Free Speech On Campus Update

[Zam-Zam]

It's not just conservative speakers they apparently cannot tolerate to hear:

Students at the College of William & Mary affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement broke the code of conduct there last week when they shut down a talk by an American Civil Liberties Union representative, though officials at the public institution won’t say if or how they will be punished.


Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, executive director of the ACLU’s Virginia chapter, attempted to discuss free speech issues with students at the college in Williamsburg, Va., on Sept. 27, but no more than a few minutes into her talk, students holding signs lined the stage where she was speaking and drowned her out with chants of “ACLU, free speech for who?” “The oppressed are not impressed,” “ACLU, you protect Hitler, too,” “Blood on your hands,” “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “Your free speech hides beneath white sheets.”


Later, when it was clear her talk couldn’t continue, students interested in Gastañaga's views tried to speak with her one on one. Those protesting simply yelled louder, preventing this. Gastañaga was never able to address the small crowd that had gathered, either broadly or individually.

Gastañaga said in a statement Thursday that William & Mary, as a public institution, is obligated to protect free expression and prevent a "heckler's veto" from stopping a speaker. The ACLU encourages colleges and universities to combat and call out discriminatory speech, she said.

"What happened at William & Mary on Sept. 27 is a part of a larger national trend that is challenging campus leaders across the country to find the right formula for assuring that critical community conversations can take place in a culture of inquiry consistent with a true learning environment. Actions that bully, intimidate or disrupt must not be without consequences in any such formula," her statement reads.

Complete text: https://www.insidehighered.com/news...s-who-shut-down-aclu-event-broke-conduct-code


Anyone remember a time when universities were places where diversity of thought was actually encouraged? An antiquated notion now, perhaps.

 

[UPNYA2]

It's not just conservative speakers they apparently cannot tolerate to hear:

Students at the College of William & Mary affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement broke the code of conduct there last week when they shut down a talk by an American Civil Liberties Union representative, though officials at the public institution won’t say if or how they will be punished.


Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, executive director of the ACLU’s Virginia chapter, attempted to discuss free speech issues with students at the college in Williamsburg, Va., on Sept. 27, but no more than a few minutes into her talk, students holding signs lined the stage where she was speaking and drowned her out with chants of “ACLU, free speech for who?” “The oppressed are not impressed,” “ACLU, you protect Hitler, too,” “Blood on your hands,” “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “Your free speech hides beneath white sheets.”


Later, when it was clear her talk couldn’t continue, students interested in Gastañaga's views tried to speak with her one on one. Those protesting simply yelled louder, preventing this. Gastañaga was never able to address the small crowd that had gathered, either broadly or individually.

Gastañaga said in a statement Thursday that William & Mary, as a public institution, is obligated to protect free expression and prevent a "heckler's veto" from stopping a speaker. The ACLU encourages colleges and universities to combat and call out discriminatory speech, she said.

"What happened at William & Mary on Sept. 27 is a part of a larger national trend that is challenging campus leaders across the country to find the right formula for assuring that critical community conversations can take place in a culture of inquiry consistent with a true learning environment. Actions that bully, intimidate or disrupt must not be without consequences in any such formula," her statement reads.

Complete text: https://www.insidehighered.com/news...s-who-shut-down-aclu-event-broke-conduct-code


Anyone remember a time when universities were places where diversity of thought was actually encouraged? An antiquated notion now, perhaps.

"Anyone remember a time when universities were places where diversity of thought was actually encouraged?"

No.

 

[bdtex]

I'll be damn. I've been to Williamsburg and William & Mary but that was a little over 3 years ago. Wouldn't have guessed that would happen there. Wouldn't at all be surprised to see Virginia turn red again.

 

[Zam-Zam]

I'll be damn. I've been to Williamsburg and William & Mary but that was a little over 3 years ago. Wouldn't have guessed that would happen there. Wouldn't at all be surprised to see Virginia turn red again.

I don't want to read too much into a handful of hooligans (there's a great word) shutting down another attempt at free speech on campus, other than to note it as part of a larger trend nation-wide at our universities. If they're so terrified of hearing an opposing point of view, they must not have a great deal of faith in their own.

 

[freyasman]

I think a lot of people are just infatuated with throwing hissy fits..... doesn't seem to matter much what they're about.

 

[Arkady]

Anyone remember a time when universities were places where diversity of thought was actually encouraged? An antiquated notion now, perhaps.

When was that?

 

[Zam-Zam]

When was that?

Well, according to a writer for CNN, the campus war on free speech has "been waged for decades", but there's been a more recent shift to students and faculty being on the front lines:

Assaults on college free speech have been waged for decades, but they used to be top-down, originating with government or school administrators.
Today, experts say, students and faculty stifle speech themselves, especially if it involves conservative causes.

