Much of the left, just like the very far right, cares only about "winning" and crushing their "enemy" without a thought about ethics, fairness and integrity. It is obvious their is a hierarchy that everyone must obey. For instance, while rape is treated with hysteria in general, when the rape is committed by minorities avoiding accusations of racism or ruffling the feathers of that minority group is the main focus. We see that with the New Years Eve rapes in Europe, the rapes committed by Pakistani immigrants in the UK, and even the incidents involving Bill Cosby and Nate Parker. The left calls bias "racist" yet at University of Missouri there was one accusation of anti-black racism and an accusation of anti-Jewish racism. The former caused a nationwide coverage and campus wide advocacy. The latter-nothing. This is the norm on campuses and the left. Yet the "bias hunters" and "racism hunters" are blind and in denial about the systemic and institutional anti-Jewish racism. They call for "equality" while demonstrating bias, racism, and denial as a leftist cultural norm. And please, don't start with the babyish finger pointing that the republicans "are worse". The left needs to take a good hard moral inventory and stop with the sanctimonious delusions of grandeur.
46
Mr. Sleeper conveniently omits that the conference I attended, the one that campus progressives tried to shut down, was actually about the future of free speech. He also neglects to mention that some of us were spit on.
His omissions were no accident. He would prefer you to focus on the sponsor, the William F. Buckley Society. Read: this is all about some right wing agenda. In tortured logic, he rattles off the names of conservative organizations (the Koch brothers!), as if they have any noticeable effect on today's colleges. Sleeper pounces on my use of the word "brand," which is his way of saying that Yale is somehow, secretly, a slave to corporate interests. His evidence is that some of these people also give money to universities. Trust me, their views ignored - but only after soothing palliatives are delivered at alumni gatherings.
Free speech is not a left/right issue, but today's campus left is making it one. I know undergraduate conservatives at Yale right now who don't feel it's safe or wise to reveal their views, and they accept that expressing those views in the classroom might result in negative consequences. Since 99% of the Yale faculty's political donations are to Democrats, this is easy to understand. Logic, reason, and discourse are being sacrificed at the alter "feelings" and identity politics. Blame Descartes, who said there is no truth other than what you feel. In this world, facts don't matter, and when facts don't matter, debate is irrelevant.
His omissions were no accident. He would prefer you to focus on the sponsor, the William F. Buckley Society. Read: this is all about some right wing agenda. In tortured logic, he rattles off the names of conservative organizations (the Koch brothers!), as if they have any noticeable effect on today's colleges. Sleeper pounces on my use of the word "brand," which is his way of saying that Yale is somehow, secretly, a slave to corporate interests. His evidence is that some of these people also give money to universities. Trust me, their views ignored - but only after soothing palliatives are delivered at alumni gatherings.
Free speech is not a left/right issue, but today's campus left is making it one. I know undergraduate conservatives at Yale right now who don't feel it's safe or wise to reveal their views, and they accept that expressing those views in the classroom might result in negative consequences. Since 99% of the Yale faculty's political donations are to Democrats, this is easy to understand. Logic, reason, and discourse are being sacrificed at the alter "feelings" and identity politics. Blame Descartes, who said there is no truth other than what you feel. In this world, facts don't matter, and when facts don't matter, debate is irrelevant.
111
The game: proclaim proudly one's insipid bigotry, then play the victim of "political correctness" when criticized.
It's a coward's strategy to deflect, snidely used, and puerile, a school yard's bully attitude.
It's a coward's strategy to deflect, snidely used, and puerile, a school yard's bully attitude.
67
The false claim that was "corrected" speaks volumes. This is an uniformed screed, grounded on a false conspiracy theory, not a reasoned argument.
11
"But today’s conservative “free speech” campaign doesn’t want you to know that."
What else is new? Each side presents the incidents that support their cause, while ignoring or lessening those that do not. The gun control crowd present incidents of shootings of innocent people, while ignoring incidents where a gun wielding civilian prevents a crime. The pro gun crowd does the opposite. That is why an informed citizen does not just read papers that agree with him, in order to get some balance in what is reported and suppressed.
What else is new? Each side presents the incidents that support their cause, while ignoring or lessening those that do not. The gun control crowd present incidents of shootings of innocent people, while ignoring incidents where a gun wielding civilian prevents a crime. The pro gun crowd does the opposite. That is why an informed citizen does not just read papers that agree with him, in order to get some balance in what is reported and suppressed.
11
What goes on inside the faux Anglophilic facade at Yale is of little importance to the plight of the nation. The 'ivy league' is a pretentious, elitist construction.
That alma mater only matters when obsolete infatuation with patrilineal aristocracy plays favorites with family pedigree credentialing an under-performing rich-kid like Dubbya, falsely denoting educated, presidential preparedness.
Yale did enough damage making the worst president in modern American history seem of some sort of bonafide stock.
As for political-correctness, Yale can double over backwards to make certain there is not a single hateful, bigoted costume allowed on campus.
Halloween is a ridiculous tradition, but for anyone to imagine this dress-up day could be license to mock any traditionally persecuted people or act out hidden hate: Justified bigotry is against bigots themselves, deny them a stage.
Mock those who are worthy of contempt: Dress as a blood-sucking bankster, or wear a Dubbya mask while flying a jolly-roger for his old-money 'Skull & Bones nazi-connected blue-blooded privateering of Yale-prodeced evil.
Beyond that, until such time as all are guaranteed an equal minimum right to debt-free college, Yale can fight its own battles of what its students deem offensive within its castle walls.
But minority students have every right to stick it to the old-school Yalies, let W.F. Buckly mutter twist & in his pretentious lockjaw accent, his white america is thankfully dying off at long last.
That alma mater only matters when obsolete infatuation with patrilineal aristocracy plays favorites with family pedigree credentialing an under-performing rich-kid like Dubbya, falsely denoting educated, presidential preparedness.
Yale did enough damage making the worst president in modern American history seem of some sort of bonafide stock.
As for political-correctness, Yale can double over backwards to make certain there is not a single hateful, bigoted costume allowed on campus.
Halloween is a ridiculous tradition, but for anyone to imagine this dress-up day could be license to mock any traditionally persecuted people or act out hidden hate: Justified bigotry is against bigots themselves, deny them a stage.
Mock those who are worthy of contempt: Dress as a blood-sucking bankster, or wear a Dubbya mask while flying a jolly-roger for his old-money 'Skull & Bones nazi-connected blue-blooded privateering of Yale-prodeced evil.
Beyond that, until such time as all are guaranteed an equal minimum right to debt-free college, Yale can fight its own battles of what its students deem offensive within its castle walls.
But minority students have every right to stick it to the old-school Yalies, let W.F. Buckly mutter twist & in his pretentious lockjaw accent, his white america is thankfully dying off at long last.
17
It's interesting how Americans are so against socialism. Yet, most of their conformist behavior is very socialistic: everyone wears jeans/ dresses alike, eats in established chain restaurants, listens to same monotonous music, and thinks what the news media tells them to believe is right.
And now political correctness which is intellectual socialism; by definition a contradiction. A distortion of reality forcing equal outcomes. In the absence of a civilized debate, all kinds of "ist" labels are thrown at you to block a logical argument: sexist, racist, etc.
PC is the cancer of American society eating away at its fabric of intellectual development and achievement of excellence in any field.
And now political correctness which is intellectual socialism; by definition a contradiction. A distortion of reality forcing equal outcomes. In the absence of a civilized debate, all kinds of "ist" labels are thrown at you to block a logical argument: sexist, racist, etc.
PC is the cancer of American society eating away at its fabric of intellectual development and achievement of excellence in any field.
25
Well said. It's about time the root causes and motives of the conservative campaign against "political correctness" and in defense of "free speech" were exposed.
To appreciate the hollowness of their claims to be defending free inquiry, just take a peek at the controlled curricula and prevailing atmosphere of conformity on the bible college campuses or conservative-run places like Liberty University or Hillsdale College.
The History Department webpage at Liberty affirms "The History Department affirms that a Biblical Worldview should provide guidance in the analysis and interpretation of historical events, personalities, and issues."
Guidance? More like control and limits. No course listings are posted on the site, but we can pretty sure that America-founded-as-a-Christian features prominently in the curriculum.
The Biology and Chemistry Department at Liberty asserts that "each program is taught within a Biblical worldview and every lab is taught by professors."
Not much room for evolution within the "Biblical worldview" of that department, I'd aver.
Over at Hillsdale, their monthly college publication has included such gems as "The Danger of the Black Lives Matter Movement" and the complete text of the commencement address by Clarence Thomas.
So no indoctrination going on in these places at all - indoctrination is the province of the Women Studies Departments (none at Liberty or Hillsdale) or the feminist English professor at the big, bad leading university.
Risible.
To appreciate the hollowness of their claims to be defending free inquiry, just take a peek at the controlled curricula and prevailing atmosphere of conformity on the bible college campuses or conservative-run places like Liberty University or Hillsdale College.
The History Department webpage at Liberty affirms "The History Department affirms that a Biblical Worldview should provide guidance in the analysis and interpretation of historical events, personalities, and issues."
Guidance? More like control and limits. No course listings are posted on the site, but we can pretty sure that America-founded-as-a-Christian features prominently in the curriculum.
The Biology and Chemistry Department at Liberty asserts that "each program is taught within a Biblical worldview and every lab is taught by professors."
Not much room for evolution within the "Biblical worldview" of that department, I'd aver.
Over at Hillsdale, their monthly college publication has included such gems as "The Danger of the Black Lives Matter Movement" and the complete text of the commencement address by Clarence Thomas.
So no indoctrination going on in these places at all - indoctrination is the province of the Women Studies Departments (none at Liberty or Hillsdale) or the feminist English professor at the big, bad leading university.
Risible.
19
Liberals face an inherent inconsistency: If we believe in toleration and being open to alternative ideas, should we be tolerant of closed-minded, intolerant people? Should we be tolerant of racists, misogynists and xenophobic people? Should we be tolerant of thoroughly disproven ideas, such as a flat earth younger than 10,000 years, or creationism or claims that the earth is actually in a cooling period?
Part of "political correctness" is frustration with trying to deal with people who are impervious to facts, or who openly express hatred of entire groups of people. But as a liberal, I cringe when protests shut down speakers who may be expressing unpopular ideas, and I think trigger warnings at colleges and universities are simply silly.
Part of "political correctness" is frustration with trying to deal with people who are impervious to facts, or who openly express hatred of entire groups of people. But as a liberal, I cringe when protests shut down speakers who may be expressing unpopular ideas, and I think trigger warnings at colleges and universities are simply silly.
92
The word "university" is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means 'community of teachers and scholars.'
An important idea in the definition of a university is the notion of academic freedom.
People, including students, that do not believe in this system should look somewhere else for 'education'.
An important idea in the definition of a university is the notion of academic freedom.
People, including students, that do not believe in this system should look somewhere else for 'education'.
24
A lot of Yale students need to get over themselves, I see.
And even more right-wingers do: you guys are just as strident, just as repressive, with even less knowledge concerning what the heck you're talking about.
For one thing, screeching kids, no, liberals, leftists, commies, fascists and Maoists are five five different things.
For another, nobody on the PLANET is as loudly PC as an American right-winger. Nobody howls louder, demanding repression and crackdown, than the shabby likes of Rush and Coulter.
And if you think Yale's repressive...try Bob Jones, or Orel Roberts, or Liberty U. They've still got rules against jazz and rock, for pete's sake. Not to mention that we're all looking forward to their classes on, say, Black history or feminist theory or marxism or whatever.
And even more right-wingers do: you guys are just as strident, just as repressive, with even less knowledge concerning what the heck you're talking about.
For one thing, screeching kids, no, liberals, leftists, commies, fascists and Maoists are five five different things.
For another, nobody on the PLANET is as loudly PC as an American right-winger. Nobody howls louder, demanding repression and crackdown, than the shabby likes of Rush and Coulter.
And if you think Yale's repressive...try Bob Jones, or Orel Roberts, or Liberty U. They've still got rules against jazz and rock, for pete's sake. Not to mention that we're all looking forward to their classes on, say, Black history or feminist theory or marxism or whatever.
23
I hate, therefore I am. Call me out, and I will not tolerate your political correctness. You are obviously a leftist trying to control what I believe.
14
PC=low intelligence. YES! That's true, even if they think they are smart. You see, real intelligence involves looking at REALITY!
20
I see the author claims that free speech and open inquiry are alive and well on campus. And, yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. I don't see Mr. Sleeper alluding to the huge number of invited conservative speakers, who are barred from speaking by the politically correct crowd. Support Israel? Forget about speaking to these educated, open minded, thought police.
30
was this author too close to a compost heap,
and failed to fully recognize where he was?
and that such places are uniquely qualified to exist?
in order to promote a more-healthful tomorrow?
one has to wonder.
4
A poorly reasoned argument and a poorly written essay about a very important American discussion. Please review and find another essayist. this is so disjointed, i am not even sure what the major point is and if you read the comments, it will be evident that none of us really know what he is trying to say.
46
The reality is that both the left and the right would trample free speech. Each would prefer that only their viewpoint be permitted on campus and in our society. Evidence for this is the divide in our nation's politics. and the fact that we have separate cable networks for the left and the right instead networks that present unbiased analysis. And, for example, on campus, we have the pro-BDS crowd, supported by a number of misguided liberal professors who indoctrinate students in their classrooms instead of teach and engage in honest debate. Our only hope is that the yelling from both sides cancel each other out and we come back to a more civil, moderate, middle-of-the-road discourse on campus and in our society.
14
Shockingly, many commenters here are stating, without any embarrassment, that they don’t see what is wrong with “political correctness.” Political correctness is not some synonym for moral thought or behavior. Rather, it refers to a particularly loathsome form of intellectual dishonesty in which facts or conclusions that don’t comport with leftist ideology must be suppressed. An example would be the liberal media's effort to suppress the finding that white suspects are at greater risk of dying at the hands of the police than black suspects, as it does not comport with the political narrative being pushed in leftist circles. [The NY Times was finally forced to report this recently after a definitive study was published by a black sociologist].
Another example would be suppression of the conclusion that programs providing an incentive to work for resources lead to better outcomes than those that simply redistribute resources without incentives to work. This conclusion does not comport with leftist ideology and therefore you would be at risk of revilement if you dared to state this conclusion in today’s (leftist) college campus environment. [I know. I teach at an Ivy league school, and would be at risk of being ostracized if I ever stated such an idea.]
So, if you are proud to declare yourself intellectually dishonest, and happy to accept falsehood over truth in favor of your political ideology, the yes, proudly declare yourselves "politically correct."
Another example would be suppression of the conclusion that programs providing an incentive to work for resources lead to better outcomes than those that simply redistribute resources without incentives to work. This conclusion does not comport with leftist ideology and therefore you would be at risk of revilement if you dared to state this conclusion in today’s (leftist) college campus environment. [I know. I teach at an Ivy league school, and would be at risk of being ostracized if I ever stated such an idea.]
So, if you are proud to declare yourself intellectually dishonest, and happy to accept falsehood over truth in favor of your political ideology, the yes, proudly declare yourselves "politically correct."
52
Well said. Any real danger to this country comes from the right.
12
Honesty and facts are essential elements of honest discourse. The right wing frequently disrupts honest discourse by clinging to false claims or lies that dispute scientific proof, false promises that run contrary to economic experience, or rely upon procedures that undermine democracy through gerrymandering, voter suppression and obstructionism in Congress. You may rightfully evoke anger when speech is used to obstruct democracy or obscure the truth, not too mention divisive speech that expresses bigotry.
11
Don, "The right wing frequently disrupts honest discourse by clinging to false claims or lies that dispute scientific proof, false promises that run contrary to economic experience..."
Seriously, Clinton, the Left's candidate, is a compulsive liar and you raise problems with the accuracy of right-wing speech. Apparently, you are not aware that Obama falsely claims to have increased deportations, when, in fact, he manipulates the statistics to claim that border turn-aways are deportations. See https://www.numbersusa.com/content/news/february-12-2013/how-obama-admin... Also, Obama fraudulently was able to gain the passage of Obamacare by falsely claiming that no one would lose their existing coverage.
The self-righteous, uninformed Left lives in a bubble where it is impervious to facts or reason.
JD
Seriously, Clinton, the Left's candidate, is a compulsive liar and you raise problems with the accuracy of right-wing speech. Apparently, you are not aware that Obama falsely claims to have increased deportations, when, in fact, he manipulates the statistics to claim that border turn-aways are deportations. See https://www.numbersusa.com/content/news/february-12-2013/how-obama-admin... Also, Obama fraudulently was able to gain the passage of Obamacare by falsely claiming that no one would lose their existing coverage.
The self-righteous, uninformed Left lives in a bubble where it is impervious to facts or reason.
JD
26
Sorry for all my comments, but here is the e-mail (letter) that a Yale Committee on behalf of Yale wrote to the student body about Halloween costumes:
https://www.thefire.org/email-from-intercultural-affairs/
https://www.thefire.org/email-from-intercultural-affairs/
6
" some poor decisions can be made including wearing feathered headdresses, turbans, wearing ‘war paint’ or modifying skin tone or wearing blackface or redface. These same issues and examples of cultural appropriation and/or misrepresentation are increasingly surfacing with representations of Asians and Latinos."
Yes, it's called be SENSITIVE to people's feelings. Got a problem with that?
Yes, it's called be SENSITIVE to people's feelings. Got a problem with that?
8
Thanks for all your comments reporting your research results.
As for the letter from the Yale "Intercultural Affairs Committee" -- there are 13 signers, of whom, by my count, seven are explicitly associated with groups or offices espousing identity politics, yet the letter concludes that "We are one Yale ..."
The seven: LGBTQ, Native American, Afro American, Jewish, Gender, La Casa, Asian American.
As for the letter from the Yale "Intercultural Affairs Committee" -- there are 13 signers, of whom, by my count, seven are explicitly associated with groups or offices espousing identity politics, yet the letter concludes that "We are one Yale ..."
The seven: LGBTQ, Native American, Afro American, Jewish, Gender, La Casa, Asian American.
12
I previously gave citations for people to read up on this whole incident to decide for themselves their position, However, I left out the speech.
So below is the speech citation that led to the "resignation" of both the husband and wife. Personally, as someone expressing my opinion, I didn't find the letter offensive at all. It was well-written and balanced both sides of the argument as to what is or isn't appropriate for costumes on Halloween.
https://www.thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing-yourselves-...
Yale's administration also wrote a letter previous to the Mrs. Christakis's letter.
Yale's letter took a less-balanced stance and wrote that students should not wear "inappropriate costumes at Halloween.
If someone could find the e-mail that Yale sent, that would better help with this discussion. I tired to find it, but so far have not found the Yale letter or e-mail.
So below is the speech citation that led to the "resignation" of both the husband and wife. Personally, as someone expressing my opinion, I didn't find the letter offensive at all. It was well-written and balanced both sides of the argument as to what is or isn't appropriate for costumes on Halloween.
https://www.thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing-yourselves-...
Yale's administration also wrote a letter previous to the Mrs. Christakis's letter.
Yale's letter took a less-balanced stance and wrote that students should not wear "inappropriate costumes at Halloween.
If someone could find the e-mail that Yale sent, that would better help with this discussion. I tired to find it, but so far have not found the Yale letter or e-mail.
5
Yes, "The reason is that conservatives’ yearning for ordered liberty is being debased not by liberals but by the casino-like financing and predatory lending and marketing of a “dynamic capitalist economy.”
The good old boys want to take over education at all levels so they can keep the rest of us dumbed down. It has worked for centuries. No more.
The good old financial elite money boys and their tools of power-over will not go quietly but go from America they will. Grassroots synergy for a return to an inclusive, equitable, socially just society is swelling to mass proportions and will overcome the Top 1% Global Financial Elite right-wing strategy to demonize 99% of us while they rob us blind. The world will change dramatically on November 8 and every election after for the foreseeable future. WE do not want their America.
The good old boys want to take over education at all levels so they can keep the rest of us dumbed down. It has worked for centuries. No more.
The good old financial elite money boys and their tools of power-over will not go quietly but go from America they will. Grassroots synergy for a return to an inclusive, equitable, socially just society is swelling to mass proportions and will overcome the Top 1% Global Financial Elite right-wing strategy to demonize 99% of us while they rob us blind. The world will change dramatically on November 8 and every election after for the foreseeable future. WE do not want their America.
5
Here we go again...
While the majority of the western hemisphere rightfully questions the enacting of Orwellian speech codes (folks, patrolling speech is the same as patrolling thought -- it is an offense to the ideal of freedom and should be protested any time it shows it's nasty face), control freaks who erroneously call themselves progressive continue to invent new defenses of "political correctness." Jim Sleeper is just another tool in this lurid chapter of history. His article will be used as a warning to future generations, just as 1984 and Animal Farm were once used as warnings, when rationality and objectivity finally win this war.
While the majority of the western hemisphere rightfully questions the enacting of Orwellian speech codes (folks, patrolling speech is the same as patrolling thought -- it is an offense to the ideal of freedom and should be protested any time it shows it's nasty face), control freaks who erroneously call themselves progressive continue to invent new defenses of "political correctness." Jim Sleeper is just another tool in this lurid chapter of history. His article will be used as a warning to future generations, just as 1984 and Animal Farm were once used as warnings, when rationality and objectivity finally win this war.
21
An accusation is not proof. An opinion is not fact. A bias is not truth. But in this case a Sleeper is a sleeper for support of politically correct Dogma and elitist subjugation.
8
"...the real threat to free inquiry isn’t students, but that same market imperative that First Amendment defenders claim to hold dear. Most university leaders serve not politically correct pieties but pressures to satisfy student “customers” and to avoid negative publicity, liability and losses in “brand” or “market share” — terms that belong in corporate suites but appear, increasingly, in deans’ offices."
professor sleeper's diagnosis is correct, however, in ascribing blame, he shifts, (with a deftness that renders lesser efforts, the colin powell defense for example, painfully transparent) the load to university leadership and its corporate controllers, usurpers perhaps, but not without the consent/ complicity of a go-along-to-get-along professorate.
granted that there were exceptions, those who tried to warn (the paul revere offense) and who were either tolerated until retirement or scarred.
having served during the bridge years, (going from the days of a teaching president, to a mid-point president, still an educator, but one stifled in the corporate climate change, to a CEO president replete with what roger kimball might call "conformity police," junior deans who, under the cover of collegiality, were wont to "touch base" by visits to department meetings and senior deans or vice presidents who were sure to be on hand, with gun and cannoli, for meetings with regents and like powers) it says here, that soft-spined faculty senates deserve a share of the blame.
professor sleeper's diagnosis is correct, however, in ascribing blame, he shifts, (with a deftness that renders lesser efforts, the colin powell defense for example, painfully transparent) the load to university leadership and its corporate controllers, usurpers perhaps, but not without the consent/ complicity of a go-along-to-get-along professorate.
granted that there were exceptions, those who tried to warn (the paul revere offense) and who were either tolerated until retirement or scarred.
having served during the bridge years, (going from the days of a teaching president, to a mid-point president, still an educator, but one stifled in the corporate climate change, to a CEO president replete with what roger kimball might call "conformity police," junior deans who, under the cover of collegiality, were wont to "touch base" by visits to department meetings and senior deans or vice presidents who were sure to be on hand, with gun and cannoli, for meetings with regents and like powers) it says here, that soft-spined faculty senates deserve a share of the blame.
2
I have been a professor and administrator for 30 years and have never had students accuse me of improper or insensitive comments until the past couple years. I was accused of micro-aggressions and being insensitive on issues that I have invested many hours of service and support on behalf of students (women's rights and diversity). Rather than asking me for clarification two students sent in a "bias report" to the president's office. They misunderstood my comments and decided that I needed to be reprimanded. I am now reluctant to even engage in several issues because I don't want incident reports on my record. This is way over the top. Hypersensitive and thin-skinned fits the description of these students. And the university enables it by setting up a "reporting" system letting students anonymously accuse administrators and faculty with no recourse or clarification.
251
I agree! We also have anonymous "hotlines" serving disgruntled and underperforming "students" and staff vent their anger over their own short-comings on the faculty. As a result, morale among the faculty is dropping when university "leader"ship prostitutes itself to the anonymous "accusers".
That these complainers will eventually wake up when they find out that the world finds them ripe for the plucking is little comfort.
We teach to make our students successful, not to take comfort in their failings. It's the liberals that have failed them big-time, not politically "incorrect" faculty.
That these complainers will eventually wake up when they find out that the world finds them ripe for the plucking is little comfort.
We teach to make our students successful, not to take comfort in their failings. It's the liberals that have failed them big-time, not politically "incorrect" faculty.
16
Another term for Political Correctness is called being polite. People who are angry at having to be politically correct are angry at everything. They don't like the idea that to be polite is the right thing to do. It is how we bring up our children to be.
We always used to correct our children, and now our grandchildren, to speak correctly and succinctly, not to curse, not to purposefully make fun of and insult someone. Again, I ask, what is wrong with being diplomatic, with engaging a fellow human being in moderate tones and treat them with the same respect we wish to be treated with?
It seems many disagree with me. They embrace a vulgarian like Donald Trump. They like him so much, because, "he tells it like it is". Really? Telling like it is means to demean, call people you disagree with derogatory names? In my day, which goes back a very long way, that was the way bullies behaved, and we admonished them for such atrocious behavior.
What is so complicated in addressing someone you are speaking with by the name they prefer to be addressed as?
DD
Manhattan
We always used to correct our children, and now our grandchildren, to speak correctly and succinctly, not to curse, not to purposefully make fun of and insult someone. Again, I ask, what is wrong with being diplomatic, with engaging a fellow human being in moderate tones and treat them with the same respect we wish to be treated with?
It seems many disagree with me. They embrace a vulgarian like Donald Trump. They like him so much, because, "he tells it like it is". Really? Telling like it is means to demean, call people you disagree with derogatory names? In my day, which goes back a very long way, that was the way bullies behaved, and we admonished them for such atrocious behavior.
What is so complicated in addressing someone you are speaking with by the name they prefer to be addressed as?
DD
Manhattan
14
Wrong. The true description of PC is "my way or highway" Either you agree with all what I am saying without challenging me, or you are racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, etc., etc.,
22
Having read many articles on this topic in this paper as well as the comments, I believe Sleeper has it all wrong, this is not a left- right issue at all. Remarkably it is an age issue. Liberals and conservatives over age 40 seem equally aghast at the behavior of these students, with the exception of college administrators over 40, of course. It is refreshing to see liberals and conservatives actually agree on something.
The day these kids graduate will be the last day they get a trigger warning or can run to a safe space. And they will also learn that complaining about micro aggressions no one can detect is a good strategy for career stagnation. At some point the real world will intervene in their fantasy world.
A course on life in the Soviet Union and Maoist China should be a required course in college today, imho.
The day these kids graduate will be the last day they get a trigger warning or can run to a safe space. And they will also learn that complaining about micro aggressions no one can detect is a good strategy for career stagnation. At some point the real world will intervene in their fantasy world.
A course on life in the Soviet Union and Maoist China should be a required course in college today, imho.
22
Just remember it was at Yale that male students were chanting "No means yes, yes means anal!" In response to a yale basketball. Player getting kicked off the team after an investigation into allegations os sexual assault.
4
I stopped reading this column after my first encounter with the word "Yale." What happens at this ivory tower hothouse of carefully curated overachievers has nothing to do with the lives of ordinary Americans and never will. Show me a similar protest at a highly unselective state university in red state America, and I'll start paying attention.
7
Yale does not matter? But Yale gave the United States eight woeful years of George W. Bush. True he had low grades and he owed his admission to his famous father, but Yale can take the credit for the worst President in American history.
5
Now that the Yale benefactors are pulling their contributions, the school will surely wake up and grow a backbone. What's needed at Yale is similar to what the Univ. of Chicago has offered, a reasoned response to the behavior of self-righteous, hyper-aggressive students who have not been taught proper manners. They are rude and insensitive and not able to get along with others. To care more about one's own identity than about the larger, complex, intertwined world that we live in is just immature. College is the place to grow, to expand and to prove oneself in the larger world, not to look in the mirror and fret over one's appearance / identity all day, waiting for others to applaud you, just for being you. We all struggle with insecurities and we all deserve applause.
30
A summation of what transpired:
1. A professor sends out an e-mail that some students find offensive.
2. The students ( A minority) start protesting, and send letters to the
administration demeaning the 2 professors resign.
3. "Nicholas and Erika Christakis stepped down from their positions in residential life months after student activists called for their dismissal over a Halloween kerfuffle"*
Citation:
*http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-peril-of-writing...
4. A video on YouTube that was taken of the student shrieker.**
**Citation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZVEVufWFI
5. A brief summation of the e-mail.
***Citation:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_A._Christakis
My two cents: The article by Mr. Sleeper does not provide enough details for the reader (myself) to make an honest and fair assessment of what transpired before, during, and after the tirade by the student. Had Mr.Sleeper gave us more facts about the "whole affair", then we, the readers could have made a better judgement as to what was said, and who (if any) we preferred as to what the "real" story was.
1. A professor sends out an e-mail that some students find offensive.
2. The students ( A minority) start protesting, and send letters to the
administration demeaning the 2 professors resign.
3. "Nicholas and Erika Christakis stepped down from their positions in residential life months after student activists called for their dismissal over a Halloween kerfuffle"*
Citation:
*http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-peril-of-writing...
4. A video on YouTube that was taken of the student shrieker.**
**Citation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZVEVufWFI
5. A brief summation of the e-mail.
***Citation:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_A._Christakis
My two cents: The article by Mr. Sleeper does not provide enough details for the reader (myself) to make an honest and fair assessment of what transpired before, during, and after the tirade by the student. Had Mr.Sleeper gave us more facts about the "whole affair", then we, the readers could have made a better judgement as to what was said, and who (if any) we preferred as to what the "real" story was.
14
Your wish for more information while perhaps reasonable would really require a very lengthy article or even short monograph. This is an op-ed piece and as far as it goes, it seems well-founded. From my perspective (as a Yale faculty member) the backstory to Christakis's actions are little known and the "student shrieker"'s heated response was taken out of context. Shrieking seems to me included under the "Free Speech" banner even if it is not generally to be encouraged. Christakis resigned after a number of students exercised their free speech by refusing to accept their diplomas from him at graduation. Whether he had planned to do it or not beforehand is not clear to me. One could say that those students were not very polite but free speech also allows for being impolite. My own reading is that the Christakises were somewhat rash. When taking a new job such as head of a residential college, one might let others take the lead during one's freshman year and see how things operate. He didn't and that letter was, from what I understand, not the only instance.
1
Majortrout - You provide solid research for a formal evidentiary proceeding that could proceed to a finding of facts and I commend you on that. It is the essence of civil procedure and due process which society must conserve and maintain.
I maintain the process is imperfect and there will be and are many versions of the "real story." I trust Mr. Sleeper aptly presented the transmission of meaning of your "daddy's liberalism," which depends not only on structural and linguistic knowledge (e.g., grammar, lexicon, etc.) of Scott C. Johnston as the speaker, but also on the context of his utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other factors.
Mr. Sleeper thus allowed the listener to evaluate the existential "evidence" in the the sense of the pragmatics of communication to enhance the listener's understanding beyond the sequence of events and utterances.
I maintain the process is imperfect and there will be and are many versions of the "real story." I trust Mr. Sleeper aptly presented the transmission of meaning of your "daddy's liberalism," which depends not only on structural and linguistic knowledge (e.g., grammar, lexicon, etc.) of Scott C. Johnston as the speaker, but also on the context of his utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other factors.
