
The threat from within - sloanesturz
http://news.stanford.edu/2017/02/21/the-threat-from-within/
======
robertpateii
It's good they're talking about this. But I'm surprised there's no mention of
the "more speech" quote, how old this issue is, and how clearly the solution
has been declared by the supreme court over the years (discussion not
silence).

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to
avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more
speech, not enforced silence." \-- Justice Brandeis, 1927.

I'd never read the whole opinion until just now. It's great and the paragraph
that quote comes from is stirring.
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/357#pg_377](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/357#pg_377)

edit\addendum: ACLU has a FAQ on this issue that directly addresses the
universities: [https://www.aclu.org/other/hate-speech-
campus](https://www.aclu.org/other/hate-speech-campus)

~~~
ci5er
This is maybe orthogonal to the point, but i receive more than a little bed-
time satisfaction by reading supreme court decisions. Those judges ain't
dummies!

~~~
robertpateii
Definitely! You'll probably appreciate this podcast if you haven't already
heard it:
[http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolabmoreperfect](http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolabmoreperfect)

------
thinkmassive
"The first step is to remind our students and colleagues that those who hold
views contrary to one’s own are rarely evil or stupid, and may know or
understand things that we do not."

In a single word: empathize

This is a growing problem in far places more than just universities. It's
amplified by the filter bubbles in which most of us participate, whether we
realize it or not, thanks to social media and targeted advertising.

~~~
babesh
That is not a universal truth. It can often be true. In the real world there
is also hate speech, lying, cheating, and bullying and it is far from rare.
You need to figure out which one it is.

~~~
babesh
Reminds me that supposedly debate in Greece originated in trying to convince
others of your side rather than as a means of understanding the other side.

If you go to high school debate you see this played out. Neither side arrives
at the truth and many viewpoints favoring neither side get left out.

~~~
alexryan
Agreed. The tendency to cling to views and debate rather than pursue truth is
extremely unfortunate. Sam Harris gave a talk on this subject that I found
quite interesting.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOL3kUHjp2Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOL3kUHjp2Y)

------
tps5
No matter how much a university in 2017 might laud free speech, that
university is not going to invite a speaker who openly advocates for genocide.

When you accept this, you accept that "censorship" is unavoidable. Some ideas
will not be given a platform because of that platform's perceived (correctly
or not) distance from the mainstream. There is no society that has ever
existed where this is not the case.

So the question is: which views should be denied a platform?

Obviously there's no perfect way to answer this question, but it seems to me
that the solution to this problem isn't as difficult as this essay claims. I
think that, quite clearly, the criteria that define acceptable speech on a
college campus need to change. Specifically, those criteria must expand.
Dissenting views need to be given a platform, even if they make some students
uncomfortable.

~~~
rebootthesystem
The best way to deal with a speaker who openly advocates for genocide is to
let them be heard and be rejected on the (lack of) merits of their argument.

Would decent people --intelligent students at a university-- truly buy into
these arguments? I think not.

What's to fear, then?

The best approach is to actually invite them to make a presentation and thank
them profusely for coming. I would start the presentation with a sustained
five minute applause.

Imagine, then, the message that would be sent to, say, a white supremacist
speaker who, after being received in this fashion watches the entire venue
slowly and quietly empty without saying a word until they are speaking to a
bunch of empty chairs.

A voluntarily empty hall, not by force, not by burning down the town, is the
best vaccination against these people.

So, yes, this means opening the doors to what we might consider to be hateful.
Unless we have a fundamental lack of faith in the quality and intelligence of
the student body the best approach is to let these speakers in and let them
experience talking in an empty room.

Maybe a few will want to listen to them. So what?

Intelligent, quiet and non-violent rejection, that's the way to do it.

~~~
kaitai
As a prof, I just don't understand why people in this discussion think I
should be spending part of the $4,000 allotted for a year's worth of travel
funding for speakers on some genocide advocate. And then I gotta host 'em and
take 'em out for dinner because that's the polite thing to do? No thanks. On
the institution side, we invite people we want to do research with or who will
talk to our classes about something useful. Fundamentally self- or student-
serving, but not idealistic, because there are tenure and promotion packets to
be written.

Say a student group invites the genocide advocate, because they've got time
for that. Then another student group wants to protest, because they've got
time for that. There are the student groups who will want to protest your way
and the student groups who will want to yell so loud that the speaker can't be
heard, and these groups won't agree. People will start complaining to the
faculty advisors about X inviting Y and Z shouting down Y and W not standing
up enough to Y and X, and it will get out on social media, and you'll read
about the brouhaha a few days later when the event is cancelled because the
admin just doesn't want to deal with the headache and the costs.

I tend to agree with you that the empty hall is the best vaccination. It just
requires a coordination among the student body that would be remarkable, that
would require real leadership from someone who saw this all coming. People are
so mired in the day-to-day that this leadership is generally lacking. How to
foster it, if that's what we want?

