Category: college professors acting badly

More trouble about Bannon at the University of Chicago: students have class sit-in, alumni sign petition to rescind invitation

January 31, 2018 • 11:30 am

As I reported a few days ago, “according to the student newspaper The Chicago Maroon, former Presidential advisor and Breitbart editor Steve Bannon has been invited to speak here this fall, and has accepted. The person who invited him was a professor at the business school, Luigi Zingales.”

The Bannon visit, not yet scheduled, will actually be a debate, not a speech, so there’s already counter-speech in the offing. (The debate is said to be on “the economic benefits of globalization and immigration.”) Despite that, students protested outside the Booth School of Business, the student government formally objected, and 86 faculty, much to my shame, signed a petition objecting to Bannon’s invitation. (It’s telling that nearly all of the factulty signatories at the time I reported—the number has grown—were in the humanities, and none were in physics, chemistry, or biology.) This is happening at the school with perhaps the best and most liberal free speech policy in American universities (and we’re not even a public university). The faculty’s objection to Bannon, on the tiresome grounds that he purveys “hate speech” rather than “free speech”, is reprehensible.

But the objections grow. As the Chicago Maroon (the student newspaper) reports, ten students, organized by the UChicago Democrats and two students, disrupted one of Zingales’s classes (photo below):

The protest, organized by UChicago Democrats member and second-year Madeleine Johnson and another student who requested anonymity, was publicized through a private Facebook event and came on the heels of other protests and organizing on campus against the invitation.

Around 10 students sat in, mainly situated in the back of the seminar room, and held up signs with messages such as “Rigorous Inquiry ≠ Hate” and “Tell my dead ancestors that reason can defeat hate.” UCPD officers were present outside the classroom and reportedly stationed in the area surrounding the Harper Center, according to a post on the Facebook event page.

That disruption of a class shouldn’t be tolerated, though the University didn’t intervene until later (see below). I’m ashamed that even a Jewish group is on board with the disinvitation:

Some of the posters included the logo of J Street UChicago, a student group usually focused on issues of Israel and Palestine. According to second-year Ruth Landis, co-chair of the UChicago chapter of J Street, “seven J Street U board members attended the sit in…because as Jews, we feel the urgency of ridding our institutions of anti-Semitism; as progressive students, we feel the urgency of ridding our campus of hatred and bigotry in all forms.”

Here’s the Maroon‘s photo of the sit-in:

The students utterJen the usual “we love free speech, but . . .” palaver, too:

“Many undergraduate individuals feel it’s unacceptable that Bannon has been given a platform at UChicago,” said Rikki Baker-Keusch, A.B. ’17, who is currently in the A.M. program at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and was one of those escorted out of Booth. “We understand the importance of free speech, but this is a private platform and [Bannon] has incited violence against many, and we could not stay quiet.”

Baker-Keusch doesn’t understand the free-speech meaning of “incitement” (it means an immediate, on the spot call for violence that leads to violence), and I doubt whether Bannon has ever called for violence against groups in the U.S. At any rate, Zingales has agreed to have a town hall meeting with the students (good luck to him, and I hope he wears Kevlar!), and his conciliatory demeanor has quashed further demonstrations in his classes. Further, the University police escorted the protestors (some of whom walked out of class) outside the building, as protests aren’t allowed inside. The administration is starting to enforce the “no disruption” policy, and enforcement is the only thing that will stop the disruption of classes and invited speakers.

As the Maroon reports in another story, various campus groups are planning protests when Bannon arrives, and one professor urged nonviolence. Such meetings are fine, so long as they don’t intend to disrupt or cancel the debate, but again we have faculty displaying arrant ignorance about freedom of speech:

Tyler Williams, an assistant professor of South Asian Languages and Civilizations who spoke during the forum and also signed the faculty’s open letter to University administration opposing Bannon’s invitation, suggested that activists should host their own lectures and panels before Bannon’s visit.

Williams wrote in an e-mail to The Maroon that this will allow University and community members who have been “impacted by anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim policies engineered by Bannon” to explain why “giving white nationalists like Bannon more space in institutions of learning will only further legitimize white nationalist discourse.”

“This is not an issue of freedom of speech . . . but rather an issue of the University sending a message to the public (and to its own members) that it considers such white nationalist rhetoric to be legitimate intellectual and political discourse,” Williams added.

