
Student “safety” has become a real threat to free speech on campus - pliny
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21654157-student-safety-has-become-real-threat-free-speech-campus-trigger-unhappy
======
jkyle
> Unfortunately for them, something called the American constitution strongly
> protects free speech, whether divisive, upsetting or not.

I don't think this author understands the constitution. This _may_ apply on
public campuses. However, it most certainly does not apply on private
campuses.

Anyone is free to exercise their free speech, but that right does not protect
them from being expelled, fired, or censored at a private university.

UI is a public university, but Northwestern is not.

Whether a private university _should_ behave this way is a different
proposition. But there seems to be this trend of invoking the constitution
like some holy shield against "whatever I disagree with".

~~~
defen
> Anyone is free to exercise their free speech, but that right does not
> protect them from being expelled, fired, or censored at a private
> university.

I'm not trying to single you out here, but I see this type of comment all the
time whenever free speech issues come up, and I can't help but see it as a
middlebrow dismissal. Yes, we all agree that in the USA, the First Amendment
only covers government suppression of speech. But perhaps equally important is
whether we want to live in a society where the smallest amount of "wrong
speech" can subject you to almost unlimited social & economic consequences,
none of it state-sanctioned.

Should you lose your job and have to go into hiding and start a new life
because you make a joke in poor taste to your 50 twitter followers?

Should you lose your job and get death threats because you take a
disrespectful photo at a grave site and share it with 5 friends on facebook?

They're not First Amendment issues, but they are free speech issues.

~~~
geofft
> But perhaps equally important is whether we want to live in a society where
> the smallest amount of "wrong speech" can subject you to almost unlimited
> social & economic consequences, none of it state-sanctioned.

There are two things I'd like to ask, in this discussion.

The first is whether the social condemnation of "wrong speech" is the problem
here, or the social standard of at-will employment for a living. There are a
lot of people who have trouble getting good employment for various reasons
beyond their control. To worry about those who are already employed,
_especially_ when they make "wrong speech" about those who are not (e.g., an
IAC executive talking about AIDS victims in Africa), seems to be misplaced
priorities. If we truly believe that people should not be losing their living
for small mistakes, we should also believe that people should not lose their
living for _no_ mistake, either, and we should find a way for everyone to live
a comfortable, happy life, whether or not any employer wants to associate with
them.

The second is that I don't believe that this is actually happening. There's
been a certain scientist in the news recently, who resigned from his job, but
has kept his knighthood and Nobel Prize. This does not seem like _unlimited_
consequence and going into hiding and starting a new life. It certainly does
not seem like a poor-taste joke made to 50 Twitter followers; the comment in
question was given in an invited speech at a conference with a worldwide
audience.

I believe there is certainly an incentive for the powerful to weave a story
that regular innocent people are losing their lives for an honest mistake,
since they want to protect their power (the same reason they _have_ the
opinions that people find distasteful: they act in accordance with those
opinions, to protect their power). But I think we should be skeptical of this
tale.

~~~
mcphage
> If we truly believe that people should not be losing their living for small
> mistakes, we should also believe that people should not lose their living
> for no mistake, either, and we should find a way for everyone to live a
> comfortable, happy life, whether or not any employer wants to associate with
> them.

Surely. But the issue at hand is whether people should lose their living for a
small mistake; why do you feel discussing that takes something away from
support for people who lose their living for no reason?

~~~
geofft
Because it's tying in two not-intrinsically-related concepts, namely, whether
someone should lose their _living_ and whether someone should lose their
status, authority, and power. These get tied together a lot in popular
parlance.

In the article about the school principal linked elsewhere in the thread, the
"fired" principal actually got a desk job elsewhere in the school district. I
think that's a remarkably mature position to take (provided that compensation
is not wildly lower): it's certainly excessive for that person to be unable to
pay rent/mortgage or provide for his family, but not excessive to be unable to
supervise children and teachers.

