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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
N. Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
N. Rodgers: I'm good I got a little frog in my throat, but other than that, I'm fine. How are you?
J. Aughenbaugh: I feel like protesting today, Nia.
N. Rodgers: Well, as long as you choose the right place to do it, you ought to be fine. In all seriousness listeners, we're going to put together here a little in the news. We've been asked when college administrations can act about student protests and how they can act about student protests. Then in light of our recent issue at VCU, we thought was pretty timely and we would talk about that. Aughie, am I correct that you can't just protest anywhere anytime you feel like in any way. You cannot bring a Bazooka to campus to protest, there are things you can't do because they're part of the university rules, but what gives the university the right to do that?
J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, as Nia pointed out, I've received, and it's definitely been a topic at colleges and universities across the United States. We've had a bunch of protests in regards to the war in Gaza, and some of these protesters have been arrested, and we've received any number of questions on what authority can colleges and university apartments. I think in the case of Texas, maybe even state police officers were part of the effort to disband protesters at the University of Texas at Austin. On what authority can they do this? Fundamentally, colleges and universities have the authority to provide an educational setting. They have an educational setting, and that's why they exist. As part of providing that setting, they have not only the authority but in many states, public colleges and universities have the obligation to make sure that the purposes of the university are achieved. If the protesters get in the way of that, then colleges and universities have the authority to abridge, curb, mitigate the free speech of the protesters.
N. Rodgers: No, that's separate from if you were in a designated place being relatively calm, relatively quiet and you were protesting, that's your First Amendment right to do that. We have the First Amendment right in the United States to say the King is a fink. We are allowed to say, I don't like the government, I don't like the institution, I don't like the administration of whatever thing that we're looking at.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Go ahead.
J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, what Nia is referring to is, in the First Amendment freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble are protected in the First Amendment. But it's not an absolute right, meaning that you can do it whenever and however you want.
N. Rodgers: For instance, standing in the middle of a busy intersection is a danger to public safety.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: You cannot stand in the middle of a busy intersection and gather people and have a protest. Or if you do, you're likely to be disbanded by police who are saying, no, it's a public safety issue.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, and what we're referring to here is a concept in constitutional law known as time, place, and manner restrictions. The time restrictions regulate when the expression can take place. Place restrictions regulate where, and the manner regulate how? The time, the place, and the manner. There are some classic examples, Nia, you just gave one. Every time I teach constitutional law, freedom of speech, I'm like, hey, guys, if you wanted to protest near the VCU campus on Broad Street during rush hour, you will be arrested because you doing so not only puts you at harm, it creates a distraction for the drivers and the other pedestrians that may want to use the street. Again, this is the classic, if you will, conflict in constitutional law. The government has the authority to protect the collective and you might have a liberty that's protected in the First Amendment.
N. Rodgers: It becomes a balancing act of when do we suppress the rights of the one. What is it Spock says the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. What the Supreme Court has said is that in applying time, place, and manner restrictions, if the government body that is applying those regulations or restrictions do so in a content-neutral way, and that they are narrowly drawn to serve a compelling government interest, then the government can restrict your speech and your right to peaceably assemble. Let's go with the example of protesters on college campuses. Now, you have a right to engage in speech. What if your university has set up a speech registration process to use government property because that's what public colleges and universities are?
N. Rodgers: That's an important distinction which we will get to in a minute.
J. Aughenbaugh: Get to in a minute, but they are government buildings, and if they require a registration process for all speakers to use designated form areas, that's another key phrase. Has the government created a public forum? For instance, at VCU they've created a public forum in the compass area.
N. Rodgers: The amphitheater right behind HIPS.
J. Aughenbaugh: Right behind HIPS.
N. Rodgers: Those two spaces are the public spaces where you can.
J. Aughenbaugh: Designated public forum areas, but you have to register to use them.
N. Rodgers: You have to tell student commons that you want the space.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: You can only be amplified in that space within certain time frames because that's the time part that you were talking about, and there's allowance for disruption, but only certain amount of time.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Because of the buildings around that being academic buildings, at least a couple of them.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. There's a long line of Supreme Court rulings, Cox versus Louisiana in 1965, Grayned versus City of Rockford from 1972. One of the more recent is Ward against Rock against Racism, and there the Supreme Court was pretty clear. Time, place, and manner restrictions must be content-neutral, narrowly tailored, serve a significant government interest, and leave open ample alternative channels for communication.
