https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2020/3/6/iop-whiteboard-girl/
For current students or anyone with knowledge of the current climate at the College: is this article representative of the ways students approach speech at Chicago now?
FYI, on a whiteboard during an event, this student wrote a message decrying socialism. Per the student, she then received threats of violence, hate speech, and vitriol from fellow students.
What’s going on here?
And in other news, Booth announces an accelerated MBA program for Chicago undergrads. 3rd and 4th year chicago undergrads can now be, essentially, part-time business students.
Allowing undergrads to be mba students is a bit, erm, pre-professional, no? But the culture still is what it always was?
I take it you are putting these two articles together because you think there’s some relation between them. What is it?
The piece of the young woman was well-written, and I like her spirit. However, her incursion was somewhat provocative and probably intended to stir up her woke classmates of which there must be many on campus. That happened, and she is being a bit faux-naive in recounting her reaction. And for her own polemical reasons she may possibly have exaggerated the virulence of the blowback. So it goes for the political livewires on a campus, any campus, including the U of C.
I don’t quite understand what she is expecting the administration to do about any of this. Free speech operates in all directions. I don’t doubt, however, that much of the reaction was way over the top. Education is a work in progress for most undergrads. The Free Speech Statement has not repealed certain constants of our human nature. Civil speech and reasoned argument are a goal never quite attainable.
As an aside, it’s worth reading many of the commenters to her piece: she has found a good deal of support.
With regard to the accelerated MBA program, no doubt it adds a pre-professional feel. I wonder what data UC admin has that is leading them to add this offering? Seems like they must have some well-considered reasons…possibly:
-Competition? Do they believe they are losing desirable students to the likes of NU, Duke, Wharton?
-Does their market research (with undergrads? recent grads? parents?) show a demand for a program of this type?
-Pressures in traditional MBA marketplace? Do they foresee declines in traditional MBA program applications? Not sure if they have experienced a decline in apps for the FT program, but many M7 schools have…and it’s even worse for schools outside that group. This dynamic, at least partially, is driving the many one year accelerated master’s programs. UChicago does have the Part-time and Executive MBA offerings too…so not sure how their numbers (enrollment, revenues) are forecast to shake out including those options.
No matter the reason, it seems more a business decision, rather than one of pedagogy.
In the last reporting cycle, only Booth, among the M7 has increased applications. There is, indeed, a decline in apps overall.
The phenomenon of locking in undergrads started long ago. Harvarfd’s 2+2 is an example. Booth just upped the ante. My guess is they are trying to add value to the business Econ track - make its value proposition stronger vis-à-vis traditional Econ.
Business courses at the undergraduate level should be able to count if they are the same rigor as MBA courses. It’s no secret that MBA programs in general are experiencing significantly declining enrollments, as students opt for the business degree at the undergraduate level. Booth has always allowed those students with the requisite prep to waive some requirements and substitute in more advanced-level study, including PhD-level courses. Now that UChicago offers business courses to the undergrads, Booth is only applying the same rules to the university’s own College grads. If it helps accelerate your time to graduation with your MBA, so much the better (didn’t read the article so not sure if this is the case).
As to whether it suggests more “pre-professionalism” - no. Actually it suggests an easier path to an actual professional degree. It would be great if the law school or Harris or Pritzker Med did the same (which they might, for all I know). @Cue7, this is merely Hutchins’ old model delayed five years. Rather than the College letting in those bright 15 year olds who are well prepared for university study, the grad programs are opening their doors to those College students who are prepared to do graduate level work early on.
As to the “Fall of Free Speech U” - not sure what the point is here. Did Cue think there are no woke students on campus? Or does he believe that the university should be monitoring the online communications of its student body (à la Harvard College)?
Ummm, she should really learn what the term “free speech” actually means. The fact that she was allowed to write this without it being immediately erased or her being expelled means that U Chicago has free speech. End of story.
This is just so much more faux outrage by people who do not really support any type of “free speech” to which they do not agree. It’s getting tiresome.
“This is just so much more faux outrage by people who do not really support any type of “free speech” to which they do not agree. It’s getting tiresome.”
Fall of Free Speech U? Ha! Hardly, this is how it’s been since the day I first set foot on campus five years ago.
