This was inevitable given a U.S. campus climate that demonizes conservative speakers and ideas, and sometimes de-platforms them or shouts them down. According to Friday’s Washington Post, students at a California state university are suing because they were prevented from bringing in a speaker espousing a taboo idea—abortion is morally wrong—while at the same time the university readily funds pro-abortion speakers.
From the Post (my emphasis):
Students for Life at California State University at San Marcos filed a complaint in U.S. District Court, saying the college wouldn’t give them funding to bring an antiabortion speaker to campus. They claim they’re being treated unfairly by a public university that has hosted speakers on controversial topics, including a lecturer who favors abortion rights and a professional sexologist who led “a discussion of BDSM and Kink which included prizes and participation in an interactive workshop.”
The antiabortion group wanted to bring conservative columnist Mike Adams on campus to speak. Adams once referred to abortion rights activists as “animals” that “needed to be caged,” and his controversial statements about abortion and other topics led students to start a petition to get him kicked out of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he is a professor of criminology.
Nathan Apodaca, the antiabortion group’s president, said other, more liberal groups had received funding for speakers from the mandatory student activity fees at CSUSM, which is near San Diego.
“Some of the speakers that were being brought in had speaking expenses that were the exact same amount that we had been asking for and they were getting funding but we were not,” Apodaca said in a video statement.
The state school is violating the antiabortion group’s constitutional rights, the federal lawsuit says, by forcing its members to “subsidize speech with which they disagree without affording them the opportunity to respond by bringing in their own speakers.”
The case is being handled largely by attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian nonprofit that has launched court battles — including several against universities — on behalf of antiabortion or religious groups.
In the CSUSM case, the ADF’s argument is simple, said Casey Mattox, senior counsel for the group: Students should have equal access to the benefits of their fees, regardless of political stance.
“The Supreme Court has said that these kinds of fees can only be collected by schools if they guarantee that the money is handed out in a neutral way,” he said. “You have students who are forced to pay this money every semester that are paying to hear the other side’s perspectives, but not being able to use the money to bring speakers in who represent their views.”
The lawsuit asks the court to declare that CSUSM’s student fee policy violates the constitutional rights of students in the antiabortion group. The lawsuit also asks the court to make CSUSM pay the antiabortion group $500 and refund its student activity fees.
And here’s the inevitable “we like free speech BUT. . ” statement from the university itself.
Margaret Chantung, a spokeswoman for CSUSM, said the university could not comment extensively because of the pending lawsuit.
But she said in a brief statement: “Cal State San Marcos is committed to fostering a campus environment where diverse ideas and views can be presented and discussed. In addition, we take student complaints and concerns very seriously.”
I favor nearly unrestricted abortion—in fact, I agree with Peter Singer that children born with irreparable and life-destroying diseases or defects should be allowed to be euthanized soon after birth. But you simply can’t reinforce a Leftist pro-abortion sentiment on campus by not letting students hear the other side.
I’m currently rereading John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, a short, wonderful book that everyone needs to read, as it’s especially germane in these days when free speech is under assault. (It was, by the way. published in 1859, the same year as On the Origin of Species—a banner year for liberating the human mind.) Mill gives several reasons why no speech except for that promoting immediate harm should be banned. Even if the sentiments in a speech go against popular morality and ideology, as does antiabortion views on most campuses, hearing your opponent’s arguments still gives you a chance to examine and hone your own arguments. It prevents your ideology from going stale by remaining unchallenged, undefended, and then hardening into a mantra whose devotees no longer know the reasons they hold it—beyond observing that it’s the proper liberal view to have. I doubt that many students, for instance, could explain why abortion should be permitted beyond saying “it’s a woman’s right” (that is not an argument) or “women should have control over their own bodies” (but many disagree, including the religious). Could they argue their case against someone like, say, Ben Shapiro? They should be able to make a case for abortion like this one.
Liberals and progressives need to listen to smart conservatives on the other side, lest we become purveyors of a creed supported not by thought but by conformity.
If you allow liberals to speak, you must allow conservatives to speak. If you allow Israel haters to speak, you must allow Israel supporters. None of these speakers, once invited, should be deplatformed, disinvited, or forced to cancel their talks for fear of violence or student demonstration. San Marcos should give the students money for the antiabortion talk.