In the story about Brendan Eich, the CTO position was available for him to
step back into (and available for him to have kept from the beginning). Even
if we allow that he was forced out of the CEO role less than voluntarily, it
seems much clearer that he left employment with Mozilla voluntarily, since
there were no calls for his resignation while he was CTO. But it still gets
reported that he was sacked.

In the story about Sir Tim Hunt, he resigned (possibly voluntarily, but no
matter) from an honorary professorship at UCL, while maintaining his day job
at Cancer Research UK. But the media spin is that he lost his job as a
professor.

I would absolutely agree that people should not lose their living for a small
mistake. I would disagree that any of these are examples of that, and I would
strongly disagree that an employer should feel compelled to maintain public
ties with someone they wish to distance themselves from, just because they
feel an ethical responsibility for providing that person's living. _That_
would compromise freedom of speech and association, namely that of everyone
else at the company.

~~~
mcphage
> I would strongly disagree that an employer should feel compelled to maintain
> public ties with someone they wish to distance themselves from

Here's one of the secrets of the world: companies don't really care who they
associate with. They don't really care about much of anything, to be honest.
They're businesses, they exist to make money, and most of them don't care
beyond that. So to say that a company "wishes to distance themselves from
[someone]" is a bit disingenuous. It's not like the company decided "yeah, we
don't like X anymore". Maybe people inside the company feel that way! But
companies don't have much of an opinion about that. What they _do_ care about
is, are there people angry with the company about X? If so, they're going to
fire X, or demand their resignation (if firing them would make the company
look bad), or if they can't get rid of them, shuffle them off into a corner
where nobody notices them. But it's definitely not, the company has a crisis
of conscience, and doesn't want to be involved with X anymore.

~~~
afarrell
What if the company is a nonprofit, such as University College London or the
Mozilla foundation?

~~~
mcphage
Well, examine the evidence for them—Mozilla, for instance, had no problem with
Eich as a CTO, nor had a problem promoting him to CEO. But a sustained
negative publicity campaign—from people within the organization, as well as
completely unrelated companies like Ok Cupid—and they backed down.

In some cases, they might actually be more aggressive about it, since usually
they care about _something_ , and so quick to drop things that interfere with
that thing. Take World Vision, for instance. They're a non-profit devoted to
supporting orphans. They changed their policy to allow homosexual
employees—but a campaign from their primarily evangelical Christian supporters
cost them millions of dollars in donations, so they reversed the policy after
two days. Did they still feel that allowing homosexual employees was correct?
Almost definitely. But they cared more about their work supporting orphans, so
anything that got in the way was removed.

------
xoa
The debate about whether students are being insufficiently challenged in terms
of opinions and beliefs appears to be a growing one, and it ties into the
debate on academic freedom on college campuses that has existed since at least
the 1800s. It's somewhat distinct though from the more generalized debate
about Free Speech in overall society, and I have to wonder in this case if The
Economist (and many others) aren't picking the wrong correlation here. While
the exact reasoning changes over the decades, "so and so professor should be
pressured/fired for saying something I don't like" remains constant and the
answer was the tenure system. I think the modern decline of tenure positions
is actually much more of the actual, root cause of any problems we're seeing
right now. Overall popular opinions are always in flux and new trends come and
go, and right now extreme sensitivity towards anything that might make someone
uncomfortable seems to enjoy popular support. But just like with previous
trends, if a professor had tenure they'd be equally free to argue back as hard
as they wished and tell students to either successfully convince the
professor, shape up, or suck eggs.

It's true that in many cases economic pressure on some colleges have become
heavier over the years as public funding has evaporated, but economic pressure
is still economic pressure and has always existed with the same natural
result. Money talks. Counteracting that natural trend with mechanisms like
tenure is much more important and lastingly useful then trying to apply
bandaids to any particular trend of the day. With a strong basic framework
ensuring that debate can continue even in the face of popular consensus, there
is a much higher chance that the marketplace of ideas will succeed and prevent
any permanent fall into a local minima. It's somewhat disappointing that The
Economist of all places would fail to explore this, with even the very word
"tenure" not showing up at all.

------
vacri
What an affront to freedom of expression, that a university had to apologise
for an artwork that if left alone, would suggest they condone oppression of
blacks? Stupid article. The issue isn't that black students might fear for
their very lives because of a statue, but that they may be made to be second-
class citizens - if the university condones such outright support of a racist
group, where else might they be unfair to blacks?

The point about 'safe' environment is that university is a stressful (and fun)
time with a lot going on. By condoning shit like this, you make it harder for
a subset of students, who now have to deal with worrying about a political
agenda that other students don't.

In any event, the artist shouldn't complain, because _he got exactly what he
wanted_ : a dialogue on race. He simply didn't like (expect?) the contents of
that dialogue. The cynic in me likes that, that he hid behind a generalised
"oh, trying to start a dialogue" motif, and then had problems when he didn't
like the specifics.

