The 2 Gauntlets: A Memoir about Censorship, Workplace Mobbing and the 'Sin' of Doing Nothing (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798218845766)

How Much Would You Sacrifice to Defend Free Speech?

When journalism professor David Demers creates a controversial plan to improve his academic unit and helps students publish some contentious stories, his universities try to fire him. They create bureaucratic gauntlets, pummeling him with endless allegations of wrongdoing. Meanwhile, none of the 2,300 faculty at either institution or local newspapers publicly criticize administrators for violating the free speech rights of faculty and students. They are complicit.

Demers files free-speech lawsuits and prevails. But the victories are bittersweet. If administrators, professors, and journalists fail to defend free speech and democratic processes, how can society expect others to protect those ideals?

The 2 Gauntlets chronicles the personal costs and social and historical conditions associated with one man's lifelong fight to defend free speech - a fight which culminates in a landmark First Amendment federal appeals court decision that for the first time protects service-related faculty speech. He concludes that the failure to defend and promote Age of Enlightenment ideals is partly responsible for the rise of authoritarian politics in America and Europe.