Harvey Klehr, who helped bring controversial speakers to Emory during his 40 years as a politics and history professor, said the issues college students rally around today come "embarrassingly from the left."

Oppose affirmative action or same-sex marriage and you're branded a bigot, he said. Where debate once elevated the best idea, student bodies are now presented slanted worldviews, denying them lessons in critical thinking, he said.

Complete text: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/20/us/campus-free-speech-trnd/index.html

 

[Zam-Zam]

I think a lot of people are just infatuated with throwing hissy fits..... doesn't seem to matter much what they're about.

Yes, some people wake up in the morning outraged I suppose. What they're outraged about is perhaps a secondary consideration......

 

[as seen on tv]

good post. why isn't the mainstream press covering this? they usually support the ACLU no matter what.

 

[Zam-Zam]

good post. why isn't the mainstream press covering this? they usually support the ACLU no matter what.

Doesn't quite fit the narrative perhaps. I did find this opinion piece from June 2017 via the NY Times:

When the Left Turns on Its Own

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/when-the-left-turns-on-its-own.html

 

[Arkady]

Well, according to a writer for CNN, the campus war on free speech has "been waged for decades", but there's been a more recent shift to students and faculty being on the front lines:

Assaults on college free speech have been waged for decades, but they used to be top-down, originating with government or school administrators.
Today, experts say, students and faculty stifle speech themselves, especially if it involves conservative causes.

Harvey Klehr, who helped bring controversial speakers to Emory during his 40 years as a politics and history professor, said the issues college students rally around today come "embarrassingly from the left."

Oppose affirmative action or same-sex marriage and you're branded a bigot, he said. Where debate once elevated the best idea, student bodies are now presented slanted worldviews, denying them lessons in critical thinking, he said.

Complete text: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/20/us/campus-free-speech-trnd/index.html

I recall complaints about this in the 80s and early 1990s. Mort Zuckerman of US News and World Report used to spend an inordinate amount of his editorial space complaining about "political correctness" run amok at liberal campuses, where conservatives couldn't speak their minds without getting an earful in return. I suppose if you go back enough decades you'd come to a time when conservatives felt safe saying whatever they wanted on campus. But then your'e in the era of McCarthyism, when liberals knew they could be black-listed if their liberalism was perceived as suspiciously communist. It seems to me that the ideal of a completely open market of ideas, where everyone is respectful of everyone else's right to speak their minds, is something we like to imagine took place in some indeterminate golden age, in the past, but in the real world there's always been enough hostility to competing speech that it could stray into bullying behavior that acted as a kind of censorship.

Interestingly, I never see the born-again free speech advocates objecting to such behaviors when it runs the way they want it to. For example, if Brigham Young wants to ban a pro-gay group from speaking on campus, or Notre Dame wants to do so for a pro-choice group, that's treated as just fine.

 

[Zam-Zam]

I recall complaints about this in the 80s and early 1990s. Mort Zuckerman of US News and World Report used to spend an inordinate amount of his editorial space complaining about "political correctness" run amok at liberal campuses, where conservatives couldn't speak their minds without getting an earful in return. I suppose if you go back enough decades you'd come to a time when conservatives felt safe saying whatever they wanted on campus. But then your'e in the era of McCarthyism, when liberals knew they could be black-listed if their liberalism was perceived as suspiciously communist. It seems to me that the ideal of a completely open market of ideas, where everyone is respectful of everyone else's right to speak their minds, is something we like to imagine took place in some indeterminate golden age, in the past, but in the real world there's always been enough hostility to competing speech that it could stray into bullying behavior that acted as a kind of censorship.

Interestingly, I never see the born-again free speech advocates objecting to such behaviors when it runs the way they want it to. For example, if Brigham Young wants to ban a pro-gay group from speaking on campus, or Notre Dame wants to do so for a pro-choice group, that's treated as just fine.

Hmmm.....

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/notre-dame-officially-accepts-gay-group/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/...s-softening-attitudes-toward-their-community/

 

[sear]

Harvard President Larry Summers (served as Tres. Sec. @ Clinton 2nd Term) raised deliberately provocative but un-PC questions about biological ( intellectual) differences between men & women. A minor fluff-up resulted. Summers has apologized 3 times so far. ABC-TV's George Will responds:

"Summers simply forgot where he was. He thought he was at a place where there was free intellectual inquiry. He wasn't. He was at Harvard. He was on an American campus, where certain ideas simply can't be thought. The idea that there might be innate, which is to say genetically based cognitive differences between the sexes is not a radical thought. There's a huge body of science investigating it. By mentioning it, he induced in that poor woman [MIT Professor Nancy Hopkins] something like a clinical description of Freudian hysteria. She was going to fall down on the carpet and swoon with vapors and muss up her crinolines. This is what feminism has produced? This frail flower who can't stand to be in the presence of an idea like that."

