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On Thursday afternoon, students, professors and faculty gathered in the University of Michigan\u2019s Student Activities Building to hear guest speaker Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author and professor of history at New York University, present on her personal experience and academic exploration of \u201cIntellectual Freedom in an Authoritarian Age\u201d as part of the 35th annual Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n The DMN Lecture honors three former faculty members \u2014 Chandler Davis, Clement Markert and Mark Nickerson \u2014 who were called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee<\/a> in 1954, which was investigating communism on university campuses. Invoking their constitutional rights, they refused to speak. Former University President Harlan Hatcher assured the committee the University would not employ communists and fired the employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n The lecture began with remarks by Faculty Senate Chair Derek Peterson, who compared this aspect of the University\u2019s past to its recent actions. He said the University is more willing to stand up to conservative demagogy, citing the University\u2019s protection of faculty members<\/a> from backlash over their comments on far-right activist Charlie Kirk.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEarlier this year, two members of the faculty here at U of M published uncomplimentary comments about the murdered activist Charlie Kirk,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cThere was a firestorm of outrage in conservative media. Thankfully, President Grasso and the U-M regents stood firm against calls in conservative media for the dismissal of our colleagues from the faculty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n