Let me be less subtle. Don’t discuss documents from 2013. Don’t discuss flags from 2014. In fact, there’s likely precious little from the past that is worthy of discussion in this thread if it doesn’t directly tie to events of today.
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W&L, meet the present:
Matt Walsh cancels college speech over threats after Nashville shooting - Washington Times
Note: Matt Walsh did not cancel his W&L appearance due to any threats or security concerns emanating from the college.
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Every college campus in America has speakers that are offensive to some. Are you suggesting that W&L further restrict speech on campus? More than Yale, for example, who hosted an antisemitic speaker on campus this week?
If other posters are interested in starting a thread on campus free speech issues, let’s include other colleges and universities as well. W&L is not the only college with controversial speakers on campus on occasion. Some are disinvited, some choose not to come after pressure, some speak.
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No, but I would support your right to protest whatever side you disagree with.
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I prefer to check this source when I am looking into campus climate re: free speech and W&L’s current rankings and student comments are here.
For tolerance for speakers (combined), W&L is ranked 8th. Overall, 70th.
Thank you for the link. The student comments were interesting:
“White students often speak over students of color and make their own assumptions about our feelings. I was asked if I was comfortable as a PoC on campus, and I said yes since I found my own little group of friends. A white student had said that my statement proved that we were uncomfortable. I wasn’t but now I was.”
– Class of 2025
“When the name change debate was going down on campus, because I felt like so many influential people were against it and I’m getting so much from this school, I felt like it was wrong to want the name to be changed.”
– Class of 2023
“Whether the name should be changed used to be a really touchy subject, and it was often best for everyone to avoid the topic in conversation rather than end up in a screaming match or pointless arguments online.”
– Class of 2023
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I don’t find any of that particularly concerning personally. I have two postsecondary degrees, and if you had surveyed me at arbitrary times at both schools, I could have given both glowing and critical statements as to how I was treated as a woman and, as a graduate student, a married person, on both campuses. I appreciate that W&L participates in this survey at all, as not all colleges and universities in the US do. It shows an openness to criticism that I respect.
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deleted.
The concerns the 3 WL kids expressed occur on every campus in one form or another all the time. There is nothing unusual about them-they are the norm, just the particular cause du jour changes. Kids feel compelled to fit in with their peers. Socially prominent kids set the tone. Men talk over women. Another day in college life. Their comments are only interesting if you had not realized they are typical of daily interaction everywhere.
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I see.
In your opinion, has this thread demonstrated that those who support W&L are open to criticism of the institution? I don’t get that impression. From my perspective it seems that even the recitation of basic facts, dates, and statistics has brought stiff rebuke and offense.
I keep thinking back to the interview posted by @cinnamon1212, above. Dr. Hill discusses the Delaney Center, opened in 2021 amid (and perhaps in response to) the controversy over the proposed (and rejected) name change. The Delaney Center “promotes teaching and research on race and Southern identity,” and in that regard Dr. Hill repeatedly mentions “the imperative of truth telling.”
My impression was that this doesn’t just include selectively highlighting the positives by putting the best spin on everything. Rather, it consists of having the “resolve” to openly address those truths which are so very hard to hear. Wasn’t that a large part of Professor Delaney’s legacy at W&L? Telling the truth about Robert E. Lee and the Lost Cause Mythology? In that sense, this conversation is very familiar.
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Perhaps we should all defer to those actually on that campus as the real experts on the environment and let each draw their own conclusion based upon personal first hand experience
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I think we all know the pitfalls of college review websites. The opinions offered in a student newspaper would be a more reliable indication of student climate. For those interested in reliability and accuracy.
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