@albertsax they are free to peacefully protest but there may be students who do want to hear what the speaker has to say. Free speech means diverse points of view…not just the speech/points of view you agree with. They are not forced to support the speaker by attending. They are not condoning the views of the speaker just by allowing them to speak on campus. They can go and do another activity…go to dinner with friends…study in the library…or they can have a sit in outside the venue. I guarantee there are activities that occur on the campus that these students are completely unaware are happening. I’m tired of being told who I can and can’t listen to. Critical thinking, analysis and dealing with uncomfortable situations are all excellent skills to hone for success in life.
Free speech means speech is free. You don’t pay for it. Being forced by the administration/government to pay for racist, homophobic opinion is not free speech. It’s authoritarian rule.
Um that’s not what free speech means. And the tuition I pay for my kids’ schools supports many things that I don’t agree with but I don’t get a line item veto.
@vpa2019 Free speech is good. Hate speech is not. While this speaker most likely would not have created hate speech on campus, that is still part of what he does.
Again, he is not simply coming to share his views, he is being paid to do so. He is perfectly allowed to have his views but by paying him to share them that is inherently supporting them. And most students do not support what this man stands for.
@albertsax you have no idea how many kids do and don’t support him. You also have no idea what he would have said (and neither do the students) because he never had the opportunity. It is wrong for one group to shut down free speech because they don’t agree with it. Also are you saying if the speaker isn’t paid then he should be allowed to speak? It’s the payment that’s the distinguishing factor of what constitutes free speech?
You don’t get a line item veto but you have the freedom of speech to complain about it.
@vpa2019 My point about the payment is that that’s the main thing that was changed by him being “censored.” He still came and spoke to some students on campus anyway.
Him not being invited to give a speech did not violate his rights to free speech, as he still had full rights to express himself regardless of whether he was being paid or not. I believe that he should be allowed to speak; I don’t believe that he should be hired as a speaker given his background.
The majority of Americans support gay rights and racial equality. Given that most American colleges, including Middlebury, lean liberal, it is more than reasonable to conclude that the majority of students would not agree with his views. However, if you have data, perhaps from a survey, that proves otherwise, then I would happily admit I’m wrong.
And as for it being wrong to shut down free speech one group doesn’t agree with, that is a bit of an oversimplification. Plenty of speech is not permitted, as the majority accepts it not to be protected under free speech. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “shouting fire in a crowded theater”? Also, you can’t say harmful lies about other people, etc.
Yes, I don’t know what he would have said specifically. Though, as I mentioned above, he came and spoke to some students independently, and he was invited to return in a year. If the university wishes for him to come speak, I fully support their right to invite him back. But they have no obligation whatsoever to do so.
@mom2twogirls yes I do and I have. Unfortunately the school could care less what I say. They only seem to listen to you if you’re under 22 years of age ?
Regardless of one’s view on whether or not he should have been permitted to speak, you have to agree that Middlebury College knows how to create excitement on campus.
Seemingly gets more protest action than Berkeley.
Plus, who would have ever thought that you need to drive an hour to Burlington, Vermont to enjoy a less liberal environment. Burlington, Vt. where Bernie was mayor.
@albertsax yes and the fact that most schools do lean left is even more reason why other points of view should be aired. They don’t need to be accepted. And yes not all speech is protected but the exceptions are finely tailored and I would offer that a better example of speech that people might find offensive but is nevertheless protected is the burning of an American Flag. I’m not disagreeing with you I’m disagreeing with the practice of college administrations shutting down speech on college campuses. You are free to disagree with me and that’s the beauty of this country. That ability to have courteous discussions and discourse and disagreements are integral to a great democracy and I hope that young people will choose to embrace it. Peace.
@vpa2019 And I think this is a good place to end our discussion. Peace to you as well. Enjoy your night.
As stated earlier, it’s the actions of the administration, not the peaceful student protesters, that bothers me. If it is OK to censure speakers due to viewpoints that are NOT the subject of their speech, then I guess it is OK to examine the records of actors, musicians, and writers and remove their works. Ban Richard Wagner? Strauss? John Wayne? Mel Gibson? H.P Lovecraft?
If the fear was that this speaker–or some other speaker–might change topics and start to spew hate speech, that’s when you step in and end his presentation.
As an aside, I have a vague recollection of Timothy Leary coming to my campus when I was a student, and, in the face of protests, moving his talk to an empty space across campus on the spur of the moment. I remember walking alongside him, but not the content of his speech, unfortunately. Maybe Leary would be banned in today’s world.