J. Aughenbaugh: This is widely established.
N. Rodgers: I now think it's important the content neutral part is important here.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Universities should take great care to treat all parties in protesting. If you've got two sides that are protesting an event or whatever, both sides should be treated the same. Both sides should be treated neutrally in the sense of, we're clearing everybody out of this space, not we're clearing half of the people out of this space and leaving the other half here to do whatever they were going to do. That shouldn't be.
J. Aughenbaugh: Or we allow both sides of an issue to register and engage in speech.
N. Rodgers: Exactly. We want to make it as open a speech as possible because you don't get discourse otherwise. If you shut down one side and not the other, you're picking sides, which the government should not be doing.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Not in a democracy.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah and in many ways these four elements of the time, place, and manner restrictions, are a part of Oliver Wendell Holmes marketplace of ideas, right?
N. Rodgers: Right. Your ideas need to be able to withstand.
J. Aughenbaugh: The criticism, the critique, the challenge of others who think differently.
N. Rodgers: Right. If for some reason you can't, if you need protection for your ideas, your ideas aren't strong enough.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: That's how that works, right?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. In the marketplace, those ideas then will fall away because others will pick different ideas. Now, related to time, place, and manner restrictions are what's known as free speech zones, where the government can go ahead and say, in these areas, freedom of speech is allowed. Again, it flows from the same idea that by creating free speech zones, you still allow people the opportunity to speak and protest, but also allow other vital, if you will, societal functions to occur. For instance, could a university and you see this at some of the protests across the country, some universities have created free speech zones. The problem is, many of the protesters don't want to be in the free speech zones because the free speech zones are not in the heavily trafficked, pedestrian, or frequently used college buildings. They want to be seen, they want to be heard, right?
N. Rodgers: Right. But the university side of that is you don't get to disrupt the people who don't want to be involved in your.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: In your protest. They just want to go to class, or they just want to go to work, or they just want to go to their dorm or whatever, they don't want to be involved in any of it. You don't get to force them to be involved. You don't get to force people to take a stand as it were. Like that's not how free speech works. You don't get to make other people speech as it were.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. You cannot compel others to listen to your speech.
N. Rodgers: Or speak themselves.
J. Aughenbaugh: Or speak themselves. Whether the protesters like it or not, there are plenty of people at college campuses who are not going there to hear them argue about a current issue in politics or in international politics.
N. Rodgers: There are many people on VCU campus that don't care about anything that's going on in the Middle East.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: That's not their jam. They say "I leave that to other people, I leave the politics to other people. I'm not into that. I'm doing other things". Can you be sad that that's the case? Well, Aginaya, because we're both political junkies. We're way into that. But I think sometimes you and I and people like us forget that there's this whole other world of people who are like, oh, there's an election coming up.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: We're like, what do you mean? We've been living this for the last three years worrying about who's going to be, and they're like, yeah, okay, whatever. Because that's just not interesting to them or it's not part of their.
J. Aughenbaugh: It's not important.
N. Rodgers: If you ask me who's on the top 10 of the charts right now in any music, I'd say Taylor Swift and then I would stop. Then I would say, Oh, Beyonce, she's on there. That's it. I don't know anybody else because I'm not into modern music. It's not because I don't think those artists aren't fabulous people. I'm sure they are, and I'm sure they're very talented. But I'm Gen X, and any music that was created after 1990, I really don't care about with a few exceptions. Beyonce is my main exception.
J. Aughenbaugh: You are a big fan of Queen Bey. Yes.
N. Rodgers: Well, hello. I mean, she's Beyonce. She rules the world. If she ran for president, she'd win. I'm just saying. Beyonce Carter for president. But anyway. Or Taylor Swift, I'll take her. Although Taylor, we hear a lot of breakup songs about other countries. But anyway, we digress. The thing that we have to remember too is that public universities and private universities are very different because public universities.