It’s amazing to me that virtually everybody urging Bannon’s disinvitation brings up and then dismisses freedom of speech. I think they make themselves look bad by even mentioning it, for it lets us know that they’re discarding one of the fundamental principles of American democracy because they don’t like its results—results which are part of the reason the First Amendment was enacted! And of course we have the usual problem, which I’ve discussed before, of how one defines “hate speech” and who is to judge when such speech should be banned.

Finally, the Chicago Tribune reports that over 1000 former University students have written a petition to the University president urging that Bannon’s invitation be rescinded. They tried to go into the Administration building to deliver it, but were stopped by University police. An administrator took the letter and promised to give it to President Robert Zimmer and the provost.  As one expects by now, the petition (see it here) argues that Bannon’s speech isn’t “free”, but “hate”, and thus deserves no platform at the U of C:

We would not have gone to the University of Chicago had we not sought out a richly rewarding educational experience with groups of diverse people of different ideologies and mindsets. However, amplifying Bannon’s hate speech does not align with these principles, and making space for Bannon necessarily drives out space and resources for other perspectives. We concur with our faculty’s assessment that condoning a visit from Bannon compromises that mission in and of itself. We do not question Bannon’s right to speak. We gravely question the University’s decision to give him a platform to do so.

And then they urge denying him that platform (and what does rescinding an invitation say except that Bannon has no right to speak?):

The Committee on Free Expression concluded, “[to] this end, the University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.” Stephen Bannon seeks to silence dissenting voices of large portions of society. Denying him a platform to speak at our university does not restrict our environment of fearless freedom of debate and deliberation; rather, it protects that environment.

As I’ve said before, I don’t think Bannon has advocated censorship, and even if he did he still should not be censored, for even those who want to suppress free speech—like the signers of this petition!—should be heard.  The double standard of “free speech but” was expressed by one of the alumni who spoke to the Tribune:

“Lately there’s been this idea that all free speech is good speech and that every side should be heard equally, but then we’re lending false equivalency to what could be very dangerous ideas,” said Marijke M. Stoll, who earned two degrees from U. of C. in 2005 and 2006. “This isn’t a matter of disagreement over economic policy. We know which side is wrong; we know which side is morally and ethically repugnant.”

“We know which side is wrong”! It’s never, of course, the speaker’s side. It is this feeling of absolute moral certainty that gives people like Ms. Stoll the arrogance to claim the right to be the censor—the decider. People like Stoll and the many others who call for disinvitation of Bannon should a.) read John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, b.) listen to this speech by Christopher Hitchens, and c.) read these remarks made by Barack Obama at Howard University’s graduation in 2016.

Here are some of the Tribune‘s photos of the protests (all photos by Jose M. Osorio of the Chicago Tribune):

Officials of several San Antonio colleges: Hate speech is not free speech

January 14, 2018 • 1:00 pm

There are 23 institutions in the Higher Education Council of San Antonio (Texas), and last month 13 officials in that system, including 11  college presidents as well as the Mayor of San Antonio, signed a bizarre statement that appears on the HECSA website. Here it is in its entirety:

Hate Speech Is Not Free Speech

American colleges and universities have always embraced diverse points of view, leading to a multitude of new discoveries and cultural understanding. Higher education is a phenomenal place for minds to be challenged, to inquire, explore, discover and question the status quo.

But from time to time, American colleges and universities are subject to witness hate speech or activity that is disguised as free speech. Such has been the case in recent weeks at several colleges and universities in San Antonio and throughout Texas.

As members of the Higher Education Council of San Antonio (HECSA), we – the presidents of colleges and universities throughout this community and supporters – feel that it is important for us to speak out and make a distinction between diversity of thought and disingenuous misrepresentation of free speech. We further attest that hate speech has no place at our colleges and universities. Inappropriate messages, banners and flyers that are meant to provoke, spread hate, or create animosity and hostility, are not welcome or accepted.

Teaching, research, and critical thinking are the founding pillars of higher education. Each and every day, we witness incredible learning opportunities for our students, faculty, staff and community members.

San Antonio’s colleges and universities are stronger and more diverse than ever before. During the upcoming tricentennial, there are many events, activities and symposiums being planned at our colleges to honor the city’s multicultural heritage, as well as current and future residents. San Antonio colleges and universities have played an enormous part in the city’s history. We are proud to have been a part of this great accomplishment and will further ensure that it continues to be our focus in the next 300 years.

Please join us in celebrating the power of higher education in the lives of San Antonio residents!

This is the usual “we love free speech, but. . . ” statement, and has a lot of problems. First, it doesn’t define “hate speech”.  Is speech that hates on Nazis, Trump, or Israel “hate speech”? After all, that kind of speech is indeed meant to “provoke, spread hate, and create animosity and hostility”!

