The recent events at Middlebury are well known enough not to need any summary. A multitude of links to reportorial sources and all possible perspectives can be found in one of the featured discussions on this board. I am not interested in getting that discussion going again. However, it has provoked thoughts about the U. of C. Could anything like what happened at Middlebury happen at Chicago?
The University of Chicago has a different history and culture, of course, and there is the Stone Report, the letter to the incoming class by the Dean of Students and Geoffrey Stone’s own “Aims of Education” talk, among many such statements over many years, to make one think that the University is effectively innoculated against such a thing. Yes, there was plenty of pushback from both faculty and students against the Dean’s letter. Yet, in the accounts I read of this, what was being objected to was more the gratuitousness and perhaps the tone of that letter than its actual principles, certainly insofar as they concerned “disinviting” speakers or disrupting their talks, much less carrying out the sort of violence against them that occurred at Middlebury.
I take it for granted that the vast majority of students, whether at Middlebury or Chicago, are neither political activists nor generally discourteous in the classroom or elsewhere. What was dispiriting about the Middlebury incident, however, was that the students who actually did want to hear the speaker (many of them opponents of his point of view, coming with really tough and challenging questions for him) did not appear to object when the disrupters took over and shut down the event. Perhaps they simply disappeared, leaving the violent few to carry out the even more serious attacks that occurred as the speaker and a professor were leaving the building.
I am sure that Chicago has activist students. Well and good. That has always been so, and is part of the great tradition of the University (vide Bernie Sanders). Would any significant number of them be capable of doing what was done at Middlebury? And if they attempted it, would their fellow students acquiesce in their conduct?
I would be most interested in the thoughts of any current students.
No, I don’t think UChicago is immune to that. I guess I’ll add the caveat the UChicago students are not very good at protesting, in general - we prefer reading about collective effervescence in Durkheim to experiencing it in real life, the one exception being scav. But I could entirely see something like this happening at UChicago for certain speakers. And most students would likely support it.
I really hate how this is framed as an assault on free speech. Give me a break, everyone has a line at which they don’t let people talk. CPAC disinvited Milo because he gave speeches insinuating that he thinks pedophilia is acceptable (Oh my god they didn’t let him speak! Free speech is dead!), but really the only difference on this issue between them and progressives is that the progressives drew that line at [public humiliation](Milo Yiannopoulos Harassed a Trans Student at UW Milwaukee) and [justifying homophobia](Milo: Gay Rights Have Made Us Dumber, It's Time to Get Back in the Closet) to a mostly straight audience (ex. “The good news is that gay rights are in the minority, globally speaking. China, India and most of all Russia proudly celebrate the importance of the nuclear family.” - what wonderful paragons to look up to, Russia’s Duma is [considering a bill](Dispatches: Jail Time for Being Gay in Russia) that would throw people in jail for public displays of gay affection and it’s already [illegal[/url] to talk about sexuality).
There are conservatives at UChicago - and there are a lot of fiscal conservatives. But most people lean liberal and there isn’t much sympathy for people who want a megaphone to scream their intolerance or who would use their platform to try to wreak as much havoc as possible.
That said, I think the Bell Curve guy would cause that reaction here - he just isn’t provocative enough. Consider that [url=<a href=“https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2017/2/16/outside-iop-event-lewandwoski-students-protested-i/%5DCorey”>https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2017/2/16/outside-iop-event-lewandwoski-students-protested-i/]Corey Lewandowski](http://www.globalequality.org/newsroom/latest-news/1-in-the-news/186-the-facts-on-lgbt-rights-in-russia) came to talk at the IOP only a few weeks ago and it didn’t cause a riot - people protested, some people went to the event as planned, campus didn’t melt into riots. He would probably be met with protests and most people here probably strongly disagree with him - especially anyone whose taken sosc or read Hume, which is most people. But he’s an academic, not a firebrand.
No. Chicago is not at all immune to the Middlebury experience. Given the right demographic changes to the student body and a different set of administrators, Chicago could mirror Middlebury in 5-6 years. I think the current administration knows this and are taking all kinds of steps both covert and overt to avoid this. They are trying to tilt the student demographics the other way with admission changes, and are getting ready to “punish” students who behave like some students did at Middlebury to send a strong message. I also think the trustees will be very careful not to get a President like “Morton Schapiro” or “Michael Roth” as a successor to Zimmer.
