Although doesn’t that mean you would have to show rudeness is likely to be disruptive, not that it may be disruptive? Obviously the law is often concerned with probable or foreseeable as opposed to actual outcomes, which probably drives you batty (If I’m remembering correctly that you’re the one who is concerned with outcomes foremost).
You do realize that you advocating violence for speech can be used to justify violence against you. What happens when you are outgunned?
No it’s not. Violence employed by a mob that has been emotionally triggered is a tactic used by entities to suppress ideas. Who cares if it’s called a state or a religion or a loosely bound group of anarchists? The main point remains the same.
Pointing out the danger of standing on a railroad track in front of an approaching train is not advocating violence.
Where did he advocate violence?
That’s not what kobal2 is doing. S/he is actually advocating violence against people s/he disagrees with. Nothing to do with trains.
Wait I’m sorry - were the secret police of the USSR and China “an emotionally triggered mob”? Was it “emotionally triggered mobs” that drove people into gulags and starvation by the millions? Seriously, this is getting silly.
It really doesn’t. There’s a difference between the systematic oppression of ideas and peoples and a group of rowdy lunatics getting triggered. This is why we compare the white supremacist riots to the black block riots, and not to Stalin or Mao. Because they’re completely different.
Whoosh.
Where did they advocate for violence? From my reading, this is a consistent and recurring mistake you keep making. I haven’t seen anyone in this thread advocate for violence.
You’re splitting ever-finer hairs here. You’re the one who originally used the “may” construction, so if you want to correct yourself to “is likely to”, I’m fine with that. You’d be more accurate in that case. I don’t believe that parsing the “does/may/is likely to” is getting at the heart of the matter, however: the heart of the matter is that a speech code that punishes uncivil behavior in a content-neutral fashion while engaged in official university functions should not necessarily be a problem, any more than contempt of court sanctions are necessarily a problem.
If there is a specific court ruling that says college kids may act like magnificent assholes on campus to other campus members, and that punishing them for acting in such a manner violates the first amendment, I’d like to see that ruling.
C’mon guys it’s only a few posts above yours.
If you’re talking specifically about Nazis, the “whether they’re gonna use violence” ship has already, definitionally, sailed. It’s not like the world is full of pacifist Nazis who will only, at last and with great reluctance, resort to violence once Antifas cross a line.
I don’t necessarily agree with Kobal2–my feelings are pretty mixed on the subject–but the argument that we should avoid punching Nazis because it’ll provoke them–seems vastly ahistorical.
You all are supposed to be educated. Nazis or whatever are irrelevant. The idea that violence is acceptable or desirable to eliminate certain thoughts or speech is not something those who believe in liberty and are aware of history should be advocating.
Meh. I’ll take the hit on believing that punching Nazis is okay. I might even advocate punching people with leadership positions in the KKK.
Fair enough. I disagree with your assertion that the government should be allowed to punish incivility.
As for a few court rulings, I’m no expert, obviously. And I know you don’t like them, but would you accept the list that FIRE has compiled as being broadly factual? The specific examples a few minutes with google provided seem to be on that list.
From the almighty wikipedia we see that
Would you accept DeJohn v. Temple University, where the courts ruled the a policy which prohibited “generalized sexist remarks” violated the first amendment? Or McCauley v. University of the Virgin Islands where the courts struck down a policy prohibiting, among other things, “conduct which results in physical manifestations, significant restraints on normal behavior or conduct and/or which compels the victim to seek assistance in dealing with the distress” because it was “largely subjective and lack[ed] limiting constructions to save them from violating the First Amendment.” Or here we see that a policy barring “communication in a manner likely to cause injury, distress, or emotional or physical discomfort” is unconsitutional.
I could go on, but I think the point is made. The courts have protected being an asshole.
Aside: the George Mason code struck down in the last example cited covered all student speech, whether it occurred on campus or not, at least according to the judge. So while that code is now gone, there’s one example filling an earlier request in an admittedly untimely way.
It isn’t a question just of provoking the Nazis. It is a question of provoking everyone else who believes in the rule of law.
The ones who initiate violence thereby surrender the moral and legal high ground. Punch a Nazi for being a Nazi, or for thinking Nazi thoughts, or waving a swastika, be prepared to see what jail looks like from the inside. “He had it coming” is not usually considered a good legal defense.
Regards,
Shodan
Let’s be clear. Do you object similarly to contempt of court charges based on someone cussing out a judge during a hearing? I’m a teacher; can I be punished for incivility to my students? (E.g., I can tell my student that their work did not meet course criteria, but I cannot tell my student that their work is a steaming pile of dogshit)? Military punishments for incivility are out of line?