The idea of UChicago as some kind of utopian crusader state that stands against modern college “social justice warriors” is a fabrication by the university propaganda department, a successful ruse to get conservative alumni or sympathizers to turn out their pockets. It works well, but in reality UChicago is, like most universities in the country, one spark away from campus-wide protests landing it as the subject of some Fox News afternoon segment on a slow news day (though we seem to be running out of slow news days these days).
Ironically, because of how much UChicago has become dependent on this perception to pay the bills, the administration is wary of stepping on the activist wing of UChicago’s toes too much. Hence, noisy proclamations of UChicago being a “safe space free zone” (in the infamous letter) where free speech reigned and trigger warnings were not welcome, were followed up by defiant proclamations by faculty and teaching stuff that even if the university was against, they were not. It seemed to me that the only thing it lead to was increased uses of trigger warnings or whatever. But, of course the administration did nothing. It was all smoke and no fire - the perception of the university being against trigger warnings was far more important than whether it was actually true.
I can only imagine how much this latest debacle has Zimmer panicking that it will bubble up into the mainstream press. He’s probably thanking his lucky stars the primary and coronavirus are taking up so much of the airwaves nobody pays attention. But, who knows - Nikki Haley just tweeted it out and you’re here making this thread. Maybe people will finally see that the emperor wears no clothes.
^ Yes, we can all imagine Zimmer simply panicking over this one. The university has certainly never experienced a campus-wide protest before. Where are the smelling salts?
@HydeSnark - good to know you are back from “retirement”; hope all is well.
Second @JBStillFlying: it is good to hear from @HydeSnark again. Hope everything is well for you.
A hearty welcome, @HydeSnark . You now join the cantankerous crew of alums - with one difference: you actually know something about contemporary campus life.
I make a distinction between the policy of the University and the politics of its students - including their attitude to free speech but certainly to the administration generally. It would be very unChicago-like for its students to meekly line up in support of almost anything the administration might do. And I take it as a given that most students are either liberal or something more to the left, with an activist cohort capable of mobilizing many in the middle. That was how it was in my day. Campus conservatives were vastly outnumbered then, and I expect they are now. I believe a survey of the political orientations of the entering class was published two or three years back, showing, if I recollect, a pretty large majority calling themselves left or moderate-left, and a much smaller minority calling themselves conservative or moderate.
What I myself would hope to see at the University is not any particular political orientation in its students but the continuation of a long tradition (not something cooked up just yesterday by the administration) of argumentativeness about ideas and political positions as against preemptive shunnings and shouting downs. I even dare to hope that there are those open to being persuaded, if not of the rightness of the other guy’s arguments then at least that there are strengths and weaknesses in all arguments, including the ones you dislike and ultimately reject. Most important of all: an argument must be made well and honestly and factually in order to command general respect at the University of Chicago. I dare to hope this.
As for the University’s free speech policy, I won’t consider that a failure and a hypocrisy until the time comes that a speaker is deplatformed or a meeting or speech is broken up or prevented while the administration stands by and lets these things happen. It may be that Zimmer is quaking in his boots and hoping that he will not be put to the test. That could be. However, here’s an equally cynical observation: he might be looking for just such an occasion in order to make a contrast with how things are handled at Chicago as against several other schools. Conservative alumni, though l certainly can’t speak for them, are likely looking for a demonstration of backbone on the part of the administration more than docile appreciation on the part of students. There is a history of that at Chicago, and it didn’t begin with Zimmer.
The provocative incursion of the young socialist-baiter - and the blowback against her from her fellow students - doesn’t in my mind rise to the level of anything the administration needs to take note of, much less rise to defend. Offense was given on both sides and the ensuing discussion was, shall we say, robust. She got in her blows in response to theirs. As I suggested above, I have a suspicion she courted this and exaggerated it for her own polemical reasons. I like her style but am not in love with her tactics. Now if she and a group of like-minded had been holding their own meeting or hosting a duly authorized speaker, and if their event had been broken up or threatened, that’s where I would expect the intervention of the University - to let the demonstrators demonstrate but let the meeting go on.
I don’t want to see the big stick of the University wielded in any but the most flagrant of cases. Short of that, I do hope to see moments of civility and respect for dissent break out spontaneously and non-institutionally among the students on this of all campuses. Such things don’t get the attention of pundits or idologues, but surely those little actions are what an education should be about in general and in particular at the University of Chicago. Is that a forlorn hope?
I’m amused by a couple of responses to someone who tried to present a rational view of socialized medicine. The poster received some very immature responses that didn’t address the point. I guess they are UC students, but they sound like they are in high school.