Mr. Sleeper thus allowed the listener to evaluate the existential "evidence" in the the sense of the pragmatics of communication to enhance the listener's understanding beyond the sequence of events and utterances.
Being an opinion piece, I don't have issue with a lack of all the facts. But I have written to the Public Editor about opinionated news articles.
Free speech and constitutional rights are neither left or right. I remember when the ACLU defended Ollie North, convicted felon. His conviction was reversed.
16
People like Johnston wan conformity of thought and are willing to pay for it. They don't want to be challenged by students, don't want to listen to students. Students should be quiet and respectful and not challenged anything. That is the true politican correctness, don't challenge anything. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute trains students in how to be a conformist, how to be conservative and how to be obedient.
4
This is a bit of a specious article when there exists organizations like Heterodox Academy which have gathered more than 130 academics from across the political spectrum to advocate for free speech and freedom of inquiry. It is not just Conservatives and it is not a mask for anti-politically correct language.
16
I am a bigot. I believe that immigrants, black people, and women adversely affect my life. They are responsible for my failures.
I'm sorry that it's politically incorrect to believe and to say so, but you will not shout me down. If you try, you are also my enemy.
I'm sorry that it's politically incorrect to believe and to say so, but you will not shout me down. If you try, you are also my enemy.
2
It is absolutely one's right to be an ignorant bigot. In fact you can even run for president in todays republican party.
5
Touché !
I could;t help but laugh!
I could;t help but laugh!
No one needs to 'shout you down'.
You should be free to express your views. No one is obligated to listen to you, but there's no reason you shouldn't be free to share your opinion.
I don't believe you should be censored or circumscribed. I think you can spread whatever message you want, and it will simply serve to isolate and discredit yourself, because not very many people agree with you. If anyone does - by all means, feel free to form a club and agitate on campus or elsewhere.
The reason free speech is always preferred is because it allows the full range of ideas to be voiced, and allows the better ones to win because people are free to choose.
The author here is completely wrong. People like you aren't the problem. Its the people who think we need to use institutions to muzzle you and control you that are the problem.
You should be free to express your views. No one is obligated to listen to you, but there's no reason you shouldn't be free to share your opinion.
I don't believe you should be censored or circumscribed. I think you can spread whatever message you want, and it will simply serve to isolate and discredit yourself, because not very many people agree with you. If anyone does - by all means, feel free to form a club and agitate on campus or elsewhere.
The reason free speech is always preferred is because it allows the full range of ideas to be voiced, and allows the better ones to win because people are free to choose.
The author here is completely wrong. People like you aren't the problem. Its the people who think we need to use institutions to muzzle you and control you that are the problem.
7
So, those loudest in the defense of free speech on campus are responsible for the attacks on free speech by all the Red Guard wannabes? Huh? It's too bad the author doesn't address the real problem: the leftist ideology that says it's OK to suppress the voices of the rich and powerful in order to enhance the voices of the weak and marginalized. This theory was popularized by the Maoist writer, Herbert Marcuse, back in the 1960s but it's only been widely accepted on college campuses in recent years. Of course this claim is wholly inconsistent with American values and traditions.
17
Being rich and being poor or marginalized has nothing to do with education and learning. We may learn how differing views develop among those who are rich or poor and address how to make us more united, for instance. But that will never happen if you don't acknowledge from the start that there will always be differing opinions, which ought to teach us enough humility that we would learn not to be so isolated in our own bubble. No man is an island.
3
See "The Cashing In: The Student Rebellion," Ayn Rand.
Well said. Our survival depends on learning how to be part of the world (and, of course, moving forward in reducing the use of fossil fuels quickly).
This piece is all over the place and so lacking in truthful insight it is appalling.
Fact is, colleges are freeze zones where the caricatures of diversity flourish. The left are the censorious, anti-idea, joyless ones now. I was in college in the 90s during the first PC rage - temperance, measured, controlled learning was just beginning to be mocked.
Frankly, college is nearly worthless now, what with the politics and all.
Fact is, colleges are freeze zones where the caricatures of diversity flourish. The left are the censorious, anti-idea, joyless ones now. I was in college in the 90s during the first PC rage - temperance, measured, controlled learning was just beginning to be mocked.
Frankly, college is nearly worthless now, what with the politics and all.
17
The article by Mr. Sleeper fails to present sources and citations about the whole story. Please see my comment as to the "whole story".
Had the NYTimes readership been presented with, or spent the time to research the article (E-mails were sent by a professor, the husband of the professor wants to comment on his wife's e-mail, the professor is shouted down and disrespected by a student, pressure is made by students asking that the 2 professors resign, the professors resign).
The minimal amount of information about the story and the opinions by Mr. Sleeper do not present us with all the facts in order for us to make a decision bases on both the facts and views of the 2 parties involved.
On the other hand, Mr.Sleeper is writing an article with his point of view, and I respect his right to write as he did (freedom of expression).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"*
*Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall
Had the NYTimes readership been presented with, or spent the time to research the article (E-mails were sent by a professor, the husband of the professor wants to comment on his wife's e-mail, the professor is shouted down and disrespected by a student, pressure is made by students asking that the 2 professors resign, the professors resign).
The minimal amount of information about the story and the opinions by Mr. Sleeper do not present us with all the facts in order for us to make a decision bases on both the facts and views of the 2 parties involved.
On the other hand, Mr.Sleeper is writing an article with his point of view, and I respect his right to write as he did (freedom of expression).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"*
*Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall
3
> college is nearly worthless now
Ayn Rand identified the deliberate anti-intellectualism of Progressive ed in "The Comprachicos."
Ayn Rand identified the deliberate anti-intellectualism of Progressive ed in "The Comprachicos."
1
More right wing whining. To borrow from Brian McFadden, you all need a safe space.
1
The greatest uproar at Yale involved a provocative email by Erika Christakis to not be overly sensitive over Halloween costumes. It resulted in social media attacks and a physical confrontation between students and her husband Nicholas, a professor of sociology. When he invited the students to an open discussion of the issues surrounding his wife's email, one student kept screaming that he did not understand: what was important was her feelings, which had been hurt. The confrontation went viral. The initial response of the administration was to placate the students. Support for the Christakises came only belatedly. They decided not to return as Masters of Yale's Stillman College. At Mckenna-Claremont, another elite college, a poorly worded email resulted in the resignation of a well respected dean and the requirement that faculty participate in racial, ethnic and gender sensitivity training.
The recent University of Chicago statement on the importance of free speech and open discussion is a partial reaction to these and other recent events on college campuses. Instead of open discussion, too often student efforts are directed at eliminating past historical sins from memory. At Yale it is to erase the name of pro-slavery John Calhoun's name from a residential college. However, no effort is yet underway to eradicate Samuel B. Morse's name from another residential college. Inventor of the telegraph, but he was also one of the most vitriolic anti-Catholics of his day.
The recent University of Chicago statement on the importance of free speech and open discussion is a partial reaction to these and other recent events on college campuses. Instead of open discussion, too often student efforts are directed at eliminating past historical sins from memory. At Yale it is to erase the name of pro-slavery John Calhoun's name from a residential college. However, no effort is yet underway to eradicate Samuel B. Morse's name from another residential college. Inventor of the telegraph, but he was also one of the most vitriolic anti-Catholics of his day.
18
I disagree that Erika Christakis's e-mail was provocative.
I've written several comments here for people to:
1. Read the Yale Committee's letter.
2. Read the e-mail from Erika Christakis
3. See the shouting student with poor manners and demanding from Mr. Christakis an apology for the letter. He would apologize for hiring the student's feeling but not for his position.
4. Read the whole story from start to finish.
What I found "offensive" was the Yale Committee's letter. It's inferred message took late teen-mid twenties students to be immature in the sense that they didn't know right from wrong or what an "inappropriate" costume was.
I've written several comments here for people to:
1. Read the Yale Committee's letter.
2. Read the e-mail from Erika Christakis
3. See the shouting student with poor manners and demanding from Mr. Christakis an apology for the letter. He would apologize for hiring the student's feeling but not for his position.
4. Read the whole story from start to finish.
What I found "offensive" was the Yale Committee's letter. It's inferred message took late teen-mid twenties students to be immature in the sense that they didn't know right from wrong or what an "inappropriate" costume was.
3
Ah, yes, but the difference is that so many of today's leftists agree with him, so he doesn't qualify as an official Bigot(TM).
3
It feels as if both sides are missing what citizens need: Understanding.
The teaching that happened at the event was important, but overshadowed. Many of the protests are well intentioned and necessary, but some participants make it about themselves and take away from the goal. At the same time, the refusal of the elite to engage with the hoipolloi is more troublesome--they have more individual power.
We see this same thing happening in our election--the vast majority of Americans aren't sure what the issues are, but know their needs are not being met and something important is wrong. The ordinaries need to reach out to others and fix it.
The teaching that happened at the event was important, but overshadowed. Many of the protests are well intentioned and necessary, but some participants make it about themselves and take away from the goal. At the same time, the refusal of the elite to engage with the hoipolloi is more troublesome--they have more individual power.
We see this same thing happening in our election--the vast majority of Americans aren't sure what the issues are, but know their needs are not being met and something important is wrong. The ordinaries need to reach out to others and fix it.
Prepared as I was to discuss American "education." I was knocked off track by the discovery that Yale has a William F. Buckley Jr. PROGRAM. A Catholic who urges freedom of thought? I grew up with that hypocrisy! And he attended school at an upscale Catholic institute in England? Is there anything more twisted than the thinking of an "intellectual English Catholic?" The current monarch took the coronation oath which included a commitment to support the Protestant church in all its doctrines and rights. I weaned myself off the works of Belloc, Chesterton, Graham Greene, Monsignor Knox, and Arnold Lunn a long time ago.
Buckley, who played a role in the emergence of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan? Buckley is worthy of a section on political analysis, but a boot-licking program? Dear God, no wonder the kiddies are complaining!
Buckley, who played a role in the emergence of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan? Buckley is worthy of a section on political analysis, but a boot-licking program? Dear God, no wonder the kiddies are complaining!
10
This article is synonymous for the liberal wailing we have been hearing ever since Trump began to "liberate" us from the shackles of oppressive liberal censorship and suppression of free speech. What the "liberals" can't seem to fathom is that their pendulum of oppression has reached its turning point and is now swinging back, unfortunately and predictably at maximum speed, through the golden moderate middle ground and into the opposite, equally distasteful, territory.
It is a shame that it took a crude populist like Trump to achieve this. However, it is unfettered liberalism which is ultimately to blame for this.
I very much miss the civilized discourse, measured debates and thoughtful political compromise - which is indicative of true progress - of years past. For the last decade and a half, I have felt like a spectator on a runaway train, with its passengers engaged in fist fights, instead of deliberating and taking control of their destiny.
It is a shame that it took a crude populist like Trump to achieve this. However, it is unfettered liberalism which is ultimately to blame for this.
I very much miss the civilized discourse, measured debates and thoughtful political compromise - which is indicative of true progress - of years past. For the last decade and a half, I have felt like a spectator on a runaway train, with its passengers engaged in fist fights, instead of deliberating and taking control of their destiny.
24
Let's be honest. It is the Republicans who have removed the word "honest" from honest discourse. Despite the evidence against it, they still claim that there is no climate change and that tax cuts for the wealthy will pay for themselves. Liberals may indeed be responsible for limiting hate speech, which can possibly limit "frank" discussion of sensitive topics.
The problem with Trump saying what he believes is that what he believes is too often a lie and self-serving. Pretending that only he can save America is both narcissistic and clueless.
The problem with Trump saying what he believes is that what he believes is too often a lie and self-serving. Pretending that only he can save America is both narcissistic and clueless.
7
Don,
It all depends on the perspective. Especially when it comes to liberals claiming to limit "hate" speech. What they have done is limit all forms of speech that does not conform to their own liberal ideas, which conveniently is then being labelled "hate" speech. Being on the receiving end of that, I can tell you that I myself consider these liberal rantings hate speech directed against me. These are no longer "micro"aggressions.
As for differences on policy, claiming that all Republicans deny climate change or object to a sane tax policy is just as undifferentiated as saying that all Muslims are terrorists and whatever else Trump is claiming to get the populist vote behind him.
As I wrote: I very much miss the civilized discourse, measured debates and thoughtful political compromise of years past.
It all depends on the perspective. Especially when it comes to liberals claiming to limit "hate" speech. What they have done is limit all forms of speech that does not conform to their own liberal ideas, which conveniently is then being labelled "hate" speech. Being on the receiving end of that, I can tell you that I myself consider these liberal rantings hate speech directed against me. These are no longer "micro"aggressions.
As for differences on policy, claiming that all Republicans deny climate change or object to a sane tax policy is just as undifferentiated as saying that all Muslims are terrorists and whatever else Trump is claiming to get the populist vote behind him.
As I wrote: I very much miss the civilized discourse, measured debates and thoughtful political compromise of years past.
10
I'm proud of my alma mater, the U of Chicago, for reminding incoming students that they are coming to learn, not to be intellectually coddled. As an academic,and a political liberal, I can assure Mr. Sleeper that the reminder is indeed needed.
65
Has there ever been a more vacuous, sneering term as "politically incorrect?"
It's a default phrase used by bigots and right wingers to defend the indefensible i.e their bigotry.
If you run into someone who uses this rhetorical phrase, run the other way.
It's a default phrase used by bigots and right wingers to defend the indefensible i.e their bigotry.
If you run into someone who uses this rhetorical phrase, run the other way.
8
David Henry Concord - "Has there ever been a more vacuous, sneering term as "politically incorrect?"
Yes David there is a term much more vacuous and "sneering" as politically incorrect and that term is political correctness. A term for educational lemmings who go along to get along with no independent thought. This article is about educational honesty to which political correctness is antithetical.
If you run into someone who uses the phrase political correctness, run the other way, you will learn nothing of value from that person!
Yes David there is a term much more vacuous and "sneering" as politically incorrect and that term is political correctness. A term for educational lemmings who go along to get along with no independent thought. This article is about educational honesty to which political correctness is antithetical.
If you run into someone who uses the phrase political correctness, run the other way, you will learn nothing of value from that person!
9
Do those who seek true free speech only seek to ensure the right to express their bigotry? Suppose they have never even heard an alternative explanation (due to political correctness)?
The only way to ensure truly free speech is with counter speech.
One candidate has called for limiting immigration from Syria, because adequate vetting is not possible. This was rejected by religious and political groups on charges of bigotry. But note this: "1. Immediate action must be taken to temporarily suspend the admission of Syrian refugees into the United States until the nation’s leading intelligence and law enforcement agencies can certify the refugee screening process is adequate to detect individuals with terrorist ties.” This was a summary of the “review by the Majority Staff of the House Homeland Security Committee conclud[ing] that the Administration’s proposal… could have serious ramifications for U.S. homeland security." "https://homeland.house.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2015/11/HomelandSecurityCom...
The professor’s political narrative would suppress this report as being “politically incorrect,” while the free-speech supporters would argue that even if some groups interpret its primary goal as bigotry against Syrian Muslims , another group considers that its primary goal is security of the homeland against terror. It is called "political correctness" precisely because one political narrative is determining what speech is "correct". That worked in Mao's China; we don't need it here. And professors who choose to mis-understand what the counter view on political correctness really is do no one any service.
The only way to ensure truly free speech is with counter speech.
One candidate has called for limiting immigration from Syria, because adequate vetting is not possible. This was rejected by religious and political groups on charges of bigotry. But note this: "1. Immediate action must be taken to temporarily suspend the admission of Syrian refugees into the United States until the nation’s leading intelligence and law enforcement agencies can certify the refugee screening process is adequate to detect individuals with terrorist ties.” This was a summary of the “review by the Majority Staff of the House Homeland Security Committee conclud[ing] that the Administration’s proposal… could have serious ramifications for U.S. homeland security." "https://homeland.house.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2015/11/HomelandSecurityCom...
The professor’s political narrative would suppress this report as being “politically incorrect,” while the free-speech supporters would argue that even if some groups interpret its primary goal as bigotry against Syrian Muslims , another group considers that its primary goal is security of the homeland against terror. It is called "political correctness" precisely because one political narrative is determining what speech is "correct". That worked in Mao's China; we don't need it here. And professors who choose to mis-understand what the counter view on political correctness really is do no one any service.
8
The phrase originated with, and was used without irony by Stalinists. It connoted the difference between objective truth and the often changing but coercively enforced party line. Its application to the rhetorical excesses of the American hard left is apt.
10
“Education should not be intended to make people feel comfortable. It is meant to make them think.” ~ PRESIDENT OBAMA
38
Robert--That includes the teachers, as well as the students. If one is too philosophically comfortable, they are not making any progress.
3
Sleeper consistently and tendentiously mischaracterizes the activity of advocates of maximal freedom of expression as being on "the right". He is engaging in hyperbole and a cheap propaganda trick to link a noble organization like FIRE with Donald Trump. It is the left that is primarily responsible for abrogating freedom of expression rights, which have always been and must be the basis for a liberal arts education. Sleeper is right that, quite often, some of those involved in these debates caricature some of the students who might feel that certain kinds of speech cause them harm. There is no purpose served in construing advocates of freedom of expression as "right-wing", though in some cases they sure are. Sleeper continues to feed the idea that it is the entitled and privileged Ivy League students who are the "the victims." Capitulating to the victimization ideology serves no one, It would be better, as we have tried to do where I teach, to bring students together who have different views and help them to talk with each other, but when some students threaten professors, or try to get them fired for exerting their right of freedom of speech, they are participating in raw politics rather than civil society and ought not to have a place at the table until they prove they are capable of dialogue.
62
I believe the author is correct pn pointing to the right as a major culprit in trying to stifle discussion of differing views. So between your opinion and mine, is the heart of discussion.
4
OK then, according to Nancy the 'right' stands for protection of free speech, the left for oppression and gagging.
In that case, I proudly count myself to the right, although I always considered myself a moderate and enlightened independent. However, when definitions change, we have to go along.
In that case, I proudly count myself to the right, although I always considered myself a moderate and enlightened independent. However, when definitions change, we have to go along.
4
When some students threaten professors, or try to get them fired for exerting their right of freedom of speech, they may be "participating in raw politics rather than civil society" but they are doing much more than that; they are seeking to control the opposing political narrative to make sure it never sees the light of day, and they are using threats and intimidation to accomplish that goal. Acceptance of such activity--or even characterizing it merely as "raw politics"--undermines the foundations of liberty in a most fundamental way. Those engaging in speech suppression through threats and intimidation on campus and elsewhere in America, as well as those who coddle them, are helping to create a fascist society, and destroying our (formerly?) free one.
8
It's remarkable how difficult it is to defend civil society and civil discourse, as difficult, as beautiful, and as ugly as it can sometimes be, in the face of often overwhelming efforts to reduce our lives and language together to corporate speak--to market forces and market share. But Mr. Sleeper has done precisely that--he's provided a remarkable defense.
2
College campuses should encourage the debate and discussion of all views. But too many liberals believe that they hold the moral high ground and anyone who disagrees with them must be silenced.
19
An educated person doesn't want to be waved away from uncomfortable facts. An educated person wants knowledge.
9
Yes! And to be educated in a college or university setting requires hearing and absorbing a lot of unknowns that must be evaluated over time. In this child-centered society we forget that some adults have things to teach us.
No matter how much we distrust adults, we need to listen and perhaps learn that some adults can be trusted. And it is respect for oneself and for others gives us a basis for listening and learning.
Our next step is to define labels. Traditional "liberal," "conservative," "radical," have been corrupted by people who either through ignorance or design have brought this about. I feel the same confusion as many other writers who have seen this shift. As we see corporate takeover of univerisities, we see language, of which they are, ultimately the guardians, corrupted. As professors are attacked for teaching facts (yes, there are facts: e.g., Nixon's "southern strategy" which the Republican Party is teaching not as Nixon's strategy, but as he, a Republican, went first to talk to Selma - understood to speak to African-American voters; photos tell a different story), we will see our education system, which has been the envy of many, reduced to propaganda. In this context it is appropriate to bring in Republican Party denial of the science of climate change. That their current candidate for president of the United States is the distillation of what has happened to us as a nation. We are unraveling as only some of us stick to historic precedents to form opinions.
No matter how much we distrust adults, we need to listen and perhaps learn that some adults can be trusted. And it is respect for oneself and for others gives us a basis for listening and learning.
Our next step is to define labels. Traditional "liberal," "conservative," "radical," have been corrupted by people who either through ignorance or design have brought this about. I feel the same confusion as many other writers who have seen this shift. As we see corporate takeover of univerisities, we see language, of which they are, ultimately the guardians, corrupted. As professors are attacked for teaching facts (yes, there are facts: e.g., Nixon's "southern strategy" which the Republican Party is teaching not as Nixon's strategy, but as he, a Republican, went first to talk to Selma - understood to speak to African-American voters; photos tell a different story), we will see our education system, which has been the envy of many, reduced to propaganda. In this context it is appropriate to bring in Republican Party denial of the science of climate change. That their current candidate for president of the United States is the distillation of what has happened to us as a nation. We are unraveling as only some of us stick to historic precedents to form opinions.
5
Trigger warnings foster intellectual intolerances the same way banishing gluten from your diet fosters so-called “gluten intolerance.” One is an intellectual fad, the other is a food fad. Sleeper smears the freedom of his opponents on the so-called “right” (i.e. anyone who disagrees with him) by labeling it “market” freedom (as in free market) that is, something commercial and tainted rather than the hyper-refined freedom of expression sophomore bullies fancy. Let students protest their heads off. It is up to the administration to enforce rules of ordinary civility.
12
The video is worth watching. Please remember the incident involved the offensive notion that college students should decide the choice of Halloween costumes rather than having the administration of Yale do it for them. You could not make it up.
14
So Mr. Sleeper,
Are you saying the "right" is also to blame for campus "speech codes". Speech code... liberal double speak for words and phrases students aren't allowed to say without repercussions.
The academic left is a fascist entity. PERIOD.
Are you saying the "right" is also to blame for campus "speech codes". Speech code... liberal double speak for words and phrases students aren't allowed to say without repercussions.
The academic left is a fascist entity. PERIOD.
12
You are very confused if you think fascism comes from the left. Let me google that for you...
2
"Speech code... liberal double speak for words and phrases students aren't allowed to say without repercussions."
Actual speech codes never list specific words or phrases. For an extensive inventory of speech codes, see the Speech Code of the Month archive at the FIRE web site:
https://www.thefire.org/category/speech-code-of-the-month/
or Chapter 2 in:
"Unlearning liberty : campus censorship and the end of American debate" by Greg Lukianoff.
Actual speech codes never list specific words or phrases. For an extensive inventory of speech codes, see the Speech Code of the Month archive at the FIRE web site:
https://www.thefire.org/category/speech-code-of-the-month/
or Chapter 2 in:
"Unlearning liberty : campus censorship and the end of American debate" by Greg Lukianoff.
1
Fascism is faith in govt accepted by conservatives and egalitarians. Only capitalists reject faith in govt.
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Pressure, including monetary pressure, is being brought to bear on behalf of protecting what some would call the free market of ideas, most specifically with regard to institutions of higher learning. Human tides rise up against ancient wisdom. There will be room for some to hold the fort. At least until the courts get involved.
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Below is the citation and a look at the video.*
Citation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZVEVufWFIWhat Jim Sleeper fails to mention ( if I have the right video), is that the professor making the speech was pressured to resign, along with his wife because of the speech.
The professors were Nicholas and Erika Christakis .
If one looks at the video, Professor Christakis is trying to answer the shrieker, but is constantly being hurled insults and being drowned out for trying to provide answers to the shrieker.
If I was asked to look at the video and provide an opinion, I would have been in favour of the professor, and for citing the student for poor behaviour and disrespect for a person and professor.
You be the judge and by all means please go to the video.
Citation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZVEVufWFIWhat Jim Sleeper fails to mention ( if I have the right video), is that the professor making the speech was pressured to resign, along with his wife because of the speech.
The professors were Nicholas and Erika Christakis .
If one looks at the video, Professor Christakis is trying to answer the shrieker, but is constantly being hurled insults and being drowned out for trying to provide answers to the shrieker.
If I was asked to look at the video and provide an opinion, I would have been in favour of the professor, and for citing the student for poor behaviour and disrespect for a person and professor.
You be the judge and by all means please go to the video.
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Another notable fact: The "shrieker" was a SENIOR at Yale. That shows how deficient her Yale education was.
Doesn't Yale offer any courses in public speaking?
Doesn't Yale offer any courses in public speaking?
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Political correctness at Universities, "safe spaces", "trigger warnings" for passages in books, etc.?
I agree with political correctness at Universities. In fact I think society should be made into a gigantic safe space. And we should probably start at the bottom of society--sports--where things can get pretty dangerous physically and demonstrate inequality between people in society. There should be limits to how high a person can jump, how fast a person can run, how hard a person can hit another person--sports should not be physically injurious nor should sports demonstrate in any way inequality between people.
After we take care of sports it should be relatively easy to make things intellectually safe at Universities. Once we dispense with testing differences between people in sports and reducing training in such and no longer being concerned with optimal performance we can do the same in intellectual matters--not least because sports are so prominent at Universities and can exist as a future template for intellectual matters. Right now in fact sports are setting a bad example being as rigorous and unsafe as they are. Things are a lot less rigorous and certainly more safe in intellectual matters.
In fact the problem is sports period. We should probably get rid of sports--so unsafe, so rigorous, so clearly showing differences in race and ethnic group and sex of course. We need safe spaces, trigger warnings against sports. That would make for a better learning environment.
I agree with political correctness at Universities. In fact I think society should be made into a gigantic safe space. And we should probably start at the bottom of society--sports--where things can get pretty dangerous physically and demonstrate inequality between people in society. There should be limits to how high a person can jump, how fast a person can run, how hard a person can hit another person--sports should not be physically injurious nor should sports demonstrate in any way inequality between people.
After we take care of sports it should be relatively easy to make things intellectually safe at Universities. Once we dispense with testing differences between people in sports and reducing training in such and no longer being concerned with optimal performance we can do the same in intellectual matters--not least because sports are so prominent at Universities and can exist as a future template for intellectual matters. Right now in fact sports are setting a bad example being as rigorous and unsafe as they are. Things are a lot less rigorous and certainly more safe in intellectual matters.
In fact the problem is sports period. We should probably get rid of sports--so unsafe, so rigorous, so clearly showing differences in race and ethnic group and sex of course. We need safe spaces, trigger warnings against sports. That would make for a better learning environment.
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Sorry, Mr. Sleeper. Such deft dodging by this author of the fact that numerous student protests at many universities have shut down speakers and meetings by groups they oppose exhibits deep antipathy to fundamental First Amendment values. Those values never bless the notions of justification for such behavior because of the narrow or even malign motives of the speakers. When a despised former Secretary of State is disinvited to speak at a university, all the verbal dancing in the world can't mask the underlying sickness of these institutions and students. We got a problem, Yale.
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Mr. Sleeper's comments miss the point of the "progressive"argument against political correctness. It's nice that there was a kumbaya moment. And, yes, sadly those who are uncomfortable with "political correctness" for high-minded reasons also provide cover for those who simply want to make racist or hurtful comments. The same First Amendment that allows journalists to criticize tyrannical or corrupt official also protects neo-Nazis and NAMBA. For me, it comes down to something quite fundamental: either you believe that flawed ideas should be and can be exposed through the expression of opposing, intellectually superior ideas or you do not. As a former university debater, I believe that not only the expression of ideas but the direct conflict of ideas is a GOOD thing. Part of what we are trying to teach young adults is how to reason through an argument and come to their own conclusion. We do them a disservice in life when we try and protect them from their own fragility.
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The disservice is obfuscation, like saying their is a progressive argument against political correctness- that is oxymoronic.
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The issue at Yale was never what happened in the classroom. It was whether someone involved in running a dorm should be encouraging students to wear blackface at Halloween and whether one of the dormitories should continue to be named for a chief defender of slavery. Also important is whether the Yale alumni will continue to be represented in fora like the NYTimes and on campus only in terms of those who are both conservative and big donors. Most graduates of my year (also Johnson's) are neither. We have little influence on campus because we are not still reliving our college years (Johnson published a book on beer games when his were done), we have gone on to become academics, doctors, college presidents, lawyers, activists, business people, architects, and housewives, some more conservative, and some more liberal than others, but very few involved in maintaining Buckley's legacy.
2
"The issue at Yale was never what happened in the classroom. It was whether someone involved in running a dorm should be encouraging students to wear blackface at Halloween and whether one of the dormitories should continue to be named for a chief defender of slavery."
I disagree with your conclusion. Please read my citations in order to visit :
1. The shrieker shrieking at the professor
2. Details of the whole incident, before, during, and after.
3. A brief summation (Wikipedia) of what the professor's wife wrote about
the costumes.
In this way, you the reader cash make a true assessment band opinion about the whole event.
I disagree with your conclusion. Please read my citations in order to visit :
1. The shrieker shrieking at the professor
2. Details of the whole incident, before, during, and after.
3. A brief summation (Wikipedia) of what the professor's wife wrote about
the costumes.
In this way, you the reader cash make a true assessment band opinion about the whole event.
3
What a lot of tripe. Look, treat the students as the young adults that they are and teach them how to listen, to thoughtfully disagree, and to form cogent arguments. That's one thing. The other is, don't confuse two problems and use false arguments, Mr. Sleeper. If you want money out of higher education, by all means, go ahead and fight for this. Stop accepting donations from your wealthy alums whatever their political stripes. See where that gets you and your position at Yale.
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Sara, i think the point of the op-ed was more that much like political donations controlled by fewer and fewer individuals due to the unprecedented consolidation of power and wealth, they same "benefactors" are starting to attach strings to their donations requiring their viewpoints to take primacy. The attacks on college environments have been part of the well-funded hard right propaganda for many years now. Point is simple and a truism: follow the money.
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My most immediate goals when I went off to college were to get drunk and get laid. The first was easy. The second, not so much. I blundered around from one major to another for two-plus years before I lost my 2-S deferment and found myself on Flying Tiger Airlines with about a 100 identically dressed young men descending in a near nosedive onto Bien Hoa airbase in the middle of the night.
That's when my education really began.
That's when my education really began.
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This seems to me a very disengenuous and non-constructive response to people- many of whom, like me, consider themselves lefty progressive types- who are dismayed by the constriction of perfectly civil speech on American campuses. I could fill the allowed space of this comment box with instances of legitimate, constructive speech being stifled by mobs of fair-weather "activists" and anxious administrators - maybe it's easier to just direct you to FIRE's website. But your answer is to point to all the constructive dialogue that isn't stifled because it falls within the allowed band of the ideological spectrum. Seems like a straw man to me.
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"I could fill the allowed space of this comment box with instances of legitimate, constructive speech being stifled ..."
Greg Lukianoff wrote a whole book documenting such "instances":
"Unlearning liberty : campus censorship and the end of American debate"
Greg Lukianoff wrote a whole book documenting such "instances":
"Unlearning liberty : campus censorship and the end of American debate"
2
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Pretty simple. You have your opinion; I have mine. Neither may overrule the other. Enter compromise.
Unfortunately, so many believe that "compromise" is a dirty word, i.e., "it is not fair if I do not get my way."
Selfishness fueled by greed and a healthy dose of ignorance.
Pretty simple. You have your opinion; I have mine. Neither may overrule the other. Enter compromise.
Unfortunately, so many believe that "compromise" is a dirty word, i.e., "it is not fair if I do not get my way."
Selfishness fueled by greed and a healthy dose of ignorance.