Instead, it just says that hate speech is “disingenuous misrepresentation of free speech” rather than “diversity of thought.” But what is the difference? Is the “diversity of thought” that questions affirmative action, unlimited immigration, or the DACA program considered “hate speech”?

Finally, the statement, signed by the mayor of a big U.S. city, fails to recognize that “hate speech” IS free speech, for U.S. courts have recognized this as the going interpretation of the First Amendment.  What the signatories are saying—and some of the HECSA colleges are public, and so must abide by the Constitution—is this: “Screw the Constitution. We’re gonna prohibit speech that is legal but that we don’t like.”

Shame on these officials, and shame on the mayor, for signing such a nebulous and Constitution-flouting document.

The complaint against Lindsay Shepherd at Wifrid Laurier University was by its LGBT Center

December 13, 2017 • 11:00 am

I’ve posted several times about Lindsay Shepherd, a grad student at Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) in Canada.  Shepherd got in trouble with her advisor and the school because in the class she was t.a.ing, she played a short clip from The Agenda showing Jordan Peterson questioning the need to use special pronouns for students not identifying as male or female. Shepherd also showed a counter clip of Nicholas Matte arguing against Peterson, and in fact Shepherd disagrees with Peterson’s views and was simply trying to stimulate discussion in a communications class. For that she got into trouble, and was interrogated threateningly by two professors and a university official. Fortunately, Shepherd secretly (but legally) recorded her inquisition on her computer, and the bullying by the University people was so ridiculous that when the recording was released by the press, WLU looked really stupid and clueless. The President of WLU, as well as Shepherds advisor—one of the inquisitors—had to apologize.

Now Shepherd has become somewhat of a free speech hero, and has given interviews to all manner of sites and stations, including right-wing ones (she doesn’t refuse anyone). But her heroism is questioned by the Regressive Left because, by playing the Peterson clip, she apparently branded herself “transphobic”—even though she isn’t. While she says she disagrees with Peterson, Regressives apparently don’t believe her. But her background in progressive activism, discussed in the piece below, substantiates her views.

What remained a mystery was who, exactly, reported Shepherd to the University. WLU lawyers said there was no record of a formal complaint, which makes one wonder why she was interrogated and investigated. But now it turns out there was indeed a complaint. Here’s Shepherd revealing the Offended Person, which wasn’t a person at all:

Now MacLean’s, a Canadian news magazine, has published an informative account of the whole affair: “What really happened at Wilfrid Laurier University“.  As it turns out, Shepherd is indeed a liberal and activist, is mature beyond her age, and is continuing to be mistreated by members of WLU, both faculty and students.

But the most important new information is who complained about Shepherd: a student went to the Rainbow Centre, the campus LGBTQ organization, which itself filed the complaint:

As for Shepherd, she called her boyfriend to say she thought everything went well and that the students were really engaged. Neither knew one student from the class would soon contact the Rainbow Centre, the campus LGBTQ support community, to complain about the discussion. Toby Finlay, an administrator at the Rainbow Centre, wouldn’t share the specifics of the conversation due to confidentiality reasons, but adds: “It was through us that they made the complaint that led to the situation that blew up in the media.”

It turns out that more than one student got exercised about Shepherd’s showing the clip: many transgender students at WLU see the presentation as intolerable and threatening. In the following, Milas Hewson and Toby Finlay are transgender students and spokespeople for the Rainbow Centre:

It’s been a hard month for both at the Rainbow Centre, a service within the school’s diversity and equity office that supports education and advocacy for queer and trans students. “Students have come to us feeling complicated, upset and invalidated,” Hewson says. “With these young students struggling to figure out how they’re experiencing gender, to be told in a classroom that that’s not valid has a very deep impact because it’s an issue that strikes close to home for these people.”

And even if Shepherd tried to remain neutral in the classroom, Finlay challenges the idea of neutrality in this case, saying it’s wrong “that these are issues of debate and trans students’ identities or experiences are up for conversation—in the sense that their reality is up for conversation.”

Hewson talks about being confronted in school hallways “by people I barely know asking me to justify myself and my positions.” By speaking with media, Finlay and Hewson have become the public faces for the Laurier trans community. “That also in a huge way makes me feel fairly unsafe on campus because I don’t know who might recognize me and approach me out of nowhere and have something violent to say or do,” Hewson says. “I feel generally uncomfortable on campus.”

