I would like to know what everyone thinks of this Yale thing

In My Humble Opinion
101

Plural “you.”

Of course there are consequences for free speech. One of which is that people might treat you differently when you say something very foolish. She should be treated in such a manner.

Whether Yale should impose disciplinary consequences is another matter entirely. Of course they’re within their rights to do so, but I suggest they shouldn’t–universities should encourage, not discourage, free speech.

Which puts me on one side of the issue, and you and the student together on the other.

102

Actually, I’m with you on the issue. But if we are going to move into a climate where people suffer material damage and professional damage for merely expressing an opinion in private, I want those who advocate such a stance to suffer from the consequences of their own point of view. Hopefully, sanity will return some distant century from now.

103

You obviously don’t grasp the analogy. This incident is a Two Minutes hate because it is an example of manufactured outrage against an enemy who doesn’t even exist (in this case, an imaginary cabal of white male Christian frat boys oppressing everyone by dressing in blackface) but has been created to be a symbol with which to propagandize people into holding the “correct” opinions. The statements you quoted, on the other hand, while some of them cross the line into a crudeness I don’t necessarily condone, are expressions of opinions about real people who actually exist and real events which actually occurred.

Not as ridiculous? Are you quite serious? The belief that, in Western nations in 2015, the right is more of a threat to freedom of speech than the left, can only be described as a delusion.

104

Except we’re not moving any more into such an era than we’ve ever been in before. The sky is not falling. People say shitty things, others think they’re shitty and stop associating with them. This is how it’s always worked.

105

What you say is technically true in the pedantic sense but not practically speaking. There has always been waxing and waning of support for free speech but that is not a good thing and it it isn’t something that should be negotiable or up for debate. Most of Western Europe doesn’t even have a strong model for it to this day. The U.S. Constitution was rather revolutionary to recognize it as a natural right in the very first part of the Bill of Rights.

I agree that threats to freedom of speech come from all authoritarian movements ranging from the left to the right but it is dishonest to deny that a disproportionate amount of them come from the Left today. In prior decades, the assault freedom of speech tended to come from right-wing movements but the distinction isn’t that important because they are fundamentally the same brand under a different badge. The only difference is their preferred choice of targets.

I am a moderate libertarian and freedom or speech of all types, whether I agree with it or not, is one of my core values and it isn’t up for negotiation. I was taught the fundamentals of basic human rights in the (very poor) public schools that I attended as did everyone else and understand it intuitively as do most Americans. I was under the delusion that young people these days were also exposed to the same types of ideas but apparently I was wrong because even some students at the most elite colleges today cannot even begin to grasp the basic concept. Something has gone terribly wrong.

106

Color me confused.

No one here has said that the Professor should not be allowed to speak her mind in the public sphere. There is no organized movement to have her fired. There is no movement to have her sanctioned.

Freedom of speech does not mean that you can say whatever you want without others telling you that they think you are a jerk or an idiot or hateful for saying it (whether you or I agree or not). Freedom of speech does not mean that others have any obligation to listen to what you have to say. Freedom of speech does not require that the speech be spoken politely or in a manner that convinces others. It does not require that others associate with you or continue to buy your product or use your services after they have what you have said.

I have a freedom to speak; you have a right to protest me, applaud me, be bored by me, engage with me, or to ignore me.

No. Freedom of speech is NOT that a professor gets to say whatever (s)he wants in a public sphere (especially if you/we agree with it) and that a student is out of bounds protesting what the professor said in the same public sphere (especially not if you/we don’t like how it is said).

The IAC used their freedom of speech to politely request that students choose costumes with consideration of the impact the choices have on others.

A number of the professors students used their freedom of speech to express frustration about that request (according to the professor). For whatever reason they were frustrated by it. (Per Ruken it is not fair to imagine any reason why.)

The professor used her freedom of speech … well as she did. Read it how you will, doesn’t matter for this point. Agree or disagree, think it is wisdom or trolling, she had a right to express her thought.

One student used her freedom of speech to protest loudly and very ineffectively what they understood the professor to be saying (agree or disagree with that interpretation and dislike or like how she expresses it, again does not matter).

Another large group of students used theirs to write a letter in protest which explained their position on why the request for consideration in costume choice was a reasonable one and how they experienced the reaction to that reasonable request as offensive (not one demanding resignations).

The professor responds and some engage and some ignore.

All pretty classic exercises of freedom of speech.

Longing nostalgic for the polite intellectual mutually tolerant exchange of ideas that was Kent State in the 60s? Young people today … what has gone wrong with them?

107

OK, I will bite. I usually respect you as a poster for many topics but I personally think you are incoherent in this thread. I am not even sure you have even read the source material or understood it if you did. That isn’t an intentional insult. I literally have been unable to follow your line of conversation in this thread even though I have tried to go back and reread it many times. There is a miscommunication somewhere and I am fairly certain it isn’t just me.

