Once again, a free speech controversy has erupted at an American university.

This time, it’s UC San Diego. The fight involves Woody Allen. It involves the #MeToo movement as well as speech. And some of the main figures aren’t speaking freely. At least not at the moment.

At the center of it all is Savanah Lyon, a 23-year-old theater major who is demanding that the campus stop teaching a course on Allen’s films because the director has been accused of, but never charged with, sexual abuse of his adopted daughter. She believes he’s morally unworthy of the attention.

Lyon created an online petition to pressure the campus on the matter. So far, it’s drawn about 15,000 signatures and generated a considerable amount of publicity and news coverage.


“When you have a class that has Woody Allen in the title you’re saying something to (sexual abuse) survivors everywhere — that once again these abusers are being put up on pedestals they don’t deserve,” Lyon said.

The university — which trumpets the value of free speech on its website — has decided to say almost nothing about the issue.

Steven Adler, the prize-winning theater professor who teaches the Woody Allen course, did not respond to requests for an interview. Nor did Cristina Della Coletta, dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities. Chancellor Pradeep Khosla has deferred comment until after the Academic Senate reviews the course.

But faculty elsewhere aren’t hesitating to talk about the subject, which at its core involves academic freedom.


If you ban the Woody Allen course “does it also mean you should not teach a course about the writings of Adolf Hitler?” asked Erwin Chemerinsky, the constitutional law expert who serves as dean of the law school at UC Berkeley.

“Lots of horrific people get studied in college. It would be frightening if campuses were making decisions based on the personalities and wrong-doings of people rather than the academic merit of the course. I hope (UC San Diego) bases things on merit.”

Angelo Corlett, an ethicist at San Diego State University, is equally blunt. Speaking broadly, he said, “I’m offended by people who are easily offended. People must get rid of the idea that they have a right not to be offended. There is no legal or moral right to it.”

Isabella Calabrese, 18, and Savanah Lyon, 23, have been pressuring UC San Diego to drop a course that’s devoted to the films of Woody Allen (Gary Robbins/Union-Tribune )


The origins of the controversy at UC San Diego date to last year, before Lyon had enrolled in the university. She noticed a course in the school catalog titled, “The Films of Woody Allen.”

The catalog item says, “Students explore a variety of issues: screenwriting, directing, cinematography, and editing; the intersection of comedy and tragedy in Allen’s works; recurring themes; and critical responses. Students view thirteen films and write two three-page essays and one ten-page research paper.”

Lyon says she dislikes Allen because he allegedly sexually assaulted his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, when she was seven. The accusation was made by Farrow. Allen denies it. And a team of child abuse-specialists at Yale-New Haven Hospital — who were asked to investigate — said they did not find evidence to substantiate the claim, although some don’t believe the report.

Lyon also says she also is bothered by the romantic interest that Allen, and his males characters, have shown in younger women in some of his films. She singled out the 1979 movie “Manhattan, which was nominated for two Academy Awards. Allen portrays a 42-year-old writer who is romantically involved with a 17-year-old high school student, played by Mariel Hemingway.


“Any film that has a very clear narrative of an underage women — girl — with a middle-age man already is portraying and normalizing this kind of relationship for society,” said Lyon, whose parents are educators.

“Girls are already told that they have to be appealing to men all of their lives. It’s one, hetero-normative, but it’s also dangerous. You can go up to so many women in the world and ask them how many times in their life they have been preyed upon by older men. I personally have about 30 stories.”

These feelings led her to start the recent online campaign to pressure UC San Diego to drop the class about Allen’s films.

Lyon doesn’t believe that silencing a university professor — Steven Adler — violates the First Amendment, which she describes as a law “written by a bunch of white men …It was written in the 1700s — late 1700s. I mean, those men were experiencing things that are completely different now. (It’s) outdated.”


When asked how the law is outdated, Lyon said, “Well, it protected Donald Trump when he said --- a breadth of offensive things.”

Chemerinsky, the Berkeley law school dean, cautions people not to be punitive simply because they don’t like a person’s behavior or work.

“It’s one thing to say, ‘I think Woody Allen is a pedophile and I won’t go see his movies and won’t give him money,’ “ Chemerinsky said. “It’s a different thing to say, ‘Woody Allen is a pedophile and we should not study his work.’ “

There’s also concern among educators about the lack of civility that such matters often receive when they’re exchanged via social media.


“There are questions that need to be discussed face-to-face, despite how difficult it may be,” said Ange-Marie Hancock, a political science professor at the University of Southern California.

“Online, people are far more likely to say things in the comments section than they would be face to face. To a degree, people using social media more are getting a polarized conversation. People are going to extremes as they post on social media. they don’t get the nuances of a debate. They pile on.”

Lyon isn’t likely to back off.

“I’ve had many people come up to me (and say) that we don’t let things slide, even little things,” Lyon said. “We stop the support and exaltation of these men and people who are put into positions of power that they use to abuse others.


“Having someone speak out for people who don’t have their voices heard means something.”