Neither Finlay nor Hewson is opposed to freedom of speech. However, Finlay says, “we think the ways freedom of speech discourse is being taken up is really functioning to cover over a lot of the transphobia that’s at the core of this issue. It’s being used to justify a lot of hate that’s directed towards trans people.”

Kira Williams experiences something transphobic every day. Some days that’s harassment. Other days it’s sexual assault. “The reality is Dr. Peterson’s speech is targeted at trans people,” says the Laurier PhD student. “And the reality is that when people like Peterson speak, it has consequences in the real world—consequences I have to live through every day.”

I’m sorry, but just hearing Jordan Peterson should not make you feel “invalidated”—any more than Zionist Jews hearing Palestinians and BDSers opposing their positions should make them fearful.  What is it with students that they cannot bear to hear anything that they don’t find personally or ideologically congenial—even if they hear the opposite and supportive viewpoint (one that Shepherd presented)? Note, too, that Finlay says that some things like transgender pronouns are not only NOT fit topics for discussion, but also make students feel “unsafe.” We also hear the usual free speech buttery in Finlay’s claim that “transphobic speech” is not free speech but hate speech. Finally, although we know that trans people experience a lot of nastiness and bigotry, I find it hard to believe that Kira Williams is either harassed or sexually assaulted every day, and I wonder if she’s stretching the meaning of those terms.

Like Shepherd, I’m fine with using whatever pronouns a students wants (if I can remember them), and strongly believe that trans people should be treated just like everyone else. But but the issue of how to deal with them vis-a-vis sports and the like is still one that merits discussion. Feminists, for instance, are deeply divided about how to regard trans women (some say that, not having experienced oppression from birth, they don’t have “real woman credibility”), and I’m content to let them fight that out. In the meantime, I’ll call them “she.” But the Rainbow Centre is demanding that WLU’s President recognize and apologize for transphobia on campus (if she does that, she’ll have to apologize for all forms of bigotry); and they’re asking for what I see as unreasonable concessions on top of that:

The Rainbow Centre continues to demand an apology from President MacLatchy for refusing to acknowledge the existence of transphobia on campus. They also want more safety measures installed at diversity and equity office buildings, such as a panic button and reinforced glass, and—among other asks—the school to hire a trans person of colour full-time as a counsellor within the diversity and equity office to offer mental health support for students.

Why a trans person of color? Are there more trans people of color than white trans people? Or are trans people of color extra oppressed and thus need their own counselor?

Shepherd has further been the victim of  both intimidation and distressing snark at WLU, to wit:

As faculty picked sides, Shepherd was readying herself to face her students for the first time since she went public—and she was hoping to open up the class with a talk about, well, everything that was going on.

The chair of the department of communications, Peter Urquhart, showed up at her tutorial that day to address the class. Shepherd remembers he opened by acknowledging the situation and while he couldn’t go into specifics because of confidentiality reasons, he told the students if they needed emotional or mental support, they should feel welcome to go to the campus wellness centre. He then asked if anyone had questions—they didn’t—and sat at the back of the room for the rest of the tutorial.

“The problem I had with it was he was shutting down the conversation right away,” Shepherd says. “He was making it so that we could not actually talk about what was going on.”

“When asked via email if he would like to comment on the record about his appearance in class that day, Urquhart declined. But then added: “Anyway, I assume she recorded them – why not ask her for the recording?” A second email, unprompted, came soon afterwards: “Sorry, you’re a pro— I should have assumed that you’ve already heard that particular recording.”

Well Urquhart is a jerk, not just for monitoring her class, but for his snark about recording. He clearly is upset that Shepherd made her original recording, since that’s what got WLU in trouble—and rightly so! And Urquhart is the chairman of Shepherd’s department.  (This is one thing that makes me think that she has no future at WLU.)

The rest of the article gives details about Shepherd’s early life, mentions her Middle Eastern boyfriend (she’s learning Farsi to be able to talk to his parents), and shows how she’s now in the center of a maelstrom: denigrated by Regressive Leftists and idolized by free-speech advocates, who, sadly, mostly comprise right-wingers.  There’s also an intimation that this principled young woman doesn’t have much of a future at WLU, which I think is true. Like Bret Weinstein at Evergreen State, I think she’ll find ever greener pastures at another place. But I do admire her and wish her well.

It’s early December and a professor in one of Shepherd’s courses asks her to put away her laptop. She tells Shepherd she doesn’t want to be recorded. Shepherd says she isn’t. This could be a glimpse of her future—one where she feels alienated.

