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Campus censorship: a tyranny of the minority
Most students are weary of the excesses of the social-justice movement.
A new study by the Policy Exchange think-tank has revealed that fewer than half of university students in the UK consistently support freedom of speech. According to the findings, 41 per cent agreed with Cambridge University’s decision to rescind Jordan Peterson’s fellowship, as opposed to 31 per cent who disagreed. A similar result emerged when they were asked whether Cardiff University was right to overrule the activists who sought to have Germaine Greer disinvited for her supposedly transphobic views. Forty-four per cent opposed the university’s intervention whereas 35 per cent supported it. The study is being taken as evidence that intolerance of diverse opinions is a growing concern in our higher-education institutions.
The study also focuses on the political discrimination faced by those with unfashionable opinions. Students who support Brexit, the study finds, are unlikely to express their views openly. Both students and academics seem to be prone to what the economist Timur Kuran has called ‘preference falsification’, whereby one’s true opinion is withheld in favour of a more socially acceptable declaration. This is why the authors of the Policy Exchange report emphasise the dangers of a ‘culture of conformity’.
Although this would seem to corroborate the general perception that free speech is under threat on university campuses, the authors emphasise that there remains ‘a noteworthy constituency of students who support free speech’. This has certainly been my own experience of speaking on campuses. Recently, a student-run politics society invited me to give a talk on the relationship between contemporary politics and satire and, in the subsequent Q&A, the issue of No Platforming was raised. Some had reservations about the idea of unfettered free speech, and one or two argued that there was a sound case for this kind of censorship. But on the whole I found the students to be open-minded and eager for debate.
The same cannot be said for the academic staff of the politics department, not one of whom turned up. I later discovered that they had refused even to publicise the event on the grounds that a talk which was likely to be ‘antagonistic to woke culture’ would be a violation of their ‘departmental ethos of promoting diversity’. Quite how a discussion about satire would in any way represent a threat to diversity is difficult to fathom. But it was clear enough that they were unwilling to have their ideological worldview challenged.
My experiences have persuaded me that in order to combat the culture of conformity in universities, we need to take a top-down approach. With faculty members so blind to the need for alternative voices, is it any wonder that some students are beginning to follow suit? Free speech is increasingly perceived as the domain of the right, so it is hardly surprising that academics are failing to defend what should be a non-partisan principle. A recent study by the Adam Smith Institute found that fewer than 12 per cent of UK academics consider themselves to be conservative. This lack of diversity should trouble all of us, irrespective of our political leanings.
As for the students, it is now undeniable that on most campuses there exists a small body of activists – most notably those who seek positions in students’ unions – who are hostile to alternative ways of thinking and who like to conflate speech with violence. However, there is every reason to believe that most young people are weary of the excesses of the social-justice movement. And as I have argued previously, it is unwise to dismiss an entire generation as ‘snowflakes’ on the basis of the illiberal antics of the minority.
The problem lies with the rise of a new kind of identity politics, one in which one’s sense of self-worth is inextricably bound up with a particular worldview. In such circumstances, a political disagreement can represent an acute threat to one’s emotional wellbeing. To be disabused of a long-held conviction can prompt what is known as an ‘identity quake’, by which one’s core beliefs are suddenly destabilised. Some students, in other words, perceive the very process of education as carrying with it the possibility of a traumatic disruption of the certainties that are key to their identity. This explains the hysterical response of one Yale undergraduate who berated her professor in a now famous viral video. ‘It is not about creating an intellectual space!’, she is heard to scream. ‘It is not! Do you understand that? It’s about creating a home here.’
It should go without saying that the university experience is not about reinforcing existing beliefs, but subjecting them to scrutiny. In spite of the more alarmist headlines that this recent Policy Exchange report has generated, most students are still keen to be challenged. At the same time, they are living through a time in which they are repeatedly assured that their emotional needs must take precedence over all other considerations. It is important that faculty and students alike feel able to discuss unpopular ideas and to question the status quo. In order to achieve this we need to break down this culture of conformity and initiate practical policies to defend academic freedom, and that means reaffirming the purpose of higher education itself.
