The article is here; the introduction:
In 2020, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) was sued by several of its employees. USAGM oversees U.S.-funded international broadcasters, including Voice of America (VOA). The plaintiffs, five senior managers at USAGM and VOA’s program director, alleged that USAGM CEO Michael Pack, appointed by President Trump in 2020, “[had] attempted to interfere in the newsrooms of the USAGM networks, in violation of their eighty-year practice… of journalistic autonomy.” The plaintiffs accused Pack of “seeking[ing] to quash … coverage that does not sufficiently support President Trump,” as well as “any coverage, unless unfavorable, of President Trump’s political opponents.” These actions, the plaintiffs charged, conflicted not only with with statutory commands but with the First Amendment. USAGM responded that VOA and the other networks speak for the government and have no First Amendment right to do so. In taking the actions he took, Pack was simply “exercising[ing] his [own] authority to “direct and supervise” and “evaluate the quality, effectiveness, and professional integrity of USAGM reporting.”
The First Amendment arguments in this case, Turner vs. USAGM, reflect a broader tension in jurisprudence regarding the government’s role as a “knowledge producer,” that is, its role in producing or transmitting information or otherwise promoting knowledge. From the plaintiffs’ perspective, the government ties itself to a flagpole when it purports to produce journalism. That tree includes the norms of professional journalism, including a strict separation between an operation’s business or political commitments and its journalistic efforts.
This argument is consistent with several strands of Supreme Court jurisprudence. For example, the Court has repeatedly held that while the government is not required to subsidize private speech or create forums for speech, once it does so, it cannot impose restrictions based on viewpoint or that are inconsistent with nature itself of the speech. subsidized or forum created. The defendants, on the other hand, have invoked aspects of the free speech doctrine that emphasize the government’s broad discretion to control the speech it produces. This includes the Garcetti rule, arising from the 2006 Supreme Court case Garcetti v. United States. Onions— so public employees are generally not protected by the First Amendment for their work product speech, that is, speech they produce as part of their job duties. Garcetti itself is likely to conflict with the Court’s recognition elsewhere that “the speech of public employees on matters relating to their employment is of special value precisely because such employees acquire knowledge of matters of public interest through their employment.”
Similar questions about the First Amendment are raised by ongoing battles over state legislative proposals to limit discussions of race and racism in another site of knowledge production: public colleges and universities. Opponents of the laws argue that they are antithetical to the very nature of higher education. They suggest that states bind themselves to norms of academic freedom – including faculty rules and intradisciplinary governance on matters of scholarship and pedagogy – when creating colleges and universities. Supporters of the laws, on the other hand, emphasize the “public” in public education, suggesting that schools actually belong to the public, are funded in part by tax dollars, and that members of the public, through their representatives, they must have a say in what is taught and studied in schools.
These First Amendment controversies overlap with major cultural and political tensions. This is not surprising, as institutions of public knowledge are often sites of cultural contestation. If one examines public debates alongside legal arguments on these issues, one can find illuminating overlaps between the two. For example, public protests against the press and against “critical race theory” are often framed as struggles against indoctrination by elites. From this perspective, it is not journalism or higher education that is under siege. Rather, it is ordinary people simply trying to redress the balance and reclaim neutrality in public spaces. These arguments parallel legal arguments that public employees, or people performing government-subsidized functions, do not have a constitutional right to speak freely while carrying out their government-supported roles. Their words actually belong to the people.
The shared populist core of the arguments for broad political control of public knowledge institutions betrays the arguments’ fundamental failures. First, the idea that political power should govern the production of knowledge goes against the very idea of discipline-based knowledge and expertise; it would deprive the production of knowledge of its meaning and value. Worse, it would deceive consumers of any “knowledge” thus produced, because the knowledge would purport to derive from disciplinary best practices and expertise. Such deception poisons the marketplace of speech and is antithetical to core First Amendment values. Second, the idea that political control protects against indoctrination and supports neutrality is belied by the nature of the power that advocates of political control seek: the power to ban or require certain speech content in public schools and other educational institutions. public knowledge.
In this essay I explore the nature and value of government knowledge producers in our constitutional order and the legal, cultural, and political threats they face. In the first part I explain that producers of public knowledge are an essential part of a democratic society and that their value depends in part on whether they can insulate themselves from political pressures. In Part II I use the example of international broadcasting, with an emphasis on USAGM It is worth arguing that such isolation is necessary not only as a matter of good policy, but also as a matter of First Amendment theory. I recognize, however, that First Amendment doctrine is more conflicting; support for this position can be found, as well as evidence to the contrary in judicial precedents. I also argue for stronger doctrinal support to insulate producers of public knowledge in the future. In Part III, I explore the broader legal, political, and social contexts. As for the law, I observe that legislation plays at least as crucial a role in protecting knowledge producers as the First Amendment. Yet such legislation is increasingly threatened by the Supreme Court’s growing loyalty to the theory of the unitary executive. I will also explore the parallels between judicial reasoning in some cases of First Amendment jurisprudence, unitary executive theory, and cultural and political movements against knowledge producers. Finally, I apply some of my previous analyzes to a final set of examples: the ongoing legal and political controversies surrounding the topic of race in public higher education.