Shepherd has talked about what happens when she enters the working world, if this suspicion could follow her. Which workplace wants to hire someone known to secretly record superiors?

At the same time, she’s become a bit of a celebrity. Some suggest she’ll inevitably open a Patreon account, where followers will give her donations to keep speaking up for free speech, but she’s dismissed any such suggestion. She’s already turned down offers for crowdfunding, saying this is about principle, not money.

What she knows now is she wants to continue her schooling. “I want to get a master’s degree. I like my brain being challenged,” she says.

She’s just not sure that degree will come from Laurier.

TA Lindsay Shepherd addresses the crowd during a free speech rally at Wilfred Laurier University on November 24, 2017. (Photograph by Cole Burston)

 

Steve Paikin discusses freedom of speech with five Canadian professors

December 9, 2017 • 1:00 pm

Wilfred Laurier’s attempt to stifle/punish Lindsay Shepherd for playing a bit of Jordan Peterson video in her class has ignited a big debate in Canada, none of which would have happened had Shepherd not been savvy enough to tape the meeting in which she was admonished, and then to release the tape to the press.

The debate  goes on, below in a 40-minute television debate on Steve Paikin’s show The Agenda, a debate involving five professors:

Janice Stein, University of Toronto
Thomas Merritt, Laurentian University
Shannon Dea, University of Waterloo
Rinaldo Walcott, University of Toronto
Emmett Macfarlane, University of Waterloo

And after hearing it, I have to say, “O Canada!” The debate, about free speech and how to treat students, should arouse passion, but only three people show any: Janice Stein, whose views seem close to mine, and two Authoritarian Leftists, Rinaldo Walcott and Shannon Dea. Dea mouths the jargon of postmodern feminism, even arguing that Shepherd might have been on the side of Jordan Peterson (Shepherd says she was not), and Walcott sees white supremacy everywhere, to the extent that many of his answers aren’t responsive. The geneticist Thomas Merritt politely shows that Regressive Leftism has infected his class in genomics and genetics, to the extent that when teaching Jim Watson’s work he’s impelled to say that the man is a racist and a homophobe, and political scientist Emmett Macfarlane politely straddles the fence.

I suppose this is worth listening to to see how well the beavers have dined in Canadian universities, with only Stein sticking up for freedom of speech (Walcott even says that some speech, like Jordan Peterson’s views on pronouns, should not be allowed to be uttered in society).  If ever passion was needed to defend truly progressive principles, it’s now, and I fear, after hearing this, that Canadians are, by and large, too polite to muster that passion, and will simply go along with the demands of Regressives. Since this is only a sample of five professors (but there were two more in Shepherd’s “hearing”), I may be overly fearful.

Finally, I’ll say, as I have before, that Paikin is one of the best t.v. moderators around. He asks just the right questions, doesn’t intrude or dominate the discussion, but keeps it on track right up to the end. That there’s no agreement among these five faculty is not his fault.

The Cultural Revolution hits a Canadian university: grad student teacher bullied for promoting free discussion in her class

November 22, 2017 • 9:30 am

Wilfred Laurier University is a public university in Waterloo, Ontario, and has just become the target of international opprobrium after its persecution of a graduate teaching assistant became public this week. The teaching assistant, 22 year old Lindsay Shepherd, is now one of my heroes for standing up for the principles of free speech and pushing back against the bullying of her professors and the University who want Suppressed Speech.  Here she is:

Lindsay Shepherd. Photo by David Bebee

What happened? Well, as reported by several sources, including the Globe and Mail, Shepherd, a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in cultural analysis and social theory, was teaching a tutorial on language to first year students when the subject of personal pronouns arose. As you may have heard, this year Canada passed a federal law that added “gender identity and gender expression” to the Canadian Human Rights Act (“Bill C-16″).  It’s not completely clear whether this law criminalizes those who refuse to use a person’s chosen pronoun—”him”, “her”, “zir”, “it”, “they”, and so on—but the paper reports that this seems likely, at least in one province:

 The Ontario Human Rights Commission states clearly on its website that refusing to refer to a person by their preferred name and pronoun “will likely be discrimination when it takes place in a social area covered by the Code, including employment, housing and services like education.”

I think it’s a matter of civility to use whatever pronoun a student wants.  But should one be forced to do that? Isn’t that a violation of freedom of speech? Well, repeated refusal to use a preferred pronoun seems to me to be harassment, and that shouldn’t be tolerated. Others may differ, and at any rate this matter is not an open and shut case.