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Jim Sleeper's op-ed is devoid of logic. As best as I can discern, he attempts to suggest, without real reasoning or evidence, that corporate fat cats are behind the effort to stifle what he characterizes as free inquiry into controversial matters.
It's ironic that Sleeper mentions Campus Watch as one of his bogeymen. Campus Watch has reported on funding from wealthy Arab nations to universities around the world, recently for instance at http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/15906.
Incidentally, within the past year, Yale Law School was endowed with 10 million dollars to establish the Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization. https://www.law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/abdallah-kamel Kamel is a businessman from Saudi Arabia.
My point is simply that Sleeper is a hypocrite when he selectively decries funding sources. For Sleeper, as with so many academics, it's not the money, it's the message.
It's ironic that Sleeper mentions Campus Watch as one of his bogeymen. Campus Watch has reported on funding from wealthy Arab nations to universities around the world, recently for instance at http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/15906.
Incidentally, within the past year, Yale Law School was endowed with 10 million dollars to establish the Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization. https://www.law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/abdallah-kamel Kamel is a businessman from Saudi Arabia.
My point is simply that Sleeper is a hypocrite when he selectively decries funding sources. For Sleeper, as with so many academics, it's not the money, it's the message.
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Over the course of the past week, Mr. Trump has come under considerable criticism from liberal Democrats for saying that blacks in this country are urgently in need of a functioning conservative Republican Party to further their interests and bring an end to the Democratic Party’s stranglehold grip on their futures.
Yet this is undoubtedly true despite the fact that Mr. Trump is an odious man whose true interest in the black future in America is zero.
Political correctness is the one serious problem
in this country about which Mr. Trump has had anything valid to say.
Yet this is undoubtedly true despite the fact that Mr. Trump is an odious man whose true interest in the black future in America is zero.
Political correctness is the one serious problem
in this country about which Mr. Trump has had anything valid to say.
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I am all for Mr. Lukianoff videotaping the shrieking student, as for the student being allowed to shriek.
The videotaping is in fact a form of free expression that counter-balances the shrieking student. The video presents me with a real-time first-hand look at what the shrieker said, and allows me to make a "balanced" decision to the article written by Mr. Sleeper. Was the woman making a great speech to support her views, or was she simply drawing out the lecturer and preventing him from speaking. If it's the latter, then she would have denied the lecturer his "freedom of expression". Freedom of expression allows for all kinds of oration and behaviour that anyone would have a pro or counter decision about.
The videotape is a capture of behaviour, just as the shrieking is an example in the crassest form of freedom of expression. Some of us may not like either action, but the Constitution does protect us from this freedom, whether we like it or not.
" "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it""*
* Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall
The videotaping is in fact a form of free expression that counter-balances the shrieking student. The video presents me with a real-time first-hand look at what the shrieker said, and allows me to make a "balanced" decision to the article written by Mr. Sleeper. Was the woman making a great speech to support her views, or was she simply drawing out the lecturer and preventing him from speaking. If it's the latter, then she would have denied the lecturer his "freedom of expression". Freedom of expression allows for all kinds of oration and behaviour that anyone would have a pro or counter decision about.
The videotape is a capture of behaviour, just as the shrieking is an example in the crassest form of freedom of expression. Some of us may not like either action, but the Constitution does protect us from this freedom, whether we like it or not.
" "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it""*
* Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall
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This is a great argument against free speech.
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but.... and I say this as an avowed lover of freedom of expression... 'freedom' must have as its logical converse 'responsibility'.
One without the other can lead to the extinction of true freedom by multiplying the power of the powerful, creating a kind of 'ayn randian' dystopia..
Balance can be achieved when an administration shows true deference to the value of freedom based on its ability to produce positive human results.
It's tricky, perhaps, but worthy, nonetheless.
One without the other can lead to the extinction of true freedom by multiplying the power of the powerful, creating a kind of 'ayn randian' dystopia..
Balance can be achieved when an administration shows true deference to the value of freedom based on its ability to produce positive human results.
It's tricky, perhaps, but worthy, nonetheless.
3
Very very tricky. In fact many would say that assessing a statement's ability to produce positive human results is virtually impossible to objectify, and the only way to preserve the freedom of speech and expression is to deny administrators or anyone else the authority to censor based upon their subjective social views.
3
There has to be respect and responsibility from both sides of the discussion. Please go to they video on YouTube to see a 7 minute video of the transaction between the professor and the student. Then you make the decision for yourself as to who is right or wrong.
Disrespect and shouting down the professor (*please go to the video at Youtube)
A video on YouTube that was taken of the student shrieker.*
**Citation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZVEVufWFI
Disrespect and shouting down the professor (*please go to the video at Youtube)
A video on YouTube that was taken of the student shrieker.*
**Citation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZVEVufWFI
2
> power of the powerful, creating a kind of 'ayn randian' dystopia..
A spectre is haunting egalitarians...
A spectre is haunting egalitarians...
Yes, the "protests per se" (or less euphemistically, the campaigns of harassment by student ideologues and their supporters) have indeed "damaged open inquiry and expression" on college campuses.
It is no good trying to shuffle off the blame to the usual villains on the right, regardless of their equally reprehensible activities.
It is no good trying to shuffle off the blame to the usual villains on the right, regardless of their equally reprehensible activities.
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Conservative ideologies like Buckley and his ilk brought us the Vietnam War, Two Gulf Wars and now the war on terror and the war on individual liberty for ALL in this country.
University free speech brought us an end to the Vietnam War, the pushing of civil rights for minroties and women, etc etc etc.
The conservatives and especially the Kochs are destructive greedy godless elements on our society. We must resist them as we continue towards a better society.
University free speech brought us an end to the Vietnam War, the pushing of civil rights for minroties and women, etc etc etc.
The conservatives and especially the Kochs are destructive greedy godless elements on our society. We must resist them as we continue towards a better society.
4
Should the fight be between red and blue, or about tribal conformity vs gutsy individuality in the service of seeking a higher truth?
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Universities of today, have become diploma mills. The poorly educated graduates are due to poorly educated, and inexperienced so-called professors that lack any experience functioning in the "real world". These "professors" live in an immature world surrounded immature adults who have not learned how the "real world" functions.
I am now retired, but I was appalled at how poorly prepared today's college graduates with graduate degrees were when I interviewed them for employment.
The purpose of the college education is to prepare you to begin your education when you graduate, and enter a profession that provides a better income. A college graduate's education only begins when they leave the college environment.
I am now retired, but I was appalled at how poorly prepared today's college graduates with graduate degrees were when I interviewed them for employment.
The purpose of the college education is to prepare you to begin your education when you graduate, and enter a profession that provides a better income. A college graduate's education only begins when they leave the college environment.
5
PC makes it impossible in this country to have an open and honest conversation about race and racism. Here's a question that you can try to answer that will prove my point:
Racism is supposed to be rampant in this country among white people and blamed for every conceivable ill in black society. If this were really the case, can someone please explain, how there are so many black athletes, black entertainers who are world class, and no blacks at the top among the sciences--mathematics, medicine, physics etc? (Exclude liberal arts please)
Form a group comprised of both black and white.
Discuss. Reach an answer which an explanation. And best of luck.
PS: Suggested reading before your discussion : 'The Bell Curve'
Racism is supposed to be rampant in this country among white people and blamed for every conceivable ill in black society. If this were really the case, can someone please explain, how there are so many black athletes, black entertainers who are world class, and no blacks at the top among the sciences--mathematics, medicine, physics etc? (Exclude liberal arts please)
Form a group comprised of both black and white.
Discuss. Reach an answer which an explanation. And best of luck.
PS: Suggested reading before your discussion : 'The Bell Curve'
4
"The Bell Curve," your bible, was discredited years ago.
It's always amazing when a racist defends the horror of racist thinking. And always with faux innocence.
It's always amazing when a racist defends the horror of racist thinking. And always with faux innocence.
1
I suppose my wife, daughter and grand daughter are less capable of intellectual achievement since women are underrepresented in the sciences; at least according to this logic.
1
@ goodcubancigar New York - Goodcuban you open by stating what I state in the two comments (URLs at the end) but with one difference. You say that there are no conversations about (the concept of) race because of PC. It is true that no conversations about the concept of race take place in the Times, but I suspect this results because Americans are taught by the US Census Bureau that there are "races". You perhaps believe that there is a white race and a black race so genetically different that only whites can work in the fields you name. As a cure for that belief I suggest you start by reading the sources I cite. (See Roberts' book Fatal Invention and then google for her Ted Talk)
I have written repeatedly to Times Editors asking for a series on American concepts of "race", most recently 3 days ago. The Times gives us endless articles on racism but not a single one on the concepts of race. I do not know why.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/opinion/sunday/political-correctness-a...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/opinion/sunday/political-correctness-a...
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
I have written repeatedly to Times Editors asking for a series on American concepts of "race", most recently 3 days ago. The Times gives us endless articles on racism but not a single one on the concepts of race. I do not know why.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/opinion/sunday/political-correctness-a...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/opinion/sunday/political-correctness-a...
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
There is no dearth of idiotic speech on either side of the political spectrum. Sarah Palin is the poster child of the Right. Donald Trump is the poster child for the disgruntled. Earnest young things at colleges may become the poster children of the left.
"Microaggressions" are not a new idea: we have always had cutting, slighting, nasty, rude people doing cutting, slighting, nasty rude things. "Safe Spaces" for victims of assault make sense; "safe spaces" protect people from ideas don't. "Trigger warnings" as an established and necessary practice, rather than a part of the professor's lesson go overboard. Deciding that feminism demands that women be protected from themselves by assuming that the guy is responsible for gaining consent is nuts.
I will give college students a pass on one thing. Any idiocy of speech there comes from youth, and they have the opportunity to gain the tools to evaluate their own thinking. Sarah Palin, and people who think she actually has something to say have no excuse.
"Microaggressions" are not a new idea: we have always had cutting, slighting, nasty, rude people doing cutting, slighting, nasty rude things. "Safe Spaces" for victims of assault make sense; "safe spaces" protect people from ideas don't. "Trigger warnings" as an established and necessary practice, rather than a part of the professor's lesson go overboard. Deciding that feminism demands that women be protected from themselves by assuming that the guy is responsible for gaining consent is nuts.
I will give college students a pass on one thing. Any idiocy of speech there comes from youth, and they have the opportunity to gain the tools to evaluate their own thinking. Sarah Palin, and people who think she actually has something to say have no excuse.
1
Mr. Sleeper may have been "there," but he clearly has no idea what it's like to be hazed and vilified by PC vigilantes. His article -- in self-approving lockstep with the PC movement -- obfuscates rather than clarifies the current bitter debate over free speech on university campuses.
9
Bring us your pampered, your coddled, and your stuffed teddy bears. Most of us will be laughing out loud as we, the job creators, hire Indian kids, Nigerian kids, Taiwanese kids, any decently educated kids who are not from this ignorant, intolerant and spectacularly overrated cohort. Need a safe space? Stay in the womb. Out here though, one will need a properly functioning brain, unless of course one aspires to a multi-lingual avocation where one learns the correct pronunciation of 'barista' and 'grande' and cool words like that. Drivers are always wanted as well, that is, until the robots some Chinese kids designed eliminate that option. That leaves raking the leaves at mummy's with the promised cookie to follow. Now that's safe space indeed.
14
> Need a safe space? Stay in the womb. Out here though, one will need a properly functioning brain,
Atlas Shrugged.
Atlas Shrugged.
2
Mr Sleeper is wrong on so many counts of specious logic it's really hard to know where to start. Let's focus on the one area that the author completely ignores.
The impact of the abusive students and their backers on the faculty couple Mr & Mrs Christakis who were attacked by the students.
Basically, the student demonstrators, in their vile, aggressive, insulting, intimidating and very non liberal actions, demanded the firing of the couple because Mrs Chrisakis dared to challenge the Yale community to think about the "guidelines" advising students on appropriate Halloween costumes.
In the words of The Atantic author Mr Friedersdorf, Mrs Christakis invited the Yale community to think about the Halloween custume controversy through an intellectual lens that few if any had considered. "Her message was a model of relevant, thoughtful, civil engagement."
Precisely the means to introduce difficult subjects to be discussed in a civil manner to probe at the validity of the underlying issues.
The reaction of the demonstrating students and such supporters as Mr Sleeper were and remain shameful and make a mockery of Mr Sleeper's observation that "a college is a civil society on training wheels."
The impact of the abusive students and their backers on the faculty couple Mr & Mrs Christakis who were attacked by the students.
Basically, the student demonstrators, in their vile, aggressive, insulting, intimidating and very non liberal actions, demanded the firing of the couple because Mrs Chrisakis dared to challenge the Yale community to think about the "guidelines" advising students on appropriate Halloween costumes.
In the words of The Atantic author Mr Friedersdorf, Mrs Christakis invited the Yale community to think about the Halloween custume controversy through an intellectual lens that few if any had considered. "Her message was a model of relevant, thoughtful, civil engagement."
Precisely the means to introduce difficult subjects to be discussed in a civil manner to probe at the validity of the underlying issues.
The reaction of the demonstrating students and such supporters as Mr Sleeper were and remain shameful and make a mockery of Mr Sleeper's observation that "a college is a civil society on training wheels."
13
Glad to see that you actually did research and came to a totally different conclusion. In another comment, I've added the citations for people to go to in order to make their own decisions (Majortrout).
You DO know that there are plenty of liberals and leftists dismayed by the recent shift towards "progressive" absolutism in academia.
The fact that you draw this up as such a facile "left-right" issue betrays a certain rigidness of thought and ache for a partisan narrative.
Your racializing of the issue of free speech is equally disturbing. Of course you have to mention it was a black student in the very first paragraph. How else could you establish your side is right, and the Enemy is morally defect?
The fact that you draw this up as such a facile "left-right" issue betrays a certain rigidness of thought and ache for a partisan narrative.
Your racializing of the issue of free speech is equally disturbing. Of course you have to mention it was a black student in the very first paragraph. How else could you establish your side is right, and the Enemy is morally defect?
5
""progressive" absolutism in academia"
If denouncing bigotry seems absolute to you, then count me in, absolutely.
If denouncing bigotry seems absolute to you, then count me in, absolutely.
1
Progressives define bigotry as any opinion that is contrary to their own. That way they don't have to defend their views intellectually against the arguments of their opponents--so much easier simply to demonize the opposition and shout them down.
3
One need not be a right-wing shill to be alarmed at the growing threat to free speech arising from political correctness on America's campuses today.
7
For a long time, well before the current effort to cow student protesters on campus, conservatives have used the term, “political correctness,” as a weapon.
When conservatives engage in outrageous behavior and hurl racist, homophobic, misogynist and anti-religious insults at their opponents, they attempt to defuse, deflect and dismiss the objections of good people to such conduct by sarcastically calling those people “politically correct.”
Donald Trump is only the latest example of this dismissive technique, and he isn’t as adroit as the big-money donors of the Republican Party.
When conservatives engage in outrageous behavior and hurl racist, homophobic, misogynist and anti-religious insults at their opponents, they attempt to defuse, deflect and dismiss the objections of good people to such conduct by sarcastically calling those people “politically correct.”
Donald Trump is only the latest example of this dismissive technique, and he isn’t as adroit as the big-money donors of the Republican Party.
2
In my view, higher education is the only business in which the consumers (students) seek to lower the quality of the product being purchased. This is done by requesting less homework, credit for life experience, and discussions that have nothing to do with the subject at hand in an attempt to kill valuable class time. Trigger warnings are just one more example. Any student who is not mature enough to handle an on-topic conversation among adults in a university or college classroom has no business being there. Professors are not babysitters - we are experts in our fields and should be respected as such. Disagreement is welcome but refusal to stay on-topic or to refuse due to discomfort is not.
8
Conservatives and the media complaining about campus PC (students demanding removal of "offensive" speakers) should look at themselves in a mirror. Two examples: 1. After an long and illustrious career in journalism, Helen Thomas was hounded out of journalism after a relatively mild "ill-conceived remark" against Israel, while the media abounds with highly offensive statements about Palestinians and Arabs. 2. Gary Webb was hounded out journalism after publishing a series of articles claiming CIA involvement in drug running. "Political Correctness" is similar to "Judicial Activism": it only applies to what the liberals/democrats do, not to the conservatives.
3
Mr. Sleeper’s article claims that there is a Deep, Dark, and Despicable Right Wing Conspiracy to silence the Lofty Lighthearted Left at Yale. Really? Must be a different university than the one I know. While recently attending a class reunion at Yale I was startled to see an officially-approved sign posted that said “IF YOU HEAR SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING. Speak out against Islamophobia.” There were no signs saying “Speak out against Anti-Semitic, anti-Israel nonsense” or “Speak out against students and faculty who disrupt speeches they don’t like” or “Speak out when you hear someone falsely called a racist”. Note that “Islamophobia” is what the Left calls any comments that are critical if Islamic misogyny or that point out that jihad is an integral part of the Quran. Apparently in the La-La Land of Yale these days only certain types of speech are “good” while others are “bad”. Mr. Sleeper should spend more time napping and less time yapping.
7
Although the problem is obviously exaggerated by the right, there IS a problem in the left that we need to address. I have always considered myself liberal but I am disgusted by the behavior of some people supposedly on "my side" especially in the higher-education world. When I was a college student, above all else I valued free speech and the right of ANYONE to speak no matter how horrible. We are supposed to be defenders of free speech. Think ACLU defending a KKK member's right to have a peaceful protest. I also despised censorship. Think books being banned in school over supposedly sexual or religiously "offensive" text.
The other thing that I valued is TRUTH, no matter if it is inconvenient or goes against a deeply held belief. In other words, if proof comes out that I am wrong about something I want to know even if it means I was stupid about something.
Suddenly young "liberal" students are protesting speakers they don't agree with, creating at atmosphere of fear among professors who are afraid they will get in trouble for offending a student, and activists refusing to acknowledge changes in society and new information. For example, "third wave" (I am not sure what to call them) feminists now get angry when informed that research they hold dear is wrong. University is supposed to be when you are exposed to DEBATE, IDEAS, and people who DON'T AGREE WITH YOU. A safe space should only mean that you are protected from actual abuse, not ideas you don't agree with.
The other thing that I valued is TRUTH, no matter if it is inconvenient or goes against a deeply held belief. In other words, if proof comes out that I am wrong about something I want to know even if it means I was stupid about something.
Suddenly young "liberal" students are protesting speakers they don't agree with, creating at atmosphere of fear among professors who are afraid they will get in trouble for offending a student, and activists refusing to acknowledge changes in society and new information. For example, "third wave" (I am not sure what to call them) feminists now get angry when informed that research they hold dear is wrong. University is supposed to be when you are exposed to DEBATE, IDEAS, and people who DON'T AGREE WITH YOU. A safe space should only mean that you are protected from actual abuse, not ideas you don't agree with.
15
No one who reads the news will believe this column. The entire concept of 'safe zones' or 'trigger warnings" was made up by conservatives!
3
What the heck is this article about? Under the guise of discussing colleges' approaches to free speech, the author's true theme is, "don't vote for Trump." Is it possible for Clinton supporters to discuss anything, any topic at all - toe nail fungus, babies' colic, the weather, their favorite candy bar - without insisting on this incessant nagging about Trump? It's like being in a piano bar where the musician keeps playing the same tune over and over and over.
11
The article IS offensive with its overload of nouns juxtaposed willy-nilly; the reader is supposed to figure out how the semantic frames riding within those nouns interrelate?? Something about political correctness and how capitalism has turned universities into job factories? Listen, Trump is having problems connecting with certain groups who don't get it because they are so politically correct they can't call their a--holes for what they are: a--holes. Especially in universities where the Fascist Left rules and free speech is not allowed to be right wing. Spoken by a 13-year-resident of Berkeley, California from 1967-79.
6
The function of Yale and other "institutions of higher learning" should not be defending, protecting or promoting this or that ideology. It should be investigating, analyzing, comparing and criticizing all of them. E.g. "their behavior may not be your daddy’s liberalism, but what their outraged critics are selling isn’t his conservatism, either."
1
Yeah, the "vast right wing conspiracy" isn't gonna cut it. Sorry.
The "Conservatives" have nothing to do with this. This a a Utilitarian left vs. Marcusian left free for all. Guys like Buckley left this debate long ago. Guys like Johnston simply do not want to pay for this liberal intermural tete-a-tete. I can't say I blame him.
There are draconian consequences to being on the "wrong" side of the political correctness debate. Tenure doesn't protect you and this is not really a "conservative" thing as liberal professors are being cashiered or threatened for the perception of a racist, sexist, or homophobic comment by their students.
The few remaining conservative professors, mostly on the technical/engineering side, simply keep quiet, and watch the disaster unfold.
The "shrieking Yale student" video merely took this attitude with Dr. Christakis and exposed this intermural bloodletting for what it was - Marcusian tyranny.
The "Conservatives" have nothing to do with this. This a a Utilitarian left vs. Marcusian left free for all. Guys like Buckley left this debate long ago. Guys like Johnston simply do not want to pay for this liberal intermural tete-a-tete. I can't say I blame him.
There are draconian consequences to being on the "wrong" side of the political correctness debate. Tenure doesn't protect you and this is not really a "conservative" thing as liberal professors are being cashiered or threatened for the perception of a racist, sexist, or homophobic comment by their students.
The few remaining conservative professors, mostly on the technical/engineering side, simply keep quiet, and watch the disaster unfold.
The "shrieking Yale student" video merely took this attitude with Dr. Christakis and exposed this intermural bloodletting for what it was - Marcusian tyranny.
8
What a disjointed mess this piece is. I'm a professional editor, and former journalist, and I've read it twice and couldn't for the life of me tell you what point he (thinks he) has made, other than right wing: bad.
22
Please read one of my comments where I present the facts of the whole buildup before, during, and after the confrontation.My pen name is majortrout.
WIth the whole picture, I invite people to my citations and make their own decisions as to what transpired.
WIth the whole picture, I invite people to my citations and make their own decisions as to what transpired.
1
Mr. Sleeper, you act as if this is a one way street where liberals and progressive socialists on college campuses or in the real world welcome and accept debate with conservatives with open minds. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and this has been going on for the better part of 40 years. I had friends of mine in college back in the 80's who were part of a conservative group trying to hold a week of open debate meetings on social issues at the campus of the University of Wisconsin. These people were harassed and even assaulted by liberals and socialists at the encouragement of the then president of the University Donna Schallala. It got so bad that they had to get the ACLU involved against Schallala and the University to halt the harassment.
Liberal democrats, socialists and communists want nothing to do with free speech and thought against political correctness if it is not in line with their views on this or any subject. The "Big Tent" ideology that the democrat party once stood for doesn't exist anymore. There are no more narrow minded people on the planet than liberal democrats.
Free speech is only considered free to college students, and liberals in general because it has cost them nothing, and they are not willing pay any price for it, because they believe they are entitled to it at no charge. This is the new idea of the First Amendment, and I am sure our fore fathers who laid everything on the line for it are shaking their heads in disbelief.
Liberal democrats, socialists and communists want nothing to do with free speech and thought against political correctness if it is not in line with their views on this or any subject. The "Big Tent" ideology that the democrat party once stood for doesn't exist anymore. There are no more narrow minded people on the planet than liberal democrats.
Free speech is only considered free to college students, and liberals in general because it has cost them nothing, and they are not willing pay any price for it, because they believe they are entitled to it at no charge. This is the new idea of the First Amendment, and I am sure our fore fathers who laid everything on the line for it are shaking their heads in disbelief.
7
“Political correctness” has become a pejorative reference to what had been a well-intentioned effort to encourage civil discourse and eschew racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes in such discourse. The movement has been taken to silly and sometimes ludicrous extremes on some campuses, leading to a backlash which uses the extreme examples as a mask for its underlying prejudices. Silliness aside, I agree with professor Sleeper that a far more serious threat to intellectual freedom and expression on campus comes from the right.
The Koch Brothers are spending millions of dollars across the country to “reinvigorate the teaching of America’s founding principles and history” and the “moral imperatives of free markets and individual liberty.” Sounds innocent enough, but not when one finds Koch supported state legislatures funding Koch institutes with taxpayer dollars at state university campuses.
Here in Arizona we have such programs at both the University of Arizona and at Arizona State University, supported with public funds with the blessing of our Governor who was elected with the support of Koch campaign dollars and who attends Koch gatherings of like-minded state legislators and governors. Similar programs are underway at numerous other state and private universities. This disgraceful assault on academic freedom deserves far more critical attention from the news media.
The Koch Brothers are spending millions of dollars across the country to “reinvigorate the teaching of America’s founding principles and history” and the “moral imperatives of free markets and individual liberty.” Sounds innocent enough, but not when one finds Koch supported state legislatures funding Koch institutes with taxpayer dollars at state university campuses.
Here in Arizona we have such programs at both the University of Arizona and at Arizona State University, supported with public funds with the blessing of our Governor who was elected with the support of Koch campaign dollars and who attends Koch gatherings of like-minded state legislators and governors. Similar programs are underway at numerous other state and private universities. This disgraceful assault on academic freedom deserves far more critical attention from the news media.
3
Well said. The Koch's get almost no publicity while they are trying, somewhat sucessfully, to undermine out public education system and they aren't supporting free thinking in what they support.
5
Well written!
1
> to undermine out public education system
We need more cannon fodder for the revolution!
We need more cannon fodder for the revolution!
I'm sorry this article is simply intellectually dishonest to it's core. I'm a liberal. I find what is happening on our college campuses appalling. The protests per se have and are damaging open inquiry and expression...to say or think otherwise is to be deaf, dumb and blind to the facts. I live a few miles from a major University. In the name of safe spaces and trigger warnings conservative speakers are banned from campus. Those that have come have been shouted down, the halls where they speak surrounded by angry protesters who try to intimidate those who want to hear them. Frankly I'm not interested in hearing them talk....but I do support their right to speak...I support those who want to listen their right to hear them without interruption...I support the right of freedom of assembly... even for ideas I might find offensive. Be honest....the irrational left in academia....which Mr. Sleeper is clearly a part of... does not support freedom of speech or assembly...they never have...trigger warning and safe spaces is their way of curtailing these rights. To try to frame this as a conservative driven attack is absolutely ridiculous. President Obama has addressed this issue on several occasions expressing his concern that "the unwillingness to hear other points of view can be as unhealthy on the left as on the right.” Face it... the last thing you want is the spread of free ideas on campuses across the country...unless it is ideas that reflect your very narrow point of view.
12
All this professor at Yale did was try to inform the students not to take Halloween costumes too seriously. Yes, some costumes do offend people. Costumes do mimic people.
Instead, this student screamed at him, insisting some costumes should not be allowed if they offend people.
One month later, the NY Times -- and other places -- posted a picture of Obama at White House Halloween celebration with children. One child is dressed as the Pope in a Pope mobile. (You can google that picture.) That costume offended me.
But I am an adult. Unlike the students at Yale.
I am grateful donors are holding back money.
And for what it is worth: most of this political correctness is driven by feminist toxicity.
Instead, this student screamed at him, insisting some costumes should not be allowed if they offend people.
One month later, the NY Times -- and other places -- posted a picture of Obama at White House Halloween celebration with children. One child is dressed as the Pope in a Pope mobile. (You can google that picture.) That costume offended me.
But I am an adult. Unlike the students at Yale.
I am grateful donors are holding back money.
And for what it is worth: most of this political correctness is driven by feminist toxicity.
5
Actually, "daddy's liberalism" was the origin of today's ban-happy, safe space rule that "thou shalt not offend others". Refusing platforms to speakers considered beyond someone's pale started on US campuses in the 1970s. The liberalism of the 1960s student movement turned out not to be very liberal at all, but rather the starting point of an identity politics whose main weapon is a penchant for taking offence easily and suspecting concealed ill motives in others.
Beyond the college gates in America today you see an eagerness to take offence and an entrenched unwillingness to actually engage with political opponents, who are dismissed instead with caricature and belittling epithets rather than considered argument.
Beyond the college gates in America today you see an eagerness to take offence and an entrenched unwillingness to actually engage with political opponents, who are dismissed instead with caricature and belittling epithets rather than considered argument.
2
Oh John! Identity politics started with liberals? Not with slavery and Jim Crow. I guess Liberals caused the flood!
2
Is there anyone on the right wing who understands how "limited government" is actually implemented?
The US Constitution is an enumerated list of delegated powers to a permanent governing institution. This government is "limited" to the use of those powers. No powers or rights reserved by the people are listed therein.
Under the law of contracts, liberty is the power to negotiate one's contractual engagements equitably. Unfortunately, we live in a culture that celebrates exploiting all advantages ruthlessly.
The US Constitution is an enumerated list of delegated powers to a permanent governing institution. This government is "limited" to the use of those powers. No powers or rights reserved by the people are listed therein.
Under the law of contracts, liberty is the power to negotiate one's contractual engagements equitably. Unfortunately, we live in a culture that celebrates exploiting all advantages ruthlessly.
1
Look at the picture, and you'll see the sign saying 'love women of color,' which is an open expression of racism. I'm perfectly fine with that expression as long as the opposite is tolerated just as well, 'hate women of color.'
When people lose their jobs and careers for stating that Halloween is a Halloween or for HONESTLY reporting their findings on ethnic disparities in IQ, this is the Orwellian hell befallen our nation.
When only one narrative is allowed and tolerated at the exclusion of the opposite, it's not any longer academia, it's an oppressive religious cult.
"Liberalism is the most intolerant religion using political correctness for cultural genocide." VEK
When people lose their jobs and careers for stating that Halloween is a Halloween or for HONESTLY reporting their findings on ethnic disparities in IQ, this is the Orwellian hell befallen our nation.
When only one narrative is allowed and tolerated at the exclusion of the opposite, it's not any longer academia, it's an oppressive religious cult.
"Liberalism is the most intolerant religion using political correctness for cultural genocide." VEK
5
It seems pretty simple, and former president Obama will have set the path for President Trump. Simply send out a "Dear Colleague" letter, saying that any college that restricts students' constitutional rights, whether on free speech, or on Title IX kangaroo courts, loses federal funding, including for tuition. Easy peasy.
2
Sleeper writes: "...their (white students) first frank conversations about race with minority classmates."
I doubt very much that conversations were taking place about "race" a complicated concept and suggest that the discussions were instead about racism, a state of mind and a behavior.
Concepts of "race" should be central in discussions on university campuses as illustrated by views expressed recently by Brown University President Christina Paxson and Dr. Nicole Alexandern in the Levinger Lecture. In this lecture (Brown could not make the text available to me) they seemed to be saying that "race" should be more important in Brown's Medical School, and a black student said that there should be more black teachers to deal with this.
I immediately wrote to President Paxson - and Brown Alumni Magazine BAM - to call attention to this from Professor Dorothy Roberts (black, not African American, race = human): “Will Americans continue to believe the myth that humans are naturally divided into races and look to genomic science and technology to deal with persistent social inequities? Or will they affirm our shared humanity by working to end the social injustices preserved by the political system of race?” I also sent "Taking race out of human genetics" Science 2/5 by Roberts and 3 others.
All American medical students should be made fully aware of this view since they will never learn it from the Times or in campus conversations.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
I doubt very much that conversations were taking place about "race" a complicated concept and suggest that the discussions were instead about racism, a state of mind and a behavior.
Concepts of "race" should be central in discussions on university campuses as illustrated by views expressed recently by Brown University President Christina Paxson and Dr. Nicole Alexandern in the Levinger Lecture. In this lecture (Brown could not make the text available to me) they seemed to be saying that "race" should be more important in Brown's Medical School, and a black student said that there should be more black teachers to deal with this.