J. Aughenbaugh: They have to comply with the First Amendment.
N. Rodgers: Private universities, they can be like, I don't like what you're saying, boot and you're done.
J. Aughenbaugh: I've had to explain that.
N. Rodgers: You don't have any rights at private universities. Harvard, I'm looking at you.
J. Aughenbaugh: I've had to explain that distinction quite a bit over the last week or so Nia. In part, because so many of my students are just like, and they point to Columbia. Columbia University in New York is considered by at least some in the media as the ground zero of the current protests in regards to the war in Gaza.
N. Rodgers: They're occupying buildings.
J. Aughenbaugh: They are occupying buildings, and they had some of the first protests. I've had a lot of students say, how can Columbia call in the police? How can they arrest them? I'm like, because Columbia is a private institution.
J. Aughenbaugh: Only government institutions have to comply with the First Amendment. Now, I say, let's be very clear. Columbia, like almost every other private college and university in the United States has free speech policies, but they don't have to worry about complying with the First Amendment.
N. Rodgers: VCU does because VCU is a public university, but VCU also has the right to bring in the police when the protests exceed either the time, the place or the manner that is allowed by university policy. If university policy says you can be on the compass or you can be in the amphitheater and you are on the lawn in front of the library, that is not one of the places that's designated for protest and you can be removed forcibly if necessary. Neither Aggie nor I, I think I can speak for both of us when I say we certainly do not want to see anyone injured. We do not want to see anybody hurt. We need people to remember that the university can set those guidelines and enforce them and they will enforce them. They've already said they will enforce them. Apparently, during our protest, people were asked to leave and chose not to and that's a choice you can make. There are legitimate reasons for being arrested. There are legitimate reasons for your protest being taken all the way to court because that's another way that you can use the system to say, I don't think what's happening is fair.
J. Aughenbaugh: In listeners, what Nia is describing is again, almost the classic definition of civil disobedience. Martin Luther King Junior went ahead and said that civil disobedience is one of the most effective ways to highlight unjust laws and policies. Now, the key for Martin Luther King junior, though, was, you have to be willing to be arrested. Because it is the process of being arrested for violating societal norms is where you highlight the injustice. But if you're unwilling to accept being arrested, then you're not engaging in civil disobedience, you're engaging in law breaking.
N. Rodgers: I think there's a real problem there with asking for amnesty afterwards. If you make a choice about doing that, own it and take the responsibility. I have much admiration for people who decide they're going to do that. I used to do that. I'm all about protesting and getting arrested. I've been there, I've done that. I think you have to own it. I think you have to say I'm willing to put that, I'm willing to risk that. I'm willing to risk the fine, I'm willing to risk jail time, I'm willing to risk that. We do if we could. Please, Aggie, if we could caution people though in these college protests. We know that at VCU's protest, six people who were arrested were students. Seven people who were arrested were not students. I would encourage students who want to engage in protest and who are willing to be arrested in their protesting. Good for you. I'm happy for you that you have strong feelings. That's really impressive to me. Be careful who you're listening to. Because some people have a bigger price to pay than others. Non-students are not going to be brought up before non-violation. They're not going to be brought up on that. They're not going to pay that price, but you might pay that price if you're a student. If you're willing to pay that price, good, but you should know going in that it may be a thing you have to do. It may be a thing that you are suspended for a semester or you lose your housing or whatever. I don't think you'd lose your housing in this instance because it's not a housing violation, but there may be.
J. Aughenbaugh: Depending on the college and university student conduct board regulations, there could be consequences. By the way, guys, this applies in all areas of criminal behavior, behavioral codes, ignorance of the law.