Can you state clearly what your general position on freedom of speech is in the philosophical and practical sense?

108

On the contrary, it’s bizarre and ridiculous to claim that the left originates most threats to free speech today. Over and over I’ve pointed this out in other threads: on the left, you’ve got undergrads trying ineffectually to censor people. On the right, you’ve got legislators closing university centers who engage in activities that they politically oppose.

But part of the US right wing’s schtick is to pretend they’re persecuted by meanie liberals, who want to destroy Christmas or muzzle conservatives or whatever. No. The US right is not persecuted. No. The US Left is not presenting a massive threat to free speech. No. The sky is not falling.

109

I have read all the emails cited and the open letter. And understood them. Very seriously I doubt you have read them. I am positive many participating here have not as several have continued to post as if the open letter signed at that point by 740 is a hostile petition calling upon the professors to be fired; it is not.

Do you believe the actual IAC email was browbeating students or something that in any way was something that realistically should have frustrated anyone? Read it first … I believe many here have not. It was completely a completely benign request: please think before you act like jerks.

The professors email? My read of it is very clear: I’ve heard from students you are frustrated that were asked to think before acting like jerks by adults. Adults try to control you kids but being offensive is normal stuff for you to do developmentally, I know, I was a preschool teacher. Those who are offended should just deal with your behavior maturely.

Some students read this the same way I did: even asking majority students to think before acting like jerks to minority students is a big deal; as a trivialization of the offense they experience; as a dismissal of their concerns. Some got angry about that as college students sometimes do and protested.

One young woman was captured on video expressing her thoughts poorly. A shock that a college student could do that.

The majority signed a very well expressed open letter. There was no organized movement asking for the professors to be fired despite news accounts that portrayed it as such.

That’s the source material. Did you actually read or comprehend it?

Not sure what you are unable to comprehend about my position on free speech as stated above.

In a practical sense I believe in free speech. Free speech includes speech the IAC requesting for students to think before acting like jerks. It includes student protesting including even that tantrum. It includes the ability to offend and the ability to take offense and to express that offense was taken, even to offend as part of expressing that offense was taken. It does not include any obligation to be quiet or passive in response to the speech of others; it does not include an obligation to listen to the speech of others.

I will illustrate with a vignette from my teen years. Grew up near Skokie Illinois when the American Nazi Party wanted to march there. Was a late teen then. My position then was that they should be allowed to march and that the proper response was to have a circus with jugglers and other clowns going on at the same time. Free speech includes allowing Nazis marching through a neighborhood that contained many who lived through the Holocaust and it includes making fun of them … (and would have included others telling them to shut up or walking away). is that enough of a practical sense for you to understand?

110

The lead article on the website of the New Haven Register today describes a rally held yesterday at Yale. As soon as I read it, I was reminded of the Jeremy Piven movie “PCU.” Now that movie is 21 years old and was set upstate at Wesleyan, but this totally sounds like what’s going on at Yale today.

The article begins, "A thousand or more Yale University students marched downtown Monday to a massive rally on Cross Campus demanding that Yale become the inclusive university they said they were promised when they enrolled.

The ‘March of Resiliency’ was possibly the most inclusive as any student event on campus could be, with students saying they were going to bring the university forward to respect people of every color, ethnicity and gender identity."

111

Great article in The Atlantic on this topic.

112

I liked this bit from The Atlantic piece, “These are young people who live in safe, heated buildings with two Steinway grand pianos, an indoor basketball court, a courtyard with hammocks and picnic tables, a computer lab, a dance studio, a gym, a movie theater, a film-editing lab, billiard tables, an art gallery, and four music practice rooms. But they can’t bear this setting that millions of people would risk their lives to inhabit because one woman wrote an email that hurt their feelings?”

It really is amazing how luxurious the accommodations in an elite school are. And somehow these kids don’t feel they’re in a safe space? They’re at one of the top schools in the world, surrounded by some of the best and brightest and somehow, that email made them intolerably uncomfortable?

113

Of course some of the “young people who live in safe, heated buildings with two Steinway grand pianos” and so on, get “frustrated” at being asked to please think about they are doing before they act like jerks to other students. They did not like being asked to do that. They were frustrated by this completely benign speech of others enough that a professor felt the need to defend the developmental normalcy of offending others of your community (who for their part should respond in a mature fashion).

And some people feel a professor needs to be protected from offensive speech (yup, agreed that one woman student was engaged in offensive speech) aimed against her. Some have made it their business to try to publicly shame her (which is their free speech in action).

And these people feel that the professor needs to be protected from polite critical speech too, that others who politely explained why what the professor said was offensive should be publicly shamed. Their speaking freely about why they feel offended is somehow … can’t quite figure out the perverse logic of how somehow … not upholding the value of free speech.