I immediately wrote to President Paxson - and Brown Alumni Magazine BAM - to call attention to this from Professor Dorothy Roberts (black, not African American, race = human): “Will Americans continue to believe the myth that humans are naturally divided into races and look to genomic science and technology to deal with persistent social inequities? Or will they affirm our shared humanity by working to end the social injustices preserved by the political system of race?” I also sent "Taking race out of human genetics" Science 2/5 by Roberts and 3 others.
All American medical students should be made fully aware of this view since they will never learn it from the Times or in campus conversations.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
1
Odd. You tell a story that is very specific to Yale and try to generalize it to campuses across the country. But it's a story that is particular, thus incomplete and misleading when generalized, just like the video of the Yale black student.
Take the University of Missouri case, in which the protesters and their faculty advisor not only formed a safe space, but forbade student journalists from entering it, and indeed called for "muscle" to remove the journalist. The faculty member was rightly fired. I'm not sure what the Koch brothers, their Donors Trust and free market ideology have to do with what happened in Missouri.
At least Buckley was modest enough to call his book "God and Men at Yale" and not "God and Men on American Campuses".
Take the University of Missouri case, in which the protesters and their faculty advisor not only formed a safe space, but forbade student journalists from entering it, and indeed called for "muscle" to remove the journalist. The faculty member was rightly fired. I'm not sure what the Koch brothers, their Donors Trust and free market ideology have to do with what happened in Missouri.
At least Buckley was modest enough to call his book "God and Men at Yale" and not "God and Men on American Campuses".
4
One of the many obvious blights that is never brought up is that the "political correctness" movement is full of hypocrisies, double standards, and yes, racism.
It is obvious that derogatory attitudes or wrongs towards towards Muslims and blacks is far more of a sin than the same towards Jews and Asians.
Israel is judged a million times more harshly then Islamic, Arab or African countries.
There are different rules and expectations for people based entirely on their race, religion, nationality, gender, and sexual orientation. It doesn't matter the situation but a black Muslim lesbian from Somalia will always be right in against a white straight American male.
The mantra "racism is power+ privilege" is lame for several reasons. Besides for that not being the definition of racism, many claiming their group is "powerless" when that is the furthest thing from the truth.
It is leftwing McCarthism and it is important to note some animals are more important than others. Not all groups get the same protection and some groups (such as Muslims or blacks) are often defended when caught making bigoted, hateful or intolerant statements.
It is obvious that derogatory attitudes or wrongs towards towards Muslims and blacks is far more of a sin than the same towards Jews and Asians.
Israel is judged a million times more harshly then Islamic, Arab or African countries.
There are different rules and expectations for people based entirely on their race, religion, nationality, gender, and sexual orientation. It doesn't matter the situation but a black Muslim lesbian from Somalia will always be right in against a white straight American male.
The mantra "racism is power+ privilege" is lame for several reasons. Besides for that not being the definition of racism, many claiming their group is "powerless" when that is the furthest thing from the truth.
It is leftwing McCarthism and it is important to note some animals are more important than others. Not all groups get the same protection and some groups (such as Muslims or blacks) are often defended when caught making bigoted, hateful or intolerant statements.
5
There is no political correctness "movement," except in the plans of demagogues.
2
Universities are places for disciplined study. My daughters were blown away by the difference in focus and seriousness during summers abroad in Europe, and they decided to complete their undergrad and then graduate studies on this side of the Atlantic. They still had a chance to participate in progressive debate, but without the strong-arm tactics of a spoiled, vocal mob.
This opinion piece is classic misdirection, by the way.
This opinion piece is classic misdirection, by the way.
4
This statement sounds good but lacks truth: " Intercollegiate Studies Institute to train students to counter “liberal” betrayals of “our nation’s founding principles — limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, the rule of law, market economy.” What about anti-Catholicism, slavery, white MEN voting rights, etc, etc.? Those are also some of the USA's founding principles.
As for political correctness, nowadays that's a code word for not being able to refer to various ethnic, religious, and cultural groups by negative expletives. It's a phony issue made real to phony people by phony politicians!
As for political correctness, nowadays that's a code word for not being able to refer to various ethnic, religious, and cultural groups by negative expletives. It's a phony issue made real to phony people by phony politicians!
3
Oh, how the campuses love diversity - unless it's diversity of thought.
7
Mr. Sleeper's disingenuous transformation of the issue of freedom of speech into a partisan polemic underscores the danger to our freedoms being advanced by liberal academics. Indeed, the old notion that the purpose of an education was to provide students with the tools to be creative and compete in the competition of ideas has been rejected in the name of social conformity.
The issue isn't whether the right uses the freedom to advance their partisan views, but the convent-like campus atmosphere presently being used to advance the "progressive" dialectic by curtailing "uncomfortable" ideas, speech and opinion.
Indeed, the regressive protocols implemented by "progressive" institutions are hardly distinguishable from the Church's attempt to impose doctrinal purity by stifling academic inquiry using The Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a practice which not long ago generated cries of shock and outrage from the academy.
"Quoth the Raven…"
The issue isn't whether the right uses the freedom to advance their partisan views, but the convent-like campus atmosphere presently being used to advance the "progressive" dialectic by curtailing "uncomfortable" ideas, speech and opinion.
Indeed, the regressive protocols implemented by "progressive" institutions are hardly distinguishable from the Church's attempt to impose doctrinal purity by stifling academic inquiry using The Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a practice which not long ago generated cries of shock and outrage from the academy.
"Quoth the Raven…"
2
It's true that some factions of the young left are displaying a disturbing tendency toward authoritarian silencing tactics when it comes to political discourse. And it's also true that the right wing are hypocritical in their condemnation of this. But what we should be doing is affirming the value of free expression and open, rational inquiry for all, regardless of the identity, beliefs or values of speakers. Instead, the author of this piece plays the same dishonest tribalist game he accuses others of doing, attempting to tar his opponents reputations instead of engaging with the content of their arguments. Likening liberal defences of free speech to Donald Trump is a scurrilous move indeed.
5
A terribly disappointing article that misses the entire nefarious point of political correctness. Without any shred of evidence the author also declares that conservatives have a "selectively legalisitic free speech strategy...by provoking progressive offenders." Universities should be places for the clash of ideas, not a safe cocoon. And yet, the progressive intolerance that is infesting the college campus these days is, per the author, really the fault of conservatives who are "shaming undergraduates...and assailing deans..." I can't decide which was more irresponsible; the author for writing this tripe or the NYT for publishing it.
6
The writer artfully weaves language to create a general impression of equivalence where none exists. Donating money to groups that this writer disapproves is in no way screeching while others are trying to speak, using violence or it's threat to silence them altogether, or worse coercing cowardly administrators into silencing dissenting voices.
"Shaming undergraduates" whose behavior one finds shameful is a legitimate use of ones freedom of speech and entirely within the scope of civil discourse when said undergraduate is allowed to offer a civilly delivered defense. "Assailing deans" with articles, speeches and letters is consistent with civil discourse. Doing so with shouted insults that will tolerate no response but acquiesces to ones demands for submission is not. There is not equivalence on this matter because the behavior is categorically different.
"Shaming undergraduates" whose behavior one finds shameful is a legitimate use of ones freedom of speech and entirely within the scope of civil discourse when said undergraduate is allowed to offer a civilly delivered defense. "Assailing deans" with articles, speeches and letters is consistent with civil discourse. Doing so with shouted insults that will tolerate no response but acquiesces to ones demands for submission is not. There is not equivalence on this matter because the behavior is categorically different.
12
Mr. Sleeper obviously has an ax to grind, as his career seems to be based on the type of groupthink that many of us find so chilling. No matter WHAT the "conservative" alumni do or say, the behavior of these students is unacceptable in a learning environment. It's never OK to shout down people who disagree with you.
14
As a society, we have an increasing awareness that injustice can be perpetuated through words and thought patterns that we take for granted. Universities are on the forefront of confronting those structures, and that is very much for the good. At the same time, the concept of *justice* has been replaced by the vocabulary of "diversity" and trauma, along with confused ideas that conflate culture and identity. These topics are understandably sensitive, and the new fear of offending or being offended truly is a barrier to sympathetic engagement across difference.
1
I always suspected that the liberal islands of San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland were and are in reality racist to varying degrees but "masked" to show that they are really very different from their brethren in flyover country or the South.
I am buying this book, Liberal Racism: How Fixating on Race Subverts the American Dream as a resource to marshall my arguments if there is another uncomfortable encounter. Bargain at 5.99 + shipping....the real progressives have to stamp out these people...
I am buying this book, Liberal Racism: How Fixating on Race Subverts the American Dream as a resource to marshall my arguments if there is another uncomfortable encounter. Bargain at 5.99 + shipping....the real progressives have to stamp out these people...
2
It is all for show. Yale is an establishment school and always will be. I am certain that the silly protesters attend Yale for that reason. Where the rubber meets the road, they are mostly elitists. Rallying for left field imagined slights is a perfect way for them to assuage their own awareness of that fact.
Check back with them in ten years to see how many are doing non-profit social work.
Check back with them in ten years to see how many are doing non-profit social work.
7
This piece is a bit wayward but I think I catch its general drift and support it. It swings both ways, and justly so, as PC is called out for its quick metamorphoses to chilly narrow judgments, but right wing opportunists being equally quick to misrepresent and unfairly castigate at the drop of a hat. The road of truth is narrow and winding, but can be hewn by those with honest good intent and thoughtful pursuit.
1
I came to Yale University in 1953 as a graduate student in Geology, after having graduated from Brown University in June 1953. I was unimaginably naive and politically unaware, having grown up with a mother and father who for all their virtues never talked about politics.
At Yale, then 21 years old, I began to understand what a university really is, a place where young people coming from all kinds of cocoon-like home environments find out that there is an intellectual life and a cultural life that has the potential to explode one's still all too closed mind. Two intellectual giants, Professor John Rodgers and G. Evelyn Hutchinson, changed my life.
All that is preface to noting that I really do not understand what Jim Sleeper is trying to tell me. He writes that "A college is a civil society on training wheels." I disagree strongly. My three (Brown, Yale, University of Rochester) are centers of intellectual activity which if given free expression can continuously open the minds of people of all ages who are slowly growing up, even over an entire lifetime.
An example: Sleeper writes that students are having their "first frank conversations about race". I doubt that. Perhaps about racism, but not about the uniquely American concepts of "race". Just ask the first student you meet to explain the American concept of "race" and let me know his or her answer.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
At Yale, then 21 years old, I began to understand what a university really is, a place where young people coming from all kinds of cocoon-like home environments find out that there is an intellectual life and a cultural life that has the potential to explode one's still all too closed mind. Two intellectual giants, Professor John Rodgers and G. Evelyn Hutchinson, changed my life.
All that is preface to noting that I really do not understand what Jim Sleeper is trying to tell me. He writes that "A college is a civil society on training wheels." I disagree strongly. My three (Brown, Yale, University of Rochester) are centers of intellectual activity which if given free expression can continuously open the minds of people of all ages who are slowly growing up, even over an entire lifetime.
An example: Sleeper writes that students are having their "first frank conversations about race". I doubt that. Perhaps about racism, but not about the uniquely American concepts of "race". Just ask the first student you meet to explain the American concept of "race" and let me know his or her answer.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
7
There has been a decade of reportage on the subject, in this and other newspapers. Does Mr. Sleeper really think he can influence minds with one op-ed-ed of disinformation?
5
Undergraduates have always gone for extremes. And then they grow out of it. The real attack on freedom of speech that's happening comes from the corporate world, where legions of PR professionals do their utmost to restrict the flow of information and control and massage the message. Or who use their advertising clout to insist on favourable coverage, which revenue-starved magazines now find difficult to resist.
1
Not sure what the student said/yelled/screamed at the "Master" of a House
should be called "hurling imprecations".
Had I been her father I would have called her up and said she needed to come
home, right now, and stay at home until she grew up.
If Yale is admitting students who are immature and outrightly rude then Yale
only has itself to blame.
should be called "hurling imprecations".
Had I been her father I would have called her up and said she needed to come
home, right now, and stay at home until she grew up.
If Yale is admitting students who are immature and outrightly rude then Yale
only has itself to blame.
8
Yes, screaming at a professor is grounds for disciplinary probation. Liberals seem to believe in fighting words.
1
Of course right-wing ideologues, some old fashioned conservatives, and self-serving special interest groups such as radio talk show hosts are manipulating, packaging, and obfuscating things for their own ends. So what's new there? Such does not let off the hook those who would turn universities into shelters from civilized, intellectual confrontations.
College should be the place where you test your thoughts against others and, if you and they are lucky, you will all learn something. And if you are very lucky, you will learn to think a bit differently, as differing thoughts become incarnated in actual people and you gain some perspective. If you enter and leave college with the same views, the odds are you wasted everyone's time by being there. If you are extremely lucky, that process will continue throughout your life.
College should be the place where you test your thoughts against others and, if you and they are lucky, you will all learn something. And if you are very lucky, you will learn to think a bit differently, as differing thoughts become incarnated in actual people and you gain some perspective. If you enter and leave college with the same views, the odds are you wasted everyone's time by being there. If you are extremely lucky, that process will continue throughout your life.
5
I cannot help but reflect upon the subtext of ageism inherent in this article generational conflict. Older, more settled and secure former students rail against the search for tolerable limits of free speech on their former campuses. To them, young students are looking for a refuge from hard-nosed realities. To the students themselves, they see issues of racial, sexual, gender acceptance as settled issues that they love every day and cannot repeal. Maybe through generational blending, we can broaden these perspectives, which is what diversity is all about. Having completed a Masters degree in my 50s, I must note that mixing of the ages can invigorate the older student mentally and socially, and provide depth of experience for the younger classmate. Each provides perspective for the other. If only the broader society embraced more mixing of the age groups institutionally, socially and intellectually, we could all benefit greatly both in our personal lives and in our work lives.
4
What resonated with me is that "Free speech and open inquiry are alive and well on campus."
I do believe that callow undergraduate calls for political correctness are a form of juvenile self-indulgence. They're a little old for spanking but it doesn't mean they don't deserve same...many, if not most, will grow out of it.
What bothers me is the growing cesspool of right-wing ideologues who have not grown out of it since I first encountered them in the mid-1960's. What truly troubles me is that there are "grown-up" ideologues contributing to cabals like Yale's Buckley Program who have such contempt for open speech and the trial of ideas in the public forum that they must heap money and duplicitous slime on what can be honestly presented as the debate about legitimate political differences.
These are dangerous and possibly lethal assassins in the university far more dangerous than sophomoric tantrums.
I do believe that callow undergraduate calls for political correctness are a form of juvenile self-indulgence. They're a little old for spanking but it doesn't mean they don't deserve same...many, if not most, will grow out of it.
What bothers me is the growing cesspool of right-wing ideologues who have not grown out of it since I first encountered them in the mid-1960's. What truly troubles me is that there are "grown-up" ideologues contributing to cabals like Yale's Buckley Program who have such contempt for open speech and the trial of ideas in the public forum that they must heap money and duplicitous slime on what can be honestly presented as the debate about legitimate political differences.
These are dangerous and possibly lethal assassins in the university far more dangerous than sophomoric tantrums.
2
Go back to sleep Jim Sleeper...and take your PC propaganda with you.
Such protests have prompted Mr. Johnston and other alumni to cease funding what they see as coddled children and weak-kneed administrators. “I don’t think anything has damaged Yale’s brand quite like that” video, he said. “This is not your daddy’s liberalism.”
I hope Mr Johnson and others keep applying the financial pressure to break the race-centric, neo-marxist grip of Political Correctness (AKA the "New McCarthyism") from amerikan academia and beyond
Such protests have prompted Mr. Johnston and other alumni to cease funding what they see as coddled children and weak-kneed administrators. “I don’t think anything has damaged Yale’s brand quite like that” video, he said. “This is not your daddy’s liberalism.”
I hope Mr Johnson and others keep applying the financial pressure to break the race-centric, neo-marxist grip of Political Correctness (AKA the "New McCarthyism") from amerikan academia and beyond
7
Jojo: a brilliant exposition of the "down with academic freedom" mentality that has effectively neutered free thought in 99.9% of America's colleges.
2
This still boils down to the ongoing battle between the traditional, more liberal collegiate environment that promotes an environment (a learning lab if you will) of openness, inquiry and acceptance no matter how often that effort may fail (which it does often because it’s a never ending struggle of teaching/learning civility) vs. the on-going and currently-feverishly Right-driven, anti-political correctness push. Labeling an effort by institutions to create and model environments of fairness, equity and respect as leftist political correctness indoctrination is the most shallow of thinking and self-serving tactic to create conformity (or maintain what is left of it) and attempt to hold on to a dream of an Anglo-Euro homogeneous “real” or “authentic” America. It is nothing short of fear mongering cloaked in a false campaign for “free speech.” As the Trump campaign has so clearly and frighteningly demonstrated, the alt-right version of “free speech” is generally just unrestrained “hate speech.”
2
The author wrongly conflates the movement against campus political correctivism with a right wing effort to turn universities into market driven businesses, as if they are two heads on the same monster. Sorry, not buying it. Yes, the right (with Tump leading the charge) cries that everything, including university campuses, is too PC; but it's also true that too many campuses have fallen prey to the actions of those that want to stifle reasonable speech and debate for fear of being offended, triggered, challenged. Bravo to U of C and the other brave voices speaking out, including the group at Yale who invited Ayaan Hirsi Ali to speak after Brandeis shamefully disinvited her due to PC pressure. Let's hope the pendulum is starting to swing the other way.
5
Viewing, whether at Yale or anywhere, Donald Trump as a demagogue would be strictly in keeping with the disciplines of open inquiry and expression. He is most effective when he is not completely wrong. He knows that the most persuasive propaganda is founded on several layers of “truth”—from faked truths, half-truths and truths taken out of context to pure truths. As a consummate propagandist, Trump portrays lies, misrepresentations, and deceptions as parts of an overall message which, for many millions of his viewers or listeners, rings true. This practice qualifies Trump as a genuine demagogue, i.e., a politician who seeks public support by deliberately appealing to people's greed, prejudices, grievances or fears. Seeing him as a demagogue is more befitting than labeling him a charlatan, liar, blowhard, misogynist, clown, crook, corrupt, pompous, egomaniac, xenophobe, or buffoon -- all appropriate appellations but individually too delimiting.
2
Colleges fall all over themselves to coddle students. And most of that coddling follows the liberal, anti-free speech narrative. It has led to fake rape accusations, fake claims of assault on blacks, gays and women, and really vile behavior by students who think that they are special defenders of the correct social order.
Some of us see parallels with fascism in what is being bred in these universities and their intolerance and PC culture. And for those alumni who understand that the world is not going to coddle these students is appalled at the stupidity of the administrators.
While China, India, Korea and other countries encourage STEM studies, we worry about students' feelings. It's a march toward stupid, unprepared, senseless and clueless graduates that are going to be stunned by the real world. They won't get a job or be able to keep one.
And they won't even understand why. Until they understand that the fake stupid world of the university they just graduated from, at $60,000/ year, was a waste of their time, and taught them nothing of value for their adult selves. And they wasted time and money for a whole lot of nothing.
Some of us see parallels with fascism in what is being bred in these universities and their intolerance and PC culture. And for those alumni who understand that the world is not going to coddle these students is appalled at the stupidity of the administrators.
While China, India, Korea and other countries encourage STEM studies, we worry about students' feelings. It's a march toward stupid, unprepared, senseless and clueless graduates that are going to be stunned by the real world. They won't get a job or be able to keep one.
And they won't even understand why. Until they understand that the fake stupid world of the university they just graduated from, at $60,000/ year, was a waste of their time, and taught them nothing of value for their adult selves. And they wasted time and money for a whole lot of nothing.
7
Where speech isn't free the talk is cheap.
5
The bottom line is the most far-left individual can speak at Yale. The person will not be harassed, will not be shouted down during their talk, and conservative students won't be suffering from the effects of micro-aggressions and will not be fleeing to their designated safe spaces. The exact opposite is true when conservatives come to campus.
This article turns the reality of life on today's college campuses on its head.
This article turns the reality of life on today's college campuses on its head.
13
I would advise conservative professors trying to obtain tenure to hide their conservatism. Attend rallies for candidates like Bernie Sanders. Do not assign any book that would lead the powers to be that you are questioning their authority.
Once you are granted tenure, you can reveal your true self. You may not have any friends on campus, but at least you will have a job.
Once you are granted tenure, you can reveal your true self. You may not have any friends on campus, but at least you will have a job.
6
I had heard about this Yale video, but never saw it until now. It is worth clicking through the links in this article and watching it. The behavior of the student and the type of language she uses is pretty bad.
14
"Students, away from home and in an “adult” society for the first time..."
Really? These same kids have been tweeting and instagraming and you tubing since middle school, and likely know more about "adult society" than any generation ever.
Quit coddling and let them know that the First Amendment does not only protect them and those that think like them-- it also protects viewpoints which they may find offensive.
Political correctness is the greatest nsidious threat to free speech since McCarthyism. And men and women of goodwill must loudly oppose it.
Really? These same kids have been tweeting and instagraming and you tubing since middle school, and likely know more about "adult society" than any generation ever.
Quit coddling and let them know that the First Amendment does not only protect them and those that think like them-- it also protects viewpoints which they may find offensive.
Political correctness is the greatest nsidious threat to free speech since McCarthyism. And men and women of goodwill must loudly oppose it.
15
Sorry Professor Sleeper. A picture speaks a thousand words. When I watched that young woman (a graduating senior) on your campus shriek at a professor, shout over him, and then strip off her backpack as though she was about to hit him, all because, as the resident master of her dorm he hadn't provided her a place of comfort and she disliked his wife's letter about Halloween costumes, I thought that Yale had failed her.
Why had she not, during her elite and privileged education, learned civil discourse? Why could she not envision that there might be another side to the issues she cared about? Why did she believe that suppressing his speech by shouting at him was more effective than engaging him and trying to persuade him? If this is what our elite colleges are turning out today, then we are in a lot of trouble. And I am a life-long liberal.
Why had she not, during her elite and privileged education, learned civil discourse? Why could she not envision that there might be another side to the issues she cared about? Why did she believe that suppressing his speech by shouting at him was more effective than engaging him and trying to persuade him? If this is what our elite colleges are turning out today, then we are in a lot of trouble. And I am a life-long liberal.
40
Wow. Is this essay representative of the level of critical thinking at Yale today? Full disclosure: I give financial support to FIRE. The attempt to paint this First Amendment organization as right-wing, while lauding the profs that "speak from their deepest humanity" is ludicrous. Yes, this generation of students gives strong evidence of being ultra-coddled, helicoptered, and clueless. Chicago has it right: get VERY uncomfortable, and start learning something.
34
The thesis of this article is absurd. It basically says that any criticism of the puerile behavior of some of today's politically correct and easily aggrieved college students is invalid, being completely the product of conservative hypnotists.
21
"politically correct and easily aggrieved college students"
You sound like the easily aggrieved.
You sound like the easily aggrieved.
What a string of non sequiturs! How jejune. Politically Correct in scare quotes! Really? It is really pathetic that someone who is so reality challenged is at Yale. The author confuses the free market of ideas with business; or is it dishonestly intentional? The people attending the conference were spit upon. Left-wing fascism lives at Yale.
18
Protesters at Trump rallies were spat upon. Right wing fascism thrives as well.
Ernest Lawrence, nuclear physicist, Nobel Prize, 1939 (for invention of cyclotron) left Yale and moved to California in 1928. Lawrence used to teach sophomore physics at Yale. Here is what made him move (from ‘Lawrence and Oppenheimer’, by Nuel Pharr Davis, 1968, Chapter 1):
“Will you give my boy special help so he will pass the course?”, a Yale man’s father asked in late 1927.
“No”, said Lawrence.
Expensively tailored, confident and casual, the man smiled. “ Do you have a car?”
“No”
“Pass the boy and I’’ll give you one”
Walking home that afternoon across the campus, Lawrence realized he had actually felt tempted. For the first time he noticed the “Undergraduates Only” sign on a campus swimming pool. “They treat you like a servant,” he told another physicist Isidor Rabi.
Fast forward to 2016: I am sure the staff member who was being shouted to by the student, felt like he was being treated like a servant. It is not so much the old white boy’s club anymore, but some things don’t change.
“Will you give my boy special help so he will pass the course?”, a Yale man’s father asked in late 1927.
“No”, said Lawrence.
Expensively tailored, confident and casual, the man smiled. “ Do you have a car?”
“No”
“Pass the boy and I’’ll give you one”
Walking home that afternoon across the campus, Lawrence realized he had actually felt tempted. For the first time he noticed the “Undergraduates Only” sign on a campus swimming pool. “They treat you like a servant,” he told another physicist Isidor Rabi.
Fast forward to 2016: I am sure the staff member who was being shouted to by the student, felt like he was being treated like a servant. It is not so much the old white boy’s club anymore, but some things don’t change.
6
The 1939 story was not the norm. Treating it as if it has universal significance does ironically proof that your type of "thinking" doesn't change.
no shrieking -free markets - money money money.
3
".....but they also learn to stand up for themselves."
This is indeed admirable. In real life, though, one often pays a price for standing up for oneself. One would think that a university, preparing one for life, would help them understand it.
One should learn very quickly that one pays for one's words or actions. That is the way of the world and the university should be no exception, especially at the expense of its professorial staff.
This is indeed admirable. In real life, though, one often pays a price for standing up for oneself. One would think that a university, preparing one for life, would help them understand it.
One should learn very quickly that one pays for one's words or actions. That is the way of the world and the university should be no exception, especially at the expense of its professorial staff.
7
It's a shame that PC soils the left. I'd like to see a return of a rational left, one of real Liberal thought based in The Enlightenment.
8
Your version of the "Enlightenment." Only the unenlightened repeat Rush cliches while they are pretending to make a point.
1
That legions of white kids at Yale had their first frank discussions about race, and that a thousand people packed a venue to hear speakers on the topic of race, tells us nothing about openness or a true marketplace of ideas. It is not only possible but likely that those discussions adhered root stem and branch to the unproven and unprovable narrative of white privilege and black victimization.
5
Since you weren't there, how do you know,? and, worse, why do you assume?
Since Mr. Sleeper's piece seems to pivot in no small part on what is "not shown", I link to a piece in the Atlantic by Conor Friedersdorf which fleshes out some critical details left out of Mr. Sleeper's piece. In essence, what lit the fire of the Yale fracas were Halloween Costumes....but read for yourselves:
"Nicholas and Erika Christakis stepped down from their positions in residential life months after student activists called for their dismissal over a Halloween kerfuffle."
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-peril-of-writing...
"Nicholas and Erika Christakis stepped down from their positions in residential life months after student activists called for their dismissal over a Halloween kerfuffle."
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-peril-of-writing...
27
Friedersdorf just did another about University of Syracuse which asked an Israeli film maker, now a professor of film in the US, to understand why he could not show his work at a conference. She, the Syracuse university professor, would be savaged by students and other faculty if she allowed him to participate.
Although, it does not matter, the film was anti-settlements. The rejection was based on his nationality.
Back to the days of the Black Shirts, I guess. Black Shirts and bystanders.
Although, it does not matter, the film was anti-settlements. The rejection was based on his nationality.
Back to the days of the Black Shirts, I guess. Black Shirts and bystanders.
2
This article is a joke. A bunch of whiny, mentally ill brats getting together to whine about their feelings and their mental illness together and then assault anyone who dares to have a different opinion is not some great example of free speech. I'm not sure why this idiot writer ever imagined that his example was relevant to free speech on campus. We get it... liberals get all the free speech they want. That isn't the issue, moron. We all understand that liberals on campus have free speech. They are also the ones shutting down the opinions of others through assault, etc. And I'm a liberal.... this really isn't that hard to understand unless you're a complete idiot. So the question is... why does the nytimes keep publishing columns by idiots?
5
It may be that FIRE gets support from right wing organizations. But at Brandeis they went many extra miles to defend (successfully) a Marxist professor from the administration's attempt to police his speech.
3
the crazy extremes of political correctness that our writer Jim wants to apologize for really do destroy the reason for having universities - their open inquiry and expression.
Liberalism USED to make room for every question - and the Political Right basically left the universities alone. The resistance to the inanity of ''safe spaces'' is coming from the liberal Democrats of the Vietnam Era and even later.
Poor Jim has to try to defend the indefensible, but when progressivism goes so crazy that the university cannot perform its basic functions, even the over-excited Jims have to realize this stupidity HAS to stop.
If you insist the Right solves it, the college & university scene will never be the same. We simply don't need all the college admin types feeding off of the students and their parents. The Right would have you go back to having more teachers than bureaucrats.
Liberalism USED to make room for every question - and the Political Right basically left the universities alone. The resistance to the inanity of ''safe spaces'' is coming from the liberal Democrats of the Vietnam Era and even later.
Poor Jim has to try to defend the indefensible, but when progressivism goes so crazy that the university cannot perform its basic functions, even the over-excited Jims have to realize this stupidity HAS to stop.
If you insist the Right solves it, the college & university scene will never be the same. We simply don't need all the college admin types feeding off of the students and their parents. The Right would have you go back to having more teachers than bureaucrats.
2
Guess what - ?
It's not the professor's job “to create a place of comfort and home” for *any* student -- of *any race, color, etc...
Political correctness is about "feelings" -- about ensuring that nobody is allowed to say or do anything which will make somebody else "feel bad" -
!!!
So - now we have a conflict with "Free Speech" as defined by the First Amendment --
What does the First Amendment guarantee...?
It guarantees the right of another person's "speech" -- even if -- especially if -- you may find that speech to be offensive, insulting or even (gasp) - hurtful...
The right to have, and express, your own opinion -
This is not a political issue -- it's actually a very humanist issue - because the "approved" opinions you hold and express today - may become the politically-incorrect taboos of tomorrow - as unimaginable as that may seem to all the "nice, progressive and concerned" people out there --
Most likely, there are many people here who support the right of Colin Kappernick to remain seated during the National Anthem and see it as his right to express himself freely --
How about the allegedly racist comments made by Daniel Sterling - whispered under his breath to his girlfriend - ?
Does he have a "right" to speak freely -- or should he be kicked out of the NBA for hurting some people's feelings ?
Should people be expected to accept responsibility for their words --?
Most assuredly -- but the yard stick of "Political Correctness" is very, very fickle -
It's not the professor's job “to create a place of comfort and home” for *any* student -- of *any race, color, etc...
Political correctness is about "feelings" -- about ensuring that nobody is allowed to say or do anything which will make somebody else "feel bad" -
!!!
So - now we have a conflict with "Free Speech" as defined by the First Amendment --
What does the First Amendment guarantee...?
It guarantees the right of another person's "speech" -- even if -- especially if -- you may find that speech to be offensive, insulting or even (gasp) - hurtful...
The right to have, and express, your own opinion -
This is not a political issue -- it's actually a very humanist issue - because the "approved" opinions you hold and express today - may become the politically-incorrect taboos of tomorrow - as unimaginable as that may seem to all the "nice, progressive and concerned" people out there --
Most likely, there are many people here who support the right of Colin Kappernick to remain seated during the National Anthem and see it as his right to express himself freely --
How about the allegedly racist comments made by Daniel Sterling - whispered under his breath to his girlfriend - ?
Does he have a "right" to speak freely -- or should he be kicked out of the NBA for hurting some people's feelings ?
Should people be expected to accept responsibility for their words --?
Most assuredly -- but the yard stick of "Political Correctness" is very, very fickle -
2
Despite wishing to be sympathetic to this author, I found his overall point confused and his writing clunky.
If anyone can dissect what the following actually means, God bless them.