N. Rodgers: Is no defense.
J. Aughenbaugh: Is no defense.
N. Rodgers: Read the student code. Make sure that you know what the penalties are.
J. Aughenbaugh: I understand quite clearly, Nia and I were many years ago, college freshmen, sophomores.
N. Rodgers: When dinosaurs roamed the Earth and rocks were a feasibility study and the stars had just come out.
J. Aughenbaugh: We used stone to go ahead and write our papers.
N. Rodgers: That's right. We just carved them into stones.
J. Aughenbaugh: Most of us at that age, don't read the fine print when we decide to go to a university. But all universities basically require you to go ahead and say, by accepting my admission into our university, I have agreed to comply with university rules, which then means the university at some point can apply those rules to your behavior.
N. Rodgers: Because you signed a contract.
J. Aughenbaugh: You signed a contract.
N. Rodgers: By accepting admission by coming to university, you signed a contract with them saying, I agree to do these within the rules of the university X things and you agree to give me an education.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: They're obligated to give you an education, which is why if you take a class and you're not getting an education, professor never shows up and all that you should complain. Because you have a contract, the professor is supposed to give you an education. Now, can we briefly talk about the reasons why people or what they want from the protest? It seems to me that a lot of people want divestment from the protests. Can you explain divestment real quick?
J. Aughenbaugh: Many of the protesters basically are lodging two complaints. They're either trying to protest US government support of Israel in this war.
N. Rodgers: Which side note, which I'm not entirely certain what they think Dr. Row can do about that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: But they are gathering together in their space to try to make this protest.
J. Aughenbaugh: That was the question of Vietnam War protesters on college campuses.
N. Rodgers: I'm not sure what they think the presidents of those universities can do.
J. Aughenbaugh: But the thing that they're really focusing on with these particular protests is this idea that university endowments. Basically, university savings accounts. It's a good way to think about them.
N. Rodgers: Or investment fund. A lot of times they're investment funds. The university has the endowment, which is money that they invest and then the proceeds from those investments get used in a variety of ways on campus. We're building an Olympic size pool. We're going to start a football team. But in some instances, we're going to use for financial aid or we're going to build new educational buildings.
J. Aughenbaugh: Or we're going to go ahead and give our best professors pay increases for the first time in four or five years. Basically, the way the endowments work it's like government retirement programs and plans. Money has been paid into the endowment. Nia, who is an alum officer.
N. Rodgers: Nia, who becomes president of the world, used 10% off the top and gives it to VC.
J. Aughenbaugh: You?
N. Rodgers: Take it because it would be dark money. But anyway.
J. Aughenbaugh: Let's go with this hypothetical. Nia, an alum of VCU and NC State. She wins the lottery and decides that she's going to go ahead and give $250,000 to each of her colleges where she got degrees. Now, that money then is placed into the endowment. That money then is invested because the university wants to go ahead and increase the value of Nia's donation.
N. Rodgers: They take my $250,000. They buy stock in Exon.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Oil goes up, and my $250,000 is now worth $350,000.
J. Aughenbaugh: Or the endowment decides to go ahead invest in a defense company.
N. Rodgers: That's where it gets complicated. Because if they invest in bunnies and flowers, it's all fine and there's nothing to be upset about. But the minute they invest in something that's even remotely controversial that could have either ongoing like you're saying defense, which is hugely controversial or healthcare, they could invest in healthcare, which can be hugely controversial or they can invest in foreign governments.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Buying bonds and stuff like that from foreign governments, which would be fine if the foreign government is Canada to whom no one objects.
J. Aughenbaugh: No.
N. Rodgers: But except for a very few people who are just crabby about Canada.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: But if you chose a foreign government say Russia. That would be a highly controversial investment. If you decided you were going to buy Russian bonds of some kind I don't think Russian government has bonds, but you know what I mean. Or were you were going to buy stocks in Gazprom. Their national oil.
J. Aughenbaugh: Oil and gas company.
N. Rodgers: If you're going to buy stocks in that you might make a killing, but people at your university would probably be appalled.
J. Aughenbaugh: Or let's say your endowment decides to go ahead and invest in a company that decides to go ahead and build the infrastructure for an authoritarian regime in a third world country. To go ahead and build out that infrastructure, the government decides to go ahead and commit a genocide.