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College Newspaper That Apologized for Covering News Won’t Print Another Point of View
A signed editorial in The Daily Northwestern apologizing for the student newspaper's coverage of protests surrounding an appearance by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been widely criticized by journalists across the nation. Pictured: The campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. (Photo: Getty Images)
A student newspaper that apologized to readers for “retraumatizing” them through its coverage of a disrupted campus appearance by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions also declined to publish a different take on the incident in a letter from a College Republicans chapter.
Dominic Bayer, vice president of the College Republicans chapter at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., told The Daily Signal on Tuesday that The Daily Northwestern refused to publish a statement submitted Nov. 6 by the club as a letter to the editor or op-ed about protesters’ treatment of Sessions the night before.
The College Republicans club hosted the appearance by Sessions, which protesters loudly disrupted both inside and outside the hall.
The Daily Northwestern covered the protests surrounding Sessions’ speech. Later, the outlet deleted some photo coverage of the Sessions protest along with the names of some interviewed protesters after individual students voiced concerns.
In an editorial Sunday, The Daily Northwestern stated that its coverage “harmed many students,” including by publishing photos that some protesters found “retraumatizing and invasive.”
Via email Nov. 6, the College Republicans’ Bayer asked the newspaper to publish its statement on the protests against the former attorney general.
“Thanks for reaching out! Unfortunately we do not accept LTEs [letters to the editor] from student political organizations as contributions,” The Daily Northwestern’s opinion editor, Pryanshi Katare, replied to Bayer in a Nov. 7 email. “We hope you understand.”
The Daily Northwestern calls itself “the paper of record” for Northwestern University, home to the celebrated Medill School of Journalism, which now has a longer official name.
In a response to Katare less than two hours later, Bayer, 21, a senior from Manizales, Colombia, suggested as a compromise that the College Republicans statement be submitted on behalf of either an individual member or members.
The Daily Northwestern has yet to respond to that email, Bayer said.
“They wouldn’t publish it, no matter what,” Bayer, who is studying political science and economics, told The Daily Signal.
“We followed up and they just ghosted us. They just wouldn’t respond,” Bayer said. “They just used ‘We don’t publish letters from groups’ as an excuse to deny it. And then, when we asked them for an alternative, they just ignored us.”
The editor in chief of The Daily Northwestern, however, says he was not aware that the College Republicans affiliate was told that the newspaper doesn’t publish letters from campus clubs.
Troy Closson told The Daily Signal on Wednesday that the student newspaper in fact does publish letters to the editor or op-eds from “student organizations.”
Closson, a senior, was one of eight Daily Northwestern editors who signed the editorial apologizing to fellow students for its reporting on the protests of Sessions’ speech.
The editorial of apology by Closson and seven other editors has been widely criticized by journalists across the nation, including fellow student journalists. It reads in part:
We feel that covering traumatic events requires a different response than many other stories. While our goal is to document history and spread information, nothing is more important than ensuring that our fellow students feel safe — and in situations like this, that they are benefitting from our coverage rather than being actively harmed by it. We failed to do that last week, and we could not be more sorry. …
As a campus newspaper covering a student body that can be very easily and directly hurt by the University, we must operate differently than a professional publication in these circumstances.
Ultimately, The Daily failed to consider our impact in our reporting surrounding Jeff Sessions. We know we hurt students that night, especially those who identify with marginalized groups.
The Daily Northwestern editorial explained that the student newspaper deleted some photo coverage of the Sessions protest along with the names of some interviewed protesters after individual students voiced concerns.
The College Republicans’ proposed letter to the editor reads in part:
Picture President Obama giving a speech at the University of Alabama [and being] welcomed to campus by protesters, who interrupt his speech by screaming, pounding the hall’s doors, and shouting the most obscene vulgarities in an attempt to silence him. There’s really no need to imagine: With the exception of the public figure and locale, this set of events happened this very week.