Conservatives used to remind us that what the Constitution protects in speech, civil society modulates; freedom requires self-restraint and respect for others, not the hurling of scare words. Yet now their selectively legalistic “free speech” strategy helps turn collegial contentions into rhetorical battlefields by hyping and even provoking progressive offenders.
The reason is that conservatives’ yearning for ordered liberty is being debased not by liberals but by the casino-like financing and predatory lending and marketing of a “dynamic capitalist economy.”
If anyone can dissect what the following actually means, God bless them.
Conservatives used to remind us that what the Constitution protects in speech, civil society modulates; freedom requires self-restraint and respect for others, not the hurling of scare words. Yet now their selectively legalistic “free speech” strategy helps turn collegial contentions into rhetorical battlefields by hyping and even provoking progressive offenders.
The reason is that conservatives’ yearning for ordered liberty is being debased not by liberals but by the casino-like financing and predatory lending and marketing of a “dynamic capitalist economy.”
2
"A college is a civil society on training wheels. Students, away from home and in an “adult” society for the first time, may try out defensive ethno-racial flag waving, religious and political dogmas, athletic and fraternal self-segregation, and premature career-ladder climbing. They may scare one another a little, but they also learn to stand up for themselves."
No evidence cited for students learning to stand up for themselves. Instead surveys show how ridiculously intolerant and immature students are. See generally https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/liberal-but-not-tolerant-on-the-... One of the findings was that 43 percent of freshmen said they agreed with the statement that “colleges have the right to ban extreme speakers from campus.”
Such stupid, intolerant people don't belong in college where you are supposed to expose yourself to new ideas.
JD
No evidence cited for students learning to stand up for themselves. Instead surveys show how ridiculously intolerant and immature students are. See generally https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/liberal-but-not-tolerant-on-the-... One of the findings was that 43 percent of freshmen said they agreed with the statement that “colleges have the right to ban extreme speakers from campus.”
Such stupid, intolerant people don't belong in college where you are supposed to expose yourself to new ideas.
JD
4
"One of the findings was that 43 percent of freshmen said they agreed with the statement that 'colleges have the right to ban extreme speakers from campus.'"
Um, as a simple matter of law, don't they?
Um, as a simple matter of law, don't they?
WS If you want to be picky and deflect from the real issue illustrated by the quote (intolerance), private colleges are not subject to the First Amendment. State operated colleges are governed by the First Amendment.
JD
JD
2
Sleeper's argument would be more persuasive if he didn't lay so much of his ire at the feet of William F. Buckley, as if one man's influence is causing all this strife. And as the correction at the end points out, there were some simple facts he should have double checked before publishing. So his more sweeping assertions are all the more suspect.
I'm convinced college students will be much better off in the long run, no matter their persuasion, by adhering to three simple words: go to class.
I'm convinced college students will be much better off in the long run, no matter their persuasion, by adhering to three simple words: go to class.
2
I was all for "free speech" but there was something Orwellian in The U of Chicago letter to incoming freshmen that made me pause. Trigger warnings seem reasonable. Libraries are quiet why not extend quite space outside. I don't get what the real problem is here. This is just a proxy for intolerance.
1
Trigger warnings are fine if not mandated. Quiet spaces are fine if they aren't constructed around viewpoint discrimination.
1
"... something Orwellian in The U of Chicago letter ..."
You will need to explain what you mean by "Orwellian", if you intend to convince anyone that you are right.
You will need to explain what you mean by "Orwellian", if you intend to convince anyone that you are right.
3
I am constantly amazed at the extent to which right-wingers simply can't mind their own business. They spend an inordinate amount of time, and sometimes, if they are in office, mountains of government money, looking for molehills to turn into mountains. In government, the whole Benghazi kerfuffle is a good example.
That said, this whole business of "trigger warnings" and places "of comfort and home" just drives me bonkers. On the one hand, college students are supposed to be absolutely safe from certain things, such as sexual assault (And just look what a good job colleges are doing with that!).
On the other hand, intellectually a college should be a very challenging, and even shocking, place. Discomfiting course material should be a given, at least in certain disciplines, and the hypersensitive need not apply.
I'm not sure just when all this idiocy started, but I wish it would end.
That said, this whole business of "trigger warnings" and places "of comfort and home" just drives me bonkers. On the one hand, college students are supposed to be absolutely safe from certain things, such as sexual assault (And just look what a good job colleges are doing with that!).
On the other hand, intellectually a college should be a very challenging, and even shocking, place. Discomfiting course material should be a given, at least in certain disciplines, and the hypersensitive need not apply.
I'm not sure just when all this idiocy started, but I wish it would end.
5
"Discomfiting course material should be a given, at least in certain disciplines, and the hypersensitive need not apply."
Please list those "certain disciplines" and explain why other "disciplines" are excluded from your mandate.
Please list those "certain disciplines" and explain why other "disciplines" are excluded from your mandate.
1
Free speech and modern Conservatism are like oil and water. They don't mix. Free speech asks why not? And Conservatism answers: Because we don't want change.
Galileo with his crazy idea of a round earth circling the sun, abolitionists arguing slavery was evil, suffragettes demanding the right to vote for women were all opposed by Conservatives arguing that all that would lead to chaos.
The earth is round and circling the sun, slavery is now outlawed and women can vote. Still, progress is slowed by Conservatives who still don't understand, or, more likely, don't want to understand.
Modern Conservatism is bad faith incarnated. They stand for the privileged few who like things as they are, because they profit from the status quo. Period.
Galileo with his crazy idea of a round earth circling the sun, abolitionists arguing slavery was evil, suffragettes demanding the right to vote for women were all opposed by Conservatives arguing that all that would lead to chaos.
The earth is round and circling the sun, slavery is now outlawed and women can vote. Still, progress is slowed by Conservatives who still don't understand, or, more likely, don't want to understand.
Modern Conservatism is bad faith incarnated. They stand for the privileged few who like things as they are, because they profit from the status quo. Period.
1
"Galileo with his crazy idea of a round earth circling the sun,"
At least those pesky conservatives do their home work and know that it was Copernicus, who first discovered that the earth circles the sun.
At least those pesky conservatives do their home work and know that it was Copernicus, who first discovered that the earth circles the sun.
2
I respect the choices of alumni who decide no longer to contribute to universities they see heading in the wrong direction. Students at college should not be coddled. They should be exposed to many different ideas and different types of speakers. Such a diverse experience -- rather than coddling -- is important to help prepare today's college students to be the future leaders of our increasing diverse country.
6
I find this essay over written, and unclear as the author lurches from point to point. Most people can project anything they want into it. Political Correctness can mean contradictory things. What does Sleeper really want? I found an interview with him about his book, called "liberal racism". That was also wordy, confused and a chore to read. So I stopped. So much to read, and a life to lead.
We are all customers? Yes, if that's his point---in education, health care, retirement---all big profit centers. And in US politics this is dressed up as 'freedom' which is our most distorted buzz word. If not profit centers, then we'd have intrusive big govt tyranny they say.
So, any remedies? Start with campaign finance reform, to reduce special interest lobbying for the profit centers? Ok. Compare to societies where education and health care are non profit, or at least accessible to all citizens? Just for some eye opening contrast? That might be interesting.
We are all customers? Yes, if that's his point---in education, health care, retirement---all big profit centers. And in US politics this is dressed up as 'freedom' which is our most distorted buzz word. If not profit centers, then we'd have intrusive big govt tyranny they say.
So, any remedies? Start with campaign finance reform, to reduce special interest lobbying for the profit centers? Ok. Compare to societies where education and health care are non profit, or at least accessible to all citizens? Just for some eye opening contrast? That might be interesting.
6
I became confused by all those quotation marks I would ban about half of them.
1
There may be right-wingers who have the motivation and strategy that Jim Sleeper describes, but free speech is not just a conservative cause. Plenty of real liberals are appalled by the students who coerce, bully, and harass people they disagree with. The authoritarian left--no liberals, they-- claim that some speech is too hurtful and dangerous to be permitted. And who will determine just what speech fits into that category? Why, of course, they will. How generous of them. It is both ironic and revealing that these avatars of sensitivity are themselves capable of such viciousness. No university whose leadership enables such behavior and lets its perpetrators get away with it is worthy of the name.
8
When politicians use rhetoric which heightens fear, the whole country suffers.
This is a trademark of the GOP business model and was on display on Wednesday when Donald Trump delivered his Arizona "demagogue masterpiece."
Another misfit is Senator Ted Cruz. I have labeled both these men as political sociopaths because they, like Mitch McConnell, have no empathy for their victims.
When I hear or read about Buckley I think of his contrived rules or principles which in most town, city, state and Federal government problem areas are simply inoperative nostrums which take up space.
Donald Trump continues in the Tradition of the GOP in that it has been unable to groom a presidential candidate for the last 16 years because it had no central, plausible, defensible spine. Repealing the ACA or deporting 2 million or 5 million Latinos is not a sustainable spine. Defense of religious rights a la Hobby Lobby and Kim Davis are sideshows that the GOP uses to get the spotlight to make it seem like it's doing an important job for all of America.
No, it's the GOP fog of information and its fear mongering, and a party without a sustainable spine of thought or plan. When Paul Ryan talks principles he is a clueless GOP apparatchik. When Trump talks he heightens fear.
This is a trademark of the GOP business model and was on display on Wednesday when Donald Trump delivered his Arizona "demagogue masterpiece."
Another misfit is Senator Ted Cruz. I have labeled both these men as political sociopaths because they, like Mitch McConnell, have no empathy for their victims.
When I hear or read about Buckley I think of his contrived rules or principles which in most town, city, state and Federal government problem areas are simply inoperative nostrums which take up space.
Donald Trump continues in the Tradition of the GOP in that it has been unable to groom a presidential candidate for the last 16 years because it had no central, plausible, defensible spine. Repealing the ACA or deporting 2 million or 5 million Latinos is not a sustainable spine. Defense of religious rights a la Hobby Lobby and Kim Davis are sideshows that the GOP uses to get the spotlight to make it seem like it's doing an important job for all of America.
No, it's the GOP fog of information and its fear mongering, and a party without a sustainable spine of thought or plan. When Paul Ryan talks principles he is a clueless GOP apparatchik. When Trump talks he heightens fear.
2
The critique of the authoritarian/regressive left came from rationalist centrists and more courageous liberals annoyed they weren't being allowed freedom of inquiry and commentary. The right has co-opted it just because the far left has no answer to it.
5
To me article was giving the impression that " I dont like the messenger so I am going to ignore the message."
3
Mr. Sleeper’s claim that he can look into the minds of the free-speech advocates to discover what “they” really want is the height of arrogance. Mr. Sleeper seems to be unable to understand how a liberal could value free speech over the current victim culture that appears to be rampant among at least some parts of the population, and therefore must conclude that, despite what they might say, they’re really just free-markeet conservatives.
6
The author writes, "it isn't the protests per se that damaged open inquiry and expression, but the frenzied way they have been portrayed by the right." This shift of blame is a common tactic of the left, and mirrors the overwrought rhetoric of the right. As a professor at UC Berkeley -- and a passionate moderate -- I can attest that there is a problem on campus, in which voices of moderation are drowned out by the shrill tactics of the left and the right. Academia is in a strange transition, and reasoned public discourse about it is a scarce commodity.
, which is precisely what the left and the right want.
, which is precisely what the left and the right want.
8
A "passionate moderate" isn't possible. These types condemn all, then claim a kind of superior knowledge, when they are simply looking to cut the best deal. it's selfishness disguised.
3
This article is a sham. It briefly gives an example of how the video is shot by a supposed "Daily Caller" supporter and thus discredit what it demonstrates, but then goes into some far fetched narratives on donor class. Campus censorship is a real issue and It's not just conservatives, most libertarians and even liberals (i.e. Maher, Obama) have criticized the censorship and tirades of the students shutting down any expression that they dislike or find offensive.
3
I am thankful that the article links to the remarks "thundered" by Roger Kendall when he introduced George Will's speech. Will was one of a group of "disinvitees," conservative speakers who were first invited to speak at an American university then disinvited. The group included Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Charles Murray, and former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice.
It was prudent of the author not to mention that fact as it would have revealed the emptiness of his attempt to hold campus speech suppressors blameless.
It was prudent of the author not to mention that fact as it would have revealed the emptiness of his attempt to hold campus speech suppressors blameless.
7
Thank you Mr. Sleeper for your views, but how is this not a long way of saying "I like views I agree with and and I don't like views I disagree with."
6
The article totally misses the point of charging campuses like Yale with political correctness. Anyone who has spent any amount of time at a modern liberal arts college or university will recognize the truth immediately: that a whole host of moral/social commitments have come to define, for many students and teachers, what is valuable in humanistic inquiry. Openly disagreeing with (or simply ignoring) such assumptions risks the familiar kinds of opprobrium: being ostracized as "formalist," "sexist," racist," and in general insensitive to the moral plights of the underrepresented or marginalized. Not to feel the silent (and sometimes very loud) peer, professorial, and institutional disapproval of dissent from this mainstream is not really to have noted the currents of politicized thought streaming since at least the 1980s.
This is a version of the "tacit knowledge" that Marx described as the core of "ideology." Everyone on campus knows what it is acceptable to argue, defend, or question. And everyone knows what will get you surrounded by a (virtual or physical) ring of hostile screamers. Of course this is profoundly ironic, since Marx is the founding father of the analysis underlying this modern liberal bent.
To validate this view of the state of things, just ask yourself a question. Why does the U of Chicago's defense of classic free speech on campus seem so remarkable? It's because of the enormous, cowed, complicitous (i.e. co-opted) silence of all the other voices.
This is a version of the "tacit knowledge" that Marx described as the core of "ideology." Everyone on campus knows what it is acceptable to argue, defend, or question. And everyone knows what will get you surrounded by a (virtual or physical) ring of hostile screamers. Of course this is profoundly ironic, since Marx is the founding father of the analysis underlying this modern liberal bent.
To validate this view of the state of things, just ask yourself a question. Why does the U of Chicago's defense of classic free speech on campus seem so remarkable? It's because of the enormous, cowed, complicitous (i.e. co-opted) silence of all the other voices.
6
"market-driven entertainment that encourages real violence"; "casino-like financing and predatory lending and marketing of a dynamic capitalist economy" - what does any of this actually mean? Is the author advocating that entertainment companies not care about what their customers want, or try to bring products to market that might be successful? Is the author still clinging to myths that we become more violent when we play video games or watch slasher movies? What is "casino-like financing"? And what about the lame effort to somehow create a contrived link between the Yale alumni and Donald Trump? They both rant about "free speech"! That means they must be in cahoots! This entire article is poorly written and ludicrous. Whatever point it may have tried to make is hopelessly lost in all this word salad. There is a real struggle going on: it is about how much free expression there should be at universities, and how much individual students are allowed to censor the curriculum when they are somehow uncomfortable with it. It is only natural that most people (at least most college graduates) have strong and emotional opinions about this one way or the other, and I have not heard any of them talk about free markets in connection with this issue.
1
Buckley was a fascist pig, pure and simple. His arrogant tone masked a deep and abiding disrespect for the ultimate fundamental concept of democracy, i.e the primacy of the individual over the corporate person.
1
"...it isn’t the protests per se that damaged open inquiry and expression, but the frenzied way they have been portrayed by the right...
I assume you differ equally vehemently with the "frenzied" way that the media reported on the gunning down of five police officers in Dallas - and perhaps the running down of almost a hundred people in Nice...
Press and TV alike made things look positively like mayhem - but I trust you have a more cool and clinical and intellectual and academic way of seeing and understanding such happenings...
Please do tell - or do I have to purchase credit hours from Yale, to sit in on and gain such wisdom...
I assume you differ equally vehemently with the "frenzied" way that the media reported on the gunning down of five police officers in Dallas - and perhaps the running down of almost a hundred people in Nice...
Press and TV alike made things look positively like mayhem - but I trust you have a more cool and clinical and intellectual and academic way of seeing and understanding such happenings...
Please do tell - or do I have to purchase credit hours from Yale, to sit in on and gain such wisdom...
2
doesn't the term "politically correct" imply something that, in fact, is not correct but had been termed that way to appease people's feelings without regard for the real truth? after all, if it was correct it wouldn't need an adjective, wouldn't it? its whole premise is based on false reality and that is why it cannot last, it creates cognitive dissonance in people,
the emperor will loose his clothes sooner or later
the emperor will loose his clothes sooner or later
1
Like publicly lambasting Romney for saying that 47% of Americans don't pay taxes, despite the fact that it is a verifiably true. That is the world in which we now live.
1
When students become commodities which is the true aim of conservatives how can you expect a commodity to have free speech or thought. But people are not commodities despite what corporate America would have you think. After all corporate America does not want free thinkers. They want employees who tow the line and do not make waves. so their money supporting colleges is meant most times to turn out these kinds of conservative students. This is the reason so many conservatives oppose what they call liberal education. It was so in the sixties and remains so today.
1
Oh come now.
The writer makes it sound like the academy is facing a punishing onslaught thanks to a few million dollars from conservative organizations like ISI, Buckley and Scaife. In fact, the influence of these organizations on the intellectual discourse on campus is puny.
The writer would like us to believe the Black Lives protest merely opened up the campus to constructive and peaceful discourse. In fact, the discourse was probably quite one-sided as academics and students carefully measured the risks associated with making a gaff that would be used on social media as part of a public shaming campaign by Black Live Matter progressives. For Erika Christakis at Yale and Mary Spellman at Claremont McKenna free speech came with real negative consequences for their careers
The letter from the University of Chicago is certainly the type of defense of liberal academic values that we need to see more from college presidents. It however was not the typical reflex of college administrators. Rather it is viewed as a unique and bold move that stands out enough to find its way on the front page of the New York Times.
The writer makes it sound like the academy is facing a punishing onslaught thanks to a few million dollars from conservative organizations like ISI, Buckley and Scaife. In fact, the influence of these organizations on the intellectual discourse on campus is puny.
The writer would like us to believe the Black Lives protest merely opened up the campus to constructive and peaceful discourse. In fact, the discourse was probably quite one-sided as academics and students carefully measured the risks associated with making a gaff that would be used on social media as part of a public shaming campaign by Black Live Matter progressives. For Erika Christakis at Yale and Mary Spellman at Claremont McKenna free speech came with real negative consequences for their careers
The letter from the University of Chicago is certainly the type of defense of liberal academic values that we need to see more from college presidents. It however was not the typical reflex of college administrators. Rather it is viewed as a unique and bold move that stands out enough to find its way on the front page of the New York Times.
5
Educational institutions are not separate from society but function under the same restraints as society in general. There have always been restraints in one form or another on all social institutions, religious, political, financial and out of general social traditions. People who explore possibilities, probe into the basics of our social forms and where they may indicate necessities for social changes, and those who are leaders in exploring the essentials of our universe have, in the past, frequently found welcome in institutions of higher education. Many have also been persecuted for beliefs that violate traditional standards. And all societies benefit by places where cogent investigations of current standards can be revealed as damaging to society. This is as true in society in general as it is in science. But there are powerful forces within any society to restrain this type of inquiry out of those who control the levers in society's functions which gain them profit and power. To a large extent in the past universities were permitted independence of these restraining forces. In general society people today are far more cautious of criticizing the powers that be as the punishments can be extreme. That educational institutions are suffering the same restraints is no surprise.
2
Sorry....the whole safe space, trigger warnings nonsense is just that...utter nonsense........it is a clear and present danger to free speech as well as an impediment to actually growing up! The coddling is quite ridiculous, and colleges and universities would do well to uniformly and collectively ask questions such as "don't you have a physics exam tomorrow? Trigger warning.....we assure you it will not be easy, and you will not be able to retreat to a safe space to call your parents for help!"
7
VERY POOR ARTICLE, should not have been accepted for publication, since it doesn't make a single intelligent point or argument. Fortunately at least one of the NYT Readers did the job that the editors completely failed at.
The closest this article came to making a point or argument was:
"Yet now their selectively legalistic “free speech” strategy helps turn collegial contentions into rhetorical battlefields by hyping and even provoking progressive offenders"
==> If you had gone on and actually supported this assertion, you might have actually made a point or argument.
I doubt seriously that I would have 'bought' this argument, but would at least started to read/analyse it. On the surface, it looks like more liberal whining, and since you didn't bother to illustrate or develop it into a serious case, I am forced to believe that is nothing more than that which it appears to be: Self-Pity.
OTHER ITEMS that caught my attention
1) The notion that it is a worthwhile endeavor for: "Students, away from home and in an “adult” society for the first time, may try out defensive ethno-racial flag waving"
= = > I will give you points & credit here for at least being intellectually honest
-
2) "What the video didn’t show were the hundreds of white students having their first frank conversations about race with minority classmates"
REALITY-CHECK: Kids these days don't need any such frank discussions, unlike my parents generation, they already get it
The closest this article came to making a point or argument was:
"Yet now their selectively legalistic “free speech” strategy helps turn collegial contentions into rhetorical battlefields by hyping and even provoking progressive offenders"
==> If you had gone on and actually supported this assertion, you might have actually made a point or argument.
I doubt seriously that I would have 'bought' this argument, but would at least started to read/analyse it. On the surface, it looks like more liberal whining, and since you didn't bother to illustrate or develop it into a serious case, I am forced to believe that is nothing more than that which it appears to be: Self-Pity.
OTHER ITEMS that caught my attention
1) The notion that it is a worthwhile endeavor for: "Students, away from home and in an “adult” society for the first time, may try out defensive ethno-racial flag waving"
= = > I will give you points & credit here for at least being intellectually honest
-
2) "What the video didn’t show were the hundreds of white students having their first frank conversations about race with minority classmates"
REALITY-CHECK: Kids these days don't need any such frank discussions, unlike my parents generation, they already get it
1
White preppies avoid the dreaded scarlet letter racist label by kumbayaing with BLM student activists on campus for a few hours.
5
I won't criticize this author for his relative youth (compared to mine), I will simply say that his camouflage is weak, his logic borders on the non-existent, and his data is cherry picked and slanted. Instead of teaching at Yale, he needs to return there as a student. His pattern recognition is poor, missing the epidemic of politically correct-induced restrictions, and his attack on "the other" (whom he attempts to verbally crucify by innuendo) who would have more open speech is divisive and retrogressive. Unless, of course, I misread this in my dotage. HRS, MD
8
It's not just conservatives who are criticizing political correctness -- it's moderates and liberals, who feel that too much of what used to be liberalism, has become illiberalism. What is too often missing in public dialogue on any issue, is the middle position. It's become axiomatic that in many discussions, one can't disagree with the left-liberal position without being accused of being a bigot. One can't criticize elements of Islamic culture and theocratic governments, without being an Islamophobe. One can't be concerned about the high level of violent crime and dysfunctional behavior in elements of black inner city subcultures, without being dismissed as racist. One can't be opposed to illegal immigration without being slammed as a nationalist and racist. It's difficult to show concern for the white working class, or resent being pigeonholed as a white person, without risking being labeled a white nationalist/supremacist. We've lost the ability for nuanced arguments and people's views are increasingly being pigeonholed into polarities...even though truth is generally in the middle somewhere.
I'm glad to see the University of Chicago reject the inane "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" for the hypersensitive...such nonsense should have been taken to task when it first arose, as symptomatic of the cult of victimology that political correctness enshrines. No university should have taken such measures to protect victim-glorifying crybabies in the first place.
I'm glad to see the University of Chicago reject the inane "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" for the hypersensitive...such nonsense should have been taken to task when it first arose, as symptomatic of the cult of victimology that political correctness enshrines. No university should have taken such measures to protect victim-glorifying crybabies in the first place.
7
How ironic it is that the same right-wing fanatics who condemn what they perceive as "political correctness" engage in the epitome of that practice -- constantly waving the flag and equating patriotism with unequivocal support of the military. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.
1
Hello - did anyone understand the logic of this piece, or is it more of a theoretical exercise in how to defend the indefensible? I saw it as someone twisting himself into knots trying to excuse campus intolerance, destruction of Constitutional guarantees of free speech and due process, sophomoric arrogance, and just plain old-fashioned incivility - or, in other words, pavlovian student behavior in search of an approving pat on the head. May I remind the writer that adolescent behavior on campuses long predates The Koch Brothers and The Donald?
2
As long as trigger warnings, safe spaces and hair-trigger fears of micro-aggressions rule the discourse it doesn't matter what the right-wing does...the academy will debate itself into irrelevance. Here's a better idea....let some schools like the University of Chicago outlaw such practices while having others embrace them then let the marketplace for admissions see who wins. I would never encourage a child of mine to go to a school where people would be afraid to express their opinion no matter whose feathers got ruffled and if her feathers got ruffled I would examine that fact with her and help her deal with it. Anything else is intellectual cowardice.
7
With the exception of a few elite institutions, most institutions of higher ed are not dealing with a "crisis of free speech" on campus. It's just an overhyped trend story to distract from the primary anxiety facing students: economic deprivation. (Trust me--I know about the environment to which I refer).
Universities are, however, regularly beset by mediocre hyper-capitalist donors who wish to reshape the university in their own image--limiting the type of critical inquiry and intellectual pedigree of certain departments. This is the freedom of speech of the neoliberal era. In other words, it is the purchasing of a single version of "free speech" by those who can afford it.
And I don't see nearly enough stories about this phenomena.
Universities are, however, regularly beset by mediocre hyper-capitalist donors who wish to reshape the university in their own image--limiting the type of critical inquiry and intellectual pedigree of certain departments. This is the freedom of speech of the neoliberal era. In other words, it is the purchasing of a single version of "free speech" by those who can afford it.
And I don't see nearly enough stories about this phenomena.
2
I am reminded of Gloria Steinem's quip that she wanted to put up a sign on the road approaching the entrance to Yale "Danger! Deconstruction ahead!".
Politics, and particularly university politics, have become identity politics. Society has been fractured into communities of grievance and universities are the fun house mirror of this phenomenon.
Politics, and particularly university politics, have become identity politics. Society has been fractured into communities of grievance and universities are the fun house mirror of this phenomenon.
5
Proof is needed, instead of rhetoric, but for ideologues saying it is enough, right?
2
This article is more faux intellectual nonsense from the Left. By age 18, freshman should at least have some sense of decorum. Supposedly, Yale takes the brightest but judging from the demonstration, many seem to be inarticulate jerks spewing their venom. Yale, like other guilt ridden Ivy League quality schools, has changed dramatically over the recent decades by compromising its admissions standards. It accepts a large number of students that otherwise would never be accepted on academic merit. The intention may be well meaning but, the policy essentially has dumbed down the classroom. I experienced that first hand while I attended Wesleyan.
7
"Faux intellectual nonsense?" What did you study at college. You don't say, but to claim that Wesleyan, one of the hardest schools to get into, has somehow "compromised" itself is fantasy.
You must not be familiar with its admissions policy which takes a very high % of minority students. In fact, going back to the late 60's, about 20% of the freshmen were "minority" students. That said, the average SAT scores of the class of 1970 ranked 2d in the nation.
I and other alumni understand the Wesleyan's intent to make a great education more universal. Wesleyan was one of the first schools to open its doors wide to minorities and, most recently, to what are called "1st Generation" students.
However, it is a fact that many of these students would not meet the high academic standards that are applied to most applicants and certainly not to those in my academic era. Moreover, these students are bringing to campus their own social issues which they believe must be addressed by the Wesleyan community. The Administration and a mostly liberal faculty encourages that.
Those with conservative views are drowned out. When an Op Ed article was published last year in The Argus critical of the Black Lives Matter agenda, a considerable number of students went ballistic and demanded a drastic cut in the funding for the school newspaper. So much for freedom of expression. It is evident that many of these students did not learn basic Civics prior to coming to Wesleyan or, as we witnessed, coming to Yale.
Any time the expression of ideas is restricted by ignorance or not tolerated by Political Correctness, then I maintain that Wesleyan's high standards have been compromised.
I and other alumni understand the Wesleyan's intent to make a great education more universal. Wesleyan was one of the first schools to open its doors wide to minorities and, most recently, to what are called "1st Generation" students.
However, it is a fact that many of these students would not meet the high academic standards that are applied to most applicants and certainly not to those in my academic era. Moreover, these students are bringing to campus their own social issues which they believe must be addressed by the Wesleyan community. The Administration and a mostly liberal faculty encourages that.
Those with conservative views are drowned out. When an Op Ed article was published last year in The Argus critical of the Black Lives Matter agenda, a considerable number of students went ballistic and demanded a drastic cut in the funding for the school newspaper. So much for freedom of expression. It is evident that many of these students did not learn basic Civics prior to coming to Wesleyan or, as we witnessed, coming to Yale.
Any time the expression of ideas is restricted by ignorance or not tolerated by Political Correctness, then I maintain that Wesleyan's high standards have been compromised.
6
Another apologist article written in the OP-Ed of a newspaper that increasingly only preaches to a very leftist base. First, this article is ridiculous since it is the political left at universities that is stifling speech, which is sad, since I am a social liberal. I am embarrassed by these people.
Second, as I read this paper, I am increasingly convinced it has lost its way and no longer prints the news, as the news. It is increasingly agenda driven, basically the MSNBC of papers now. It is now so full of anti-Trump articles that I am struggling to find any other news. Oh well, at least I still have my subscription to the WSJ. The hilarious part is that the NYT is so unashamedly left now, that the WSJ represents the mainstream!
Second, as I read this paper, I am increasingly convinced it has lost its way and no longer prints the news, as the news. It is increasingly agenda driven, basically the MSNBC of papers now. It is now so full of anti-Trump articles that I am struggling to find any other news. Oh well, at least I still have my subscription to the WSJ. The hilarious part is that the NYT is so unashamedly left now, that the WSJ represents the mainstream!
6
Mainstream? Murdoch's high jacked paper, once proud and now bogus? What a deluded thought.
2
Repeating that this paper is "unashamedly left" is pure sloppy reading. Saying that it's "lost is way" is also disingenuous, since it's clear you haven't ever read the New York Times.
But whatever gets you through the night.
But whatever gets you through the night.
1
The liberal ethos of free inquiry on University campus thrives only on the conviction of teachers, scholars, students and the administrators, and it welcomes diversity of thought and dialogue between the opposite viewpoints, rather the dogmatic adherence to an ideology or disdain for the other, including the conservatives. If the market forces have come to dictate the academic agenda or the partisan politics has started infecting the academic life or the autonomy of university campuses, the weakness lies within. For what's happening in the society would reflect on the campus life also. It's up to the university fraternity to guard against such forces as negatively impact the academic life.
4
Thank you for reminding me why it was so nice to see Gore Vidal outlive William F. Buckley. The only unfortunate thing about Buckley's passing in early 2008 is that he did not live to see a black man get elected or inaugurated as president. Same with Jesse Helms, who died in July 2008. To the see the looks on the faces of those two angry old men on election night in November 2008 would have been priceless.
14
At about the same time last year, filmmaker Ami Horowitz shot a short film at Yale of students supporting his fake petition to revoke the First Amendment.
Students nodded and agreed with statements like "Microagressions should not be protected" and "You shouldn't have to be exposed to things you don't want to hear."
At the end of the film, Horowitz said it had taken him only an hour to collect 50 signatures, from the 100 people he stopped. He said that if he'd been there all day, he could have collected hundreds of signatures.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/18/do-yalies-want-to-kill-...
Students nodded and agreed with statements like "Microagressions should not be protected" and "You shouldn't have to be exposed to things you don't want to hear."
At the end of the film, Horowitz said it had taken him only an hour to collect 50 signatures, from the 100 people he stopped. He said that if he'd been there all day, he could have collected hundreds of signatures.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/18/do-yalies-want-to-kill-...
