 practitioners from two public institutions of higher education participated in a series of three interviews about their experiences. This study found five emergent themes that contributed to sensemaking about free speech events: 1) Pathways into the profession, 2) Identity salience, 3) Context, 4) Supervision and mentorship, and the 5) Role of higher education and student affairs. These themes offer important considerations when thinking about how new student affairs professionals engage in complex sensemaking. These assemblages extend the body of research on sensemaking (Weick, 1995) and provide insight into the valuable role these professionals play in responding to free speech events on campus. This study has broad applicability for those working as student affairs professionals, generating standards of best practice that support students and promote democratic aims of higher education. These findings also have meaningful implications for senior-level student affairs professionals, graduate preparatory programs that suppo (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: David Pérez II Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Elisa Abes Ph.D. (Committee Member); Kathleen Knight Abowitz Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jennifer Blue Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Education History; Educational Leadership; Higher Education; Higher Education Administration

Bachelor of Arts, Ashland University, 2018, Communication Arts

This study began in response to two areas in higher education that are threatened: civil discourse and core curricula. For the past several years, university campuses have been met with a number of violent or disruptive protests against guest speakers with simply different viewpoints. Students, and even adults, sought to prevent speakers from delivering their lectures. Rather than defeating opposing arguments with reason and open discourse, there are those who do not wish to let opposing arguments see the light of day. This study references three specific events that ended in disruption and chaos in 2017; Charles Murray's invitation to speak at Middlebury College, Gavin McInnes' at New York University, and Xavier Becerra's at Whittier College. A number of notable American higher education institutions have adopted an “open curriculum” to meet their general education standards; notably Brown University, Amherst College, and Hamilton College. An open curriculum essentially means the respective university has no general education requirements for their students. Students, therefore, are able to choose from among hundreds of courses to meet the required amount of credits that satisfy a complete general education. Typically, they receive a type of professional academic guidance at these universities, but the choice of what to take is ultimately up to them. When this study began, it was easy to say core curricula and civil discourse were threatened. This study, however, first required a foundation for core curricula and civil discourse to be analyzed. The foundational question asked, what is the value of a liberal arts education? In order to discover the answer to this question, this study looks at the writings and time periods of Thomas Jefferson and Cardinal John Henry Newman. These men, 100 years apart, witnessed significant shifts in history and governments. Jefferson was involved with the founding of a nation, a nation governed by its people which (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Howard Walters Ph.D. (Advisor); Michael Poliakoff Ph.D. (Committee Member); Christopher Burkett Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Education History; Education Philosophy; Education Policy

BA, Oberlin College, 2016, Politics

This paper considers the constitutional questions posed by trigger warnings in higher education. Specifically, I look at the relationship between trigger warnings and First Amendment rights. I show that trigger warnings, a hot button issue in academia and the cultural discourse today, are neither exempt from constitutional concerns nor do they automatically violate First Amendment rights.The Court often interprets the First Amendment's central goal as promoting the pursuit of truth through the uninhibited free flow of ideas. The Court defines institutes of higher education as crucial spaces to forward this pursuit. Do trigger warnings aide or hinder the pursuit of truth in the college classroom? I explore two legal frameworks to consider this question. The first considers trigger warnings as a prior restraint on a professor's academic freedom, which is protected under the First Amendment. The second considers trigger warnings as a constitutionally permissible form of accommodation for women in higher education.This paper concludes with suggestions of how trigger warnings can be effectively and legally used in higher education. Trigger warnings can risk infringing on a professor's First Amendment rights; trigger warnings can also be benign and, sometimes, considerate teaching tools. A balance is possible between the two.

