Suzanne Nossel headshot

Photo by Beowulf Sheehan

Every Friday, we discuss tricky questions about free speech and expression with our CEO Suzanne Nossel, author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All, in our weekly PEN Pod segment “Tough Questions.” In this week’s episode, we’re discussing whether the president’s attitude toward reporters made us immune to threats against journalists, if a professor was fired for using a slur, and how the new Oscars eligibility requirements impact free expression. Check out the full episode below (our interview with Suzanne begins at the 10:15 mark).

I know this might not seem like a tough question, but now we’ve seen the president twice in a week basically mocking reporters for being hurt, for reporting on rallies, including MSNBC’s Ali Velshi, who was shot with a rubber bullet—he called it “a beautiful sight.” On the one hand, I think we all feel outrage, especially those of us who are defenders of a free press, but is it overreaching at this point—because the president does it so often—to still call this kind of rhetoric dangerous?
 No, I don’t think it’s overreaching. In fact, I think back on where we were four years ago, in 2016, when the president began throwing journalists out of rallies, mocking journalists, denigrating the press. He was softening the ground for a whole range of tactics that we have seen unfold in the ensuing four years. He wanted to blunt the influence of the press on his political base. I think he knew intuitively that he was going to get harsh coverage for the kinds of things he was going to do, and now we see it playing out. We have 200,000 Americans dead, and he wants people to discredit the reporting on it—on the criticism of his handling of the pandemic, on the rifts between him and scientists and doctors. To me, this has been a systematic campaign that, obviously, has worked, to the extent that there is a hardened segment of the population that is impervious to any negative light in which the president is cast, no matter how well-grounded it is in the facts.

“We have 200,000 Americans dead, and [President Trump] wants people to discredit the reporting on it—on the criticism of his handling of the pandemic, on the rifts between him and scientists and doctors. To me, this has been a systematic campaign that, obviously, has worked, to the extent that there is a hardened segment of the population that is impervious to any negative light in which the president is cast, no matter how well-grounded it is in the facts.”

People might say, “Well, his attacks on the press, big deal—the comedian continues to do his job, they certainly haven’t backed away from hard-hitting coverage.” That’s true, but I think his strategy has worked to the point where, notwithstanding 200,000 people dead, this is going to be a very close election, and there’s a substantial viewpoint afoot amongst the public that the way that the president is portrayed is dead wrong. There’s another narrative that they buy into. So, I think it’s important to recognize these attacks, and their persistence in that context. It’s really not just about the press—it’s about the president and his tactics to retain his hold on power.

Just switching away from Trump briefly, we discussed last week the issue of professors getting in hot water over free expression in this virtual moment. This week, we spoke out about a professor who used a pretty odious term for COVID-19 in an email to a student. We actually said that that professor shouldn’t be formally reprimanded, or at least for that remark alone. Why not?
 This goes to the set of arguments that I put forward in my book, Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All, where I say there’s a whole series of things that we need to do to keep free speech alive and well in 2020 and beyond. Part of it is not punishing—in this case as a public university—singular acts of speech. There’s no indication that we have that this professor is harassing students, that he evinces persistent anti-Asian bias. At the same time, I talk in the book about the importance of conscientiousness with language, and the duty of care that people have if they enjoy a vaunted platform, which certainly a professor does. So, to me, it’s an egregious lapse of conscientiousness. You’ve gotten the memo by now—if you live in this country, calling it “the Chinese virus” is inflammatory, it’s part of President Trump’s rhetoric that tries to deflect blame from his own handling of the virus. At the same time, it’s also true—the virus originated in China, and that’s a fact that we shouldn’t deny.

“We’ve seen and we’ve worked on it at PEN America—this disturbing uptick in acts of violence and hateful expression directed toward Asian Americans in the context of the pandemic. That’s a serious issue and a concern on campuses as well. So, it is an appropriate way to react to it, but I don’t think the answer is disciplining on the basis of that small phrase. People say the wrong thing all the time. We sometimes have different definitions of what’s acceptable and unacceptable.”