~~~
geofft
> In any event, the artist shouldn't complain, because _he got exactly what he
> wanted_ : a dialogue on race.

This is an excellent point. There was a lot of freedom of speech and
expression. Unfortunately, that expression was apparently so traumatic for the
artist that he left his job. Nobody forced him to leave. Certainly nobody
forced him to leave his entire academic career.

Maybe we should institute "safe spaces" for faculty who don't know how to
start conversations on race in a useful way, so they can be shielded from
criticism.

------
ecdavis
I read _Kindly Inquisitors_ by Jonathan Rauch[0] earlier this year which makes
a fantastic argument against the limitation of free speech. It was written
over twenty years ago. While I wholeheartedly agree with Rauch's position, I
can't help but wonder what has changed in the last two decades. The points he
made then seem just as relevant today, and the examples he provided of speech
being censored do not seem at all old-fashioned. Is this sort of behavior
strictly limited to university campuses, or does it eventually seep into the
"real world" as well?

Is freedom of speech today significantly more hindered than it was twenty
years ago?

[0] I read the book after seeing a recommendation on Hacker News. I enjoyed it
a great deal and would strongly recommend it also.
[http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/K/bo1814074...](http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/K/bo18140749.html)

~~~
randomname2
> I can't help but wonder what has changed in the last two decades.

While certainly not the sole reason, social media giving a voice to disturbed
people and resurrecting the "lynch mob" may have played a big part.

------
fweespeech
This whole situation has gotten out of hand in the US. The exercise of speech
[even disgusting, offensive, and/or odious speech] is not a safety issue.
Words cannot hold guns, knives, or other weapons. Yes, they can be unpleasant.
Yes, they can be upsetting. Yes, people who have been abused can be triggered.

However, it is pretty clear the _intent_ of the academic in question was to
promote discussion and debate about racism. The fact that is not an idea worth
defending because the manner in which it was done offends people is really
depressing.

> The reaction among some black students was to fear for their safety, and
> that is not surprising. What is more of a puzzle—for anyone outside American
> academia, at least—is that students and UI bosses continued denouncing Mr
> Tanyolacar for threatening campus safety even after the misunderstanding was
> cleared up. In vain did the Turkish-born academic explain that he is a
> “social-political artist”, using Klan imagery to provoke debate about
> racism.

We can't bubble wrap the world for the adults that live in it. We can only
provide support groups, make sure they aren't discriminated against in the
marketplace, and other measures to help them cope.

~~~
AlexMax
> Words cannot hold guns, knives, or other weapons. Yes, they can be
> unpleasant. Yes, they can be upsetting. Yes, people who have been abused can
> be triggered.

Words can't act, but they can compel, coerce, and intimidate. It absolutely
_is_ a safety issue. You can argue over the applicability to this particular
situation, but to imply that words are harmless is a disservice to rights
guaranteed us under the first amendment.

~~~
Kalium
Indeed, there is great power in words. That is both why the First Amendment
exists and why some seek to curtail speech they find discomfiting.