Committee: H.N. Hirsch (Advisor) Subjects: Education; Education History; Education, Higher; Higher Education; Law

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2015, English

This dissertation examines the history, genealogy, and application of parrhesia, the rhetorical strategy of speaking truth to power that disrupts the status quo and works to realign power dynamics. Parrhesia is invoked when rhetors act out in ways that are potentially dangerous to their own safety but do so in service of deeply held truth values that may be more important to articulate than the rhetor's own life or safety. My dissertation provides a framework to understand parrhesiastic acts and contextualize them within a larger social network where such acts serve to create disruptions and fissures within the field of conventional social practice. Beginning with the origins of parrhesia—in classical rhetoric with democracy in 4th century BCE Athens—this work traces the development of parrhesia as a political, philosophical, and religious practice over the next 800 years by examining primary sources (e.g. extant speeches, letters, biblical texts, and classic rhetoric manuals) as well as secondary scholarship and current cross-disciplinary research. Additionally, this dissertation questions how parrhesia is remediated across oral, print, and digital mediums and how distribution and circulation are affected by examining specific moments of transition in methods of delivery, such as the move from oral culture to print in the nineteenth century and the affordances of contemporary digital technologies. To do this I will discuss two extended examples of parrhesia-in-action: the nineteenth century women's right activist Matilda Gage and the more recent actions of Edward Snowden. Why recover parrhesia? Because parrhesia is an important strategy for marginalized and otherwise silenced groups who must often transgress social boundaries in order to speak out at all. This rhetorical theory provides a framework to understand, analyze, and name parrhesiastic acts that disrupt conventional power structures to enact social change and to trace the networked effects of these (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: James Porter (Committee Chair) Subjects: Rhetoric

BA, Oberlin College, 2015, History

Norman Jacobson, a renowned political theorist at the University of California, Berkeley, experienced firsthand the radical campus politics of the 1960s. Through an analysis of Jacobson's letters, speeches and lectures, this thesis seeks to reconstruct the way Jacobson understood and experienced the 1964 Free Speech Movement. Jacobson attempted to authentically face an overwhelming political crisis at the university. Ultimately, Jacobson knew he must take a stand in response to the student protests. By simply focusing on the concrete political action Jacobson did take, however, one risks overlooking the complexity of his political thought.

Committee: Clayton Koppes (Advisor); Renee Romano (Committee Chair); Shelley Lee (Committee Member); David Kelley (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Education Philosophy; History; Philosophy; Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2006, Communication

Web blogs, as alternate sources of political opinion and analysis, have enabled new voices that can empower netizens and democratize information access. Their larger social contribution may be that they increase manifold the ideas available in the marketplace, in theory challenging any information hegemony of an increasingly consolidating corporate media. Bloggers, citizen journalists and others of the fifth estate have joined the social conversation by acting as watchdogs of not just government but also of the corporate media. Libel law, as a determinant of freedom of expression, also defines the democratic values of individual self-fulfillment, marketplace of ideas, and empowerment. Libel lawsuits, however, impose a chilling effect, a chill which is exacerbated for the fifth estate by the challenge of multiple personal jurisdictions – a netizen can be hauled before a court whose location, laws and procedures are hard to predict. The dissertation addresses that express challenge by proposing a separate common jurisdiction for libel cases that emanate in the information society. Specifically, it delineates a normative, inductive, theoretical framework for that common jurisdiction after analyzing the fundamental principles of freedom of expression characterizing jurisprudence. The framework comprises (1) a proposal to extend a reconsidered actual malice doctrine to the fifth estate, (2) a set of recommendations, situated in the libertarian scholarship of Thomas Emerson and John Milton, to define a norm of freedom of expression for the information society, and (3) a model law to deliver the framework to a libel litigant of the fifth estate. The study does not describe the new jurisdiction's executive powers or the treaty terms from which it would draw its authority. That jurisdiction, asserted by an Internet Empowerment Agency born out of international treaty, would decide information society libel cases. The study employs traditional legal analysis and inductive r (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Prabu David (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2008, Geography (Arts and Sciences)

Public space issues have long been discussed in the context of urban settings by geographers. As emancipatory spaces, places like plazas and squares have traditionally served as (potential) stages for the people's voice. Missing from this discussion is treatment of the US college campus and its potential as a space for transformation and politics. The College Green at Ohio University has a long tradition as a social/political forum for the university community, but yet in recent years has been circumscribed by the administration's speech zoning policies. This thesis examines the history of College Green as a contested space and as a place for politics and outlines the different changes in University policy affecting the Green as a stage for social and political interactions from the early 1960s to the post-Kent State era to the present. It is therefore a good case study for the examination of public space/forum on the college campus and a window into discussions about the role of the university in US society.