51
I watched William F. Buckley Jr bamboozle his all to full of themselves guests by using words they didn't understand. The guests were always afraid to admit they didn't understand that Buckley used as if they were common everyday words everybody should know. Then along came Noam Chomsky and Rene Levesque.
When Chomsky came on the show he showed Buckley for the pseudo-intellectual he truly was. With a lot of hemming and hawing and promises of Chomsky again appearing on the show we all knew Chomsky would never appear on the show. Buckley excelled at pulling wings off of flies which probably explains a lot about today's right wing and America's media's attempt to dumb down discourse.
Rene Levesque was a French speaking Quebec journalist from Quebec's hinterland who Buckley with his vaunted intellect assumed he could easily conquer. Rene Levesque was a giant and showed Buckley to be the pipsqueak bully he truly was and whose greatest claim to fame was be the son of one of the world's richest men.
Buckley defined what America's right wing is all about the pride that comes from choosing the right parents and where you are born.
When Chomsky came on the show he showed Buckley for the pseudo-intellectual he truly was. With a lot of hemming and hawing and promises of Chomsky again appearing on the show we all knew Chomsky would never appear on the show. Buckley excelled at pulling wings off of flies which probably explains a lot about today's right wing and America's media's attempt to dumb down discourse.
Rene Levesque was a French speaking Quebec journalist from Quebec's hinterland who Buckley with his vaunted intellect assumed he could easily conquer. Rene Levesque was a giant and showed Buckley to be the pipsqueak bully he truly was and whose greatest claim to fame was be the son of one of the world's richest men.
Buckley defined what America's right wing is all about the pride that comes from choosing the right parents and where you are born.
2
If that same manipulation had been done with a bunch of Trump supporters milling about before a rally would they answer any differently. Actually, in our society if you were to go into any large group of individuals I wonder if you could do the same thing. It isn't like every student at Yale or the average citizen on the street understands the implications of "revoking" or inhibiting First Amendment rights. I don't think that film means anything other than there are a few young adults on college campuses today (as there always was) representing all points on the political spectrum who may be ill-informed about a few things. Maybe go back and ask those same students the same questions the day after they graduate and see what their answers are might be more useful. Or maybe after their first year in the real world. But that wouldn't serve the right-wing purpose now would it.
2
PC or its opposite implies one or the other, which is another name for extremism or polarization. But the real world is multi-colored filled with gray. This last statement may sound like a clashing metaphor and it is, for extreme political correctness is just another instance of extreme intolerance, its supposed mortal enemy.
Everything is in context. A word itself means nothing without context. How it fits into a sentence, a paragraph, the essay, on and on... And yet, people hang on to a single word as if it were a sacred cow or devil incarnate. This may be okay for a child who has yet to develop abstract and/or conceptual thinking. It is not for college students - worse for faculty - who are supposed to be able to form complex thinking and mental processes.
Indeed, there are a lot of flame baiting going on. Mature people understand returning fire is just what the baiters want. Yet, many succumb to such baiting. Instead, when the mature demonstrate their maturity, the baiters are shown who they are, immature provocateurs.
Everything is in context. A word itself means nothing without context. How it fits into a sentence, a paragraph, the essay, on and on... And yet, people hang on to a single word as if it were a sacred cow or devil incarnate. This may be okay for a child who has yet to develop abstract and/or conceptual thinking. It is not for college students - worse for faculty - who are supposed to be able to form complex thinking and mental processes.
Indeed, there are a lot of flame baiting going on. Mature people understand returning fire is just what the baiters want. Yet, many succumb to such baiting. Instead, when the mature demonstrate their maturity, the baiters are shown who they are, immature provocateurs.
8
The authors can reassess their Democratic Party view of life after they have speaking invitations withdrawn in the face of "outrage" and a "firestorm of protest" from some entitled mini-mob on some campus.
26
Thin skin much?
I found this article to be offensive and filled with "microagression" There should have been a "trigger warning" at the beginning. One of my rights have been restricted, but I am not sure which one.
103
If you're not sure which of your rights have been restricted, may I suggest foolishness? I'd use something more potent and explicit -- a macro-aggression given your disdain for the micro variety -- but this is a family newspaper though I'm not sure what branch you're from.
1
I found this editorial to be confused, badly written and boring. Not worthy of the Times. How's that for micro-aggression?
2
The insidious part of the article is that colleges and universities are brands that have essentially corporate like overlords that try to eliminate discord or disharmony that might tarnish the fund-raising sheen of the "brand." One president was recently fired for hiring a company to scrub the internet clean of conduct that she believed tarnished her brand-wagon.
Kent State's brand survived when students were killed there in the 60s. Yale will survive, but what is lost in all of this is an institution devoted to education, research and intellectualism without fear of recriminations, from alumni, media or is coddled myopic students. At least U of Chicago is pretending to stay old school and honor what a university is supposed to be. We'll see how long that lasts when the youtube likes pile up over some hissy-fit over failure to issue a trigger warning...
Kent State's brand survived when students were killed there in the 60s. Yale will survive, but what is lost in all of this is an institution devoted to education, research and intellectualism without fear of recriminations, from alumni, media or is coddled myopic students. At least U of Chicago is pretending to stay old school and honor what a university is supposed to be. We'll see how long that lasts when the youtube likes pile up over some hissy-fit over failure to issue a trigger warning...
30
"Political correctness" itself has been redefined by the Left to mean only gratuitous rudeness and giving offense--in short, unbridled bigotry--in order to preserve their righteous indignation. The latter helps them control the true political narrative --emphasis on "political"--where race, religion, sex, etc. are part of the policy. All they have to do is charge that a counter-policy is "offensive" and it gets squelched, regardless of its true merits. "Political correctness" is understood by free speech advocates as a way for one political persuasion to determine all by itself what is "correct" or "acceptable" speech so that it can silence any counter narrative by suggesting that contains "politically incorrect" speech.
3
The intolerant love to criticize their liberal targets of being hypocritical, for not being tolerant of the intolerant. This is a junior-high-school debate move, but they use it and they're proud of it.
16
Yes. They're proud of it because it works. See Donald Trump rallies, and his recent resurgence in the polls.
1
Where are these defenders of free speech and enemies of political correctness when a football player doesn't stand up for "The Star-Spangled Banner"? I don't see or hear any of these groups supporting Colin Kaepernick' politically incorrect gesture. In fact, you can bet that if a college quarterback -- or any other athlete in football or basketball at Yale or any other university -- refused to stand up for the national anthem before a game, alumni like Scott C. Johnston and professors like Roger Kimball would be attacking him viciously.
Is it politically incorrect to call out these obnoxious hypocrites?
Is it politically incorrect to call out these obnoxious hypocrites?
23
Your chronic defensiveness speaks volumes. If you dislike something, you employ the meaningless term "politically incorrect" to attack it. A sophist's merry-go-round, a 3rd rate mind.
Freedom to speak simply means that you can undertake any form of expression.
It says absolutely nothing about how that communication will be accepted by others.
The good QB has been and is free to insult the flag and the national anthem - that does not entail that we should pat him on the back and say: good job.
It says absolutely nothing about how that communication will be accepted by others.
The good QB has been and is free to insult the flag and the national anthem - that does not entail that we should pat him on the back and say: good job.
1
No one is debating Kaepernick's right to act the fool. Stop changing the subject.
Celebrities can call a press conference anytime they want for publicity. There's no need to smear and insult the nation for the actions of a few. That's the definition of bigotry...something Kaepernick claims to be protesting.
He simply doesn't have a clue of anything Martin L King taught us; to judge each other by the INDIVIDUAL “content of our character". King didn’t attack America by insulting its symbols. He shamed the US government for not living up to the nation’s OWN CREED spelled out in the Constitution. How far we’ve come…as King’s successful strategy is completely abandoned by this angry well intentioned, but extremely naïve new activism.
Kaepernick and every other angry person over-reacting to police interaction videos (which also completely ignores all other races getting killed) are pre-judging everyone else for the bad few in some police districts...that's called “prejudice”.
We shouldn’t blame the sky-high Chicago murder rate on “black people” and we shouldn’t blame the nation because “some” can’t live up to its creed. Sorry, you don’t fight bigotry with more bigotry.
Celebrities can call a press conference anytime they want for publicity. There's no need to smear and insult the nation for the actions of a few. That's the definition of bigotry...something Kaepernick claims to be protesting.
He simply doesn't have a clue of anything Martin L King taught us; to judge each other by the INDIVIDUAL “content of our character". King didn’t attack America by insulting its symbols. He shamed the US government for not living up to the nation’s OWN CREED spelled out in the Constitution. How far we’ve come…as King’s successful strategy is completely abandoned by this angry well intentioned, but extremely naïve new activism.
Kaepernick and every other angry person over-reacting to police interaction videos (which also completely ignores all other races getting killed) are pre-judging everyone else for the bad few in some police districts...that's called “prejudice”.
We shouldn’t blame the sky-high Chicago murder rate on “black people” and we shouldn’t blame the nation because “some” can’t live up to its creed. Sorry, you don’t fight bigotry with more bigotry.
1
I cannot remember a time in which the training of young people was thought to include exposure to racial slurs, sneers, or sexual content of any particular kind. Sure, we had hear those things, and they were on campus, and we sometimes indulged in all kinds of "non-PC" activities and self-expression. I'd be amazed if that were different now. But in the classroom and in connection with administration, we were there to be educated as civil, responsible adults and professional people. It wasn't the job of our teachers either to insist that we accept slurs or that we not engage in them; the classroom was not the place, and we were expected not to have to be told that. Most material needful to adult understanding of academics and professions has zero to do with the controversies and clashes and angers of the street or politics, or should have. There is a place for those things. But making university classrooms the battlegrounds for these clashes, letting university administrators or students demand the "right" to be offensive is not "education". And students have no need to hear what they already well know is out there in the way of provocation. For God's sake, let there be a safe space for learning. That's what universities once were. And what they should be.
59
Regardless of what the First Amendment permits and protects, I hope people, including students, faculty, administrators, conservative and liberal will have the common sense and common decency to see that a "free market for ideas" and a "free market for insults" are not the same thing.
Unfortunately, it seems that common sense and common decency have become uncommon virtues in our society.
Unfortunately, it seems that common sense and common decency have become uncommon virtues in our society.
4
If we make the university a safe space for learning for God's sake, it wouldn't be a one. Let the minds roar where gods fear, for Mind's sake!
1
And where is the 'place for those things?' We do our country no favor by pretending that the problems of societies do not exist. The see-no-evil strategy does solve the problems. Difficult issues are being discussed on campus these days and that is a good thing. Simple 'heads-up' notices in the syllabus...no more than we do in any public broadcast..is not coddling, but simply good teaching. The rest of this kerfuffle is mostly noise, mostly generated by those who would like to prevent those difficult discussions from ever happening and so to preserve the status quo.
2
William F. Buckley Sr was an avowed fascist who sponsored Joseph Raymond McCarthy's rampage against dissent. Senior's children burned a cross in front of a Jewish summer resort in 1937. William F. Buckley Junior wrote a book extolling the virtue of Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt. William F. Buckley's National Review supported Apartheid in America until the 1970s.
The real enemies of free speech are the Buckley fascists who call themselves conservatives. Citizen's United stems from the power and influence of the Buckley family and James Lane Buckley.
Political correctness demands we call them by there chosen appellation of conservative but history tells us they are proud supporters of a fascist causes until they leave this vale of tears.
Fascism is a legitimate political philosophy and should be vigorously defended by its adherents and should not interfere with the legitimate political philosophy of conservative. The term neo-liberal should have no place in our lexicon neo-liberals are the true heirs of the term conservative. Let us clean up the language so maybe this debate can have real meaning.
When Buckley Senior and his ilk decided that left wing political philosophies had no rights on American soil they destroyed the first amendment and with it the country founded back during the enlightenment.
Yale seems an excellent place to begin to take back America after all for the founders God had no part to play in planning America's future.
The real enemies of free speech are the Buckley fascists who call themselves conservatives. Citizen's United stems from the power and influence of the Buckley family and James Lane Buckley.
Political correctness demands we call them by there chosen appellation of conservative but history tells us they are proud supporters of a fascist causes until they leave this vale of tears.
Fascism is a legitimate political philosophy and should be vigorously defended by its adherents and should not interfere with the legitimate political philosophy of conservative. The term neo-liberal should have no place in our lexicon neo-liberals are the true heirs of the term conservative. Let us clean up the language so maybe this debate can have real meaning.
When Buckley Senior and his ilk decided that left wing political philosophies had no rights on American soil they destroyed the first amendment and with it the country founded back during the enlightenment.
Yale seems an excellent place to begin to take back America after all for the founders God had no part to play in planning America's future.
21
William F. Buckley Jr. has been dead for eight years. He was about 83 when he died, long out of the public eye. You are getting old, Moe. I remember when Buckley was a feisty young conservative on TV all the time, debating liberals.....in the mid-70s.
The idea that Buckley has the slightest influence on conservatism TODAY is absurd. Most college students wouldn't even know his name. He died when they were in middle school. God knows how long Mr. Buckley SENIOR has been gone -- I am 60 and I have no memory of him whatsoever.
BTW: the McCarthy hearings were in the early 1950s. HELLO! before I was BORN! You can't seriously think they have any bearing today, outside of being an odd historical anomaly and dusty relic of the past.
The idea that Buckley has the slightest influence on conservatism TODAY is absurd. Most college students wouldn't even know his name. He died when they were in middle school. God knows how long Mr. Buckley SENIOR has been gone -- I am 60 and I have no memory of him whatsoever.
BTW: the McCarthy hearings were in the early 1950s. HELLO! before I was BORN! You can't seriously think they have any bearing today, outside of being an odd historical anomaly and dusty relic of the past.
3
Con,
Buckley never was a conservative. He called himself a conservative, he was a fascist. Did you read this op-ed? Junior's legacy lives on. Citizens United is a gift from Bill's still alive brother Senator James Lane Buckley.
Yes I am getting old but I am not getting stupid, I still read and I still understand history.
When I watch the news and see what is happening in Caracas I can't help but think about William F. Buckley Senior. If there was no Buckley there never would have been Chavez and Maduro.
Buckley never was a conservative. He called himself a conservative, he was a fascist. Did you read this op-ed? Junior's legacy lives on. Citizens United is a gift from Bill's still alive brother Senator James Lane Buckley.
Yes I am getting old but I am not getting stupid, I still read and I still understand history.
When I watch the news and see what is happening in Caracas I can't help but think about William F. Buckley Senior. If there was no Buckley there never would have been Chavez and Maduro.
3
May I recommend the following for reading on both sides of the issue:
https://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/liberalcapitulation-kimball-3203
Were this a university seminar, I would characterize it as "required reading".
https://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/liberalcapitulation-kimball-3203
Were this a university seminar, I would characterize it as "required reading".
1
This article misses the point entirely. Open bigotry is the most important aspect of free speech, provided it has a point to make, no matter how offensive. The idea that political correctness = politeness is precisely the problem, and must be rectified through institutional nationalism.
Or , if you define political correctness as any kind system of belief, as many leftists do, then the solution becomes simple. Public speech should privilege nationalist opinions, and punish egalitarian ones
Or , if you define political correctness as any kind system of belief, as many leftists do, then the solution becomes simple. Public speech should privilege nationalist opinions, and punish egalitarian ones
4
Nationalist movements are defined by what they are against, not by what they are for. Open bigotry is justified by attacking "political correctness" when it is really attacking level discourse and argument. The intent, as you point out, it to "punish" and to elevate a narrow vision of aggressive control to appeal to those stuck in adolescent rage.
If politeness is incorrect, how do you define "civilized" behavior and, afertwards, "civilization"?
2
Free-market purism was an extremist indoctrination.
The idea that a constructive society was defined by the extent to which personal self-interest was emphasized as the only path to a common good was a myth.
The results of Adam Smiths bumbling & Ayn Rand's rants are in: Unfettered greed-is-god ideology is an addiction which encourages a small set of diseased individuals to obsessively fixate on excessive accumulation of personal profit at the expense of everyone & everything else. This has been a disaster for the planet & any positive cultural community.
Greed, self-interest, excessive accumulation, consumerism & paper-wealth growth-obsessed corporatism has not engendered general happiness or contentment.
One only has to look at the mood of American society since Reagan: The USA, wealthiest nation on earth with its vast virgin landmass and richer fat-cats than the cult of fat-catism has ever produced since robber-barons & the gilded-age, is now a genuinely vile society.
They rail & rant at some straw-man of 'godless' socialists, but If there's one thing the era of Reagan/Rush/Beck/Palin/Trump/Ailes et. al. has proven, it's that free-market fat-catists are anything but 'godly', or Christian, or sane, or even in any way wholesome or positive for society.
Self-interest is not in any way our sole evolutionary impulse. The cult of greed is corrupt.
Unless people can individually use their 'liberty' to become genuine, generous, compassionate & kind, the entire society fails.
The idea that a constructive society was defined by the extent to which personal self-interest was emphasized as the only path to a common good was a myth.
The results of Adam Smiths bumbling & Ayn Rand's rants are in: Unfettered greed-is-god ideology is an addiction which encourages a small set of diseased individuals to obsessively fixate on excessive accumulation of personal profit at the expense of everyone & everything else. This has been a disaster for the planet & any positive cultural community.
Greed, self-interest, excessive accumulation, consumerism & paper-wealth growth-obsessed corporatism has not engendered general happiness or contentment.
One only has to look at the mood of American society since Reagan: The USA, wealthiest nation on earth with its vast virgin landmass and richer fat-cats than the cult of fat-catism has ever produced since robber-barons & the gilded-age, is now a genuinely vile society.
They rail & rant at some straw-man of 'godless' socialists, but If there's one thing the era of Reagan/Rush/Beck/Palin/Trump/Ailes et. al. has proven, it's that free-market fat-catists are anything but 'godly', or Christian, or sane, or even in any way wholesome or positive for society.
Self-interest is not in any way our sole evolutionary impulse. The cult of greed is corrupt.
Unless people can individually use their 'liberty' to become genuine, generous, compassionate & kind, the entire society fails.
30
Pl3ease be fair. There are no fatter cats than the Clinton's. They wear the garb bof the leftist tribe becasue that is part of their brand, nothing more.
2
Greed is, after all, one of the seven "deadly" sins. The "Christians" of whom you write have forgotten this. How long since the phrase "for the good of the country" has been heard in the halls of Congress? It once meant the land and those on it. How many congresspersons understand the meaning of that phrase?
With exploitive Republicans we have become the "homeland" (Hitler's "fatherland") instead of a country. By that trick of language, added to the corrupting influences of several twentieth century Republican presidents, we are diminished as a political and social entity in the world.
Why is it that the economy thrives when we have democratic presidents? Is it that the mood of the country lifts?
And why is it that Republicans spew out hateful untruths about the poor, immigrants, Democrats, and everyone else who is not in lockstep with them? Perhaps it is that they value money more than open minds.
With exploitive Republicans we have become the "homeland" (Hitler's "fatherland") instead of a country. By that trick of language, added to the corrupting influences of several twentieth century Republican presidents, we are diminished as a political and social entity in the world.
Why is it that the economy thrives when we have democratic presidents? Is it that the mood of the country lifts?
And why is it that Republicans spew out hateful untruths about the poor, immigrants, Democrats, and everyone else who is not in lockstep with them? Perhaps it is that they value money more than open minds.
2
Conservatives have railed at liberal, progressive, leftist, colleges for the last 30 years. In the beginning faculty, administrators and donors were safe from reprisal and also safe from the so-called political correctness of kowtowing to demands of conservatives. The conservatives wrap themselves in the protectionism of free speech but under the guise of protecting the"liberties" held dear by conservatives. In other words women's rights demeans and abuses women. Abortion rights are opposed because abortion harms women. Corporations are people and may make contributions and have their corporate views heard as would an individual. Conservatives demand that religious views be heard but not criticized because it threatens freedom religion. What conservatives really want is no dialogue that opposes their narrow view. Progressives, according to conservatives are attacking civil liberties. It is a very strained view of freedom. But young college men and women without worldly experience accept this biased view without understanding how it undermines freedom to learn and explore.
The Black Lives Matter organization as well as the BDS movement that excoriates not only Israel burt Jewish students on campus are two prime examples of intemperate groups demanding recognition and are accommodated because deans and administrative personnel fear the outrage that will result if those groups are challenged.
A college is a place of learning. It should not be a platform for conservatism.
The Black Lives Matter organization as well as the BDS movement that excoriates not only Israel burt Jewish students on campus are two prime examples of intemperate groups demanding recognition and are accommodated because deans and administrative personnel fear the outrage that will result if those groups are challenged.
A college is a place of learning. It should not be a platform for conservatism.
18
Another op-ed from the NYT's branch office in the rabbit hole.
Never-the-less I took the time to read all of the comments here and realized that this op-ed (and its publisher) has done a real service to the subject(s) of this piece. I suggest Prof. Sleeper make copies of all of the letters herein and use them as discussion points, in conjunction with his op-ed, presenting them to his students in his 'revised' course on 'free speech'. If done it would be interesting to sit in and listen to the responses - I bet it would be lively.
Never-the-less I took the time to read all of the comments here and realized that this op-ed (and its publisher) has done a real service to the subject(s) of this piece. I suggest Prof. Sleeper make copies of all of the letters herein and use them as discussion points, in conjunction with his op-ed, presenting them to his students in his 'revised' course on 'free speech'. If done it would be interesting to sit in and listen to the responses - I bet it would be lively.
2
The idea that any mainstream public or private university is a "platform for conservatism" (!!!) is so hilariously incorrect, that it is either a joke or you are delusional. Have you BEEN to campus in the last 40 years? They are bastions of hard-left liberalism!
4
I am not sure which conservatives "demand that religious views be heard but not criticized because it threatens freedom religion." Perhaps some do this, but they are the outliers. Just because they are conservative does not mean that one can characterize what conservatives want with respect to free speech is " no dialogue that opposes their narrow view."
The precise opposite is the case.
"Progressives, according to conservatives are attacking civil liberties. It is a very strained view of freedom." The civil liberty in question is freedom of speech; supporting freedom of speech and condemning political correctness (control of the political narrative through speech suppression of the opposition) is hardly a very strained view of freedom. It is the epitome of freedom.
The precise opposite is the case.
"Progressives, according to conservatives are attacking civil liberties. It is a very strained view of freedom." The civil liberty in question is freedom of speech; supporting freedom of speech and condemning political correctness (control of the political narrative through speech suppression of the opposition) is hardly a very strained view of freedom. It is the epitome of freedom.
1
It's become apparent to this observer of our culture, that over the decades a divide and conquer strategy has been employed to make the American populace bi-polar, red-blue, as it benefits the political elite, the elite in general. It makes the people reliant on government to act as referees. While we're diverted by what's become today the Trump-Clinton circus, we don't realize we've been hoodwinked with our rights essentially taken away from us, particularly the right to happiness and healthy outlooks on life. We're saddled with so much false nonsense to worry about. Fear and loathing rules as Hunter Thompson observed decades ago.
We've been had folks. The enemy isn't your liberal or conservative neighbor but the system that created the divide. Free speech isn't so free anymore. We're a stifled people on both sides of the aisle, as American royalty wants it by design.
Time to all speak up at once, and not to take it out on your neighbor, together we can make America a more free society by putting pressure on government and not visa-versa as they've done since at least Eisenhower, if not before. Demand better from those in power, they're supposed to serve us, remember, as we pay them. It may be time to flip the bromide, and ask what your country can do for you to create a healthier living space for all. Happiness, health, peace.
We've been had folks. The enemy isn't your liberal or conservative neighbor but the system that created the divide. Free speech isn't so free anymore. We're a stifled people on both sides of the aisle, as American royalty wants it by design.
Time to all speak up at once, and not to take it out on your neighbor, together we can make America a more free society by putting pressure on government and not visa-versa as they've done since at least Eisenhower, if not before. Demand better from those in power, they're supposed to serve us, remember, as we pay them. It may be time to flip the bromide, and ask what your country can do for you to create a healthier living space for all. Happiness, health, peace.
15
And who runs our Congress? Corporations with corporate money. And CEO's want a compliant workforce. We have become an oligarchy.
Publicly funded elections would improve the situation.
That said, I appreciate why both President Obama and Hillary Clinton have taken corporate money. Given that Republican control of Congress as it is currently manifest is a death sentence for "making America great again," given Citizens United, these two real public servants have (had) no choice.
Publicly funded elections would improve the situation.
That said, I appreciate why both President Obama and Hillary Clinton have taken corporate money. Given that Republican control of Congress as it is currently manifest is a death sentence for "making America great again," given Citizens United, these two real public servants have (had) no choice.
1
A speaker comes to campus and builds a case that ignores critical evidence, tramples on facts, and sidesteps the most serious criticisms while pretending to address them. Listeners are supposed to sit quietly, grinding their teeth, until perhaps there is a period for questions. This is difficult but there are not good alternatives.
Perhaps some people should be invited only for discussions, not for lectures. If speakers who treat facts with contempt are invited, it should be publicized that they treat facts with contempt, to prepare the audience to evaluate them fairly.
Perhaps some people should be invited only for discussions, not for lectures. If speakers who treat facts with contempt are invited, it should be publicized that they treat facts with contempt, to prepare the audience to evaluate them fairly.
10
Most people do not need to have their opinions mashed up and spoon fed to them before a lecture or discussion. The whole point of college is to be you put into situations where you have to actually THINK on the fly and process the information in real time. Life is supposed to be uncomfortable. It is the discomfort that makes us grow, not mashed up spoon fed opinions that we are supposed to have.
My suggestion to anyone, go and actually talk to someone who holds a view that you really disagree with. Actually listen to their reasons as to why they believe as they do with an open mind. We need far fewer trigger warnings and pre-processed feelings and opinions, not more.
My suggestion to anyone, go and actually talk to someone who holds a view that you really disagree with. Actually listen to their reasons as to why they believe as they do with an open mind. We need far fewer trigger warnings and pre-processed feelings and opinions, not more.
4
Who decides what is "critical evidence"?
Who decides what are "facts"?
Who decides what is or is not "serious criticism"?
Oh right -- YOU -- the hard left -- and only you. You are the sole arbiter of what is the truth and what is a lie.
Does it occur to you that perhaps I -- and many others -- sit their quietly while LIBERALS speak....grinding our teeth...until there is a period for questions? then get shouted down? or called "stupid and low information" and our concerns entirely dismissed out of hand?
Who decides what are "facts"?
Who decides what is or is not "serious criticism"?
Oh right -- YOU -- the hard left -- and only you. You are the sole arbiter of what is the truth and what is a lie.
Does it occur to you that perhaps I -- and many others -- sit their quietly while LIBERALS speak....grinding our teeth...until there is a period for questions? then get shouted down? or called "stupid and low information" and our concerns entirely dismissed out of hand?
4
Baloney! The author failed to mention Erika and Nicholas Christakis who were hounded at Yale for suggesting that students should be able to select their own Halloween costumes. "Safe spaces" and "trigger warnings" are a serious threat to higher education.
79
Pirates and criminals like "Free" markets too.
6
Not sure what that means. Are you equating expression of ideas that you disagree with with criminal behavior? If so you make an elegant point regarding why censorship is dangerous. I somehow doubt it though.
2
If only it was as simple as Mr. Sleeper contends and if only the enemies of free speech and academic freedom were the combo of traditional Buckley-style conservatives and the so-called "alt right". Those two groups are undoubtedly often hypocrites of the highest order who seek victim-hood status, not freewheeling debate. But enemies of robust academic freedom are not only on that side of politics and you wear some interesting blinders, Mr. Sleeper.
That said, the University of Chicago, the producer of the overdue letter in question is hardly a bastion of movement conservatism. Neither is Prof. Chait of NYU, and a whole host of others appalled by what they see on many elite campuses. Your attempt in your penultimate paragraph to blame it on the excesses of youth (while true as far as it goes) is an inadequate and unconvincing explanation. I call all of this nonsense on campus academic and progressive amnesia. Progressives always, always were the free speech champions on campus. A proud legacy forgotten and trashed. Progressives always called for the most freewheeling discussions on the most challenging, dare I say, offensive (to some) subjects. There were no cry rooms. There was no play dough and cookies and warnings. Shame on this new generation of academics. I give the students a pass mostly, because as you say, they are young, and make mistakes.
That said, the University of Chicago, the producer of the overdue letter in question is hardly a bastion of movement conservatism. Neither is Prof. Chait of NYU, and a whole host of others appalled by what they see on many elite campuses. Your attempt in your penultimate paragraph to blame it on the excesses of youth (while true as far as it goes) is an inadequate and unconvincing explanation. I call all of this nonsense on campus academic and progressive amnesia. Progressives always, always were the free speech champions on campus. A proud legacy forgotten and trashed. Progressives always called for the most freewheeling discussions on the most challenging, dare I say, offensive (to some) subjects. There were no cry rooms. There was no play dough and cookies and warnings. Shame on this new generation of academics. I give the students a pass mostly, because as you say, they are young, and make mistakes.
37
Free Speech until they don't like what is said.
49
Pay no attention to that hysterical Yale student shouting down a professor. She is not "per se" a threat to free speech. No, pay attention to the person shooting the video of the student shouting the professor down. That person is the real threat to free speech. He harmed free speech by publishing the video. The harm wasn't done by the student's "frenzy," but by the "the frenzied way" the Yale protest was "portrayed".
Wait; it gets better. The person shooting the video just happened to be Greg Lukianoff of FIRE, an organization that defends free speech on campus. He is obviously a card carrying member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. So the video is part of a nefarious plot to use free speech on campus as a Trojan Horse to impose market values on our society.
Sleeper lashes out at some of the usual suspects of the left (casino-like financing, predatory lending, marketers of capitalism, Donald J. Trump...). No evidence is offered, nor does Sleeper explain what these interests stand to gain from suppressing free speech on campus.
I didn't make this up. Jim Sleeper did. Come on, Sleeper. It is no coincidence that Lukianoff happened to be on the scene to shoot the video of the dreadful ranting student protester. She and her fellow protesters were fresh from disrupting Lukianoff's own free speech at an earlier meeting!
Are you going to believe Sleeper, or are you going to believe your own eyes?
Wait; it gets better. The person shooting the video just happened to be Greg Lukianoff of FIRE, an organization that defends free speech on campus. He is obviously a card carrying member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. So the video is part of a nefarious plot to use free speech on campus as a Trojan Horse to impose market values on our society.
Sleeper lashes out at some of the usual suspects of the left (casino-like financing, predatory lending, marketers of capitalism, Donald J. Trump...). No evidence is offered, nor does Sleeper explain what these interests stand to gain from suppressing free speech on campus.
I didn't make this up. Jim Sleeper did. Come on, Sleeper. It is no coincidence that Lukianoff happened to be on the scene to shoot the video of the dreadful ranting student protester. She and her fellow protesters were fresh from disrupting Lukianoff's own free speech at an earlier meeting!
Are you going to believe Sleeper, or are you going to believe your own eyes?
51
I disagree. There has to be a balance between those wanting a restrictive university (e.g. as if shouting down a professor will change his/her) thoughts and behaviour, and those who would call out the disruptor by videotaping them.
Shouting down a professor is a challenge to free speech, just as calling security to remove the shouter is also a challenge.
If you let the shouter shout down a professor, then that might initiate a whole slew of these types of disruptors. The what might that lead to? A repressive university where only the shouters can dictate what passes for freedom of expression.
AS for the last sentence, "Are you going to believe Sleeper, or are you going to believe your own eyes?", I prefer to hear the 2 sides of this debate in order to make my own decision. If not, then where is the "real" freedom of expression?
