Colleges and universities have been in the news lately. This has been for a variety of reasons, some good, some silly, some bad. Hanging it over it all, however, is something that’s bothering me. We’ll come to that shortly.
Let’s start with the good. Threats and “fighting words” are not protected speech. Shouting the N word at a group of black students is plainly a threat, so I have no problem taking measures against it. This is what was going on at the University of Missouri. There were frequent, threatening racist incidents with nothing being done about them. So congratulations to the students for taking a stand.
The silly is the Halloween costume fracas that started at Yale. This is one where I will take the bold position of saying that everyone needs to calm down. It started with this e-mail from The Intercultural Affairs Committee at Yale. The e-mail very politely suggests that students show a little bit of cultural sensitivity in selecting their costumes. Seriously, go read it. It’s just about the most innocuous thing you could imagine. There are no threats of disciplinary action against transgressors or stern warnings about acceptable and unacceptable costumes or anything like that. On the other hand, I do think a lot of students need to have their eyes opened to the ways in which things they view as harmless could be offensive to others.
Surely there’s some point where a Halloween costume simply crosses the boundaries of good taste. If someone shows up dressed as a Nazi soldier or as a KKK member, am I really supposed to chalk that up to normal youthful callousness? I don’t think so. I certainly would not appreciate it if someone dressed up as a Jewish stereotype.
I wouldn’t appreciate it, but I also wouldn’t make a federal case out of it. Alas, things quickly got out of hand at Yale. Erika Christakis, the house master of Silliman College at Yale, sent out a reply to the previous e-mail. Now, I disagree with much of what Christakis said. As I’ve indicated, I think the original e-mail was fine, and was written in the spirit not of threatening or controlling anyone, but of opening people’s eyes to issues they might not have considered. But Christakis’ e-mail is miles away from crossing any lines of acceptable conduct. She gave a thoughtful and reasonable exposition of her views.
And this brings us to the bad. Apparently a respectable number of Yale students cannot handle the idea of someone disagreeing with them, and sought to have Christakis fired. Those students should be given a stern lecture on the free exchange of ideas and then told to get lost. But this is all too common on college campuses these days. Upon hearing a dissenting view, too many students start whining about their “psychological safety” and go running to the administration for a firing. They need to grow up and learn how to make an argument.
There’s plenty more to be said about all of this, but instead I will call attention to this essay by Marion Wright Edelman. She’s concerned to scold colleges for their legacy of benefiting from the slave trade. She opens with:
On November 14, Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia announced the university will rename two buildings on campus named for two 19th century Georgetown University presidents: Thomas F. Mulledy, who in 1838 arranged the sale of 272 slaves from Jesuit owned Maryland plantations and used the profit to pay Georgetown’s construction debts, and William McSherry, who also sold other Jesuit owned slaves and was Mulledy’s adviser. The sale ignored the objections of some Jesuit leaders who believed using the money to pay off debt was immoral and their demands that families be kept together.
This is all the rage these days. Here’s a description of recent goings-on at Princeton University:
The Black Justice League at Princeton had demanded that the president acknowledge the racist legacy of Woodrow Wilson and remove his name from buildings on campus, mandate “cultural competency” courses for all faculty and staff, and provide cultural space for black students on campus.
As long as they are doing nothing more than protesting peacefully they are free to demand whatever they want. There are plenty of issues to consider about the naming of buildings. Does a person have to be a saint? Or is he nothing more than the worst thing he ever said or believed? Is there no room to make allowances for the times in which the person lived? Quite the philosophical conundrum.
But the main thing that occurred to me when reading Edelman’s essay was that it all seems so pointless. I wonder how many of these students who are out protesting vote; most college students don’t. And while students are getting worked up about the names of buildings, the Tea Party is busy getting people elected. People, mind you, who delightedly move the public policy of this nation in decidedly racist directions.