Committee: Harold A. Perkins PhD (Advisor); Risa Whitson PhD (Committee Member); Brad Jokisch PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Geography

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 1990, Political Science

The struggle to define obscenity has engaged the great institutions and passions of Anglo/American democratic society. Legislatures, courts, religious groups, and free speech absolutists have all participated in the battle from time to time. This struggle, sometimes contentious, occasionally reasonable, has revolved around four main elements of obscenity: (1) the nature of the work; (2) the community or class to be protected; (3) the work as a whole; and (4) the purpose of the work. Regina v. Hicklin, the first major obscenity case in Anglo/American law, established the first two of the four elements of obscenity. The Hicklin definition of obscenity dealt with the nature of the work ("The tendency of the matter ... to deprave and corrupt ... ") and the community or class to be protected (" ... those whose minds are open to such influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall"), while United States v. Bennett, the first major American obscenity case, added the elements of the work as a whole (the jury "may confine (its) attention to the marked passages"), and the purpose of the work (" ... the object with which this book is written is not material, nor is the motive wh ich led the defendant to mail the book material"). Subsequent cases then brought these four elements together and set the course which other courts would follow, in one form or another, for the next one hundred years. Indeed, the modern definition of obscenity, as established first by Roth v. United States, and refined by Miller v. California, embraces all four elements of obscenity. The modern definition of obscenity is set forth in Miller in three prongs: (a) Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes patently offensive sexual conduct; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole lacks serious value. This paper represents an effort to an (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: McHale McHale (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2010, College Student Personnel

The term “The Movement” is associated with a number of social and political events that rocked college campuses in the 1960s. Current literature on the student movement of this decade often does not mention students at other types of institutions and sometimes fails to put into perspective the actual percentage of students who participated in active demonstration. This thesis presents a new view of student activism by exploring how small, private, religiously affiliated institutions used the public forum of collegiate publications to contribute to the dialogue surrounding various political and social movements of the 1960s. Student editorials and letters to the editors in the campus publications at Ashland College in Ohio, Ohio Wesleyan University, and Hillsdale College in Michigan were analyzed from the year 1960-1970 to determine student opinions on the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War, Free Speech Movement and student protest, and the shootings at Kent State University. Through the analysis of major themes and perceptions of these student voices, the study provides implications for future research and practice regarding student activism in the 21st century.

Committee: Michael Coomes (Committee Chair); Maureen Wilson (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Education History; Higher Education

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2011, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

The purpose of this research is to seek narratives of self-censorship from in-depth interviews of 19 participants acquired through a purposive (criterion) sampling protocol. The primary research question driving this study is “What types of sanctions contribute to people choosing to self-censor their strongly held beliefs, values, and opinions.” Previous research conducted on the topic of self-censorship (generally under the rubric of the spiral of silence theory) has been predominantly quantitative and consideration of sanctions influencing self-censorship have been limited to fear of social isolation. I suggest that ostensibly important sanction variables have not been utilized within these existing frameworks. I anticipated that this research, by utilizing a qualitative framework, would reveal other sanctions that operate in the self-censorship decision calculus. I also expected that interviews would portray a broader, more complete picture of how self-censorship operates and the variables that contribute to the construct. Research expectations were partially met as new variables in regard to specific fears of sanctioning were identified. These variables should contribute to self-censorship theory and more specifically, the frequently researched “spiral of silence” theory of mass communication and could be tested in quantitative research to verify their validity. Future research in this vein might consider testing additional sanction variables as part of a quantitative study, continue to refine the definition of self-censorship, develop better strategies to locate and secure additional informants, and continue to utilize qualitative methods to probe further into self-censorship questions.

Committee: Thomas Webler Ph.D. (Committee Chair); K. Heidi Watts Ph.D. (Committee Member); Robert Krueger Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Environmental Studies; Land Use Planning; Mass Communications; Psychology; Social Psychology; Sociology; Urban Planning