As S.G. Tallentyre once wrote: 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' That my friend, is true freedom of expression at its' best.
Shouting down a professor is a challenge to free speech, just as calling security to remove the shouter is also a challenge.
If you let the shouter shout down a professor, then that might initiate a whole slew of these types of disruptors. The what might that lead to? A repressive university where only the shouters can dictate what passes for freedom of expression.
AS for the last sentence, "Are you going to believe Sleeper, or are you going to believe your own eyes?", I prefer to hear the 2 sides of this debate in order to make my own decision. If not, then where is the "real" freedom of expression?
As S.G. Tallentyre once wrote: 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' That my friend, is true freedom of expression at its' best.
Um, I'm a self-styled Right Wing Extremist, 60s rad turned progressively (oops) more conservo since the Reagan years, in part b/c 1960s opposing the Vietnam war had me march under a Viet Cong flag - You had to be there-, and in larger part b/c of the rampant, virulent, visceral, eternal/updated JOO-hatred in the Left
I've long-since defunded my two schools, Columbia and U Mich, both schools judicially affirmed compensatory racism
ALSO, nascent then, were Red Guard Mao-ists / academic vandals of the Left. Stalinist airbrushing of history was in the future, or per '1984,' written in 1948, prescient
The nascent intellectual fascism of the Left was visible, then, Columbia May 1966, with a successful shut-down of NROTC ceremony.
There were no sanctions; I said this will recur.
When 1968 blew up I had some smug Cassandra satisfaction (Cassandra was cursed, to see the future and to NOT be believed)
1966 also saw Berkeley's Peoples' Park, developer vs public spaces (early Occupy), and Ronald Reagan becoming governor over that
A half century later, eye-blink, 50 years of 'progressive' academic fascism and descent (NOT dissent), this article is about me
I have great respect for FIRE, know people who work there, find this article ...banal... in tedious bogey-man-ization / conspiracy eg the Koch brothers and other ogres
Let's hear from other readers, I am an outlier,
-
PS I doubt many readers will understand 'Jacobin'
and 'ordered liberty' is a dog whistle,cf #nevertrumo
I've long-since defunded my two schools, Columbia and U Mich, both schools judicially affirmed compensatory racism
ALSO, nascent then, were Red Guard Mao-ists / academic vandals of the Left. Stalinist airbrushing of history was in the future, or per '1984,' written in 1948, prescient
The nascent intellectual fascism of the Left was visible, then, Columbia May 1966, with a successful shut-down of NROTC ceremony.
There were no sanctions; I said this will recur.
When 1968 blew up I had some smug Cassandra satisfaction (Cassandra was cursed, to see the future and to NOT be believed)
1966 also saw Berkeley's Peoples' Park, developer vs public spaces (early Occupy), and Ronald Reagan becoming governor over that
A half century later, eye-blink, 50 years of 'progressive' academic fascism and descent (NOT dissent), this article is about me
I have great respect for FIRE, know people who work there, find this article ...banal... in tedious bogey-man-ization / conspiracy eg the Koch brothers and other ogres
Let's hear from other readers, I am an outlier,
-
PS I doubt many readers will understand 'Jacobin'
and 'ordered liberty' is a dog whistle,cf #nevertrumo
11
Is this one of those LSD flashbacks we heard so much about?
3
Weak op-ed, although not surprising considering the author is a Yale lecturer who must deal with these students on a daily basis. The left should totally give up defending the coddled students. They are wrong, full stop.
Congrats to FIRE in its efforts, and congrats to those alumni who are withholding their donations. The only point in this op-ed that makes sense is that the capitalistic turn of the university is destroying its integrity - yet it is also the only way to hold the administrators accountable. They will reject the irrational and hateful identity politics of the students only when it ceases being profitable to them.
Congrats to FIRE in its efforts, and congrats to those alumni who are withholding their donations. The only point in this op-ed that makes sense is that the capitalistic turn of the university is destroying its integrity - yet it is also the only way to hold the administrators accountable. They will reject the irrational and hateful identity politics of the students only when it ceases being profitable to them.
44
Candide: Please say WHY you believe this is a weak op-ed, rather than immediately changing the subject to an irrelevant glance at a single feature of the author's biography. The latter is called "ad hominem argument".
1
What a self-serving bunch of nonsense. In other words, alumni donors should simply suck it up if self-appointed leftist agitprop groups on campus should harass anyone who dares question their various orthodoxies, whether its by shouting down those who disagree with them, disrupting student discussions in which views contrary to progressive orthodoxy are expressed, on especially in the case of seminars in which pro-Israel speakers are present actually physically disrupt and prevent the free exchange of ideas to the point of violence? This silly op-ed is actually Orwellian in its hypocrisy.
94
I've never read that "pro-Israel (demonstrators) actually physically disrupt and prevent the free exchange of ideas to the point of violence?", but I certainly read that anti-Israel protesters have.
I live in Montreal, Quebec, and Anti-Israel demonstrators have denied Pro-Israel people from commenting, by shouting them down. Also, anti-Israel demonstrators have on more than one occasion denied
pro-Israel and Israeli spokespeople from making speeches on campus, where the scheduled speech has been cancelled for fear of violence.
I'd be glad to listen to your argument if you provide some citations!
I live in Montreal, Quebec, and Anti-Israel demonstrators have denied Pro-Israel people from commenting, by shouting them down. Also, anti-Israel demonstrators have on more than one occasion denied
pro-Israel and Israeli spokespeople from making speeches on campus, where the scheduled speech has been cancelled for fear of violence.
I'd be glad to listen to your argument if you provide some citations!
4
Major: That's what I said. Reread what I wrote. "on (sic - typing late at night) especially in the case of seminars in which pro-Israel speakers are present actually physically disrupt (referring to the leftist agitprop groups) and prevent the free exchange of ideas to the point of violence."
What I should have added is this guy is claiming alumni donors are impeding free speech on campus -- in other words opinions he agrees with -- if they deny further donations in the face of spineless intimidated university administrations who won't prevent such harassment by leftist agitprop groups in the name of PC, or in other cases actually agree with such groups and allow them to promote their views and their harassment to the detriment of anyone they disagree with.
What I should have added is this guy is claiming alumni donors are impeding free speech on campus -- in other words opinions he agrees with -- if they deny further donations in the face of spineless intimidated university administrations who won't prevent such harassment by leftist agitprop groups in the name of PC, or in other cases actually agree with such groups and allow them to promote their views and their harassment to the detriment of anyone they disagree with.
1
Give me a break. How many speakers have been disinvited on campuses at the behest of any Conservatives? How many times have you read articles of students fear of presenting a paper or research the might not meet a Conservative viewpoint?
Even more telling is that you do not discuss the donations of the Hollywood elite or George Soros, who is probably the one individual with the most monetary influence on the American political discourse. These are all Leftists.
What a biased load.
Even more telling is that you do not discuss the donations of the Hollywood elite or George Soros, who is probably the one individual with the most monetary influence on the American political discourse. These are all Leftists.
What a biased load.
61
Understanding the concept of free markets is easy. Picture a coal mine in 1890 where four year old kids are hired to go into tiny mine shafts to fetch coal. Suddenly, the words "free markets" are clearly defined.
1
Is the writer trying to suggest that these Bozos with their safe space demands are not hounding conservative speakers? Are not shouting down those they disagree with? Not only are they doing those things, they are filing Title IX complaints against faculty members just because the professors won't be broken to their saddle of trigger warnings and and left wing tripe.
The writer is not just expressing an opinion. He is providing an inaccurate picture. Recent articles in The New Yorker (a real left wing rag) have detailed the outrageous goings on at Harvard Law and Oberlin. The current author's dissembling should not go unanswered.
The writer is not just expressing an opinion. He is providing an inaccurate picture. Recent articles in The New Yorker (a real left wing rag) have detailed the outrageous goings on at Harvard Law and Oberlin. The current author's dissembling should not go unanswered.
67
I'm curious why you would hold up "a real left wing rag" as a reputable source to bolster your assertion?
1
When he writes that “But it isn’t the protests per se that damaged open inquiry and expression, but the frenzied way they have been portrayed by the right,” Mr. Sleeper is contending that it is not the refusal of students to entertain views (or even peacefully permit their expression) that run contrary to theirs that is the problem, but rather the dismay of those silenced that is the problem.
It is not only faulty logic, but it is also a classic example of “blaming the victim.” Typically, those on the left are decrying those tactics, not employing them.
We can deride the most fervent Trump supporters all we like, but their views come from a place of fear and ignorance. If we can’t count on Yale lecturer to abandon blind allegiance to ideology, than there really is no hope for a constructive national dialogue.
It is not only faulty logic, but it is also a classic example of “blaming the victim.” Typically, those on the left are decrying those tactics, not employing them.
We can deride the most fervent Trump supporters all we like, but their views come from a place of fear and ignorance. If we can’t count on Yale lecturer to abandon blind allegiance to ideology, than there really is no hope for a constructive national dialogue.
23
What if their views do not come from a place of ignorance, but rather from a place of knowledge you may lack because the political narrative on campus or in your circle is suppressing that knowledge?
For example, Trump's immigration policy has been criticized, much as you have done, as coming from a place of fear and ignorance.
Before you jump to the only conclusion that has been available to you, please watch Bill Clinton's speech on immigration policy, and avail yourself of Obama's Homeland Security committee on same:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4351026/clinton-1995-immigration-sotu
https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/HomelandSecurityCo...
You may find that some fears and concerns are justified ones, according to Clinton and the Homeland Security Committee, because the ignorance you so cavalierly ascribe to "Trump supporters" may actually more accurately be ascribed to your own position, due to your politically correct environment in which you never have occasion to consider the other side.
For example, Trump's immigration policy has been criticized, much as you have done, as coming from a place of fear and ignorance.
Before you jump to the only conclusion that has been available to you, please watch Bill Clinton's speech on immigration policy, and avail yourself of Obama's Homeland Security committee on same:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4351026/clinton-1995-immigration-sotu
https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/HomelandSecurityCo...
You may find that some fears and concerns are justified ones, according to Clinton and the Homeland Security Committee, because the ignorance you so cavalierly ascribe to "Trump supporters" may actually more accurately be ascribed to your own position, due to your politically correct environment in which you never have occasion to consider the other side.
4
So, the author is offended by conservatives who are offended by "progressive offenders" of orderly discussions. For which he blames, among other things, "predatory lending", "casino-like financing" (huh?), Donald Trump (of course!), "the Senate's lockjaw against open hearings" and "market-driven entertainment that encourages real violence". In fact, this scattershot piece that proves nothing is itself an offense to the kind of coherent, meaningful, thoughtful articles we used to see on the opinion pages of the 'Times'.
84
No doubt there is some truth to this column. But when people like Chris Rock and Bill Maher refuse to perform on college campuses because they don't want to be accused of offending this, that or the other group's sensitivities, then the problem goes deeper than a bunch of richie-riches seeking to guarantee, through misdirection and prevarication, that we all genuflect to capitalism and the "market economy."
Nowadays, it is within common liberal dogma that everyone, other than rich, white men, are victims. We WALLOW in victimhood. OK, fine, there's lots of unfairness and ugliness including misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, racism, ageism, etc, etc, that remain in this world. But, you know what, we should all grow some ... well, I won't say which part of the human anatomy needs growing as then I'll like be accused of ... well, of something or another not nice.
If someone is being nasty, mean-spirited and hateful, it is THEIR problem and the sooner we come to recognize that we should treat them as PATHETIC rather than as a threat to our tender egos, the better off we will all be as a result.
Nowadays, it is within common liberal dogma that everyone, other than rich, white men, are victims. We WALLOW in victimhood. OK, fine, there's lots of unfairness and ugliness including misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, racism, ageism, etc, etc, that remain in this world. But, you know what, we should all grow some ... well, I won't say which part of the human anatomy needs growing as then I'll like be accused of ... well, of something or another not nice.
If someone is being nasty, mean-spirited and hateful, it is THEIR problem and the sooner we come to recognize that we should treat them as PATHETIC rather than as a threat to our tender egos, the better off we will all be as a result.
28
The most remarkable thing about the screaming brat in that video was that an individual with such limited and crass communication skills could actually earn a place at Yale to begin with. Hardly a great advertisement.
152
Lukianoff's FIRE, which originally released the FIRE video, is more like the ACLU than these conservative groups Sleeper dwells on. It has, for instance, been strongly supportive of those publicizing claims of rape at UNC Chapel Hill by women who have since played leadership roles in the national movement spotlighting sexual abuse on campus. Lukianoff himself is a liberal who has said he has "never voted for a Republican in his life." Sorry, as a liberal like Lukianoff, I really don't think these conservative groups' "mercenary and ideological agendas" (as Sleeper puts it) pose much of a threat to Yale or other elite campuses. Sure, you can expect that conservative groups will make the most of leftist campus excesses to moan in the national media. But actually pose a true threat to elite campus culture? You've got to be kidding.
16
Yes, the conservatives' "free speech" is indeed very selective.
But perhaps you remember when Ayaan Hirsi Ali was not permitted to speak at Brandeis?
But perhaps you remember when Ayaan Hirsi Ali was not permitted to speak at Brandeis?
25
I just researched Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and was wondering why she was not permitted to speak at Brandeis. She's against genital mutilation, is against women who are oppressed under Islam, and "now calls for a reform of the religion by supporting reformist Muslims."**
**Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali
Can you add a link to some newspaper article that writes about what you wrote?
**Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali
Can you add a link to some newspaper article that writes about what you wrote?
1
I don't have a clear picture of how conservatives thwart free speech on a wealthy campus, but do think that as a society we are short on civility and have some difficulty distinguishing between respecting the right to be stupid and respecting stupidity. That said, on my campus, an urban, working class, diverse, public university with no conservative or liberal super donors to fawn over, the administration and some faculty have had difficulty understanding the importance of freedom of speech. The president shut down and then retracted shutting down a lecture on sex toys in an LGBT studies center, because some underage student might attend. Later the president tried to set the parameters of a speech by the conservative Ben Shapiro (someone I admit to never having heard of) and then reversed himself. I heard faculty urging that the lecture be canceled on the grounds that our immigrant students might feel unsafe. The lecture itself was a catastrophe, with the police unable to control crowds and people being prevented from attending, or so it was reported. In both cases, teaching opportunities on free speech instead became something quite opposite. It is possible that issues of political correctness in endowment craving institutions are as Mr. Sleeper describes, that some donors' calls for free speech are hypocritical (would they defend talks on sex toys?). However, from the perspective over here, the story is quite different and is very disturbing.
5
So that author is telling us that the attempts by the left to curtail free speech on campus are the real problem. It's the evil right and their free market agenda. When the right wingers are the ones shouting down professors, demanding speakers they disagree with be banned or shouted down on campus, and calling for muscle to threaten reporters let me know. Until then this piece is trying to hid the real problem by bringing up every libel's favorite boogeyman the Koch brothers to hid the real problem, students who think ideas they don't like should be banned and the cowardly college administrators who enable them.
13
Even more so....the Koch brothers do NOT support Donald Trump. They HATE Trump. They have utterly repudiated him, and given him no money. Whatever Trump has accomplished....it is without one dime from David or Charles Koch.
Indeed, the Kochs support HILLARY CLINTON! Yes, they do. Look it up! They have offered Hillary the entirety of their "dark money" financial support.
Indeed, the Kochs support HILLARY CLINTON! Yes, they do. Look it up! They have offered Hillary the entirety of their "dark money" financial support.
2
Dr. Carson used the term "politically correct" whenever he had nothing to say, or to deflect criticism. The term means nothing, but exposes its user as vacuous ideologue, sneering and hateful.
2
Keep on pushing the envelope. modern conservatism is based on money. not ideas and ideals...
3
Ah, sophistry!!
You dodge the issue of free speech by invoking the left's new bogyman Donald Trump and gloss over the really chilling environment that the left has created on campuses. You do not do a service to anyone.
That the idea of free speech and the free interchange of ideas has to be identified as a prime function of our institutes of higher learning is a telling comment on the left and the values that have developed since the time of Mario Savio.
Remember, if you can justify censorship of some ideas, you opponents can use the precise same arguments to censor your ideas. Have a care.
You dodge the issue of free speech by invoking the left's new bogyman Donald Trump and gloss over the really chilling environment that the left has created on campuses. You do not do a service to anyone.
That the idea of free speech and the free interchange of ideas has to be identified as a prime function of our institutes of higher learning is a telling comment on the left and the values that have developed since the time of Mario Savio.
Remember, if you can justify censorship of some ideas, you opponents can use the precise same arguments to censor your ideas. Have a care.
28
Excuse me, Donald Trump has become a representative "bogeyman" for the Left because he's a basically ignorant, unqualified, merciless, selfish, opportunistic, lewd, dishonest, short-tempered flaming jerk, and he should not be president of the Unites States (or anything else). And the GOP chose this man as its representative. That's the shocker. Most college students are reading and studying. You want to see a monster? Look to T-Rump.
1
My father stated in the 1960's that free expression of ideas on college campuses was threatened. He also observed that professorial tenure was the culprit. My brother and I thought he was an antiquated button hook or tiller steerer.
We were so extremely wrong and he was so supremely correct that I feel the burn of shame now.
We were so extremely wrong and he was so supremely correct that I feel the burn of shame now.
11
I hope your dad is still alive, so you can offer him a sincere apology!
2
I am no uncritical supporter of an unregulated "free market"; recent experience with the pricing of the EpiPen shows the need for regulation of patent monopolies. Still, this commentary by Jim Sleeper misses the point. While I'm glad that free speech and open inquiry are alive and well on campus, that video of a student shrieking invective at a professor was not a performance by an actress, but a real event, and the agitation that followed had real and negative consequences for the residential college heads involved, of a kind that ought not be repeated. So I applaud the letter sent by the University of Chicago to incoming freshmen. I'm an alumnus not of Yale, but of Amherst, which had its own campus agitation over the school mascot, Lord Jeffrey Amherst. Yale, Amherst. and other colleges should issue statements that follow the Chicago example.
17
I have read the US Constitution several times over looking for where it says we must be kind, considerate, and polite in our speech. I could not find it. I also could not find the amendment that protects us from the consequences from our speech. It is frustrating for me when I see Millennials with their knickers all in a snit because someone took a position the snowflakes did not like. The snowflakes shout the person down or go whining to the university to shut down the ideas and speech they don't like.
Free speech is a cornerstone of freedom, learning, and peaceful co-existence. We do not have to like it, believe it, or anything else unless we choose. But we should listen to the person speaking without trying to shout them down. We should seek to see the person's point of view and understand why they said what they did. In a civilized society, this will be a give and take relationship and in the end everyone will have a voice.
Free speech is a cornerstone of freedom, learning, and peaceful co-existence. We do not have to like it, believe it, or anything else unless we choose. But we should listen to the person speaking without trying to shout them down. We should seek to see the person's point of view and understand why they said what they did. In a civilized society, this will be a give and take relationship and in the end everyone will have a voice.
80
To modern conservatives, the free-market gives them the right to cherry-pick a single line from among thousands of stolen emails, like 'hide the decline', and then broadcast that line with all the bullhorn Exxon and the Koch brothers have purchased for them (allegedly, because you just know that that information is behind a 'Dark Money Wall'). The free-market means conservative lawyers know what Clinton ate for lunch 968 days ago, while Trumps tax returns exist in a Twilight Zone outside of time and place.
4
968 days ago, Mrs. Clinton was the SECRETARY OF STATE, so if she used emails to discuss her lunches, then yes, it is our business.
Mr. Trump was then, and is now, a PRIVATE CITIZEN. He holds no public office. Therefore, he is not subject to the same scrutiny nor does he have the same obligations as a government official in a high public office.
There is no law whatsoever that compels Presidential candidates to submit their taxes, and in fact, it has only been done in the last 40 years. Prior Presidents like JFK or FDR did not do so.
Mr. Trump was then, and is now, a PRIVATE CITIZEN. He holds no public office. Therefore, he is not subject to the same scrutiny nor does he have the same obligations as a government official in a high public office.
There is no law whatsoever that compels Presidential candidates to submit their taxes, and in fact, it has only been done in the last 40 years. Prior Presidents like JFK or FDR did not do so.
5
A "dynamic capitalist economy" provides certain benefits, most notably to those who already have "capital" - but an "economy" isn't the only prerequisite for civilization, and a "capitalist" one has few built-in safeguards that counterbalance the human compulsion to greed, selfishness, corruption, and loyalty not to the state, but first to one's portfolio.
What modern-day conservatives really object to in their definition of what constitutes "political correctness" is not "correctness" at all...it is the ever-present danger that those who explore the world of ideas may stumble across the free market's "incorrectness" and decide to question that "free market" - summarily endangering the benefits they personally derive from their "dynamic capitalist economy" - which by its very nature is modelled less after the Biblical Gospels than the writings of Darwin.
Is it really just "political correctness" to question inequitable racial treatment in our society?...or to turn a lamp on insider trading and other banking disasters that nearly tanked the world economy?...or to refer to all American citizens with equal respect, affording them all an equal measure of human dignity?
Maybe it really isn't simply "political correctness" - maybe it's just correctness, doing what is right.
What modern-day conservatives really object to in their definition of what constitutes "political correctness" is not "correctness" at all...it is the ever-present danger that those who explore the world of ideas may stumble across the free market's "incorrectness" and decide to question that "free market" - summarily endangering the benefits they personally derive from their "dynamic capitalist economy" - which by its very nature is modelled less after the Biblical Gospels than the writings of Darwin.
Is it really just "political correctness" to question inequitable racial treatment in our society?...or to turn a lamp on insider trading and other banking disasters that nearly tanked the world economy?...or to refer to all American citizens with equal respect, affording them all an equal measure of human dignity?
Maybe it really isn't simply "political correctness" - maybe it's just correctness, doing what is right.
110
The term "political correctness" is the latest battering tool chosen by right wing think tanks to be flailed around in accusation of anything the right wing disagrees with. Just more demonization and spinning by the right wing bamboozlers and their billionaire supporters.
4
Exactly; is IS just correctness, doing what is right--in some cases. If you think that "political correctness" is only about allowing offensive slurs without any other context, then the term is being subjected to mis-use in my view, because it entails much more than that. Gratuitous rudeness, offensiveness, name-calling and other forms of outright, simple bigotry, expressed alone, ought not to be tolerated; such expression should be frowned upon and rejected and criticized on campus and in the greater society. It has nothing to do, by the way, with political correctness. What is political about name-calling?
Real "political" correctness has to do with controlling the opposing political narrative by silencing counter-narratives with false accusations of bigotry. They are false when there can be another motive attributed to a policy position, and that position is being suppressed by ignoring any other potential motive and focusing only upon the "offense" being claimed. Allowing such suppression allows speech control in service to one's own political preferences on controversial issues involving homeland security, school choice, inner-city safety, policing, sanctuary cities, crime, and a myriad of other political issues.
Real "political" correctness has to do with controlling the opposing political narrative by silencing counter-narratives with false accusations of bigotry. They are false when there can be another motive attributed to a policy position, and that position is being suppressed by ignoring any other potential motive and focusing only upon the "offense" being claimed. Allowing such suppression allows speech control in service to one's own political preferences on controversial issues involving homeland security, school choice, inner-city safety, policing, sanctuary cities, crime, and a myriad of other political issues.
"Maybe it really isn't simply "political correctness" - maybe it's just correctness, doing what is right."
"What is right" according to you, Mr. Sleeper, me, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump, Bin Laden, McWeigh?
Without an open and tolerant discussion of alternative narratives, there's no free society just a brain dead religious cult.
"What is right" according to you, Mr. Sleeper, me, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump, Bin Laden, McWeigh?
Without an open and tolerant discussion of alternative narratives, there's no free society just a brain dead religious cult.
2
Mr. Sleeper believes in free speech on campus - as long as that speech is what he likes politically.
Speech by politically unacceptable people like the Koch Brothers is, of course, never allowed to be free.
You might want to look a little farther afield for your op-ed writers, NYT.
Speech by politically unacceptable people like the Koch Brothers is, of course, never allowed to be free.
You might want to look a little farther afield for your op-ed writers, NYT.
26
The author does the liberal arts kabuki dance and avoids the basic question at the heart of Yale's and other universities travails: Does free speech entail speech that might makes some folks uncomfortable.
The answer should be - of course - yes.
But thought police like Mr. Sleeper say no - of course not all speech is protected. He would do well to re-read some of his J.S. Mill.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~ On Liberty Ch. II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion
The answer should be - of course - yes.
But thought police like Mr. Sleeper say no - of course not all speech is protected. He would do well to re-read some of his J.S. Mill.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~ On Liberty Ch. II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion
32
Hopefully what's called "free speech" doesn't consist of a bunch of lies, non-facts and phony baloney pretending to be truth.
1
Regarding "But thought police like Mr. Sleeper say no - of course not all speech is protected. He would do well to re-read some of his J.S. Mill."
He might also review some of the cases that have come down from the Supreme Court on free speech; there he might discover the legal reasoning behind the protection of as much free speech as possible, including speech some find offensive. Don't knock it until you have read it. Wikipedia makes summaries of the Court's reasoning available to all with a desire to learn the basis for our freedoms.
When an Imam in Iran issues a world-wide fatwa against speech he finds offensive to his particular belief system, and he attempts to impose it across the globe, many Americans have argued in his favor. After all, they say, drawing these cartoons, or making these statements, is offensive to this Imam, and we must be sensitive to his position. I have not heard any of them condemn the death threat that accompanies that fatwa, or the fact that it has effectively succeeded in enforcing that bit of Sharia law upon lands that are not primarily Islamic.
Indeed, I trust that these American would label my observation itself as deeply offensive, and, if they could, they would censor it.
He might also review some of the cases that have come down from the Supreme Court on free speech; there he might discover the legal reasoning behind the protection of as much free speech as possible, including speech some find offensive. Don't knock it until you have read it. Wikipedia makes summaries of the Court's reasoning available to all with a desire to learn the basis for our freedoms.
When an Imam in Iran issues a world-wide fatwa against speech he finds offensive to his particular belief system, and he attempts to impose it across the globe, many Americans have argued in his favor. After all, they say, drawing these cartoons, or making these statements, is offensive to this Imam, and we must be sensitive to his position. I have not heard any of them condemn the death threat that accompanies that fatwa, or the fact that it has effectively succeeded in enforcing that bit of Sharia law upon lands that are not primarily Islamic.
Indeed, I trust that these American would label my observation itself as deeply offensive, and, if they could, they would censor it.
2
"Free speech and open inquiry are alive and well on campus."
Perhaps at Yale, but not at many other institutions. A UCLA-sponsored handout that gives examples of microaggressions includes "I believe the most qualified person should get the job," "America is the land of opportunity," and "Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough." If discouraged from expressing their pull-themselves-up-by-your-own-bootstraps opinions, how are conservatives to have the "first frank conversations about race" you describe at Yale?
I attend a university similar to Yale - albeit more liberal - and what I have found is that the most conservative members of the student population are still very vocal about their beliefs - publishing editorials, holding debates, etc. I know of several who were open about their support of Trump/Cruz.
But in my experience there are many moderate conservatives who remain silent and instead "pass as liberal" (you would be hard pressed to find someone who is open about their past support for Romney or Rubio). I consider myself among them.
Perhaps at Yale, but not at many other institutions. A UCLA-sponsored handout that gives examples of microaggressions includes "I believe the most qualified person should get the job," "America is the land of opportunity," and "Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough." If discouraged from expressing their pull-themselves-up-by-your-own-bootstraps opinions, how are conservatives to have the "first frank conversations about race" you describe at Yale?
I attend a university similar to Yale - albeit more liberal - and what I have found is that the most conservative members of the student population are still very vocal about their beliefs - publishing editorials, holding debates, etc. I know of several who were open about their support of Trump/Cruz.
But in my experience there are many moderate conservatives who remain silent and instead "pass as liberal" (you would be hard pressed to find someone who is open about their past support for Romney or Rubio). I consider myself among them.
15
"to push their belief in free markets, not in free speech"
Hypocrites exposed! Or are they? Why does it have to be an antithesis ("free markets, not free speech"). Why can't it be both? Belief in free markets (however wise or unwise, just or unjust) has no implications whatsoever for belief in or cherishing of free speech. There is no contradiction here and no hypocrisy.
Hypocrites exposed! Or are they? Why does it have to be an antithesis ("free markets, not free speech"). Why can't it be both? Belief in free markets (however wise or unwise, just or unjust) has no implications whatsoever for belief in or cherishing of free speech. There is no contradiction here and no hypocrisy.
7
Jim Sleeper: "But it isn’t the protests per se that damaged open inquiry and expression, but the frenzied way they have been portrayed by the right. The video that so angered Mr. Johnston was shot by Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, ..."
Sleeper destroys his credibility with that libelous insinuation about Greg Lukianoff.
In his 2012 book, Lukianoff says: "I am a lifelong Democrat and have something of a liberal pedigree. I have never voted for a Republican, nor do I plan to." Lukianoff goes on to say that he "believe[s] passionately in gay marriage, abortion rights, legalizing marijuana, and universal health care."
Source: "Unlearning liberty : campus censorship and the end of American debate"
by Greg Lukianoff.
(The quotes are from page 6.)
2016-09-04 00:05:20 UTC
Sleeper destroys his credibility with that libelous insinuation about Greg Lukianoff.
In his 2012 book, Lukianoff says: "I am a lifelong Democrat and have something of a liberal pedigree. I have never voted for a Republican, nor do I plan to." Lukianoff goes on to say that he "believe[s] passionately in gay marriage, abortion rights, legalizing marijuana, and universal health care."
Source: "Unlearning liberty : campus censorship and the end of American debate"
by Greg Lukianoff.
(The quotes are from page 6.)
2016-09-04 00:05:20 UTC
17
Students talking seriously about race (or gender or any other topic)? Good thing. Students attempting to prevent, disrupt, and disinvite other people from saying things about race (or gender or anything else) they do not want to hear? Not so good... This article is in denial about such threats.
29
In my experience, charges of "political correctness" are used to preemptively preclude rational discussion of substantive issues. "Politically correctness" is a manufactured myth designed to deflect from those discussions. You may agree with a speaker's point, or you may disagree. Fair enough. But to dismiss it with a cheap rhetorical deflection -- i.e., "politically correct" -- reveals a lack of serious commitment to understanding and discussing the issues under consideration. Contemporary students deserve better than that rhetorical deflection.
Best,
Michael
Best,
Michael
6
I have always wondered why what are characterized here as the "imprecations" of the Yale student, and the substance of her comments as well, do not qualify as celebrated free speech as well.
2
Too bad this piece is so much about who is right and who is wrong, and not about what is right and what is wrong.
I don't care much whether it's the ACLU or the Koch Brothers who are pushing a position. On this particular one, I have no valid, broad-based data on Political Correctness on campus. In my personal experience as a Masters candidate at a very highly-thought-of college in the earlier part of this decade, I encountered on (exellent) professor of literature who while discussing Huckleberry Finn could barely manage to enunciate, in a whisper, the phrase "the 'n' word." In other words he was afraid to use a euphemism. I was also told that I could not apply the adjective "primitive" to stone age societies, nor use the word "evolution" at all because some folks equate "more evolved" to better." One hears about much, much more extreme examples; how widespread they are, as I said, I blissfully don't know. I do think the pendulum has gone too far since the Amos and Andy show.
