The Jefferson Series presents Jeffrey Toobin and Noah Feldman
Jeanne B. McCoy Community Center for the Arts
7 p.m. Thursday, May 1
Free speech, and how to have a healthy debate, is the topic of the May 1 Jefferson Series lecture with Jeffrey Toobin and Noah Feldman as they are interviewed by former Democratic member of the Ohio House of Representatives Mike Curtin. And, like all Jefferson Series lectures, the New Albany Community Foundation hopes it will spark a cultural shift in the community.
“There are some who maintain you should never shut down speech, that it’s part of learning. There are other people who would argue that it’s incendiary, it’s hate speech, it’s hurtful,” says Craig Mohre, president of the Community Foundation. “It’s a legitimate issue. The one thing that we take pride in New Albany is that we hit those issues head-on.”
The issue of free speech, and the extent to which it should be protected, has been hotly debated as of late. The Jefferson Series shed light on how we can have meaningful discourse with those we disagree with in a productive and well-informed way.
“What I hope is to share some ideas about how we can disagree with each other while still remaining open to other perspectives and live together as a single political community,” says Feldman. “I also very much want to hear the perspectives of the communities’ views on these subjects.”
On March 21, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that will require colleges to support students’ freedom of speech on campus or risk losing federal funding.
“Donald Trump will be a big part (of the lecture) as well – he so much dominates the news world,” says Toobin. “Trump and (Special Counsel Robert) Mueller have so much taken over the news that I actually think we’ll make a particular effort to talk about other things as well.”
May 1 also marks the launch of the Center for Civil Discourse and Debate in New Albany, funded by the Barbara W. and Phillip R. Derrow Family Foundation. The center, in partnership with the Community Foundation and New Albany-Plain Local Schools, aims to reshape the way New Albany residents argue. The center and the Community Foundation will now partner for at least one Jefferson Series lecture each season, making healthy debate the focus.
“Once a year, we’ll dedicate a Jefferson Series to the center. We’ll present an issue and present two sides of it,” says Mohre. “The idea is that we can do programming in the school and in the community that really demonstrates you can present two sides of an issue in a very civil and respectful way based on facts.”
Last year the Jefferson Series saw its most successful season, and Mohre hopes to continue that success. Not only did every lecture sell out, but the Community Foundation also supported its goals in destigmatizing mental health, bringing in relevant lecturers and growing its student lecture series.
“With the student lecture program, which we’re very proud of, we hit our biggest numbers – over 950 students representing 17 area schools at Glenn Close. It’s kind of amazing,” says Mohre. “The McCoy Center seats 786 – we had over 950. We had students on the stage.”
Jeffrey Toobin
JEREMY FREEMAN
CNN DIGITAL EXPANSION 2014
Jeffrey Toobin is the son of journalists Marlene Sanders and Jerome Toobin, and he says that foundation led him to where he is today – despite their warnings that journalism has its instabilities.
“I think, notwithstanding what they said about the difficulties in the profession, the example of the interesting lives they led was really significant to me,” says Toobin. “I think, rather, that what they showed me about their lives was more significant than the explicit advice they offered.”
Toobin’s path led him to Harvard College for his undergraduate education. He maintained a role as a student journalist while he attended Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude. The courtroom, however, seemed to be his greatest focus.
In 1997, Toobin wrote The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson. In 2016, the book was adapted to television by FX as its first season of American Crime Story and, Toobin says, the timing was eerily relevant.
“What was so striking about the O.J. story was that we put out that series just as the time of Ferguson and Black Lives Matter and the issue of the relationship between African Americans and the police – it had all this great contemporary resonance,” says Toobin. “Issues of crime and justice are perhaps the most enduring stories in public life. They never really go out of fashion.”
Most recently, Toobin penned American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst, which launched in 2016. Toobin is also a staff writer at The New Yorker and a chief legal analyst on CNN. He is currently working on a book about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Noah Feldman
Deborah Feingold Photography
Noah Feldman is an accomplished public intellectual. He attended undergrad at Harvard College, received a Ph.D. in Islamic Thought from the University of Oxford and attended Yale Law School before serving as a law clerk for now-retired Associate Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court.
He is an author, professor of law at Harvard Law School and columnist for Bloomberg. His focus is religion and politics, making him a key choice for the May 1 Jefferson Series lecture on free speech.
“I’ve always found myself interested in beliefs that people hold extremely strongly, and religion is often a very good example of that,” says Feldman. “Meanwhile, religion interacts strongly with law and politics, and we often forget that faith makes different kinds of demands on us than ordinary politics.”
As a columnist for Bloomberg, Feldman’s goals are to “try to clarify what is going on at the deeper level on the important questions of the day” and “offer my perspective and the arguments I find most convincing.” He suggests that everyone should listen to all sides of an argument; even the ones with which they disagree.
“Take seriously what every side in a debate is saying, even if you disagree with it,” he says. “In fact, the more you disagree with something, the harder you need to try to understand that perspective. If you do that, then you will engage the other side with respect and understanding, and that makes dialogue productive.”
Feldman is currently working on a book about the aftermath of the Arab Spring. After that, he plans to write about Abraham Lincoln and “what happens when the Constitution is broken.”
Amanda DePerro is a contributing editor and writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