~~~
AlexMax
> Indeed, there is great power in words. That is both why the First Amendment
> exists and why some seek to curtail speech they find discomfiting.

But their power is also why the first amendment only applies to the government
not being able to persecute you. Why should people have the right to speech
without consequence of any sort?

~~~
Kalium
Of _any_ sort? No. Only certain sorts of consequences are permitted. Turning
the forces of government against you in punishment is not to be permitted or
tolerated. Other forms of reprisal are permitted and accepted.

Which is why the story about a public university is disturbing. Or the story
of a statute for equality being abused in an attempt to silence someone.

------
fnordfnordfnord
I think some lazy college administrators are happy to have another excuse to
manage student behavior (in a way that minimizes inconvenience to college
administrators).

>Unfortunately for them, something called the American constitution strongly
protects free speech, whether divisive, upsetting or not.

That hasn't stopped many from throwing up "free speech zones" and attempting
to ban activism in common areas.

------
amluto
I'm surprised that the Economist didn't include a picture of the effigy.
Here's an article with a partial picture:

[http://www.mediaite.com/online/university-of-iowa-pulls-
cont...](http://www.mediaite.com/online/university-of-iowa-pulls-
controversial-kkk-art-display/)

I think the Economist article is a bit one-sided. Is it really fair to blame
students for being scared when an effigy in the style of those displayed by a
group that is known for advocating and sometimes conducting violence against a
certain racial group, is displayed on campus? As far as I can tell, this
particular effigy wasn't clearly distinguished from one that might actually be
displayed by the KKK.

Sure, people have the right to display things that make other people
uncomfortable, but there must be a line somewhere, and this seems perilously
close to it.

------
ianbicking
It seems totally appropriate the artwork was taken down. It was an attempt to
provoke, and then co-opt the result of that provocation through somewhat
surreptitious filming to produce another work of art, all hosted in a public
place which could not be expected to be an art venue, using emotionally
charged imagery of a scale that could not be avoided. I generally appreciate
art that is provocative and performance art, but at least a performance artist
confronts the reaction to the work through their presence. If an artist wants
to do something that emotionally charged, I think they need more skin in the
game than this guy had.

All the article claims happened, as far as I see, is that the art was taken
down, and the school apologized they didn't take it down earlier. The language
the school used in its apology seems a little hyperbolic, but whatever.
Assuming this is the sum reaction against the artist (and maybe there are more
repercussions), then I think that's all a reasonable risk that an artist takes
and the artist should take his punches and move on.

Creative defacement of the art would have been a more interesting in-kind
response, but I suppose that ship has sailed.

~~~
joeclark77
I think the example in the first paragraphs of the article (the Klan effigy
with candid camera) is not the strongest one; it was a weird device for data
collection, not really speech. The problem is better illustrated by some of
the other articles: leftist students attacking things they disagree with, not
by responding to them, but by going to the authorities and claiming to feel
"unsafe". They have in many cases abused Title IX, claiming that this book or
that lecture creates a "hostile environment" (i.e., lying without shame),
because they know it's a way to trap an opponent in a lengthy, biased pseudo-
judicial process. In these kinds of attacks, it's not about getting a
conviction, because the leftists know their charges are false. Instead, "the
process is the punishment". They want to make examples and terrorize others
into self-censorship. These attacks are happening all over the country and
they are not just good people taking it too far -- they are malicious and
intentional.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The other examples are pretty terrible too, the guy who was afraid of his
"liberal" students was complained about by a right-wing student who demanded
he blame a financial collapse on poor, black homeowners, and was mostly
frightened because he apparently had no job security.

So on the basis of all the examples the highly respected Economist magazine
can scrape together, this appears to be almost entirely invented scandal.