I don't care much whether it's the ACLU or the Koch Brothers who are pushing a position. On this particular one, I have no valid, broad-based data on Political Correctness on campus. In my personal experience as a Masters candidate at a very highly-thought-of college in the earlier part of this decade, I encountered on (exellent) professor of literature who while discussing Huckleberry Finn could barely manage to enunciate, in a whisper, the phrase "the 'n' word." In other words he was afraid to use a euphemism. I was also told that I could not apply the adjective "primitive" to stone age societies, nor use the word "evolution" at all because some folks equate "more evolved" to better." One hears about much, much more extreme examples; how widespread they are, as I said, I blissfully don't know. I do think the pendulum has gone too far since the Amos and Andy show.
7
Isn't everyone's point of view here covered by the same First Amendment? No one is crying fire in the auditorium or inciting to riot it seems. It also covers the right of Mr. Sleeper to write an op ed on the topic. While I certainly don't agree with the points of view of organizations such as those mentioned here, don't those who might agree with me have the protected right and obligation to espouse our points of view. This is usually not accomplished by whining on any side but by clear words accompanied by clear action.
2
Individual donors have the right to stop giving to their colleges and universities if they think the students and schools are going in a wrong direction. This happened in the 1960s when many alumni were displeased with students' anti-Vietnam War protests that often included takeovers of university buildings. It's happening again now because alumni are displeased with the growing PC attitude on campuses and with students demanding safe places, trigger warnings and never to be offended or exposed to views they dislike. I know alumni who have stopped giving to Harvard because they are displeased with the administration's cracking down on same-sex clubs. That's the right of the alumni, and students and administrators who insist on a PC environment need to get used to this push back from alumni.
37
When I realized that "my" university had been taken over by Art Pope I stopped donating. As I watch Donald Trump, for this alumna, the destruction of American education brought about by this "conservative" movement is heart-breaking.
1
Yes, correct, I agree with this analysis. As a blogger for Inside Higher Ed, I have said as much in a blog I wrote: I was a student protester: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/law-policy-and-it/i-was-student-pro...
I no longer take the words/term: "political correctness" seriously. It is trope, used not so skillfully by a rough coalition of sexists, racists, republicans, Republicans, and Trumpists -- to name a few -- to incite their own form of "correctness." Knee-jerk response to what is not exactly clear ... except if it involves women of all social categories, immigrants, people with a heritage from Africa ...
Label alone, I still believe in many of the terms touted by "conservatives:" free speech, civil liberties, respect for others, etc. And yet I think of myself as a "liberal" ... for the most part. That category, too, has its constraints.
If this political season has taught me anything, it is that we are at the end of a paradigm of Democratic-Republican party politics. Let's abandon the cant for a clear-eyed view of what we need to continue to keep these United States great ... that is, on tract with ideas of liberty, justice and equality for all.
I no longer take the words/term: "political correctness" seriously. It is trope, used not so skillfully by a rough coalition of sexists, racists, republicans, Republicans, and Trumpists -- to name a few -- to incite their own form of "correctness." Knee-jerk response to what is not exactly clear ... except if it involves women of all social categories, immigrants, people with a heritage from Africa ...
Label alone, I still believe in many of the terms touted by "conservatives:" free speech, civil liberties, respect for others, etc. And yet I think of myself as a "liberal" ... for the most part. That category, too, has its constraints.
If this political season has taught me anything, it is that we are at the end of a paradigm of Democratic-Republican party politics. Let's abandon the cant for a clear-eyed view of what we need to continue to keep these United States great ... that is, on tract with ideas of liberty, justice and equality for all.
1
I can't tell if this article is bad because it's focused on the conservative case against political correctness (which has it's issues) or because it's willfully ignorant about the issues on college campuses. It's unclear how someone could be on a college campus all year and have this simplistic of an understanding of the issue.
No one complained about them protesting. They complained about them trying to get the Christakises fired over an email that whose substance they disagreed. They complained because a Missouri Journalism professor trying to remove a journalist from covering protests so that the protestors could essentially have a "safe space." They complained because protestors at other schools petitioned the administration to punish people and give sensitivity training to people who put up posters extolling free speech.
You can argue about the proper balance between free speech and racial sensitivity, but you can't ignore that all three of those instances including calling for punishment for protected speech, or an infringement of freedom of the press. You also can't claim that this isn't a troubling trend of shutting down speech that people don't like.
To claim, as this article seems to, that there simply is no issue and that it's all a conspiracy on the part of conservatives is absurd.
No one complained about them protesting. They complained about them trying to get the Christakises fired over an email that whose substance they disagreed. They complained because a Missouri Journalism professor trying to remove a journalist from covering protests so that the protestors could essentially have a "safe space." They complained because protestors at other schools petitioned the administration to punish people and give sensitivity training to people who put up posters extolling free speech.
You can argue about the proper balance between free speech and racial sensitivity, but you can't ignore that all three of those instances including calling for punishment for protected speech, or an infringement of freedom of the press. You also can't claim that this isn't a troubling trend of shutting down speech that people don't like.
To claim, as this article seems to, that there simply is no issue and that it's all a conspiracy on the part of conservatives is absurd.
95
True defenders of free speech are rightly horrified that rich people now get to decide what is and isn't a worthy object of study, rather than highly trained experts.
This is exactly the moral catastrophe that has led to global climate change, trickle down economics, and a soulless reality TV star hijacking the party of Lincoln.
This is exactly the moral catastrophe that has led to global climate change, trickle down economics, and a soulless reality TV star hijacking the party of Lincoln.
4
Is it hijacking to simply get more VOTES than the other candidates? I thought that was "democracy".
What do you call it when the Anointed One of the OTHER party is nominated, because A. everyone is terrified to run against her, B. she funds her campaign through an utterly corrupt fake "Foundation" and C. she has a Debbie Wasserman Schultz to do a "dirty tricks" campaign against her ONLY opposition>? Then of course when she "wins", it is because "she got 4 million more votes"?
What do you call it when the Anointed One of the OTHER party is nominated, because A. everyone is terrified to run against her, B. she funds her campaign through an utterly corrupt fake "Foundation" and C. she has a Debbie Wasserman Schultz to do a "dirty tricks" campaign against her ONLY opposition>? Then of course when she "wins", it is because "she got 4 million more votes"?
2
There has always been something revolting about conservatives purporting to know and promulgate "our nation's founding principles" - as if William F. Buckley were privileged in this knowledge, and as through we must never move off the line we started on. I simply have no use for these people and there stunted view of this nation.
3
Tony,
"these people" you "have no use for" at least have enough respect for the language gifted to them by the previous generations to not write 'there' for 'their.'
"these people" you "have no use for" at least have enough respect for the language gifted to them by the previous generations to not write 'there' for 'their.'
4
" thundered Roger Kimball, board chairman of Yale’s Buckley Program."
You know you are a dishonest political partisan when you describe your ideological opponents as having "thundered" instead of having "stated" their opinions.
Back to square one, Mr. Sleeper, You have an intellectual reputation to recover.
You know you are a dishonest political partisan when you describe your ideological opponents as having "thundered" instead of having "stated" their opinions.
Back to square one, Mr. Sleeper, You have an intellectual reputation to recover.
26
No, it's not only right wing mercenary conservatives that are concerned about the regressive left. And if so-called progressives are being hyped and provoked into suppressing free speech on campus, then let's see the evidence. This piece is laughable -- and incoherent. Thanks, New York Times, for reminding me why I stopped subscribing after 20+ years.
12
Ridiculous! Greg Lukianoff is not a "conservative", he is a former ACLU lawyer! It is not groups like FIRE that want to censor angry students. It is student groups, administrators, and government officials, who demand that "offensive" speech be punished with firings, suspensions, and expulsions from school. FIRE's job is to oppose censorship of students and faculty left and right, and that is what it has done.
44
"Free speech and open inquiry are alive and well on campus."
For some.
For some.
10
Unlike the author, I wasn't at Yale nor at the University of Missouri when the events which form the backdrop for this article took place. Onthe other hand, having spent more than three decades doing the drudge work of academia in its most remote backwaters (trying to teach, for the most part, fundamental mathematics and statistics to the unwilling, the poorly prepared and, yes, to some extent, the intellectually incapable), I have a deep appreciation for the substantial problems and limitations inherent in the current "business model" for higher education. In the larger world of "down market" "higher" ed, students are largely apolitical. They concern themselves primarily with managing debt and outside work as they try to march through largely worthless academic programs which have been sold to them as the golden key to a life of material well-being. Away from Yale and a handful of other places, they neither know know nor care enough about racially charged issues involving speech and its regulation to give a ... hoot.
14
“Politically correct” is the new tool in the dog whistle bag. It interchanges with “Welfare Queen” and whatever term du juor is used to describe black men and boys and the working poor and immigrants etc.
“Free Markets” is and has been since reagan the term that dog whistles the call for no regulation and no taxes on the wealthy and whatever other legislative shenanigans the GOP would like to get up to in furtherance of their aim of destroying the middle class so there are only wealthy and poor left.
“Marketplace of Ideas” is the term that excuses monetizing education, example student debt and the outrageous fact that the student loan cannot be expunged in a bankruptcy.
To fix it? An awful lot of these kids are not qualified to be in college. You only have to hear them speak to know this without doubt. Read that sign the kids are holding. I’m sorry but no qualified Yale student wrote that. Start there, which is to say start teaching children to use English correctly especially when they are speaking in public or formal settings and to do maths and to write and to think.
Then enforce the correct use of these things when they apply to college. It Matters!
That would pretty much fix everything since they could see just as clearly as you do what these folks berating their ‘political correctness’ are doing what you say. A freshman in high school should be able to see it let alone a college student.
Free Speech has always been more ideal than practice. Ex. Colin Kaepernick.
“Free Markets” is and has been since reagan the term that dog whistles the call for no regulation and no taxes on the wealthy and whatever other legislative shenanigans the GOP would like to get up to in furtherance of their aim of destroying the middle class so there are only wealthy and poor left.
“Marketplace of Ideas” is the term that excuses monetizing education, example student debt and the outrageous fact that the student loan cannot be expunged in a bankruptcy.
To fix it? An awful lot of these kids are not qualified to be in college. You only have to hear them speak to know this without doubt. Read that sign the kids are holding. I’m sorry but no qualified Yale student wrote that. Start there, which is to say start teaching children to use English correctly especially when they are speaking in public or formal settings and to do maths and to write and to think.
Then enforce the correct use of these things when they apply to college. It Matters!
That would pretty much fix everything since they could see just as clearly as you do what these folks berating their ‘political correctness’ are doing what you say. A freshman in high school should be able to see it let alone a college student.
Free Speech has always been more ideal than practice. Ex. Colin Kaepernick.
8
If you let every student discharge their student loans in bankruptcy, nobody would ever pay off those $200K loans. Most students graduate as 22 or 23 year olds with zero income or job, no house or any assets. It would be easy to reneg on that $200K! and nearly everyone would do so.
The result would be that Federal programs would be wiped out, and no bank would loan $200K ever again to any 17 year old kid fresh out of high school, for something as ephemeral as a "college degree".
Student loans USED TO BE dischargeable in bankruptcy, and the result were medical students who ran up huge debt -- happily put every expense from vacations to eating out into loans -- and then declared bankruptcy after graduation. They got a free 8 year education, and then took six figure jobs as doctors. Surely you do not think that is a "solution"!
The average student graduates from college with $26,000 in debt. That's a lot, but no more than the debt from a modest new automobile. I think it is reasonable for something that will greatly enhance your earning power for the rest of your life!
The result would be that Federal programs would be wiped out, and no bank would loan $200K ever again to any 17 year old kid fresh out of high school, for something as ephemeral as a "college degree".
Student loans USED TO BE dischargeable in bankruptcy, and the result were medical students who ran up huge debt -- happily put every expense from vacations to eating out into loans -- and then declared bankruptcy after graduation. They got a free 8 year education, and then took six figure jobs as doctors. Surely you do not think that is a "solution"!
The average student graduates from college with $26,000 in debt. That's a lot, but no more than the debt from a modest new automobile. I think it is reasonable for something that will greatly enhance your earning power for the rest of your life!
4
"Free Speech has always been more ideal than practice. Ex. Colin Kaepernick.'
"Congress shall make no law........'-- not owners and/or fans of sports teams.
"Congress shall make no law........'-- not owners and/or fans of sports teams.
2
Every time progress is made, it's denigrated as "political correctness".
4
Absolutely, just think of Robespierre and the progress his demand for political correctness brought forth.
4
The last resort of the pseudo intellectual: change the subject with a crass pun. Free speech = Free market, therefore anyone who cherishes free speech (or freedom of any kind) is wicked. What a crock. Free speech has no necessary connection with free markets. I bet the idiot who wrote this piece thinks that "niggardly" is a derogatory racial term.
16
Free markets and free speech do and can only exist as complementary and essential elements of a free and equal individuals. If I must depend on government grace for my livelihood (as with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Peron, Franco, or to a lesser degree Prendergast or Tammany Hall), I do not enjoy freedom or equality.
1
A few years ago a Canadian University fired a fairly famous author who taught an English literature course. He was already well known in the student body for delivering provocative statements in his class. His crime was to offer his personal opinion that many female writers were not very good and that he personally preferred male authors.
A few outraged freshman created a media fire storm and in an act of craven appeasement, the Dean made him leave. Canada's national newspaper covered the story extensively and published a large number of letters to the editor.
The one I remember was from a self described feminist. The authors bias was well known and she took his course in order to challenge his views. Her final paper was written with the object of repudiating every thing he stood for by using his own quotes against him. She got an A + and a warm note from him saying that he was impressed by the depth, breath and integrity of her work.
THAT is what university is supposed to be.
What it is increasingly becoming is an echo chamber for closed minded zealots who want to impose their beliefs on everyone. No amount of obfuscating about the influence of dark money changes the inconvenient fact
Oh and by the way not one of the students that engineered the exit of the prof in my example had ever taken his course........
A few outraged freshman created a media fire storm and in an act of craven appeasement, the Dean made him leave. Canada's national newspaper covered the story extensively and published a large number of letters to the editor.
The one I remember was from a self described feminist. The authors bias was well known and she took his course in order to challenge his views. Her final paper was written with the object of repudiating every thing he stood for by using his own quotes against him. She got an A + and a warm note from him saying that he was impressed by the depth, breath and integrity of her work.
THAT is what university is supposed to be.
What it is increasingly becoming is an echo chamber for closed minded zealots who want to impose their beliefs on everyone. No amount of obfuscating about the influence of dark money changes the inconvenient fact
Oh and by the way not one of the students that engineered the exit of the prof in my example had ever taken his course........
267
Often times, the best education I got in college was from professors who challenged me. Diversity of thought and ideas was a window to the world...perhaps precisely because it did not provide the comfort of home.
4
A Yale student screaming at a professor that he has no right whatsoever to speak is not a collegial exchange of ideas. People taking over public space at the University of Missouri and threatening reporters with "muscle" is not a cordial discourse moderated by civil society. Students demanding, and administrators acquiescing to those demands, to prohibit or cancel invitations to certain speakers is not fostering intellectual curiosity. The bulk of the article consists of the author's conclusory assertions, unburdened by evidence or facts. For example, that unhappy alumni don't want the public to know about other meaningful exchanges that occur. Could the author please point to a fact supporting that proposition? Does the author mean that we can't complain about campuses silencing free speech simply because, on some occasions, productive conversations occur? That is nonsensical. It is equally nonsensical to suggest that the video of the Yale student shrieking at the professor wasn't accurate. To be sure, the young woman shrieked, she demanded the professor not speak, and the professor and his wife faced immense backlash for the wife's suggestion that a university's role may not be to police Halloween costumes. That really happened, Mr. Sleeper; it isn't fictionalization. Last, the author returns to tired tropes about the evils of free markets. Ivory tower myopia is in full display.
138
Newspeak comes in many flavors "Yale's brand" and "People of Color" are both examples of language intended to crowd out other points of view before discussion even begins.
13
Some people damage free speech loudly, by shouting; some quietly, with a speaker's contract. Campus administrations are frequently complicit in the disruption by allowing speakers to avoid questions altogether, or having them screened--part of the general movement toward turning universities into venues for light entertainment. My campus, the University at Buffalo, has offered enormous stipends to notable political figures, who have rained death from above (Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, Karl Rove, Tony Blair, Wesley Clark, Colin Powell, and Hillary Clinton) with impunity, while protecting them from the terrors of inquisitive sophomores.
3
Conservatives at Yale are a small minority, even among donors. They don't deserve all this attention. Yale can easily do without the Koch brothers, Johnston and their ilk. Send them to Texas where they can wield the guns they love.
5
I agree with Jim Sleeper's critique of the consumer model of higher education. Further, I supported Bernie Sanders, despise Trump, and will vote for Hillary. Yet as a tenured prof at a large public university, I agree with the quote from Roger Kimball. To have an open, honest discussion on race, I must go off campus, to one of the local debating societies. My liberal, center-left view - that we should faithfully follow the civil rights laws and not discriminate against any person based on race or gender - is too conservative to obtain an open hearing on my campus. The handful of colleagues who share my view know to keep it to themselves. Just remember, though, to "celebrate diversity."
34
A liberal who recognizes the failings of fellow liberals? You are a rarity, indeed.
4
Are you willing to listen to me? Are you willing to let me speak what I wiah to say before interrupting? Are you willing to concede that I may have as much commitment to a good and rational society as you do? When I dismiss pop culture heroes as pop culture heroes to my daughter, she's intellectually (in her terms) insulted (yeah, I probably dissed Beyoncé), when I dismiss the plutocracies heroes—CEO's, various right wing political (and very rich) yahoos, my conservative friends think I've crossed a line.
Empathy, empathy, empathy. Not every NRA member is a nitwit (most may be. I don't know enough to say. LaPierre, yeah, he's a nitwit). Very, very few socialists believe that pederasty is a valuable human occupation (and those who do are vile, contemptible,and—do we really need to go on). Respect your fellow citizens—I don't think you need to respect your fellow consumers, because folks who define themselves as consumers are beyond contempt—and listen to them. Are they really so bad?
If they aren't racists one on one, why are they racists when dealing in generalities? Is there a middle ground? If not, ignore them and work to keep them from positions of influence (i.e. all republicans who cannot switch parties no matter how vile "THEIR" candidate). But remember, all of us have learned to be more than we were at eighteen. You may be able to change someone's life, and our country's future.
Empathy, empathy, empathy. Not every NRA member is a nitwit (most may be. I don't know enough to say. LaPierre, yeah, he's a nitwit). Very, very few socialists believe that pederasty is a valuable human occupation (and those who do are vile, contemptible,and—do we really need to go on). Respect your fellow citizens—I don't think you need to respect your fellow consumers, because folks who define themselves as consumers are beyond contempt—and listen to them. Are they really so bad?
If they aren't racists one on one, why are they racists when dealing in generalities? Is there a middle ground? If not, ignore them and work to keep them from positions of influence (i.e. all republicans who cannot switch parties no matter how vile "THEIR" candidate). But remember, all of us have learned to be more than we were at eighteen. You may be able to change someone's life, and our country's future.
9
When I was at school campus protest were about war, the environment, and the WTO. There was campus racism and LGBT discrimination then in spades, of course, but protest groups were more focused on issues outside the campus walls. Today's students are free to protest whatever they want, just like earlier students were, but I do think they could beat back the charges of narcissism if 1 in every 10 or 20 protests were about, say, extrajudicial killings by drones, or some other noncampus issue. But my sense is that today's post-9/11 students are more trusting and accepting of US military "defense" operations than students in the 1960s-1990s, so maybe those other issues just don't get them all that fired up. Or maybe the media is selectively covering only a particular (clickbaiting, outrage generating) slice of the actual range of campus protests these days.
2
It's not just the right. I'm somewhat to the left of Bernie Sanders. I abhor what some students did recently at Yale, just as I have been disgusted by protests blocking speakers at many universities over the past 30 years.
137
"Conservatives used to remind us that what the Constitution protects in speech, civil society modulates; freedom requires self-restraint and respect for others, not the hurling of scare words. Yet now their selectively legalistic “free speech” strategy helps turn collegial contentions into rhetorical battlefields by hyping and even provoking progressive offenders."
So a political science lecturer at Yale requires a (gentle, no other kind is countenanced) reminder that the Constitutional protects free speech ONLY from government infringement? Sigh...thought that he should have known that. That he doesn't explains a lot.
So a political science lecturer at Yale requires a (gentle, no other kind is countenanced) reminder that the Constitutional protects free speech ONLY from government infringement? Sigh...thought that he should have known that. That he doesn't explains a lot.
7
When I was in college, Nixon was invading Cambodia and, immature contrarian that I was, I stood up in defense of his policies. Just me- and approximately five other half-wits. In the years following my graduation (with honors that I took very seriously at the time) I read books and newspapers, traveled the world and came into possession of a brain and a social conscience. Having entered the autumn of my years, I now look back at my collegiate conservatism and cringe. What was I thinking then? Forgive me if I look at those who now practice "political correctness" at our universities, students and professors alike, and envy their idealism. Regardless of how they managed to develop their progressive attitudes while still in their teens and early twenties they're far ahead of where I was at the time. Stay on that path, kids. Love each other, fight for change and accept no authority at face value. The more there are of you the less likely we'll end up sending more Trumps and Clintons to the halls of power.
105
Geez, Stu, maybe you should just forgo politics altogether. You read books and newspapers after you went to Yale -- commentary, I suppose on their admission policies at the time. Now you wish to support students and their "progressive attitudes," however they're arrived at. And with the stirring call to support neither Trump or Clinton in the current campaign. It would seem your opinions are well suited to private life.
1
stu - I am confused. I wish I could drag Eric Blair back from the grave to tell me what the new words really mean.
You say you have repudiated your youthful infatuation with the ideals of R. Nixon, but I lost you starting at the sentence starting "Forgive me if I look at those who now practice "political correctness..". You then go on to congratulate them for their idealism and progressive attitudes. ???
I lost you further when you encourage them on the path that will lead to more political enlightenment. I agree with 'fight for change and accept no authority at face value..", but there is some murky contradiction with your earlier statements.
I guess I am pretty dense, but I found the article murky as well. "A college is a civil society on training wheels. Students, away from home and in an “adult” society for the first time, may try out defensive ethno-racial flag waving, religious and political dogmas, athletic and fraternal self-segregation, and premature career-ladder climbing. They may scare one another a little, but they also learn to stand up for themselves."
I don't think the best lesson to be learned is how to stand up for oneself. The best lesson to be absorbed at an institution of higher learning in a democracy is how to stand up for 'everyone'. How to stand up for the ideals, concepts and actions that will work for the good of all. Otherwise, take the easy route and go into investment banking.
You say you have repudiated your youthful infatuation with the ideals of R. Nixon, but I lost you starting at the sentence starting "Forgive me if I look at those who now practice "political correctness..". You then go on to congratulate them for their idealism and progressive attitudes. ???
I lost you further when you encourage them on the path that will lead to more political enlightenment. I agree with 'fight for change and accept no authority at face value..", but there is some murky contradiction with your earlier statements.
I guess I am pretty dense, but I found the article murky as well. "A college is a civil society on training wheels. Students, away from home and in an “adult” society for the first time, may try out defensive ethno-racial flag waving, religious and political dogmas, athletic and fraternal self-segregation, and premature career-ladder climbing. They may scare one another a little, but they also learn to stand up for themselves."
I don't think the best lesson to be learned is how to stand up for oneself. The best lesson to be absorbed at an institution of higher learning in a democracy is how to stand up for 'everyone'. How to stand up for the ideals, concepts and actions that will work for the good of all. Otherwise, take the easy route and go into investment banking.
1
Think about your use of the term "Nixon was invading Cambodia." In fact Nixon was sitting comfortably int he Oval Office with Henry Kissinger who was working to extend the peace talks (as was Le Duc Tho) in the hopes of winning the war militarily. As the invasion was only 4 months after the first draft lottery in Dec 69, the young men your age who invaded were drafted in part because they were unable to attend college and did not have the deferment that you must have had earlier in 1969.
Yale University did not discipline the student who assaulted her professor. Yale University and other universities are still a temples of political correctness and controlled speech. The only free speech is liberal narrative speech.
159
No one assaulted a professor. I was and am on his side, but she was using free speech too. He responded to her with admirable patience and forbearance, and so did Yale. Which is the point about free speech.
3
Should Yale University have disciplined the student? How? Shouldn't that be the job of other students?
2
When I read nonsense like this I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or rage.
So-called "conservatives" have been trying to change universities into clone-makers for Republicans for over a century, and have been stymied at nearly every turn.
Why? Because non-partisan facts have a decidely liberal bias, and that doesn't work for today's "conservative" who cannot differ between social welfare and "socialism!", between sensible government regulation to protect the citizenry and unbridled control of industry ("Socialism!"). In fact, today's "conservative" preaches respect for the US Constitution, and "originalism" when it's clear even the authors didn't believe in that--otherwise they wouldn't have included a carefully constructed amendment process for adapting to changes and fixing what wasn't working.
I may be a liberal and a Progressive, but I definitely believe in Free Speech and allowing various POV to be expressed and debated on campus, nor do I understand what "safe zones" are supposed to be, although there's a difference between free speech and verbal assault not just in concept but in law.
But the "pretend" freedom of speech at overtly "conservative" schools is far more restrictive than at so-called "liberal" schools. I can just imagine the reception a peaceful "Black Lives Matter" demonstration would have a Falwell's Liberty University!
So-called "conservatives" have been trying to change universities into clone-makers for Republicans for over a century, and have been stymied at nearly every turn.
Why? Because non-partisan facts have a decidely liberal bias, and that doesn't work for today's "conservative" who cannot differ between social welfare and "socialism!", between sensible government regulation to protect the citizenry and unbridled control of industry ("Socialism!"). In fact, today's "conservative" preaches respect for the US Constitution, and "originalism" when it's clear even the authors didn't believe in that--otherwise they wouldn't have included a carefully constructed amendment process for adapting to changes and fixing what wasn't working.
I may be a liberal and a Progressive, but I definitely believe in Free Speech and allowing various POV to be expressed and debated on campus, nor do I understand what "safe zones" are supposed to be, although there's a difference between free speech and verbal assault not just in concept but in law.
But the "pretend" freedom of speech at overtly "conservative" schools is far more restrictive than at so-called "liberal" schools. I can just imagine the reception a peaceful "Black Lives Matter" demonstration would have a Falwell's Liberty University!
6
Any movement that restricts free and open dialog on campus should be banned. I do not want to see intellectual debate in our schools be constrained by the guilt-ridden conscience of some insufficiently educated members of the Left, nor do I want the irrational xenophobia of the Right to have any claim to the conduct of enlightened discourse at our universities.
Of course, it is perfectly acceptable to debate whether or not discourse on campus should be restricted. It is allowed because we do not restrict rational debate.
Of course, it is perfectly acceptable to debate whether or not discourse on campus should be restricted. It is allowed because we do not restrict rational debate.
176
When I took jobs teaching at public colleges in two states (not New York, I'm happy to report), I had to sign a "loyalty oath" to be hired. You can bet I never had free speech as a college faculty member. The vast majority of classes on American colleges are taught by part-time or contingent adjunct faculty, who have no job security (as well as no benefits) on semester-by-semester or year-by-year contracts who can and are fired or not rehired for any reason or no reason. Those who need the jobs to feed themselves and their families are afraid to speak out on any subject that the administration of the colleges find "politically incorrect." Not one alumni group has ever lifted a pinky on their behalf. In fact, these right-wingers encourage the adjunctization of higher education much as they have fought unions, labor rights, and anything but their corporate profits and own enormous and unwarranted salaries.
12
"I do not want to see intellectual debate in our schools be constrained by the guilt-ridden conscience of some insufficiently educated members of the Left....'
This hasn't happened. That you think it might have happened means that the propagandists convinced you of a lie. Congratulations.
This hasn't happened. That you think it might have happened means that the propagandists convinced you of a lie. Congratulations.
6
Then you will go along with banning Hillel.
1
This treats a college as a bunch of undergraduates. They are there, but they are not themselves the college.
The college is is faculty of respected professors doing research and writing leading ideas in their fields. It is large numbers of graduate students, who are far more mature, much further along in life. It is an administration, that is supposed to make this run, not pander. It is alumni, who come back to provide the influence of their role as leaders in the larger community. It is parents, who send those undergraduates for the purpose of growth, not self indulgence.
Even in places where "the students" have large sway in society, those are generally the more advanced students.They are not the underclassmen still experimenting with their personality on their first big adventure away from home.
This article indulges childish behavior. It reports on many others indulging childish behavior.
As a parent, I won't thank them for exposing my freshman son to this immature nonsense. The whole point is TO GROW UP, not to be indulged.
The college is is faculty of respected professors doing research and writing leading ideas in their fields. It is large numbers of graduate students, who are far more mature, much further along in life. It is an administration, that is supposed to make this run, not pander. It is alumni, who come back to provide the influence of their role as leaders in the larger community. It is parents, who send those undergraduates for the purpose of growth, not self indulgence.
Even in places where "the students" have large sway in society, those are generally the more advanced students.They are not the underclassmen still experimenting with their personality on their first big adventure away from home.
This article indulges childish behavior. It reports on many others indulging childish behavior.
As a parent, I won't thank them for exposing my freshman son to this immature nonsense. The whole point is TO GROW UP, not to be indulged.
226
If the NYT publishes Jim Sleeper with his partisan anti-Republican, anti-Trump biases that are accepted only by the left-leaning Media and mainstream Democrats, then I assume they will publish a partisan anti-Clinton anti- Democrat article.
What, there is no fairness in Media?
They can besmirch the reputation of one side when they are the "paper of record" with negative opinions and ignore the other side.
Is that really journalism, or propaganda?
What, there is no fairness in Media?
They can besmirch the reputation of one side when they are the "paper of record" with negative opinions and ignore the other side.
Is that really journalism, or propaganda?
7
This is wishful thinking because many professors and administrators in universities today are immature themselves, lacking in character, knowledge, and talent. They are at the university for their own self interests: a paycheck and the prestige, and sometimes a work visa that helps them immigrate into the US. This is the reason why administration has increased considerably at the expense of quality instruction. This is the reason why faculty is increasingly temporary or hired part-time.
2
@ Mark Thomason - Mark I find the article more than slightly confusing, perhaps because I have not been on any of my campuses for many years, at least during the academic year. Because I find the article confusing, I am not entirely sure what part of it you see as indulging childish behavior. As I understand your comment I support it fully as do 86 others as of this moment (02:40 EDT).
Perhaps what I need from Jim Sleeper is two separate articles. This one is focused on the people that Sleeper says are ceasing to fund what they see as coddled children. Alumni do not fund students so the sentence does not really make sense.
I would like to read exactly what Sleeper has to say about the approach of Yale in various cases. I have tried to engage in a discussion with the President of Brown University as concerns a speech she gave about putting "race" back into the medical curriculum at Brown University Medical School by calling to her attention the publications of Professor Dorothy Roberts, black, not African American who is trying to take race out of American medicine. No replies from the President.
Larry
Perhaps what I need from Jim Sleeper is two separate articles. This one is focused on the people that Sleeper says are ceasing to fund what they see as coddled children. Alumni do not fund students so the sentence does not really make sense.
I would like to read exactly what Sleeper has to say about the approach of Yale in various cases. I have tried to engage in a discussion with the President of Brown University as concerns a speech she gave about putting "race" back into the medical curriculum at Brown University Medical School by calling to her attention the publications of Professor Dorothy Roberts, black, not African American who is trying to take race out of American medicine. No replies from the President.
Larry
1
I looked up types of conservatives and found neoconservatives, paleoconservatives, social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, crunchy conservatives and click bit conservatives. Sadly they are fascists, theocrats, oligarchs, plutocrats , feudalist, and even liberals and there isn't a conservative in the bunch. The only word we use to describe conservative these days is neo-liberal.