University campuses really are amazing places. You would have thought that 1st amendment protections would be sort of important to them BUT you would be wrong. John Leo: Cupcakes And Cookies On Campus, Oh My!
The enemies of campus bake sales are at it again, inflaming one another over the dire threat of cupcakes and cookies sold at different prices to whites, minorities and women. The sales are political parody, of course, poking fun at affirmative-action policies and trying to get a debate going. Campus orthodoxy holds that such policies are sacred and that any dissent, even in the form of satirical cookie prices, is illegitimate and deserving of suppression.
When members of a Republican club staged a bake sale March 21 at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich., several students said they were offended. This amounted to a powerful argument, since hurt feelings are trump cards in the campus culture. Next came the usual scramble to suppress free speech while expressing great respect for it. The normal campus method in such cases is to define free speech as narrowly as possible, while pointing to broad and vague anti-discrimination rules.
I find it hard to believe that these types of sales are still causing controversey. They have been going on for what, 10 or 15 years now? Campus liberals have really not found a better way to deal with them than supression? Is the state of liberal thought of American universities so feeble that this is the best they can come up with? Sure, Stalin would have approved, but what about anyone who enjoys even vague democratic credentials? Although I guess that is a little unfair because Universities don't have a problem with the bake sales, as long as they promote liberal causes that is.
In Chicago, the College Republicans at Northeastern Illinois University canceled an affirmative-action bake sale after the administration warned that they would be punished if they went ahead. Dean of Students Michael Kelly announced that the cookie sellers would be in violation of university rules and that "any disruption of university activities that would be caused by this event is also actionable." This seemed to promise that if opponents of the sale conducted a riot, the Republicans would be held responsible.
The university did not understand it was dealing in viewpoint discrimination (it did not object to a satirical wage-gap bake sale run by feminists). Kelly said the affirmative action sale would be allowed if cookie prices were the same for whites, minorities and women. So the university was willing to tolerate a bit of satire as long as all satirical content was removed.
The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) stepped in, reminding the university that forbidding political expression is clearly unconstitutional. Under pressure from FIRE, the university backed down, issuing no public statement but allowing the bake sale. FIRE is also looking into attempts to suppress a bake sale at Eastern Washington University. In this case, an outside group of the left, the Center for Justice, threatened suit on grounds that the campus sale would violate state anti-discrimination laws.
Opponents of these bake sales will use almost any argument to shut them down. At the University of Washington, the administration said the sponsor had failed to get a food permit. At Grand Valley, the university counsel argued that the sale of a single cupcake would convert political commentary into forbidden campus commerce. At Eastern Washington, the varying prices were denounced as unfair marketing. At Texas A&M, the athletics director argued that a satirical bake sale would damage the sports teams by making it harder to recruit minority players.
Apart from the complaint that opposition to affirmative action is evidence of bias, the most common tactic used against the sales is the "heckler's veto": Disruptions may occur, but instead of protecting the cookie sellers, the colleges decree that sales must be banned.
Campus culture is so heavily pitched against dissent that many students react viscerally to those who disagree and can't even understand when such dissent is reasonable. David French, president of FIRE, blames the uniformity of thought on campus. He says that because the suppression of bake sales meets approval in faculty lounges, opponents are often surprised when the public notices the censorship and reacts against it.
In terms of the hothouse campus culture, suppression seems normal.
It is amazing that university liberals will always find excuses not to protect right-of-center speech. I've never heard a "We believe in free speech BUT..." argument made to restrict speech about a left-wing issue on a college campus. I've seen a couple of cases that restricted all speech, left or right, but never one that only impacted left leaning students. We hear things like, "Oh, we respect freedom of speech, BUT Larry Summers should have taken into account..." or "Freedom of speech is an ideal, BUT having a satirical bake sale is offensive because..." It is remarkable that we have to go all the way back to square one with these folks. You cannot legitmately claim to believe in freedom of speech if you reserve the right to place any limitations that suit your fancy. The Supreme Court has laid down what few BUT's are acceptable in our democratic society. The last time I checked Larry Summers was not yelling fire in a crowded theater, and college Republicans are not asking for someone to be killed.
Did these folks just forget to do their undergraduate reading on John Stuart Mill? Well, maybe they just didn't understand it.
No comments:
Post a Comment