Thanks, HydeSnark. If you don’t mind I have a follow-up query.
The Stone report makes freedom of expression a paramount value at the University of Chicago. It does envisage “narrow exceptions”, such as speech that constitutes violation of the law or defamation or a genuine threat or harassment. However, those exceptions would not extend to a speaker who is simply provocative or says things that offend people or are believed to be false. In fact it is hard for me to see how they would apply to any speaker I can actually imagine speaking at the University of Chicago. Of course the question of whether any particular speaker ought to be invited in the first place is a different matter. There’s lots of room for disagreement and debate on that front within the club or department making the invitation. But, once invited, do students generally believe that that individual’s speech (short of those narrow exceptions) ought to be allowed to proceed? I believe you are saying that you have your doubts in the case of certain more provocative speakers.
I do take your point that most students are not very activist. It’s always been that way. That too is an honorable stance at a university. However, all students of all stripes and dispositions go to create a general climate of opinion. On this matter I don’t think it is or should be a question of whether one is a political liberal. Stone himself is certainly that. I am going to hold on to my hope that the climate of opinion is rather different at the University of Chicago from that of other schools.
Not being activist isn’t a stance, it’s more a personality quirk. Some people are just bad at standing there shouting slogans (though “Slogans lack nuance!” is a favorite).
But that doesn’t mean that people are going to stand there if, say, some student group invited David Duke or Alex Jones to come in. Frankly, no, I don’t think students here think all speech should be allowed to proceed solely because someone wants to say it. Most students here are fans of arguing and debating - but you can’t argue with blind hatred.
I don’t think it’s so much that the climate of opinion is so different at the University of Chicago. What’s really different is the culture of respectful dialogue, fact- and logic-based argument, and tolerance for complexity and nuance. People don’t shout slogans at one another very much, and those who do shout slogans don’t get much respect for it. People try to identify what they agree on, to understand exactly where, how, and why their premises diverge, and to explore how they might modify their positions to account for legitimate points raised by others. That kind of debate doesn’t produce a lot of physical injuries.
It’s positively ridiculous to suggest that Chicago is trying to mold its student body politically through admissions. No one there has any interest in that, at least as I have been able to discern.
In the old days it was much simpler. It was understood that even you could say it, maybe everyone would be better off if you didn’t say it. It is one of the corollaries of civility.
One of my old Profs, Karl Weintraub, a quintessential product of the U. of C., was fond of saying, the education we give you here is meant to shake you up, make you examine all your beliefs and find them insufficient until you have reconstructed them, or other beliefs in their place, with the hard work of thought. He was really only channelling Socrates, Erasmus, Burckhardt and the entire humanist tradition in which he was so deeply steeped. Over and over in the Socratic dialogues a confident interlocutor complacently volunteers his belief about some important question. The beginning of wisdom comes only when, under Socrates`questioning, he is forced to admit that his certitude is false, that he does not understand the thing at all. Only then can he really begin thinking and really have a chance of finding the truth. One such interlocutor calls Socrates a torpedo fish inasmuch as he stuns into silence and confusion all the voluble and opinionated young men who come to him. Many of them never get beyond that state, but the really smart ones, disencumbered of their received opinions, are able to go on a journey with the master into the higher realms of truth. The youth of Athens famously flocked to Socrates. Weintraub had some of that aura about him as well. I hope there are still profs of that quality at the University.
Slogans lack nuance is pretty good. I`ll remember that one.
A commitment to dialogue and argument is indeed the spirit of the University of Chicago, as JHS rightly says. One could say, again with Plato, that the search for truth is dialectical in that it actually presupposes grappling with differences of opinion, from which the seeker can only advance by understanding and in some measure taking on board opposing positions. As someone has said, if you know only one side of the argument, you don`t really know the argument. (That statement would also look good on a tee shirt worn by a U. of C. student.) When I expressed the hope that a certain climate of opinion still existed at this University more than at others, that was what I had in mind. I hoped that Chicago students, whatever their political opinions and commitments, would stand up for the value of uninhibited discourse itself, even when confronted with the limited or false perspective of any particular speaker.