N. Rodgers: Exactly. Now your investments are murky and students have a right to be upset about those investments. Students have a right to say.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Hey, this is weird and not cool.
J. Aughenbaugh: What many of these protesters want is divestment of university endowment support for any business. Or a country that is willing to support Israel or to do business in Israel, because they claim, again, that Israel is committing human rights violations with its conduct in the war in Gaza. The divestment campaign of these protesters is modeled on what happened in Western democracies during the 1980s to put pressure on South Africa to eradicate apartheid. That's actually one of the few protests I ever engaged in where I did get arrested, was a protest against apartheid. It wasn't even on my college campus, it was on a different college campus.
N. Rodgers: You rabble.
J. Aughenbaugh: I thought that would inoculate me, and then that other university, told my university, blah, blah, blah.
N. Rodgers: But can I rather cynically say something here?
J. Aughenbaugh: Go ahead.
N. Rodgers: There is no such thing as ethical capitalism. If you live in the United States and you buy anything, someone was harmed. Your clothes that are made in Bangladesh are made by a child who's chained to a sewing machine. Your phone is made by people who work in a factory where they can't leave and if the only way they can get out is to jump from the building. Ethical capitalism is really hard to do. It is really hard to unwind. Right at universities, the person who's in charge of the investments for the university, for the endowment is trying to make as much money for the endowment as they can.
J. Aughenbaugh: Because that's their charge, their job.
N. Rodgers: Their job.
J. Aughenbaugh: They were hired to do.
N. Rodgers: Because is to make as much money as possible. If they had to stop and make ethical decisions every time they did anything, one, they'd be paralyzed. Two, they would probably never make any money for the endowment. You think they'd get fired?
J. Aughenbaugh: Sure, they would get fired. Because their task is return on the investment. If they don't get a high return on the investment, then they will lose their jobs, and whether they're employed directly by the university. Or in some cases, university endowments hire private firms, who have track records of producing high return on endowment investments.
N. Rodgers: But it's not as simple. Tell me how you would even have any idea which country support Israel?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Holy cow. You're talking about untangling a giant ball of yarn.
J. Aughenbaugh: There are a couple of other problems with this particular, if you will, protester focus or thrust. Beyond what you just mentioned about capitalism. But you also mentioned a few moments ago. What many students don't understand is university endowments are used for things that benefit students. Many public colleges, universities use their endowments to offset tuition increases. If you want good professors, you're going to have to pay for them. A lot of times colleges and universities use endowment money to offset salary increases that are mandated by state governments, but the state government doesn't provide all of the money to pay for the tuition increase.
N. Rodgers: It's usually 51% in Virginia, I don't know what it is in other places.
J. Aughenbaugh: The other assumption that many economists have a problem with in regards to the logic of the protesters is, if university endowments stopped investing in Israel or businesses that do work in Israel, that Israel will become isolated economically, and then they will have to go ahead and stop the war, stop their human rights violations. But that's assuming that Israel can be economically isolated.
N. Rodgers: In the world in which we live, I'm not entirely certain that any nation can be truly economically isolated.
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, even if that was theoretically the case. Many Western nations are not going to isolate Israel because for many Western nations, Israel is their only ally in a part of the world that still sees the bulk of oil production.
N. Rodgers: France is not going to break its relationship with Israel.
J. Aughenbaugh: The developed Western world. Again, capitalism ain't nice and international relations is not nice. I understand that they feel strongly, and they don't want the United States supporting Israel in regards to the Gazan War. But some of these issues, particularly economically, are so complicated that even economists just throw their hands up and say, I'm not entirely sure that you could even isolate. Which moneys in college go where?
N. Rodgers: Some endowments. VCU has an endowment of $1.68. We don't have a huge endowment, if you think about Harvard's endowment, Harvard's endowment is larger than the GDP of most countries.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: It's amazingly large. I would be willing to bet they have no idea what's in all of that. Getting down to a single set of stocks or a single set of investments. I don't know if you could even do that.
J. Aughenbaugh: By the way Nia, just to support your last point. I just looked this up. Harvard's endowment. As of last fiscal year 2023 was $49.495 billion.