The most famous opponent of the forced use of preferred pronouns is Jordan Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. As I’ve said before, he’s all over the Internet, but I haven’t had time to examine his views carefully; and what I have seen suggests that he’s both very smart and somewhat unhinged. Be that as it may, he engaged in a debate about pronoun usage and transgender people on Steve Paikin’s  “The Agenda” show last October.  Here’s the 54-minute video in which Peterson debates other people, including another professor from UT, Nicholas Matte from the Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies. You needn’t watch the whole show (I did soon after it aired), but if you have time I’d recommend it:

Shepherd apparently showed her students a three-minute clip from this show, featuring Peterson vs. Matte, to demonstrate the controversy about pronoun use. She herself claims that she’s on Matte’s side, but wanted to inspire discussion in her class. That seems fair enough.

But several students (who, of course, remained anonymous) complained to the University, and Shepherd was called in for a private shaming and criticism session by faculty and University officials. Fortunately, she was savvy enough to record the whole 43-minute interrogation on her computer rather than taking notes. You can find the full recording and some of the transcript at The National Post, but below is a 10-minute excerpt that gives an idea of what was going on. Shepherd’s interrogators/shamers were her own supervisor, professor Nathan Rambukkana; another professor, Herbert Pimlott; and Adria Joel, Laurer University’s manager of Gendered Violence Prevention and Support. Do listen to this ten minutes. Here’s a brief summary from the G&M:

During the interrogation, Ms. Shepherd is told repeatedly that she is guilty of spreading transphobia – in violation of the university’s policy and also, most likely, of Ontario’s human-rights code. At one point her supervisor, Nathan Rambukkana, compares her actions to endorsing white supremacy. “This is like neutrally playing a speech by Hitler,” he tells her.

What did Ms. Shepherd do? She played a three-minute video clip from a TV program that had been broadcast on TVO. It featured a debate over transgender pronouns. The role of Hitler was played by Jordan Peterson, the notorious University of Toronto professor who has thrown the entire academic world into conniption fits with his alleged hate thoughts. Among other things, Prof. Peterson argues that Ontario’s human-rights code could compel people to use non-gendered artificial pronouns – a position that Ms. Shepherd’s superiors at WLU evidently share. [JAC: Shepherd apparently agrees with them, too!]

Ms. Shepherd attempted to explain that she doesn’t even agree with Prof. Peterson. She simply used the clip to help frame a class discussion – an explanation that her interrogators ignored. When she asked which students had complained and how many, she was told that information was confidential. When she pointed out that the pronoun controversy has already been widely aired in public, she was told that some ideas are too “problematic” to be introduced into the classroom. When she voiced her opinion that universities should be places for debate, she was told that she’s created a toxic environment for students. When she said she had remained neutral and not tried to impose her own views, her supervisor, Prof. Rambukkana, told her, “That’s kind of part of the problem.”

You can hear this below.What a bunch of sanctimonious twits and bullies those three interrogators are! I’m so proud of Shepherd for standing up for herself in the face of these head-thumpers, even though she was brought to tears several times.

Here are the two professors who went after her:

Wilfrid Laurier University professors Nathan Rambukkana, left, and Herbert Pimlott, right. From National Post.

And here’s Adria Joel:

Now had Shepherd not recorded this session, and then decided to release it to the news, she undoubtedly would have been sanctioned, or even removed from teaching that class. But her interrogation was so nasty, so insensitive, so oblivious to the purposes of free discussion in a college education, that its release proved completely embarrassing for the university. There was a public uproar, and President and Vice-Chancellor Deborah MacLatchy was forced to issue a public apology to Shepherd. Fine, but the apology was hedged, for it includes this (my emphasis):

Through the media, we have now had the opportunity to hear the full recording of the meeting that took place at Wilfrid Laurier University.

After listening to this recording, an apology is in order. The conversation I heard does not reflect the values and practices to which Laurier aspires. I am sorry it occurred in the way that it did and I regret the impact it had on Lindsay Shepherd. I will convey my apology to her directly. Professor Rambukkana has also chosen to apologize to Lindsay Shepherd about the way the meeting was conducted.

I remain troubled by the way faculty, staff and students involved in this situation have been targeted with extreme vitriol. Supports are in place at the university to support them through this situation.