I’m kind of surprised that Axelrod’s public letter isn’t getting much play. It was pretty to the point. ie. feigning Coronovirus insensitivity when slamming socialism was the real issue.
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2020/3/6/david-axelrod-whiteboard-backlash/
That was a truly admirable statement by David Axelrod - and very shrewd in detaching the two parts of the young woman’s comment and concluding that no one would have got very riled about the reference to deaths from the virus if “hate” had been substituted for “socialism” in the second part, thus making the politics more acceptable.
Interesting to read his full-throated espousal of the Free Speech Doctrine of the University. Respected profs and people like him (not sure if he’s a Prof) making the case or demonstrating it in practice will go further to instilling it as a part of student culture than the pronouncements of the Administration, important as those are as policy. One hopes that some of the more vituperative commenters will have been shamed. However, Axelrod is even-handed about the reaction; he recognizes that this was a provocative statement by the young woman and that she should have expected vigorous pushback.
Well done, Mr. Axelrod. He’s an asset to the university community.
I have not commented on this because, although I am siding with the whiteboard writer, I dont know… I am still conflicted… I am a bit turned off by her. She obviously wanted to post something controversial, something offensive, to get a rise out of people. She does not deserve the direct attacks on her character but she feigns innocence, and I dont know if I agree that she is. How could she not see how her comment was offensive to some who may even espouse the same politics she has?
Case in point. If I were a student whose family are in quarantine, and there are many Chinese, Korean, Italian nationals in UChicago - or ones who just came from the deadly cruises, or ones who live in cities where the repatriated patients live or quarantined, I would be mad as hell too. And I wont be “reasonable” for a short period of time. Sure, I might not lash out, maybe just ignore her and give her the silent treatment for a time if she were a friend, but that is me. We all grieve in different ways. Sure, she has a point about the damage done by communism, but just like many things… as the kids say this days, “too soon”. There are people in danger of dying out there and minimizing their pain and suffering, right now, in order to make a point… Its like going to a funeral, and saying “sure your dad died but communism kills more”. Too soon. Just too soon.
She, knowingly, risked the possibility of a backlash, to make (what she believes is) a bigger point, but she is not an unprepared victim like she wants to portray. Those were fighting words she released, she should have prepared for a fight, prepare for a backlash, and stand for what she believes in without painting the other side to be a bunch of stereotypes.
She does not know where all these commentators are coming from. I agree with her overall point, but she is in my opinion both “offender” and “offended”.
@FStratford while it’s understandable that someone may be taken aback by this woman’s direct and confrontational message, you are being a bit presumptuous in speculating both on who the responders were and their motivations. And perhaps a few reading and commenting on this forum are even speculating on this woman’s “true” motivations. She may have genuinely shared the reason why she votes! That was the question, after all and the project - appropriately - didn’t censor or “edit” responses. Perhaps she could have made her point more delicately which would have prompted a fruitful debate on the subject. But that’s holding her to a higher standard than those who spewed the vitiol. Regardless of her motivations, they don’t compare to the triggered outrage that occurred.
Debate often begins with a provocative statement. Who’s to say what topic is off-limits? We could spend all day debating that one!
JB. I do think you are right. That’s her reason, she should not be censored. She was just being honest. Insensitive, but honest. I will defend her right to say what she said. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Its just hard to separate reason from emotion right now. Too raw, too soon.
My comment is my reaction alone because I primarily saw it from a family member’s point of view.
They live in Italy and they are all under travel restrictions in that country. And food is getting scarce. A few more months of lockdown, and it would be as desolate as a war zone. Knowing one of them, his first reaction would be to cuss out anyone minimizing what they are going through right now. And I would respect his right to express his emotions too. This reminds me of a quote from Ally Mc Beal: “why is it that when it happens to you, you think it’s such a big deal? Because it is happening to me”
Out there, if one says it’s not as bad as when Mussolini killed so many people - even if it’s right, it’s still off. Too soon.
For this, I disagree with Axelrod. Even if the word she used was hate and not socialism, it would still have been off. And there would still have been blow back (if not more since people will not hesitate to respond for fear of being painted as some political partisan)
Once cooler heads prevail. When the threat is gone, to me, her statement would be perfectly neutral.
I think if the whiteboard writer was at least cognizant that what she wrote was hitting corona virus victims the wrong way, then it would have been better. Right now, it seems like they are just collateral damage