Winter 2025 Bulletin

Recent Dædalus Issues Explore the Future of Free Speech and the Global Quest for Educational Equity

Dædalus Editorial

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In an AI-generated full-color illustration, a robot sits at a desk surrounded by newspapers. Several other robots work at desks in the background where newsprint papers the walls. — A vision of our automated media future, made using DreamStudio, July 2024.

In a black and white photo of a newsroom, several editors and assistants work at desks. — Editors and assistants in the newsroom of *The New York Times*, September 1942. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information photography collection, Marjory Collins, photographer.

Our shared principles of free speech are at risk. Changes in how we communicate with each other, the ease of manipulating audiences, and our unnerving national politics have expanded the contestation of free speech—and heightened the stakes.

But have Americans actually lost their appetite for open and constructive dialogue? Or has the First Amendment itself been cynically cast as a tool to censor and disempower citizens?

“The Future of Free Speech,” edited by Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone and published as the Summer 2024 issue of Dædalus, recognizes the complexity and challenge of the moment.

Essays by lawyers and legal scholars, philosophers, political scientists, historians, journalists, and industry leaders consider how the values of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of inquiry play out today and in the future. The issues in this volume suggest greater conflict to come, but also remind us that it takes continued practice and determination to live in a society that embraces free and open discourse and disagreement.

The Dædalus volume on “The Future of Free Speech” features the following essays:

Opening Dialogue
Lee C. Bollinger & Geoffrey R. Stone

Is John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty Obsolete?
Vincent Blasi

Empowering Speech by Moderating It
Danielle Keats Citron & Jonathon Penney

Hostile State Disinformation in the Internet Age
Richard A. Clarke

The Future of Speech Online: International Cooperation for a Free & Open Internet
Nick Clegg

The Future of Free Speech: Curiosity Culture
Olivia Eve Gross

Free Speech on the Internet: The Crisis of Epistemic Authority
Brian Leiter

Thinking the Unthinkable about the First Amendment
Nicholas Lemann

The Fate of American Democracy Depends on Free Speech
Suzanne Nossel

The Unfortunate Consequences of a Misguided Free Speech Principle
Robert C. Post

Academic Freedom & the Politics of the University
Joan Wallach Scott

The Connected City of Ideas
Robert Mark Simpson

The First Amendment Meets the Virtual Public Square
Allison Stanger

The Free Speech Clause as a Deregulatory Tool
Alexander Tsesis

The Future of Government Pressure on Social Media Platforms
Eugene Volokh

Should We Trust the Censor?
Keith E. Whittington

The Dædalus volume on “The Future of Free Speech” is available on the Academy’s website.

The Global Quest for Educational Equity

Six young students sit in a classroom in Gansu province, China. They look toward the front of the class. One student holds a book. The students have light brown skin and black hair. Many wear short white hats traditional among Salar people. — Heping Village Primary School, Dongxiang County, Gansu Province, China, September 6, 2005. © Liang Qiang/World Bank. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Deed.

The explosive growth in the number of migrant, refugee, and marginalized students globally has put great stress on the schools and teachers tasked with educating them. Too often this leaves students struggling to learn in a language they don’t understand, and from a culture and curriculum that exclude them.

How can schools ensure that diverse and marginalized students can achieve at levels comparable to the dominant groups in their societies? In the Fall 2024 issue of Dædalus on “The Global Quest for Educational Equity,” edited by James A. Banks, a multidisciplinary and international group of scholars share approaches and practices that have increased educational equity in primary and secondary schools.

Using a case-study approach, the authors look at what has worked and what hasn’t in a variety of national, ethnic, and cultural contexts: from Australia to Lebanon, Mexico, and South Africa; and from Canada to China, India, and the United States.

This Dædalus issue is made possible, in part, by a generous grant from the Spencer Foundation. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation.