What's the evidence of real widespread speech suppression?L'Emmerdeur wrote:A counterpoint to the relentless drumbeat about 'left wing scum' and no-platforming at elite secular institutions of higher education in the US.
'The Invisible Free Speech Crisis'
Shane Claiborne is not an imposing presence. A Christian pacifist, he’s known within evangelical circles for his opposition to the death penalty, for his embrace of immigrants and refugees, and for helping found an intentional community in Philadelphia called the Simple Way. He’s a regular visitor to Christian college campuses. On Friday, Claiborne, working alongside a prominent roster of Christian leaders that included the Rev. William J. Barber, held a revival in Lynchburg, Virginia. Lynchburg being the home of Liberty University, Claiborne reached out to Liberty’s president, Jerry Falwell Jr., to invite him to come pray with fellow Christians. But this weekend, Claiborne reported that Falwell had refused his invitation. Further, Liberty’s campus police department threatened him with arrest if he set a toe on campus.
What’s so dangerous about a Christian pacifist? Claiborne did not come to Lynchburg to burn the Falwell family’s city upon a hill. In fact, he shares a number of positions with Liberty’s leadership, including on abortion. It appears that Falwell’s objection to Claiborne stems from the latter’s commitment to non-violence; he is set to publish a new book making the Christian case for gun control.
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The no-platforming of Shane Claiborne inspired no outrage outside the evangelical world. There were no columns about it in The New York Times, The Washington Post, or New York magazine. Bill Maher has not invited dissenting students onto his television show, even though they exist. Erin Covey, a Liberty journalism major, told Religion News Service on Saturday that Falwell himself blocked her from covering Claiborne’s revival for the student newspaper. “I do think that currently the level of oversight we have does make it difficult to pursue the accurate journalism that we’re taught in classes,” she told RNS.
There are important differences between the no-platforming of controversial speakers at secular universities and the wholesale suppression of speech at Christian universities, starting with the latter’s competing claim of freedom of religion. But Falwell’s actions violate the purpose of even a Christian university, which retains a mission to develop the intellect. There is a free speech crisis on campus, but it’s not at Yale or Middlebury. It’s at Liberty University and schools like it.
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Everyone wants to talk about who gets to speak on campus now. The question is a worthy one, considered on its own. Who does get to speak on campus? It depends on who you are, and where you are located. Often, it depends on power.
There are many who argue, in the pages of this country’s most respected periodicals, that this power lies with the intolerant left. But the evidence of real, widespread speech suppression shows it lies elsewhere, on the right. This, in turn, suggests that the ostensible champions of free speech are more interested in criticizing campus identity politics than in protecting speech.
I would agree, though, that the right wingers are just as dangerous in this regard as the left wingers. Both extremes seek to suppress speech, just different speech. It has seemed to me that the lion's share of the attacks on free speech on campuses, however, have come from from the left. Here is an example of a no-platforming on the right, at a private, religious university. This is a danger, but hardly evidence that widespread suppression from right wingers on campus is greater than from the left.
The point made in the article is that all the examples of university speech policing and censorship in mainstream articles is just as bad as the right wing censorship of the religious right "conservative coalition" Liberty University. If that's the comparison we're going to make with Harvard, Yale, Berkely, Columbia, Wilfred-Laurier, Evergreen, Northwestern, Middlebury College, etc. -- the long list of liberal, secular, mostly public universities should comport themselves like the private business set up by Jerry fucking Falwell as a specifically religious institution?
As has been pointed out, there is a huge difference between no platforming at a public, secular university and at a private university. And, among private universities, there are those who portray themselves as secular, liberal, education-oriented institutions versus a university that is dedicated to a specific brand of Christianity with a stated "purpose and mission" to develop "Christ-centered" men and women.http://www.liberty.edu/aboutliberty/index.cfm?PID=6899 Compare that to Evergreen University's purpose and mission statement - http://www.evergreen.edu/about/mission
Now, the article also suggests that nobody is paying attention to the right wing censorship, but the Washington Post covers it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... b6e775967c
But if there has been a dearth of coverage of this Claiborne fellow and Liberty University, the reason is likely (a) nobody heard of Claiborne or his group before, and they are not on the radar, and (b) nobody expects Liberty University to be a liberal campus open to heretical Christian ideas. It's not a surprise. We know that Falwell's group, and his Liberty University are religious and extremely conservative with no interest in fostering dialog and debate, and as long as they don't get public funds, they have a right to be that. Now, if they put on their mission statement that they were dedicated to a broad, liberal arts educaton, discourse, debate and critical thinking or such concepts, but then they did this, things would likely be different.