"This major grovel's ridiculous. All he's done is dramatize that Harvard like most American campuses believes in diversity in everything but thought." Will

 

[freyasman]

Yes, some people wake up in the morning outraged I suppose. What they're outraged about is perhaps a secondary consideration......

Dopamine addiction....

 

[Deleted member 21794]

I don't want to read too much into a handful of hooligans (there's a great word) shutting down another attempt at free speech on campus, other than to note it as part of a larger trend nation-wide at our universities. If they're so terrified of hearing an opposing point of view, they must not have a great deal of faith in their own.

I agree. I also think that we should pay attention to this, as this could very well be a repeat of the cycle of hippies who went through college decades ago and are now the ones teaching these kids to be against free speech. Presumably, a further step towards dismantling things like free speech that we normal Americans treasure.

 

[Deleted member 21794]

Harvard President Larry Summers (served as Tres. Sec. @ Clinton 2nd Term) raised deliberately provocative but un-PC questions about biological ( intellectual) differences between men & women. A minor fluff-up resulted. Summers has apologized 3 times so far. ABC-TV's George Will responds:

What a shame he apologized.

 

[freyasman]

I agree. I also think that we should pay attention to this, as this could very well be a repeat of the cycle of hippies who went through college decades ago and are now the ones teaching these kids to be against free speech. Presumably, a further step towards dismantling things like free speech that we normal Americans treasure.

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9975
From the link;
"In an email to the student body last week, University of Florida President Kent Fuchs expressed befuddlement at his recent discovery that the public university must allow free speech.

“If you are like me, I expect you are surprised and even shocked to learn that UF is required by law to allow Mr. Spencer to speak his racist views on our campus,” Fuchs wrote in a statement alerting students that Richard Spencer, a prominent white nationalist, will be visiting campus on October 19.

"The panelists were discussing the First Amendment as if free speech is a conditional right." Tweet This



Spencer was originally scheduled to speak in September, and Fuchs initially defended the event under university regulation 2.004 which states that “non-university groups, organizations, and persons may rent space on campus, provided they cover rental expenses and security costs like all other third-party renters.” Several days later, however, Fuchs announced that the event would be cancelled due to safety concerns.

[RELATED: Florida prof tries to hide identity while protesting ‘hate speech’]

After being threatened with a federal lawsuit, however, UF backed down and agreed to host Spencer in October, prompting Fuchs to implore the school community to simply deny Spencer the attention he seeks, rather than trying to shut down the speech.

“First, do not provide Mr. Spencer and his followers the spotlight they are seeking,” Fuchs instructed, assuring readers that “by shunning him and his followers we will block his attempt for further visibility.”

Simultaneously, though, he also said the school should “not let Mr. Spencer’s message of hate and racism go unchallenged,” urging students and faculty members to attend a series of events crafted in response to the controversy, which began with an October 11 panel titled, “A Conversation on the First Amendment.”

[RELATED: STUDY: Majority of college students hostile to free speech]

During that conversation, UF Law Professor Kenneth Nunn declared himself a “First Amendment radical,” asserting that he doesn’t “think there is any such thing as free speech,” that “words can and do hurt,” and that UF should take action to “confront hate speech” beyond merely promoting a "marketplace of ideas."

Nunn also asserted that hateful speech can inflict “significant harms” on those targeted by it, including physical harms.


“[People] become depressed, people use drugs, people have damage to their self image. Sometimes as a consequence of that they wind up committing suicide,” he told the audience. “There’s poor performance in school, poor performance in work, people get high blood pressure, people suffer from stress. And so we have some significant harms that come from the use of speech, particularly speech when you talk about people and you say hurtful and hateful things as a consequence of that.”

 

[Arkady]

Hmmm.....

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/notre-dame-officially-accepts-gay-group/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/...s-softening-attitudes-toward-their-community/

Yes -- as your link confirms, Notre Dame long rejected first amendment rights, on campus, for gay groups. And I don't recall hearing an outcry from those who now insist on free speech when it comes to hatemongers like Anne Coulter, do you?

 

[marvin martian]

Yes -- as your link confirms, Notre Dame long rejected first amendment rights, on campus, for gay groups. And I don't recall hearing an outcry from those who now insist on free speech when it comes to hatemongers like Anne Coulter, do you?

Hatemongers?

Clinton's polling numbers went up in the wake of the deplorables comment. It pissed off the halfwits and the sub-human scum who were embarrassed to realize that people recognized how deplorable they were, but they already supported Trump, so it made no difference what they thought.

Question: What's the square root of negative one?

Answer: A Trump voter who isn't sub-human scum.

 

[Arkady]

Hatemongers?

Yes.