She’s troubled not just by how Shepherd was treated, but by the way “the faculty, staff, and students involved in this situation” were “targeted with extreme vitriol”. Well, they should have been! So long as they were criticized for their sniveling cowardice and snowflake-ness, as well for bullying Shepherd, and not threatened personally, vitriol is the appropriate response. What MacLatchy is trying to do is apologize to everybody so she doesn’t have to take a stand. Her cowardice is also reflected in what she’s doing to “fix” the situation:

The university has engaged an independent party to assess the facts of the matter including a review of related processes going forward. The review is intended to support improvement in our processes. The university is committed to ensuring that the vitally important role of Teaching Assistant supports an enriched learning environment for all students.

Let me be clear by stating that Laurier is committed to the abiding principles of freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

Yeah, right! They surely weren’t espousing those principles in the meeting with Shepherd. MacLatchy has also convened a “task force” to “delve into these issues.” Seriously? Why can’t she just adopt the University of Chicago’s free speech principles and be done with it?

Professor Rambukkana has also issued an apology to Shepherd, and it’s more or less the craven, insincere document you’d expect. All of a sudden he’s backed off hectoring of his own student and has completely rethought his principles—in only a few days. What really happened is that he’s simply embarrassed at being the butt of public anger.

I suppose all this has ended well, though I’m not keen on President MacLatchy’s blanket apology to everyone. What we see here, though, is what happens all the time in American and Canadian universities; we simply don’t know about it because it isn’t recorded. This is what happens in Title IX inquiries, where accusations and accusers remain anonymous and those accused aren’t allowed to confront the accusers or even have a lawyer. While the U.S. is succumbing to a lunatic, right-wing President, our universities are succumbing to a Regressive Leftism that gives lip service to free speech but suppresses it when such speech becomes ideologically inconvenient.

I’ll give the last word to Ms. Shepherd, and I wish her well. We have here a brave young woman who stands up for her principles under enormous pressure, and I hope she achieves great things. She seems to know more about what education is about than either of the bullying professors or the University President herself.

h/t: Merilee, Diana

Bard College President has a genius response to snowflake professors beefing about a right-wing speaker

November 1, 2017 • 1:30 pm

Yes, the title is HuffPoe-ian clickbait, but I couldn’t resist.

A big group of 56 Offended Academics, all of course in the humanities, wrote an open letter in the Chronicle of Higher Education, objecting to the appearance of a far-right-wing German politician at a conference on “Crises of Democracy” at Bard College in New York (Steely Dan fans will recognize Bard from the song “My Old School”). Their beef was that the appearance of a right-wing, anti-immigrant speaker would lend legitimacy and patina to that speaker by giving him a spot at a prestigious conference at a prestigious think tank. (I recognize only one of the letter’s signatories, all professors or students at good schools: the execrable, long-winded, and obscurantist Judith Butler at Berkeley.)

The huffy letter, addressed to both Roger Berkowitz, Director of the Hannah Arendt Center and Leon Botstein, President of Bard College, begins as follows (my emphases):

We are writing to make clear our objections to the invited talk given by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) politician Marc Jongen during the 2017 Annual Conference of the Hannah Arendt Center, “Crises of Democracy: Thinking in Dark Times” (October 12-13, 2017) (program) as well as your subsequent defense of that invitation. We believe that Jongen’s participation in the conference, regardless of the organizers’ intentions, enabled him to leverage Hannah Arendt’s legacy to legitimize and normalize the AfD’s far-right ideology. The leadership of the Hannah Arendt Center and of Bard College has so far disregarded pressing questions of personal and institutional responsibility arising from this legitimation and normalization. This disregard is particularly troubling given that Hannah Arendt was a German-Jewish refugee who fled National Socialism and wrote powerfully about the plight of the stateless and the special dangers posed by race-based ideologies.

A few more statements from their Big Beef:

. . . We agree with Professor Berkowitz that there is a need to engage with a wide range of political views, including illiberal and even neofascist ones. We also believe, however, that organizers of highly publicized events have crucial responsibilities when the speaker makes statements that vilify already vulnerable groups. [JAC: The groups are immigrants, refugees, and Muslims.]

. . . Accordingly, the center lent its institutional legitimacy and communicative power to Jongen’s statements.What remains to be taken into account by the organizers is how this online content serves the interests of far-right propagandists.

. . . Jongen and the AfD have significant institutional representation in the Bundestag. They have no difficulty finding public outlets to express their opinions. But the underprivileged and terrorized groups whom Jongen and the AfD regularly attack have no such power or privilege. [JAC: Well, not precisely true, as there are many people, including these 56 big names, who give them a voice.]