Or is there something about the university setting that uniquely requires us to be fine with folks treating workers and clients like shit?
As for your cases you mention, I’m glad you’re zeroing in on specifics.
In the Temple case, AIUI, the code was abandoned both because no actual harm needed to be anticipated or documented; rather, the intent to cause harm was enough (and the policy was therefore invalid); and the policy was broad enough that it could ban certain topics, not just banning incivil presentation of those topics. Neither of these are what I’m talking about, i.e., cases like JHU, where all ideas are allowed as long as they’re presented in a professional respectful manner.
The Virgin Island case is interesting, as it involves the friend of an alleged rapist repeatedly contacting the alleged victim of the rapist, even after she told him to stop. That’s the sum total of the speech in question. It does look like the court threw out the provisions of the speech code dealing with offensive speech. I find that mildly incorrect but not hugely so: it seems fair to me to say that on a university campus, as in a courtroom, civility may be required, even if the ideas put forward are horrifying.
Surrendered to whom, the Nazis? Because nope. Surrendered to bystanders? Maybe. Like I said, I have mixed feelings on the whole “punch a Nazi” subject. I’m sometimes entirely on your side, and sometimes mostly on Kobal2’s side.
The problem, as I see it, is mostly that people who misunderstand the ethics of the situation will get confused and start some sort of ridiculous equivalence between Nazis and Nazi-punchers, to the benefit of Nazis. If folks were clearer on the ethics, then I’d be much happier with Nazi-punching.
Even if you want to get into escalating violence bystanders might not want to be collateral damage.
Furthermore, what the left really wants is the power that comes with the mob’s response to the label.
Just like labeling a person you don’t like a Nazi gives you ‘license’ to punch that person, labeling someone witch means you can burn them to death, blasphemer you can jihadify them, heretic toss them in something unpleasant. Don’t even need to debate any merits, just label and punish.
That’s the history you all conveniently forget.
I thought I was clear, when I said that you were right way back when, when you mentioned the magical word “disruptive.” Thus, for example, I said earlier on this page
So if you think you can be rude or disrespectful while still doing your job correctly, then yes, I apply the same standard.
Sure, with the caveat that I didn’t look for cases I was interested in defending or knowledgeable about, I looked for cases for which I could easily find citations that didn’t come from FIRE.
Aside: can you link to the place you took Hopkin’s clarification that when they said they would not tolerate rude and disrespectful behavior, they only kinda sorta meant it? From FIRE I found a link to the code in question in which your quotation does not appear. I’m certain you didn’t fabricate it, of course, but I didn’t find it with a cursory look and it seemed fair to me to ask you to provide your source.
Well, that’s where it becomes important to see what exactly the policy guidelines say!
That does seem to be the crux of our disagreement, yes!
I think it might help for me to be clearer about what precisely I object to in the standard you are defending, i.e. that uncivil, rude, or disrespectful behavior can fairly result in state sanction. What I object to is that the standard is totally decontextualized. But context matters. I’d argue that context is critical.
Thus, suppose we have some student who alleges that people who make it into college on the basis of affirmative action have an unfair admissions advantage and haven’t earned their way. That strikes me as disrespectful. But in a private conversation over beer and video games, the university code of conduct shouldn’t be able to sanction it. In a classroom discussion of affirmative action, it’s entirely permissible. In a math class, it’s problematic, not because it is rude but because it is off topic.
If that same student used some other specific student at the school as an exemplar of his thesis, that would be ruder and more disrespectful. But I still think it should not be punishable in a private conversation and arguably not in a classroom discussion. If that same person used that same other student as an exemplar of his thesis in that student’s presence, then the analysis changes again. Meanwhile, if a student politely and respectfully derails a math class for 15 minutes insisting that the professor is wrong, that’s disruptive and shouldn’t be tolerated.
So the context is key, and the policy you defend is overly broad because it disregards context. That’s why similar policies have been struck down by the courts, you’ll notice.
If I recall correctly, you’re not concerned with the harms that may result under the policy, only with those that actually do result. I find the notion that a policy which may be used in an undesirable way is unobjectionable unless it actually is used in an undesirable way baffling. Surely it is cold comfort to the person who suffers from some unjust or unconstitutional application of an overly broad speech code that several years later, the courts rule that they were harmed! If the policy is written in a way which permits abuses but is intended not to do so, then it should be fixed.