This week, we saw another incident of protesters shutting down an event to prevent others from hearing opposing views. At an event with commentator and author Ann Coulter, one protester yelled “Your words are violence.” It is the latest example of how some on the left are treating free speech as harm on college campuses. Unlike many other incidents, however, Cornell has stood by the right of the student group, Network of Enlightened Women, to hold the event and pledged to hold students accountable for the cancellation of the speech.
Joel Malina, vice president for University Relations at Cornell, told Campus Reform.“Eight college-age individuals were removed from the auditorium following Cornell protocols. All Cornell students among the disrupters will be referred for conduct violations.” He also apologized to Coulter.
Cornell is to be commended for its stance, particularly if it proceeds with appropriate sanctions for these students. The incident also shows the value of limiting these events to faculty and students of Cornell, who are subject to rules protecting free speech and open discourse on campus.
We have previously discussed the worrisome signs of a rising generation of censors in the country as leaders and writers embrace censorship and blacklisting. The latest chilling poll was released by 2021 College Free Speech Rankings after questioning a huge body of 37,000 students at 159 top-ranked U.S. colleges and universities. It found that sixty-six percent of college students think shouting down a speaker to stop them from speaking is a legitimate form of free speech. Another 23 percent believe violence can be used to cancel a speech. That is roughly one out of four supporting violence.
Faculty and editors are now actively supporting modern versions of book-burning with blacklists and bans for those with opposing political views. Others are supporting actual book burning. Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll has denounced the “weaponization” of free speech, which appears to be the use of free speech by those on the right.
We discussed this issue with regard to a lawsuit against SUNY. It is also discussed in my recent law review article, Jonathan Turley, Harm and Hegemony: The Decline of Free Speech in the United States, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. We have seen how in universities (including state schools) this can turn into a type of “heckler’s veto” where speeches are cancelled in advance or terminated suddenly due to the disruption of protesters.
This has been an issue of contention with some academics who believe that free speech includes the right to silence others. Berkeley has been the focus of much concern over the use of a heckler’s veto on our campuses as violent protesters have succeeded in silencing speakers, including a speaker from the ACLU discussing free speech. Both students and some faculty have maintained the position that they have a right to silence those with whom they disagree and even student newspapers have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free speech. At another University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.
In the meantime, academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech. CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,” Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned after she made a single analogy to acting like a “slaveholder” as a self-criticism for failing to achieve equity and reparations for black faculty and students).
A few years ago, I debated NYU Professor Jeremy Waldron who is a leading voice for speech codes. Waldron insisted that shutting down speakers through heckling is a form of free speech. I disagree. It is the antithesis of free speech and the failure of schools to protect the exercise of free speech is the antithesis of higher education. In most schools, people are not allowed to disrupt events. They are escorted out of such events and told that they can protest outside of the events since others have a right to listen to opposing views. These disruptions however are often planned to continually interrupt speakers until the school authorities step in to cancel the event.
Recently, we have seen convocations and other important events disrupted by such protesters. Universities will have to take a stand or lose control over their campuses. Students who disrupt classes or events must be held accountable if we are to maintain open and free discourse on our campuses.
Gettysburg College….a Liberal Arts school…and a known advocate (by policy) for diversity and free speech is seeing Woke Activism causing problems.
Recently there has been a Drag Show on the Campus Square and a School sponsored event asking for artists to paint re their hate of straight white men.
The resulting division of students was made worse by the lack of Faculty efforts to affirm the school policy of ensuring free speech for all.
As one student stated……
“”Normally, rhetoric on posters of this nature tends to be more inclusive and welcoming to the target student groups. But this rhetoric is simply divisive,” the student said. “The faculty on campus always preaches unity among students on campus but never actually do anything to enact this unity.”
“The school should not allow this type of rhetoric as it openly and boldly defies what the college says they want to achieve from their student body,” the senior continued.
The student said this “incident, like many other incidences that have occurred at Gettysburg College, makes me feel as if the school is incompetent” and that the “school no longer allows students to speak freely, they only allow ideas and concerns of students to be heard that fit their ideas that the school would like to promote.”
DeSantis was exactly right when he stated his views on Wokism which by its very nature attacks free speech and preaches division, hate, and thus must be dealt with for the good of the nation as a whole.
Hilarious….meanwhile….they don’t know their fees found “cornell” law webs that gives law to the deplorable….plus notes! Haha brats.
George Carlin at his most prescient in 2006 and alas most cynical: from fat Americans to rich corporations that control the news media and politicians. My thanks to Richard Lowe for the title of this show
that was my post.
Reposted by request: RE:”Parents of high school students can make a difference..’ A list has been compiled of such institutions and is available for review. I sent it to my grandchildren who are preparing for college admissions. rankings.thefire.org
The list may or may not be helpful if you are an atheist which admittedly I believe you are one, as are most Americans, or at least fair weather Christians and Jews.
A more reliable metric is the Catholic liberal arts curriculum which strives to shape students to be Renaissance men and women. Loyola University and St Francis Xavier (both in New Orleans), Spring Hill College (Mobile), Ave Maria University and Barry University (Florida) and too many others to list are solid universities or colleges.
The “conservative vs liberal” trope is incredibly disingenuous. It satisfies one’s ego for self-deification but nothing else.
RE:” if you are an atheist which admittedly I believe you are.: “Holy ‘different strokes for different folks’, Batman!” You’ve certainly struck out on that pitch! . With regard to your stated preferences in the pursuit of higher education, you are, of course entitled to your philosophy, Horatio.
Re-posted by request: RE::”Mr. Hogg just really loves to “hog”..’ I sense that things are seldom what they seem, and what will be, with this Harvard brat. We have one in the family. Takes one to know one. Hogg talks ‘proletarian’ but I smell ‘bourgeoisie’. We yet but turn another page…..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hogg
Re-posted by request: I’ve been reading a lot of ‘March For Our Lives’ David Hogg’s ‘Gen-Z’ yada yada on ‘Twitter’ these past 24 hours. Though I empathize deeply with him and others in our community who suffered the Stoneman-Douglas shooting, my take-away from his voluminous comments is that the purpose of their ‘movement’ apparently has goals far beyond those organizational stated publicly.. The residents in Florida’s 10th Congressional District just elected a former officer of that organization to their seat in D.C.,to succeed Val Demings. It is the MFOL’s intention to pursue this political line of action in the next cycle. If what we are reading here regarding Cornell is an example of what Hogg states as their pursuit of a more perfect world, then our Constitution, as presently constructed, is in peril from this lot. A revisiting of Communist China’s Cultural Revolution and its sequelae is in order. The citizenry of this nation should be aware. Though Maxwell Frost’s bio appears ‘interesting’ and appealing to many factions, he and those with whom he identifies, allies, and sympathizes, bears careful watching going forward.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell_Frost
It is clear that that Democrat leaders want nothing to do with democracy or anything resulting from democracy.