The letter says that although College Republicans valued free speech, the disruptive actions of protesters at the Sessions event were “unbecoming to members of the Northwestern community” and robbed the school of a chance to engage with and learn from a public policy expert.
Sessions is a former prosecutor and attorney general of Alabama who served as a Republican senator from that state for 20 years before becoming President Donald Trump’s first attorney general.
The Daily Northwestern’s FAQ page lists several reasons why a letter to the editor may not be published, but doesn’t mention a policy against publishing submissions from campus clubs.
In 2017, the student newspaper published a letter to the editor from College Democrats that encouraged students to call their representatives, and in 2016 published a letter from College Democrats’ two presidents that encouraged students to vote for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
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At BU, right-wing commentator draws a crowd and protests
A large number of Boston University students turned out Wednesday evening to protest a speech on campus by conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro.
His lecture, entitled “America Wasn’t Built On Slavery, It Was Built On Freedom” was hosted by the BU chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative political organization.
Shapiro, 35, a Los Angeles-based lawyer and editor of the Daily Wire website, addressed more than 1,500 students, some of whom wore red Make America Great Again caps popularized by President Trump.
As he approached the podium, some students stood and cheered, while around 100 others sat and did not clap. “Good for them,” Shapiro said of the protestors. “That’s Boston strong, I’ll tell you.”
Grace Naquin, who is part of a student group supporting Democrat Pete Buttigieg for president, was among those who sat quietly.
“There are definitely people like me here who are not going to clap or react,” Naquin said. Still, she said Shapiro is “dangerous” because he is “intelligent and charismatic, but supports white nationalist agenda.”
Speaking in a rapid-fire cadence, Shapiro read from prepared remarks. “Was America founded on freedom or slavery?” Shapiro asked, a question that framed his speech that lasted about 45 minutes.
“American slavery was an evil institution,” he said. “But, you are here today because of freedom. You are speaking today because of freedom. You’re American because of freedom.”
Shapiro, who has been heavily criticized for his views on race, said America today “is the least racist it’s ever been.” He urged attendees to “stop conflating the past” history of slavery “with the present.”
Shapiro, a Harvard Law School grad, was frequently heckled. At one point, he asked a student seated near the front of the audience to sit down and be courteous to the “1,500 other people in the room.”
At another point, about 10 students stood up and walked out while blowing whistles and chanting. About half-way through, a student shouted out mulitple times. He was escorted from the building by security officers, and some people stood and cheered as he left.
A question-and-answer period followed, with more than 50 people lining up at microphones. A few people in the back of the audience shouted “You’re a liar,” after some of Shapiro’s answers.
Shapiro’s appearance stirred controversy on BU’s campus days before he took the podium around 6 p.m. at the university’s Track & Tennis Center.
On Tuesday, a student group known as “Black BU” issued a statement condemning Shapiro’s visit.
“Abandoned, triggered, frustrated, disheartened, devalued, infuriated, overwhelmed, ignored, and embarrassed [by] BU,” the group wrote, said the Daily Free Press, the student newspaper. “This is how we feel. This is how BU has made us feel.”
Before the event, the group organized a protest that drew over 50 people dressed in black who marched in frigid cold to the event.
Prior to the speech, the campus chapter of Young Americans defended Shapiro’s appearance. “Ben Shapiro has repeatedly and vehemently condemned racism, and he is by no means denying the historical existence and significance of slavery,” the group said in an e-mail.
The appearance drew a heavy police presence, with Alcorn and Babcock streets closed to traffic almost two hours before the event.
There were no arrests, according to a police officer on the scene. Colin Riley, a university spokesman, said campus police are investigating several incidents of vandalism on campus related to Shapiro’s appearance, Riley said.
He said vandals used black magic markers to draw on the upper lip of Shapiro’s face what “would be a Hitler mustache” on advertisements posted at Warren Towers dormitory in the days leading up to event.
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