You on the other hand seem to have knowledge of a wide-ranging campaign of
terror and intimidation against free speech, maybe you should write up an
article about it and we could discuss that instead.

------
geofft
This article strikes me as surprisingly badly argued, much more so than I'd
expect from _The Economist_.

> Students should beware of winning too many victories. A perfectly safe
> university would not be worth attending.

What? Why? Is there anything in this article that even attempts to be an
argument for this point (let alone a good argument)?

And isn't the voluntarily departure of of Mr Tanyolacar a sign that the
university is in fact not safe, as the author wants? It seems like he faced
some "ideas or imagery that might prove distressing" from students, and chose
to leave the academy. Well, good for him, not everyone is cut out for a free-
speech environment where students are free to say that they disagree with
poorly-done stunts from faculty.

~~~
Nadya
If your ideas go unchallenged - are you learning?

If you're "triggered" by history lessons - do we need to _rewrite history_? Is
it even considered history at that point?

Who's "safety" should we prioritize? What if two students ideas of safety
conflict? How would that be resolved?

Should we focus on teaching or "student safety" from ideas? Which is more
important in an academic setting?

~~~
geofft
Those would all be good questions that I would have liked the article to give
some attention to.

For instance, do the trigger warnings on historical content imply a way for
students to _avoid_ that content and still graduate the class? Or does it
merely say what material will be covered, just as a syllabus does, so that
students can be mentally prepared?

Have there been conflicting ideas of safety? Concrete examples may be helpful
to figure out what we're talking about.

What's a good basis for determining what needs to be taught? I can imagine,
for instance, a top-notch CS curriculum that involves no classes about
history. (MIT's graduation requirements, for instance, don't require any
history classes.)

The article doesn't talk about any of this, and instead spreads FUD about the
impending destruction of the academy.

~~~
Nadya
_> For instance, do the trigger warnings on historical content imply a way for
students to avoid that content and still graduate the class? Or does it merely
say what material will be covered, just as a syllabus does, so that students
can be mentally prepared?_

Quite literally what a syllabus is for, so I imagine the former rather than
the latter. If it were the latter - they already have the syllabus so what's
the problem?

 _> Have there been conflicting ideas of safety? Concrete examples may be
helpful to figure out what we're talking about._

I feel more safe with security/cops on campus. Certain individuals may feel
_less_ safe with security/cops on campus given recent events and media
coverage over the past 2-3 years especially.

Just one plausible example. Not to say that issue has come up in any notable
cases - but it is one I can imagine playing out given recent events.

 _> The article doesn't talk about any of this, and instead spreads FUD about
the impending destruction of the academy._

In my personal opinion, academia is already screwed. Not every field and not
every campus - but an increasingly number of them. But my opinions aren't
important here.

~~~
geofft
> Quite literally what a syllabus is for, so I imagine the former rather than
> the latter. If it were the latter - they already have the syllabus so what's
> the problem?

A syllabus covers high-level topics/concepts, not specific types of content
students would like warning about, so I can definitely see room for a policy
about adding something like "involves discussion of sexual assault" next to
"students will read and discuss works of fiction about life in the Southern
states during Reconstruction", if you're reading _The Sound and The Fury_.
(It's been a while since I read that book, please don't take this as a claim
that the book needs a trigger warning.) If there are multiple choices of
classes to fulfill a literature requirement, students could just choose to
take a class without such a content warning -- they already have that choice
of class.

But, you're imagining and I'm imagining. It'd be nice if we had some actual
journalism here to answer that question!

------
PhasmaFelis
I feel like this specific incident is a really shitty example of the chilling
of free speech. And that's a shame, because it's a real issue that deserves
better arguments than this one.

I can't see that Tanyolacar was wronged in any way. The article doesn't
mention that he was personally disciplined; the university has not attempted
to censor his speech. He hung a racist symbol on public property, with no
indication that it was intended as art, and it was removed. Is that
censorship? If actual Klansmen had set up a burning cross in the middle of
campus, should we let it burn because it might have been intended to be art?
If someone spraypainted swastikas on the walls, should they be left untouched
as free expression of political views?