Anyway, I’d want my child to have the opportunity to decide for herself whether to hear this man speak, and whether to participate in a protest, whether to confront him in a Q&A session. It would be her choice and she would learn from the experience. I wouldn’t want her to be in a protective bubble and for those decisions to be made for her by the school. That’s unacceptable. Am I paying for this guy to give a speech? I prefer to look at it as that I’m paying for my child to get an education and to discover the full breadth of thought and opinion. Whether she agrees or not, whether it is right or not. (So long as it isn’t hate speech or intentionally intended to enrage or incite, but is on a legitimate academic subject, as mentioned earlier)
Middlebury found themselves in a lose-lose situation. A little-known (in the US) Polish conservative speaker was invited to the school by the Koch-funded Alexander Hamilton Forum. Word quickly spread throughout campus and the greater Champlain Valley that the speaker espoused views that were hurtful to marginalized groups.
He was originally scheduled to speak in a small venue on the edge of campus. When the news media picked up the story and protests began to take shape, the college looked for a larger venue. With the Charles Murray fiasco fresh in their minds, college administrators had to make a tough choice: let the talk proceed and risk student safety or postpone the event so they could better plan for the worst-case scenario.
What would have happened if the event had proceeded and protestors (or even the speaker) had gotten into a scuffle, as happened with Murray? It would have been the lead story on Fox News and conservative news outlets would have spun this story to fit their narrative even more than they already have. And before you say that Middlebury students are a bunch of rioting hooligans–know that there are no restrictions on who can attend campus events. When Murray spoke and word spread, masked agitators who weren’t students descended on campus and took part in the melee. Middlebury is a small, rural school with a handful of security guards. They simply weren’t prepared for what this had become.
Personally, I’m all for letting this guy speak on campus. But the administration’s first priority MUST be the safety of students.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
@vpa2019 well, if you aren’t a student or professor there, then of course your opinions are not going to have the same weight as that of the other adults whose world the college actually is. It’s not your experience, it’s theirs to shape.
But that doesn’t mean you didn’t have the freedom of speech to state your view, as everyone else did.
“the fact that most schools do lean left is even more reason why other points of view should be aired”
Totally agree!
@mom2twogirls I am paying into the budget through tuition and donations which funds the salaries of the administration and professors and subsidizes the tuition of a significant portion of that student population. Take a peek at some of the schools like Mizzou which have had issues with reductions in donor giving because of incidents like this on campus. If they don’t want to listen to my words I’m happy to put my money where my mouth is and withhold donations if money is the only language they speak.
And that is also your right, something I’ve said a few times in this thread.
I wonder whether colleges figure they can weather a bit less in donations now with the prediction that they will end up ahead in the next generation. It’s a gamble, but they perhaps find it worth it.
Maybe talent agents need to market speaker packages to colleges which include speakers with opposing viewpoints. Couldn’t get one without the other.
Also, I wonder how much Professor Ryszard Legutko has increased his appearance & speaking fees due to his rise in notoriety.
Also good for book sales. If the protesters want to further help the professor financially, why not do a book burning of The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Tendencies in Free Society. A publication few, very, very, few would have known about if it weren’t for the protestors.
“Be careful what you wish for” comes to mind.
It is often very easy to dismiss a fascist, a homophobe, a racist, and antisemite, a religious bigot, etc, when you are not the one they target.
It is all so easy for a Straight White person to sit in judgement about how some racist homophobe should be allowed to make a speech about how laws against gay people or PoC should be allowed, since “there is no such thing as LGBTQ, and PoC are oppressing the White majority”. It is very easy to be sanguine about threats against other people. I am sorry, but no White Christian can fully understand the visceral impact that a swastika scrawled on a Jewish cultural center has.
That is the essence of privilege - you are steeped in privilege when “political opinion” is not the same thing as “personal threats against your rights, freedom, safety, and life”. When Nazis march, you think “they want to change our political system in bad ways”, you do not think “they want to kill me”. When a politician wants to limit the rights that LGBTQ people have, you think “how anti-democratic”, you don’t think “that person wants to put me in prison for kissing my spouse”. When a racists speaks, you think “that violates the constitution”, you do not think “that person wants to take a make it legal to treat me like an animal”.
Does “freedom of speech” cover personal threats? I do not think so. That is the difference, then, between many of the people who think that the problems with Legutko, Coulter, Spencer, etc are free speech issues, and the people who are being directly targeted as victims of the policies, laws, and personal behavior, that these people are trying to establish.
It is like the story of the chicken and the pig, who want to celebrate the birthday of their farmer. The chicken proposes a celebratory breakfast of bacon and eggs. The pig is less enthusiastic about this idea, of course.
Just something to think about next time anybody here gets on a high horse about “freedom of speech is paramount”.
PS. As long as being a communist can still get people denied the right for residency, asylum, or even entry, the idea that inviting foreign fascists to speak on campus is “protected by the Constitution” is bogus, and demonstrates that, for this country, the privilege of the wealthy are more important than the lives and safety of minorities, or even Democracy itself.