No school is immune to what happened at Middlebury -
because what happened at Middlebury involved only a minescule fraction of the student body and doesn’t reflect Milddelbury overall. People are reading whatever they want to into that unfortunate incident to make larger political statements.
Middlebury only has 2500 students. It appears that over 10% of them were in the hall actively preventing Murray from speaking, and those are just the people who were able to get a seat. There are likely more who were unable to get a seat. Doesn’t appear to be a miniscule faction.
Since school culture can get a big makeover every year, any school can become like Middlebury, if these kind of illberal students are either not weeded out during admissions or self select away from the school. This is where the admissions office and alum interviewers play a very important role. So the administration and well wishers of the University have to be extra vigilant. I think there are enough kids in Chicago now who given a chance would behave Exactly like the Middlebury students. I have seen them give televised interviews explaining their position.
Zimmer and Nondorf really should be paying very close attention to how they pick the freshman class.
@denydenzig Interesting point and I’ll reference my daughters interview with a conservative alum. The previous year this alum interviewed a friend of my daughters who applied to UChicago RD. Her report on the interview was extremely negative as she was quite liberal in nature and disagreed with his perspective quite vehemently. She was subsequently denied to UChicago and is now at Harvard. My daughters interview with this same person was quite different (as hopefully I have raised her to keep an open mind even if she is liberal leaning), and this alum absolutely gave her a great recommendation, and she was admitted to UChicago. Personally I believe the alum was simply trying to weed out those kids who don’t have an open mind and willing to entertain dialogue on controversial subjects. JMHO.
@CU123 I know of a person who wrote an extremely passionate Uchicago essay about a very hot social justice issue. She felt this defined her so felt compelled to write about it. In her UChicago interview she said she talked at length about how she wanted to get involved on campus to change perceptions about this issue. I wondered if this would give her an edge, given her passion. Excellent academics and stats
Applied EA. Got deferred. Converted to ED2. Got denied. She is totally bummed out. She told me she has a likely from Oberlin, so she will do fine but it does make me wonder
@denydenzig If it was a very commonly discussed liberal social issue, it’s possible she just didn’t stand out enough in the essay. However, this is all just speculation and it could be due to other factors in her application. When we were sharing essays with other accepted students I do recall seeing a bunch of essays that were based around social justice issues.
Hi,
Is Chicago a Democrat or Republican school? I thought it was economically sound but from the sounds of this thread many students are liberals. Does anyone know what the percents are?
You can look at it this way: In the United States, the more education you have, the more likely you are to be some kind of “liberal.” You are also more likely to be some kind of conservative the more educated you are, up through people with college degrees, but people with graduate or professional degrees are the least likely to identify as conservatives. http://www.people-press.org/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-gap-between-more-and-less-educated-adults/4-22-2016_01/
Guess what? The vast majority of University of Chicago undergraduates will eventually be people with a graduate or professional degree. That’s who they are. I think the University of Chicago is more open to conservatives than most comparable institutions, and there is more respect for conservative ideas, but there’s no question that the students and faculty skew left, as they do at every elite university.
I find it really strange that colleges that always talk about diversity, don’t really apply affirmative action to increase diversity of opinions on their campus whether it is college faculty or students.
According to the Heterodox academy in the 15 years between 1995 and 2010 Universities went from leaning left to being almost entirely on the left. Conservative professors mostly live in schools of engineering and other professional schools; the percent conservative for the major humanities and social science departments is closer to 5%. Human nature being what it is, it is hard to impart unbiased and rigorous education with that kind of skew.
Don’t get me wrong. I want there to be a sizable population of left leaning folks in the student population and the faculty. Their opinion and perspective is very valuable. You don’t want to remain in a “right wing bubble”, but you also don’t want to get trapped in a “left wing” bubble and right now most of our elite schools are doing no favors to our kids. This is specially true at the elite liberal arts colleges and Universities.
UChicago is one of the few top tier universities that still manages to strike some balance, but the student population is a very different matter. Unless some affirmative action is taken to fix the skew, conservative students are going to feel very lonely on most college campuses and UChicago is no exception.