But I think the professor knew, or should have known, exactly how this was going to be received, and that it was deeply offensive, and the professor shouldn’t have said it. It was absolutely wrong. I just don’t think the right answer here is having the university punish the action. They could and should distance themselves from it, reject it, condemn it, be clear that they support students from all backgrounds. We’ve seen and we’ve worked on it at PEN America—this disturbing uptick in acts of violence and hateful expression directed toward Asian Americans in the context of the pandemic. That’s a serious issue and a concern on campuses as well. So, it is an appropriate way to react to it, but I don’t think the answer is disciplining on the basis of that small phrase. People say the wrong thing all the time. We sometimes have different definitions of what’s acceptable and unacceptable. This is a phrasing that, like it or not, the president of the United States has used. So, I think to call it somehow in and of itself an act of harassment or threat—it just isn’t plausible.

Let me ask you, finally, about a story that came up in the entertainment industry. A few weeks back, the Oscars announced that, for a film to qualify being nominated for the Best Picture, it needed to satisfy a series of standards, promoting inclusion of racial or ethnic minorities either on camera or off. I think you and I both caught on social media this week that someone said, “Well, if book awards did the same thing, they’d be taken to the cleaners.” Is this qualification that the Oscars is undertaking a threat to free expression?
 Look: I think the issue that they are grappling with is a very real one. I actually talk about it in my book, Dare to Speak, specifically this campaign, #OscarsSoWhite. Actors and directors of color have not been duly recognized in the award system for years, and there have been a series of egregious cases in which films and performances have been overlooked and passed over by the Academy. So, the Academy has been looking at this. One of the first things they did that seemed like a really positive step was to look at their method for voting. They had a method whereby you become a member of the Academy, and your voting rights would last in perpetuity, and so the voting membership of the Academy, over time, became very old—it was very white. It reflected people who are active in the fifties, sixties, seventies, and it was very slow to change. They made some amendments to that: shortening the voting tenure rate and adding a lot more diverse members to the Academy. I think that was a very positive step.

“Depending on the story that you’re telling, you then need an actor of color to play the part of some historical character who was white—is that the right thing to do? Does that count, under this benchmark? What about people who have mixed identity and ancestry—who decides whether they count or not? We’ve gotten into some of those issues in the literary world, about who is considered a Latino writer. So, I think this is going to be difficult, and that it does reach very far into the creative freedom of directors and producers as they put together shows.”

They seem to have now concluded that it didn’t go far enough, and that they still have a problem. I think this latest solution, which is to dictate certain thresholds and quotas, is troubling. I just worry about how it’s going to play out. Depending on the story that you’re telling, you then need an actor of color to play the part of some historical character who was white—is that the right thing to do? Does that count, under this benchmark? What about people who have mixed identity and ancestry—who decides whether they count or not? We’ve gotten into some of those issues in the literary world, about who is considered a Latino writer. So, I think this is going to be difficult, and that it does reach very far into the creative freedom of directors and producers as they put together shows.

Our own Literary Awards at PEN America have been lauded for the diversity of the writers that we recognize, and that’s something we’re very proud of. For us, I think, what has worked is very diverse judging panels. We’re really conscientious and thoughtful about how we put together the panels, and they reflect all sorts of different experiences and viewpoints. We’ve just had a remarkable selection that our panels have made, and we’ve had the chance to celebrate so many writers from all kinds of different backgrounds. The Academy works very differently, because those decisions are made by a voting membership rather than a panel that you can assemble. I think one method that might be interesting to try would be disclosures. If, in submitting your film for consideration by the Academy, you have to spell out the diversity of the cast, the crew, those behind the film—that could be a factor taken into account, but not an absolute threshold requirement that would sort of dictate exactly what stories you tell or how you pass them, because if you fall short of the criteria, you’re out of the running. I’m not sure this is the best approach.