~~~
rebootthesystem
I realize the problem is complex, partly because it has been allowed to
devolve into what it looks like today.

Silly idea: Each group gets to pick one speaker to invite. They all have to
accept what other groups picked. If group A wants to boycott group B's choice
then both speakers are eliminated and they both have to choose new speakers.
Yes, it will be carnage at first, but very soon everyone is going to realize
they have to play nice with each other or nobody gets a speaker, ever.

Then there's education. Each group has to publish a one page summary profiling
the speaker and what he/she will discuss. This will serve to allow others to
decide whether they want to go listen or not.

Finally, occupancy. If a speaker can't attract a certain audience size, say,
25% of available seats, the group's rating is reduced which means other groups
have priority over them.

It's a complicated mish-mash of stuff. I know. And probably impossible to
implement. The point is that there must be a way to game-ify this business of
speakers on campus in order to avoid conflicts and operate under a set of well
understood rules. Prohibit all demonstrations in the name of tolerance.

The idea is to support free speech while having some kind of a self-regulating
system that does not require yelling and screaming at each other or worst.
There's also a degree of forced tolerance, which, sad to say, is necessary.
Universities have become almost the worst example of intolerance and bigotry
in our society. They have to force themselves to peacefully allow other
ideology to have a stage. This is important.

This doesn't mean endorsing anyone at all.

With regards to the funding available to pay for travel for speakers, I think
the regrettable reality is that if we are going to respect the concept of free
speech we need to accept the idea that we have to listen to those we might
consider to be repugnant. At least for a little bit.

Free speech does not guarantee an audience. If we invite and pay for a white
supremacist to give a speech, applaud them at the start of the speech and just
walk out without saying a word...well, these people need an audience. They'd
catch on pretty quickly that you made complete fools out of them with this
move.

The university might waste some money the first year this approach is taken.
Very soon the crazies are going to come back and say "no thanks, not
interested in giving a talk". In other words, invite them, house them, feed
them, even embrace them and take a picture with them...and then give them an
empty room to talk about anything they want to talk about.

Simple, peaceful and, I think, very powerful. The crazies would have no
audiences but intelligent contrasting ideas would and that's exactly what you
want.

You want students to not live in an echo chamber yet you want a degree of
control of the quality of the material they are exposed to.

Also, another quick point: The empty hall treatment completely disarms the
crazies. In sharp contrast to that, rioting in the streets, burning cars and
vandalizing businesses generates huge media attention and elevates the
crazies. In other words, the protest is actually great marketing for the nut-
case whereas the empty hall treatment ridicules them and makes them
irrelevant, nobody will be interested in covering them at all.

I think that, with modifications, this is a good strategy.

------
vxxxxxxxxxxxxx
While I don't disagree with the substance of this essay -- I think this point
needs to be made, and this discussion needs to be had -- it's very difficult
to offer "open forums for contentious debate" when certain speakers have built
showmanship out of their propensity to offend. This fits most definitions of
deliberate trolling, and isn't a productive recipe for reasoned debate,
protests and boycotts by the populace drive home the point that the speaker's
views are already well-known, and not welcome at all.

Similarly, some brave institutions may decide to host speakers that are near-
universally condemned for views that society has decided to be abhorrent. By
giving such speakers a forum, they're endorsing that such views are worthy of
being heard or debated, whether they are enthused by those ramifications or
not. Such behavior requires calculated risk, risk that may pay off if
attitudes change in the future.

~~~
rspeer
Yeah, he has a point in the abstract, but this would have been better timed
before Steve Bannon took over the executive branch and basically broke the
Overton window.

It's intellectually lazy to dismiss views via ad-hominem attacks, but it's
also intellectually lazy to consider all views morally equivalent. White
supremacy has entered the political discourse and it does not deserve equal
time.

~~~
yarou
> White supremacy has entered the political discourse and it does not deserve
> equal time.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on feminism and black nationalism. Do you
consider these viewpoints to be "morally equivalent" to white supremacy?

~~~
kaitai
That's quite a grab bag. Should we throw in radical veganism, Zionism, and
libertarianism too? How are you going to measure the "moral equivalency" or
non-equivalency of these positions?

So, to get started, these are all objects in some category, but I'm not sure
what the defining features of this category are. They all have beliefs about
groups of people, sort of (libertarianism going for "all individuals" often,
veganism involving animals on par with people with respect to certain rights).
Several involve thoughts on government (black nationalism, Zionism,
libertarianism) and others don't (white supremacy, feminism, veganism) so that
can't quite be it. Some explicitly put down other groups ("supremacy" is a
giveaway) and others don't (feminism doesn't, black nationalism often doesn't,
depends on the flavor of veganism and Zionism).

Even if you leave out my additions, what makes feminism, black nationalism,
and white supremacy comparable? Why did you put them together? One's racist,
one's separatist, and one is about equality; they don't have the same
relationships to governance; going back to category theory how are you going
to construct morphisms between these to compare them?