He made a statement (and if art is speech, than it can clearly be a statement)
that was both not his actual belief and deliberately calculated to provoke an
entertaining reaction. We call people who do that "trolls." He wanted to
offend people, he succeeded, and now he's complaining about it. What did he
expect to happen? What does he think should have happened?

~~~
joeclark77
He was wronged in that students lied about feeling "afraid" and "terrorized"
and "unsafe" instead of simply saying that they were offended. They made these
claims because they know that these words put into motion an array of
employment-related and/or pseudo-legal threats like Title IX suits. They lied
about how they felt, to a third party such as the university administration,
instead of responding truthfully to the person they disagreed with. The first
problem is that there are structures in place that reward this behavior, and
the second is that the current breed of leftists feel absolutely no shame in
using them.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
So you don't think there's any possible way that displaying the symbol of a
group known for murdering black people and black rights activists, on the site
of a protest for black rights, could legitimately be construed as a threat of
violence.

Okay.

------
zaroth
There's definitely something going on, although I think this article in
particular makes a weak case.

A couple other articles in a similar vein;

"I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me" \-
[https://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-
afrai...](https://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid)
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9654710](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9654710))

"My Title IX Inquisition" \-
[http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/06/my-title-
ix-...](http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/06/my-title-ix-.html)
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9626970](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9626970))

~~~
geofft
Vox themselves published some good responses to that first article:

[http://www.vox.com/2015/6/5/8736591/liberal-professor-
identi...](http://www.vox.com/2015/6/5/8736591/liberal-professor-identity)

[http://www.vox.com/2015/6/10/8753721/college-professor-
fear](http://www.vox.com/2015/6/10/8753721/college-professor-fear)

The first one points out, in passing, that the only _actual_ complaint the
liberal professor received was from a conservative student, who thought the
professor was too soft on (perceived) communism. But it makes the more general
point that the root problem with academic liberty, insofar as there is a
problem, is with the tenure process and the rise of adjunct positions, not
with liberal students. It's a very interesting analysis.

------
scintill76
In the case of Serhat Tanyolacar, an African American lectures a Turkish
immigrant: "I don’t understand why a non-black person can appropriate black
people’s pain to teach a lesson about racism." Did she not also thereby
"appropriate" the artist's message, another minority? Is she not appropriating
the sole victimhood at the hands of the KKK, which has also been racist
against other races, anti-Catholic, and homophobic? Her response is basically
that Mr. Tanyolacar is too white to have a legitimate voice in this[0] (please
don't thoughtlessly retaliate with this link.)

Although it's reasonable for a black person to interpret a KKK message as
primarily anti-black, and my opinion would be discounted on the basis of my
own race/gender/orientation... it's just sad to see rampant labeling and
subdividing of people even among self-professed shared victim classes,
assigning out who has legitimate pain and who doesn't, narrow-minded focus on
one's own problems while simultaneously professing a motivation to help
others, etc. We all have pains, we've all been somebody's victims, we're all
aggressors sometimes.

P.S. I find the work in poor taste, and it sounds like it at least should have
been labeled better. This is merely a comment on the tactics used to dismiss
and discredit the artist.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/krw18/status/541105260098371584](https://twitter.com/krw18/status/541105260098371584)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
The KKK hates everyone who isn't exactly like them, but they were
_specifically created_ to suppress (i.e. terrorize and murder) African-
Americans trying to exercise equal rights, and that still appears to be their
#1 concern. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to see KKK symbols as
symbolizing violence and repression specifically against African-Americans and
their allies.

------
fredgrott
Please remember folks in a time far away US both private and public Colleges
got around the US Constitution by shutting down for the summer to put an end
to protests during the Vietnam War.

------
monochromatic
There is no right not to be offended. That's just a right that doesn't exist.

~~~
geofft
Is there not the right of freedom of association, and by extension, not to
associate with those who offend without purpose?

~~~
monochromatic
Of course. But my freedom not to associate with someone DOES NOT give me the
right to force him to go away.

~~~
seanflyon
Unless they are on your property, in which case you can ask them to leave.

~~~
monochromatic
Well sure, but that has more to do with property rights per se than with the
implied right of freedom of association.

(Or maybe it doesn't. I dunno, really.)

------
misuba
Not discussed in the article's introduction is whether Mr. Tanyolacar, and by
extension The Economist, might possibly have any learning to do about how race
works in America, and whether that learning might be something that he and
they are currently experiencing as trauma.

There's a point past which trigger warnings are silly; Klan hoods in the quad
aren't past it. That professor's an idiot at best, and The Economist has again
chosen a revealing bedfellow.

~~~
lovemenot
>> Not discussed in the article's introduction is whether Mr. Tanyolacar, and
by extension The Economist, might possibly have any learning to do about how
race works in America

If you look to the end of the article, it is clear that he had been
insensitive at best.

>> The Economist has again chosen a revealing bedfellow

Your choice of language is antagonistic. It seems like you are implying the
writer's and the publication's racist tendencies are slipping out. If so, I
don't know what is the basis of that assertion.

~~~
misuba
Hey man, I just finished "What is Code," gimme a minute to refill my magazine-
article bar.

As for my admittedly prejudicial feelings towards The Economist, it's been a
long ride and I couldn't point to anything specific. I've just developed a
tendency not to be surprised when they don't regard certain things as
important, or certain other things as fallible.

~~~
lovemenot
Appreciate your conciliatory language. I believe the article is really all
about Voltaire's maxim : _I do not agree with what you have to say, but I 'll
defend to the death your right to say it._

Such an argument pretty much necessitates an unpleasant exemplar.

Read the obituary of Bob Randall currently on their front page for one
instance of the Economist decrying institutional racism in a thoroughly
heartfelt manner.

~~~
misuba
As discussed elsewhere in the thread, rights are not at issue; social
consequences are. This is about a group of people saying, "not everything you
have the right to do is beneficial. When introducing something into a given
conversation in a given way, for the mere sake of the performance of your
right, has known negative effects on the conversation and the people in it,
you're not being a free speech warrior; you're being a jerk."

~~~
lovemenot
Why must it be either/or? Rights and social consequences are not exclusive. I
agree that the artist behaved as a jerk. I just don't think it is desirable to
try to prevent him being a jerk by shutting him (and others) down. As the
article contends, by bending the definition of "safety" to now include not
having to put up with jerks.

At the start of this thread, others had tried to make your voice irrelevant by
down-voting your comment. Presumably because they disagreed with you. More
recently, I have received down-votes against my first reply to you. In both
cases, (and for the same reasons as this discussion) I think it would have
been better for those who disagreed to say why they disagreed, not to attempt
to shut down dissent. Disagreement is fine, as long as it is in the open.
Silencing critics (jerks even) may feel good at the time, but the precedent is
insidious.

Did you read that obit yet?
[http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21653997-bob-
randall-...](http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21653997-bob-randall-
aborigine-elder-teacher-and-campaigner-died-may-13th-aged-about-81) Adjusted
your view of TE editorial policy on racism after doing so?

------
misuba
Where you read "safety" in this article and other discussions of the issue,
it's illuminating to substitute the words "regard as full human beings."

Contexts that don't regard certain classes of people - those with a history of
this lack of regard - as full human beings are going to be considered obsolete
by today's undergraduates. That's just a given. Repair these contexts and
universities would see a lot of these problems go away.

There are, of course, contexts you can't repair - namely, works that have
value but were made in, or contain, obsolete contexts. The recontextualization
work here can be difficult, it's true, but universities and professors that
don't do it are going to be hearing about it.

