Free speech and the American University Campus
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
https://www.wsj.com/articles/make-free-speech-liberal-again-john-stuart-mill-aclu-nadine-strossen-classical-liberalism-universities-censorship-social-media-11659710472
A former ACLU president urges the left—and all of us—to re-embrace the First Amendment. She elaborates in her 2018 book, “Hate: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech, Not Censorship,” and in our interview when we turn to higher education. Campus authorities frequently justify the suppression of “so-called hate speech”—Ms. Strossen is punctilious about including that dismissive qualifier—with what she calls the “false and dangerous equation between free expression and physical violence.” “When people hear the term ‘hate speech,’ ” she says, “they usually envision the most heinous examples—a racial epithet; spitting in the face of Dr. Martin Luther King. But in fact, when you see what’s been attacked as so-called hate speech on campus, it’s opposing the idea of defund the police, opposing the idea of open borders.” Any questioning of transgender ideology or identity is cast as “denying the humanity of trans people, or transphobic.” Ms. Strossen hastens to add that “I completely support full and equal rights for trans people,” but she says critics are “raising concerns that I think deserve to be raised and deserve to be discussed.” Ms. Strossen, herself a professor emerita at New York Law School, likens the situation on campuses to McCarthyism, “a climate of fear that leads to treating certain people with suspicion or, worse, ostracizing those people and those who try to defend them, and punishing them.” |
Anonymous
|
Mom of 19 yr old. Beautifully articulating the same ideas as Ms. Strossen and taking action to actually _do_ something about it (vs. mindless retweeting) set DS apart in the college application sweepstakes. I am convinced because I can't think of anything else that set him apart from his peers with same or better stats. I suspect a lot of rank and file employees in higher education passionately agree with her. Some evidently read application packages. |
Anonymous
| Disagree. Stay stupid and offensive things, get canceled. That’s known as a natural consequence. |
Anonymous
| OP: Thank you for posting this quote. I agree. |
Anonymous
| The first amendment only applies to government entities. And the right to speak doesn't mean the right to avoid people being unwilling to listen to you (ie, cancelling you). |
Anonymous
People who think like you will ruin our society. The cancel culture is completely out of control. Colleges need to take a stand against this (like UChicago has done) and embrace free speech principles, the exchange of ideas, and discussion in the public square. That's what education and intellect is all about. Nobody can be truly educated if they only hear one side of the issue all the time. There are two sides of most issues. You calling the other side "stupid and offensive" just proves the point made in OP's post. |
Anonymous
Did you see the reference to McCarthyism in that quote? That’s a really dangerous direction for us to go. OP, thanks for posting. It’s a good quote. |
Anonymous
"Stupid and offensive" might be read instead to mean "I don't agree, I don't like it, I don't understand it, I don't want to try to understand why others might think like that, and consequently nobody should be able to articulate it or try to make a case for it. They must be silenced at all costs lest their pernicious position be heard by those too unwise to be able to decide for themselves whether it is reasonable, makes sense, is potentially actually valid". |
Anonymous
| Hate and dangerous speech is not protected. The 1st amendment comes with both regulations and responsibilities. |
Anonymous
| States are prohibiting teachers from talking about the history of race in America and saying “gay,” but cancel culture bullshit is what you’re worried about. Get a grip. |
Anonymous
Sigh, OP is on a tear with trying to spam the forums with absurd WSJ propaganda. It's really sad that since being bought by Rupert Murdoch of Fox News fame, the Wall Street Journal's editorial board has become such a pathetic, incompetent, bunch of propagandists. Meanwhile, in the real world, Republican billionaires are putting big money into trying to suppress free speech on college campuses by convincing people that anyone who dares to point out the crushingly obvious systemic racism in this country is an out-of-controll woke mob. Of course, the billionaires are panicking because they realize the young Americans will no longer put up with a country that mistreats and oppresses non-white people in every possible arena. They know that banks like Wells Fargo (that just got in trouble AGAIN in 2022 for egregiously, intentionally, wildly racist conduct) was the bank whose executives joked on tape about "junk loans for mud people" in 2012. They've seen the studies -- FUNDED BY POLICE DEPARTMENTS -- that show that police stop Black motorists more often than whites (except at night, when they can't see drivers' skin color), search Black people's cars more often than whites (despite whites being statistically slightly more likely to have drugs or guns), charge Black people with crimes like resisting arrest at rates far higher than whites who engage in identical behavior, and, of course, kill unarmed Black people far, far more often than they kill whites. And, they've seen the statistics that Blacks are convicted more often that whites with similar evidence, sentenced more harshly than whites for similar crimes, and denied parole more often than whites with similar records. They've also likely seen the statistic that came up in OP's other pathetic WSJ propaganda post that Black people are far more likely to die when treated by white doctors than when treated by Black doctors, and they are aware that in 2022 many doctors still hold and promote crazy, unscientific, racist ideas that likely contribute to Blacks dying at a higher rate -- like the notion tha Black people don't feel pain. But, OP feels that the most important thing they can do with their time is spam the forums about how sad it is that their right to see speeches by Nazis is being compromised. And make no mistake -- that's what the bruhahaha about "free speech" on campus is mostly about -- the Republican tactic of inviting the most offensive speakers they can find to college campuses exactly to provoke a reaction, and then to whine about "wokeness" and "free speech" -- which they clearly don't understand, since the first ammendment doesn't guarantee anybody the right to a speaking tour. |
Anonymous
Wait -- this is about the Florida bill banning teachers from mentioning that families like mine exist, right? That's the kind of suppression of free speech that you are opposed to, right? |
Anonymous
+1 Great post. |
Anonymous
Except no one is prohibiting those things at all. You really need to stop lying if you want to be taken seriously. |
Anonymous
Except that opposing the idea of defund the police, criticizing the utter chaos at our border, and questioning the wisdom of hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery for minors is not "hate and dangerous speech." That's the whole point - YOU don't get to label something "hate speech" simply because you disagree with it and want to silence it. |