Understanding Now, a teach-in that aims to inform students on current issues in politics, will take place on Friday in Toney Auditorium at Willingham Hall, beginning at 11:15 a.m. and ending around 2:20 p.m.
“A teach-in is a specialized form of protest, using the medium of research and education rather than signs and marches,” the event’s organizer and Mercer Associate Professor of English Elizabeth Harper said.
The teach-in will address a wide-ranging list of subjects from dictatorship to civil liberties.
Harper said she wants to create a space on Mercer’s campus where faculty and students can “protest the violence, violations of civil rights and abuses of law that we are all seeing.”
She wants students to feel more informed and capable of acting after attending the lecture series.
“We know it's easy to feel overwhelmed and hopeless when you see your neighbors being deported without due process; your peers pulled from cars and arrested for filming law enforcement abuses – filming is your right as a citizen, by the way – or your local leaders vilified for doing their jobs ensuring election integrity,” Harper said in an email.
The first lecture, “White Hands: How Venezuela Slid into Dictatorship – Could It Happen Here?” will be presented at 11:15 a.m. by Associate Professor of Spanish Alana Alvarez.
Alvarez, who is Venezuelan, plans to use her experience in the country as a progressive government fell to an authoritarian state. She said she plans to address questions like whether “Pushing back towards repression and lack of freedom of expression is a violent act punishable by death?”
Next, Professor and Chair of Political Science Chris Grant will present “Freedom is Never Free: Eroding Tolerance Defeats Democracy” at 12:20 a.m. Grant, a scholar on eastern Europe, studied in Ukraine as a Fullbright scholar in the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of the country.
Grant said he will “use examples of Hungary and Ukraine to illustrate the consequences of declining tolerance and some efforts we can make to engage with one another positively.”
The teach-in will conclude with “Civil Liberties in Peril,” presented by Macon Chair in Law and former Dean of Mercer’s School of Law Gary Simson, beginning at 1:25 p.m.
Simson said his lecture will discuss the Trump administration's part in undermining the freedom of speech and press among other issues, as well as highlighting ways individuals can advocate for the nation’s core values.
The Mercer faculty handbook encourages faculty to speak on ethical and moral matters relating to their areas of expertise in order to prompt a search for truth and understanding.
“We are blessed to belong to a university that supports our academic freedom so robustly,” Harper said.
