Passionate free speech scholar Donald Downs will retire at the end of the school year after 30 years in the Department of Political Science
Donald Downs was years away from establishing himself as one of the country's top free speech scholars and advocates, but he still knew a First Amendment problem when he heard one — and he wasn't afraid to share his opinion, even during a job interview.
During dinner at Otto's on Madison's west side the night before he was to formally interview for a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984, Downs was aghast when representatives of the Department of Political Science made a confession: An upcoming campus lecture by Jeane Kirkpatrick, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations known for a foreign policy doctrine of backing anti-communist dictators, had been cancelled under the threat of student dissent … and the professors hadn't put up a fight.
"I got mad," Downs recalls, 31 years later. "I said, 'You don’t have a university if that kind of thing happens.' This is a major figure and she can't come here for a talk? I was amazed."
Downs in December 1989, during his fifth year as a UW-Madison faculty member (Photo courtesy UW Archives)
Downs, the Glenn B. and Cleone Orr Hawkins Professor of Political Science and Alexander Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science, Law and Journalism, has brought that kind of verve to the UW-Madison campus since arriving in 1985; despite his fears about his blunt honesty at Otto's, he did in fact land the job.
He will retire later this month, having built a reputation as a fierce defender of free speech and academic freedom, an acclaimed constitutional law scholar and an award-winning teacher who challenged students to consider all sides of an issue.
"Don is the kind of professor who has students who take every class with him," says David Canon, chair of the Department of Political Science.
Or, as former student Jason Shepard (B.S.'99, Journalism and Political Science; M.A.'06, Ph.D.'09, Journalism), now chair of the Department of Communications at Cal State Fullerton, puts it: "He had sort of a cult following, and I was a proud member."
Former students attribute that popularity to Downs' charismatic teaching style, one that welcomes — demands, really — discussion and debate in any setting, from large undergraduate lecture hall to small graduate seminar.
"It was in his class that I learned why we're here as students. He taught us that university inherently means unity in diversity of ideology," says political science alumnus Lee Hawkins, who studied under Downs in the 1990s and is now a reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
"It wasn't debate just for the sake of debate, but it was debate for the sake of mutual understanding and resolution of important issues that we were discussing in class."
Downs has taught, researched and written about some of our society's fundamental issues, contentious topics such as free speech, civil liberties and crime and punishment.
— Lee Hawkins, former student
In courses such as The First Amendment and Criminal Law and Justice, he's asked thousands of students to question their preconceived notions about polarizing topics and to consider alternative, even off-the-wall opinions — "to challenge every way that you viewed anything," says former student Cristina Daglas (B.A.'06, Journalism), now a senior editor at ESPN The Magazine.
And, sometimes, that has involved exploring provocative ideas — the intersection of hate speech and First Amendment protection, for instance — that might unsettle some students. The key to successfully navigating those discussions, Downs says, is "creating the groundwork that then creates an environment that's conducive to pushing the envelope."
"It's not just what you do, it's how you do it," he says. "I think you have a responsibility to create a kind of trust in class that allows you to open things up."
"But you don't want to muzzle yourself," he adds, "because then you're being intellectually dishonest and that's a disservice. Intellectual honesty is really important. … I think if there was more intellectual honesty, then there probably would be more diversity of opinions."
That ardent belief has led Downs to champion the cause of academic freedom on campus, even when it's meant clashing with university administrators, his fellow faculty members or students. (UW-Madison, it should be noted, has a long history of supporting academic freedom, going back to the UW Board of Regents' famous "sifting and winnowing" statement in support of political economy Professor Richard T. Ely in 1894.)
Downs spoke out against the UW System's student speech code in the early 90s (it was declared unconstitutional by a federal court in 1991) and, along with a group of passionate students and faculty members, played a leading role in abolishing UW-Madison's faculty speech code (the Faculty Senate voted to remove it in 1999). He calls the latter, an effort that cast national media attention on Madison, the most memorable accomplishment of his career at UW-Madison.
"He was such a great example of somebody who was principled, who displayed courage in advocating for his convictions," says Shepard, who was a student representative on the university committee that recommended abolition of the faculty speech code. "He was strategic, he was thoughtful, he was passionate."
Downs has received numerous campus honors during his time at UW-Madison, including the university’s Kiekofer Distinguished Teaching Award, the Wisconsin Student Association’s teaching award and the Hilldale Award for social studies. (Photo by Sarah Morton, College of Letters & Science)
And yet, Downs' work on the speech codes showed a glimpse of his evolution as a free speech scholar. He had initially supported the student speech code and had, without realizing the implications, voted in favor of the faculty code. In his first book, Nazis in Skokie: Freedom, Community and the First Amendment, he actually argued in favor of censorship.
"I started seeing the results of censorship in practice. I trusted authorities to do censorship in a more principled way, and as I started teaching more, I started becoming more aware of the need for freedom of thought," he says. "I think a society based on a fear of speech is a society with the kind of character that is detrimental to a good life."
Downs credits influential students such as Hawkins, Shepard, former Wisconsin Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John (B.S.'97, History and Political Science) and many others for accelerating his shift to a more staunch free speech libertarian viewpoint. (Hawkins, in turn, credits Downs for teaching him the "intellectual humility" to change his own opinions.) Those bonds, formed in classrooms across campus, during office hours in North Hall or at informal gatherings at Memorial Union, have forged enduring friendships.
Hawkins flew into Madison a day early last month to sit in on a criminal law seminar. And Downs spent the last weekend of April in Chicago catching up with a group of former constitutional law graduate students, including Loyola Marymount political science and law Professor Evan Gerstmann (M.A.'92, Ph.D.'96, Political Science).
"When you form that kind of lifelong bond with your students," says Gerstmann, "that really says something."
Downs dons an Oakland Raiders hat — his beloved football team — at the close of his final lecture before retirement May 7, while students, alumni and colleagues honor him with a standing ovation. (Photo by Sarah Morton, College of Letters & Science)