And more feel the need to misrepresent the events. A polite benign even milquetoast email asking for people to just please consider the feelings of others as they choose their costumes becomes “browbeating students” and “heavy handed”… a letter that simply explains why offense was taken delusionally becomes a demand for both professors to be fired and “attacking them.”

No, Erika Christakis was not defending free speech because no one’s free speech was being infringed upon. There was no attack on free speech in progress.

If criticizing what others say is being against free speech then everyone involved here is guilty … but no, criticism is part of free speech. The students who want to dress up in offensive costumes (and the IAC email seems to imply that happens pretty much every year) were never told they could not, in fact they were explicitly told it was their right to express themselves freely. Erika Christakis was not disallowed from sharing her two cents worth and offering her reassurance that being offensive is good normal development and being asked to consider not being offensive is bad. An angry student was not stopped from being offensive herself and hundreds of students were not stopped from writing a letter explaining why they were offended.

I am sure that some students were frustrated that were asked to consider their choices and asked to please not be jerks. Many college students get frustrated that colleges sometimes request they don’t binge drink, or drink underage, at least in public. Many college students feel entitled about lots of things and certainly coddling those who think that being asked to not be a jerk is something to be frustrated about does nothing to diminish it.

OTOH thousands of students there think that considering others’ feelings rather than casually offending is not too much to even request. Oh those SJWs and their crazy thoughts!

114

Not really.

It made them feel they might be able to crush a viewpoint they didn’t like. They’ve come to believe that saying “I was made to feel uncomfortable” is a path to genuine power - in this case, the power to at least get the authorities to grovel.

When you sense you have power like that, the temptation to use it is hard to resist.

115

You do not know why they were frustrated. You do not know what they did not like. You know that a professor said students were frustrated by an email, but not why.

One can completely agree with the sentiments in the school’s email, yet still be frustrated that the school sent it.

116

Huh?

Okay Ruken I will phrase it in a way that is very precise for you:

Some number of these privileged students were frustrated at having received an email that asked them to please think about what they are doing before they act like jerks to other students.

If you want to think they were frustrated that the school they are attending sent them an email rather than by its content, go right ahead.

Seriously you don’t like getting emails from your college? Delete them. You don’t like the content of that email? Your right. It did not pass down any edict.

Getting that email which made that request frustrates you for some reason? Oh poor baby.

Your professor feels for you. There there. “Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious … a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive?” Dry those eyes.

Interesting though … the process going on is pretty much exactly what Professor Christakis bemoaned was not going on. She thinks there should be room for young people to be offensive … one was, to her husband and some to her. Celebrate! She begrudged an imagined censure and prohibition which comes from above, not from the students themselves. “From above” instead of “self-censure, through social norming.” Thousands of students marching and stating what they do and do not find acceptable is exactly a form of “social norming”. Now mind you I for one am hesitant to accept “social norming” as an ideal … it smacks of tyranny of the majority to me and “social norming” can endorse some pretty ugly norms. But it is her stated preference. I am sure she is happy.

Yes Xema that is how free speech sometimes works. People and groups compete with speech in the marketplace of ideas, be it within a family, a community, or a society. Sometimes ideas you dislike win and even crush the viewpoints you like. Sometimes your ideas prevail. Yes, I understand that the concept of inclusiveness and of enough cultural sensitivity that the request to not wear costumes like Black face does not seem like a big ask, is offensive to you. But since the right to offend is something you hold dear as it apparently represents free speech, I am sure my offending you is a Good Thing. Right? :slight_smile:

117

Do you mean they probably a closet homosexual who did a lot of cocaine. That whole Yale thing?

118

This Yale thing keeps getting better and better. It seems that the conservative William F. Buckley program had organized a conference on free speech this weekend, all planned months before the latest ruckus started. A conference on free speech doesn’t seem to be too popular with the PC crowd. First one of them entered a private conference room in the middle of a speech and tried to disrupt it by posting fliers everywhere. Then a large crowd outside the conference room tried to disrupt the conference by chanting so loudly that the speaker would be drowned out. Finally it turned to threats of violence and a showing by security officers was needed to physically protect conference attendees from the thugs as they left the building.

Eyewitness account here, videos here.

119

Sure. They’re your goalposts; place them where you like.

And if you don’t like that the school is using your tuition money to pay administrators to send you messages about costumes, even if you agree with the message, you speak with one of your liaisons with the administration. She may then identify the broader interest in a topic as a teaching opportunity and share a relevant conversation from one of the courses she teaches, as well as her own thoughts on the topic.

That is not what I “want to think,” so I am not going to “go right ahead” and think that. And neither should you.

We have found the condescension that was missing from the professor’s email.

120

Dseid makes very good points - there is no way I can see reconciling support of offensive speech and then getting upset when you are the receiver of it.

It’s as if there is a disconnect; somehow the offensiveness the protesting students feel is not worthy compared to the offhandedness of the professors.