"The Closing of the Collegiate Mind
Opponents of free speech have chalked up many campus victories lately as ideological conformity marches on.
By RUTH R. WISSE
May 11, 2014 5:18 p.m. ET
There was a time when people looking for intellectual debate turned away from politics to the university. Political backrooms bred slogans and bagmen; universities fostered educated discussion. But when students in the 1960s began occupying university property like the thugs of regimes America was fighting abroad, the venues gradually reversed. Open debate is now protected only in the polity: In universities, muggers prevail.
Assaults on intellectual and political freedom have been making headlines. Pressure from faculty egged on by Muslim groups induced Brandeis University last month not to grant Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the proponent of women's rights under Islam, an intended honorary degree at its convocation. This was a replay of 1994, when Brandeis faculty demanded that trustees rescind their decision to award an honorary degree to Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In each case, a faculty cabal joined by (let us charitably say) ignorant students promoted the value of repression over the values of America's liberal democracy.
Opponents of free speech have lately chalked up many such victories:"...
Ironic isn't it? In the 1960's the students took over campuses so they could speak freely. Many of those protestors became university educators themselves and they have no problem with denying others those same free speech rights.
"We have met the enemy and he is us?"
I hope they are proud denying women & minorities the right to speak on campuses everywhere.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
FredHayek wrote: Ironic isn't it? In the 1960's the students took over campuses so they could speak freely. Many of those protestors became university educators themselves and they have no problem with denying others those same free speech rights.
"We have met the enemy and he is us?"
I hope they are proud denying women & minorities the right to speak on campuses everywhere.
Orwell was right. Intolerance in the name of tolerance is tolerant. Who'd a thunk?
FredHayek wrote: Ironic isn't it? In the 1960's the students took over campuses so they could speak freely. Many of those protestors became university educators themselves and they have no problem with denying others those same free speech rights.
"We have met the enemy and he is us?"
I hope they are proud denying women & minorities the right to speak on campuses everywhere.
Orwell was right. Intolerance in the name of tolerance is tolerant. Who'd a thunk?
They should hang a sign of that on the walls at every teabagger meeting, and town hall. (And apparently on the wall where House Majority Leader Cantor
spoke the other day to his own constituents.) Those nasty ol' "opponents of free speech", otherwise known as teabaggers.
Another day, another woman shouted down. Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, has chosen to not speak at Smith's graduation after hundreds of complaints. Another very accomplished woman denied. (USA Today)
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
Photo-fish wrote: Really?
An online petition with 477 signatures is now classified as "shouting down"?
What? Did they sign the petition IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS?
OK, point made, they didn't shout her down. They shut her down.
So you are defending the people who think they can bully speakers they don't like? In Lagarde's case, it isn't even against what she herself did but supposed outrage at the place she works.
:Megaphone: Nice to know you support bullying women.
And it would be one thing if this was Sarah Palin, but the women being muzzled are social moderates who most of the students and faculty have similar views. Condi Rise is a social liberal, so is Lagarde. The anti-Islam woman who wasn't allowed to speak at Brandeis suffered greatly in the real war on women from Islam, yet the people in America who refuse to hear her? The liberal university of Brandeis.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
BlazerBob wrote: But when students in the 1960s began occupying university property like the thugs of regimes America was fighting abroad, the venues gradually reversed.
Well, I think I've found the problem...Everything since the 1960s has been downhill for conservatism, Republicanism, John Birch Society-ism, ad nauseum... If we could just go back to those halcyon days of the 50's...where women knew their place (the kitchen, the home, the nursery), and properly put their whitebread breadwinners on the appropriate pedestals, all that nasty thuggish behavior wouldn't have happened.
So, Fred, you are defending sexist stereotypes of the 50's. Nice to know you support banning anyone you don't agree with from expressing their free-speech right to protest (someone like a lying warmonger) from speaking.
I don't support banning them for speaking out. I am just pointing out that their protests are silencing other women.
LJ,
So you do support shutting down women speakers that you disagree with?
Would you protest Hilary Clinton speaking at CU since she supported the Iraq War?
Or served on the board of Wal-Mart?
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
So, do you support suppressing the free-speech rights of people to protest speakers who are being paid to speak out of funds that those people are forced to contribute to?
Would you support Ann Coulter, or Half-Governor Moosemeat speaking at a venue where the overwhelming majority of people don't want them there, but are forced to pay the speaking fee?
Well, I think I've found the problem...Everything since the 1960s has been downhill for conservatism, Republicanism, John Birch Society-ism, ad nauseum... If we could just go back to those halcyon days of the 50's...where women knew their place (the kitchen, the home, the nursery), and properly put their whitebread breadwinners on the appropriate pedestals, all that nasty thuggish behavior wouldn't have happened.
So, Fred, you are defending sexist stereotypes of the 50's. Nice to know you support banning anyone you don't agree with from expressing their free-speech right to protest (someone like a lying warmonger) from speaking.
She could go ahead and NOT cancel and take the money and speak. And this is STILL not a "first amendment"/freedom-of-speech situation.