That seems like a more pressing issue than getting buildings renamed.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1QzLnPG
Colleges and universities have been in the news lately. This has been for a variety of reasons, some good, some silly, some bad. Hanging it over it all, however, is something that’s bothering me. We’ll come to that shortly.
Let’s start with the good. Threats and “fighting words” are not protected speech. Shouting the N word at a group of black students is plainly a threat, so I have no problem taking measures against it. This is what was going on at the University of Missouri. There were frequent, threatening racist incidents with nothing being done about them. So congratulations to the students for taking a stand.
The silly is the Halloween costume fracas that started at Yale. This is one where I will take the bold position of saying that everyone needs to calm down. It started with this e-mail from The Intercultural Affairs Committee at Yale. The e-mail very politely suggests that students show a little bit of cultural sensitivity in selecting their costumes. Seriously, go read it. It’s just about the most innocuous thing you could imagine. There are no threats of disciplinary action against transgressors or stern warnings about acceptable and unacceptable costumes or anything like that. On the other hand, I do think a lot of students need to have their eyes opened to the ways in which things they view as harmless could be offensive to others.
Surely there’s some point where a Halloween costume simply crosses the boundaries of good taste. If someone shows up dressed as a Nazi soldier or as a KKK member, am I really supposed to chalk that up to normal youthful callousness? I don’t think so. I certainly would not appreciate it if someone dressed up as a Jewish stereotype.
I wouldn’t appreciate it, but I also wouldn’t make a federal case out of it. Alas, things quickly got out of hand at Yale. Erika Christakis, the house master of Silliman College at Yale, sent out a reply to the previous e-mail. Now, I disagree with much of what Christakis said. As I’ve indicated, I think the original e-mail was fine, and was written in the spirit not of threatening or controlling anyone, but of opening people’s eyes to issues they might not have considered. But Christakis’ e-mail is miles away from crossing any lines of acceptable conduct. She gave a thoughtful and reasonable exposition of her views.
And this brings us to the bad. Apparently a respectable number of Yale students cannot handle the idea of someone disagreeing with them, and sought to have Christakis fired. Those students should be given a stern lecture on the free exchange of ideas and then told to get lost. But this is all too common on college campuses these days. Upon hearing a dissenting view, too many students start whining about their “psychological safety” and go running to the administration for a firing. They need to grow up and learn how to make an argument.
There’s plenty more to be said about all of this, but instead I will call attention to this essay by Marion Wright Edelman. She’s concerned to scold colleges for their legacy of benefiting from the slave trade. She opens with:
On November 14, Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia announced the university will rename two buildings on campus named for two 19th century Georgetown University presidents: Thomas F. Mulledy, who in 1838 arranged the sale of 272 slaves from Jesuit owned Maryland plantations and used the profit to pay Georgetown’s construction debts, and William McSherry, who also sold other Jesuit owned slaves and was Mulledy’s adviser. The sale ignored the objections of some Jesuit leaders who believed using the money to pay off debt was immoral and their demands that families be kept together.
This is all the rage these days. Here’s a description of recent goings-on at Princeton University:
The Black Justice League at Princeton had demanded that the president acknowledge the racist legacy of Woodrow Wilson and remove his name from buildings on campus, mandate “cultural competency” courses for all faculty and staff, and provide cultural space for black students on campus.
As long as they are doing nothing more than protesting peacefully they are free to demand whatever they want. There are plenty of issues to consider about the naming of buildings. Does a person have to be a saint? Or is he nothing more than the worst thing he ever said or believed? Is there no room to make allowances for the times in which the person lived? Quite the philosophical conundrum.
But the main thing that occurred to me when reading Edelman’s essay was that it all seems so pointless. I wonder how many of these students who are out protesting vote; most college students don’t. And while students are getting worked up about the names of buildings, the Tea Party is busy getting people elected. People, mind you, who delightedly move the public policy of this nation in decidedly racist directions.
That seems like a more pressing issue than getting buildings renamed.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1QzLnPG
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