N. Rodgers: With a b.
J. Aughenbaugh: That is larger than 12 states' annual budgets in the United States.
N. Rodgers: We're the wealthiest country in the world.
J. Aughenbaugh: Just think about that. We're not saying don't engage in protest, what we are saying is.
N. Rodgers: Our endowment, by the way, is 2.72 billion, two billion and theirs is 49.
J. Aughenbaugh: Almost $50 billion if you round up.
N. Rodgers: Ours is a rounding error in theirs.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: That's the difference. Part of that is that they are also one of the oldest universities in the world.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: They've been building money for a long time.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: They've also had some pretty extraordinary alum who've given lots of money. Anyway, Harvard's endowment is not the issue here, but we do support your desire to make your feelings known in the world. We support your desire to have discourse about what's happening.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: You should be doing that. You should be talking about it and being aware of what's going on in the world. We're proud of you for doing that, but we would like for you to take into account that the university also has a job and there are a lot of other students on campus who don't want to be involved in this protest and the university has to take their needs into account as well as yours if you are a protester.
J. Aughenbaugh: This is something that, I forced my students to think about Nia and this is difficult. If you don't have a problem with the government using time, place and manner restrictions on speech when you don't like the speech, then you also know that that holds true when you engage in speech that others don't like, so it can't be restrictions for just that speech that you don't like.
N. Rodgers: On them, but not on us.
J. Aughenbaugh: Again, what comes through in a series of Supreme Court rulings is these regulations on speech have to be content neutral. The government can't be picking and choosing which speech they do or do not like, and they can't go ahead and pick and choose what rules or regulations to enforce depending on who the speaker is. If they have a series of restrictions in place in regards to where you can protest, then it has to be applied to everybody. If they don't let anybody else in the example of VCU set up a camp in front of the library, then they're not going to let you set up a camp in front of the library. Again, why? Because the library, particularly at this point in the semester is vitally important for thousands of students to successfully complete the semester.
N. Rodgers: Which is no doubt why the protest was put there in the first place because it was visible. But when asked to disperse, you might consider what the consequences are of not dispersing.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: At the same token, Aughie and I would like to respectfully ask that students don't get pepper sprayed.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Because pepper sprays are for both of us have been pepper sprayed.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: You carry it for days. All of sudden you'll just start sneezing and your eyes are watery and it's because it gets all the way in your system. It gets in your lungs, it gets up in your nasal cavity. It is not pretty. We understand why the police felt they had to do that. But by the same token we would love them to avoid that in the future because pepper spraying our students is not okay with us. I don't know how to say, I want you to do your job police officers, but I don't want you to do that job.
J. Aughenbaugh: Perhaps there's another episode Nia where we need to talk about the militarization of local and campus police departments.
N. Rodgers: Exactly. At least they weren't using tear gas.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: We can be grateful for that and they weren't tasering people and we can be grateful for that. But I'm going to tell you what, you didn't know you could make that much snot until somebody hit you with pepper spray.
J. Aughenbaugh: I don't think my eyes worked correctly.
N. Rodgers: For what, a week? It is terrible, it is so bad.
J. Aughenbaugh: I have felt burning in various body parts in my lifetime that didn't come anywhere close to the burning that I felt in my eyes.
N. Rodgers: We would like respectfully to ask VCU police to refrain from pepper spray. But we would also respectfully ask VCU students to stick to the rules as much as they can because it will strengthen their protest. If they are in a place where they can't be removed because they are in the correct place, then they get to stay.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Anyway, thank you, Aughie. It's a complicated issue, and what we basically want is for everybody to be safe while they're working, while they're using their voice, and while they're using civil discourse, which we are all about and while they are discussing these things and while they're protesting. We just want everybody to be safe.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. It's complicated, as you pointed out. But thanks, Nia, because I think that both you and I felt as though we had to do an episode on this. A lot of times we pick episodes because we're intellectually curious. This is one where we were like, we needed to do this one.
N. Rodgers: We're emotionally involved. We want everybody here to be safe. We want our students to be safe. Thanks, Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Thanks.