. . . Arendt’s name and the center’s reputation have now been used to legitimize the AfD’s far-right politics. That is a direct threat to the plurality the Arendt Center says it wants to promote and defend. Unfortunately, the statements of Professor Berkowitz and Professor Botstein fail to address such dangers of legitimation and include no discussion of the concrete steps, if any, they will take to mitigate the damage that has been done.

Note the call for repentance and damage mitigation. Here again we have the Cultural Revolution being enacted in our time. What do they want: for Berkowitz and Botstein to put on paper cone hats and sit in shame with signs around their necks reading, “We invited Marc Jongen to our conference”?

A week ago, Bard President Leon Botstein responded, also in the Chronicle, in no uncertain terms. He wrote what the censorious professors need to hear, and I give the entire response (my emphasies):

I read with some sadness the open letter to the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities and Bard College, signed by a stellar cast of distinguished colleagues. The number and quality of the signatories are impressive. But that does not make the argument in the letter right. I am afraid therefore that we will have to agree to disagree.

The invitation by an academic center on a college campus, even one named for a distinguished individual, does not constitute either legitimation or endorsement. Right-wing and neo-fascist parties are a reality of modern political life. We cannot pretend they do not exist. We need to hear what their representatives claim directly so that they can be properly challenged. In this case, the speech was followed by a response from Ian Buruma, a preeminent intellectual and scholar, a longtime member of the Bard faculty, and now editor of The New York Review of Books. The event was part of a two-day conference featuring over 25 esteemed speakers on the crisis facing liberal democracies. The speaker was not presented in any context of endorsement or legitimation.

Neither Bard nor Roger Berkowitz, director of the Arendt center, needs to apologize or issue a denunciation. The accusation of an implied endorsement is actually an insult, given the public record of the college, the Arendt center, and the published public record of both Roger Berkowitz and myself. The self-righteous stance of the signatories and the moral condemnation in the letter do, sadly, bear a family resemblance to the public denouncements of the Soviet era by party committees in the arts that put terror in the hearts of young musicians and writers, and deterred them from speaking and acting against a group consensus.

The issues here are the survival of open debate and of academic censorship. I do not need to be reminded by this open letter of the horrors of fascism and right-wing xenophobia, any more than would Hannah Arendt. I was a child immigrant to the United States in a Polish-Russian, stateless family. My father was the only survivor on his side, and two uncles perished in the Warsaw Ghetto. The lesson I learned growing up, which was reinforced by Arendt in her role as a teacher, is that freedom is a political category and that it is incumbent on colleges to protect it. Allowing the expression, in a public discussion forum, of views and positions that we find reprehensible is a necessary part of the exercise of freedom in the public realm. This is particularly true in the academy.

I am therefore, much as Hannah Arendt might have been, disappointed but honored by the chorus of well-credentialed critics.

I find it amusing that Botstein mentions the “stellar cast” and “chorus of well-credentialed critics,” for of course one’s status doesn’t make one’s arguments right. To steal from yet another rock song, one by Dire Straits, I’d say about Botstein’s answer, “That’s the way you do it.”

As far as “damage,” well, author Francine Prose teaches at Bard, and several members of her literature class went to hear Jongen’s speech (and challenges to it) the morning before the class discussed some literature on the Holocaust (that included Primo Levi’s superb book Survival in Auschwitz). Writing about it in the Guardian, Prose adamantly claims that going to that talk was a valuable lesson for her students:

None [of the students] believed that Jongen’s presence had legitimized his ideas; he hadn’t been awarded an honorary degree. Being invited to address a conference at a college, they agreed, was not like being asked to speak at a public rally. They were proud to be associated with a school that trusted their ability to weigh unpopular ideas, an institution brave enough to invite Jongen: an educational institution. They felt that hearing Jongen had been part of their education.

It was. Seeing Jongen made them realize that the past is not the past (as Jongen insists) but the present as well, that the evil espoused by Hitler and carried out by Stangl did not die with them.

Gessen writes that “what Jongen said has been heard before, and could have been discussed in his absence”. I disagree.

I could have assigned my class to read about far-right ideology, or to watch a video, but it wouldn’t have been the same. It would not have had the effect of seeing Marc Jongen (as it were, in the flesh) and realizing that men of that sort are not all dead and gone, but remain a living, pernicious force in the world that my students are about to inherit.

Those students are smarter than all those big name professors put together!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, and comrades, is why all those huffy professors, despite flaunting their credentials, are deeply misguided. I once again repeat what John Stuart Mill said in 1859: unless each generation hears and discusses the offensive arguments of the previous generation, they’ll forget not only those arguments, but also how to refute them.

h/t: Randy