In feminist scholar Dr. Bettina Aptheker’s early years, she found herself front and center in the 1960s controversy over free speech. As a young academic, she found herself mired in a legal dispute over freedom of association. And throughout her career, she has been able to push boundaries due to academic freedom.
Recently Bettina gave a speech about academic freedom and its role in American universities. The Babblery presents this speech interwoven with Bettina’s recollections of her life and career and her unshakable belief in the value of free expression.
Bettina’s experiences are more relevant than ever: Her involvement in the Free Speech Movement of the 60s set the stage for her experiences in the 70s, using freedom of speech and association to defend Angela Davis and then her own husband’s university position. In the 80s, she pushed at the boundaries of academic freedom by building University of California at Santa Cruz’s Women’s Studies into a more politicized Feminist Studies. All of these experiences of the past inform her view of the pushback against students protesting in support of Palestinian rights and the Trump Administration’s pressure against universities.
Visit the Babblery for links and transcript.
About The Babblery:
The Babblery features conversations about who we are and how we got this way. Modern humans can seem like the ancients building the Biblical Tower of Babel, cursed by God/nature never to understand each other. As Visiting Translators at the Tower of Babble, our guests delve into their work, their research, and their own experiences to try to explain the bits they’ve learned about Earth’s most perplexing species. Though we all speak different languages, here at The Babblery we aim to promote understanding, one conversation at a time. Visit The Babblery at https://babblery.com/. The Babblery is produced by Suki Wessling with support from KSQD.