~~~
yarou
You can categorize them as identity politics.

Which is what I was trying to get at - I don't think that identity politics
are useful anymore in the modern age we live in.

What's inconsistent to me is if one accepts the moral superiority of one type
of identity politics over another. Either you accept them all or you
categorically deny them all.

~~~
Dylan16807
> Either you accept them all or you categorically deny them all.

"Identity politics" is not about what people say, it's about how they
organize. It neither validates nor invalidates one's arguments. I reject your
assertion.

------
jimmies
A couple of days ago, I was reading a status update from my Chinese friend
(who is quite intelligent) about Chinese students protesting Dalai Lama's
graduation speech at UC San Diego [1] _under the name of inclusion and
diversity._ For anyone who isn't familiar with the affairs, Dalai Lama is
exiled from Tibet which is considered part of China in many Chinese people's
point of view.

One of his arguments was that people have blocked anti-LGBT rights and anti-
BLM people because it hurts the feelings of the students in respective groups.
Then, why is it not reasonable to block the Dalai Lama because it hurts the
feelings of many Chinese students on campus?

After reading that, I sighed really loudly and went on with my day.

1: [https://qz.com/908922/chinese-students-at-ucsd-are-
evoking-d...](https://qz.com/908922/chinese-students-at-ucsd-are-evoking-
diversity-to-justify-their-opposition-to-the-dalai-lamas-graduation-speech/)

------
moultano
I mostly buy this and see the problem. I wonder though if the "marketplace of
ideas" will become a naive notion. If the memetic success of an idea becomes
totally uncoupled from its truth or virtue, then evolution will not select
memes that benefit us. We are exposed to way more high fitness memes than ever
before, and I'm not sure we are capable of effectively resisting them. We are
becoming unwitting hosts.

In a world of weaponized memes, the battlegrounds may be entirely in
controlling their exposure and thus their R0.

~~~
lucio
The success of ideas having real-world impact, are never uncoupled from
reality. Memes, as Genes, impact the real world, so Reality and Reason can
determine fitness.

~~~
moultano
Maybe, but I worry that we are now exposed to more memes than lived
experiences, so their power to overcome reality is increased. People have
extremely strong opinions about things they have no first hand exposure to. I
worry that the increase in polarization is simply people having opinions about
more things. If that's the cause, I don't see a way back.

------
rebootthesystem
This took real guts. Remarkable.

In "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" one of the most important
habits (my opinion) is:

"Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood"

This is incredibly important and it can only be achieved through dialogue.
Regrettably our universities have become some of the most intolerant and
bigoted mono-culture environments around. What kids are exposed to is nothing
less than indoctrination with caustic effects. These kids don't arrive at
university with such ideologies but the ideas are pounded into their heads by
often-militant professors who, due to their twisted, intolerant and one-sided
ideology should, in reality, be kept as far away from kids as humanly
possible.

Yet, as the article states, universities have, over time, become echo chambers
for a single world view that is violently intolerant of anything that does not
align with their ideology. This is wrong and it will eventually have
consequences, again, as explained in the article.

Bravo.

------
marricks
I think it's rather odd to take a stand for "everyone's right to speak" when
many speakers openly hate liberal institutions and really don't seem to have
any regard for facts or knowledge. Platforms to speech is what gives these
people power, and if teachers and students say they don't want to condone
those views, tied with racism and sexism, I think that should be respected.
What happens when we give these people (alt right, bigots, etc) platforms is
they get followers.

Look at the British National Party, they were piratically nothing until the
BBC decided to massively increase their coverage. Was the BBC's coverage fair
and impartial? Probably, but just giving them the attention causes people to
look into their platform and realize blaming everyone else is a pretty
comforting thing to do rather than take responsibility.

The deep question is who should be the gatekeepers, and I guess John
Etchemendy is saying it shouldn't be universities. Perhaps he's right in a
way, the board shouldn't be making those decisions. I do think the faculty and
students do have a right and duty to though as giving platforms for hate
speech empowers it.

~~~
hackinthebochs
>Platforms to speech is what gives these people power

This just isn't true: these people already have power. When bad ideas already
have a following, attempting to silence them isn't denying them power but
reenforcing it as silencing becomes a rallying cry.

Bad ideas fall to reasoned debate. Bad ideas thrive when they inherently have
a subconscious or emotional appeal and are allowed to spread in isolated
communities and are never challenged in open forums. Denying them platforms
isn't going to stop the spread of these ideas (the internet is still a thing).
It just passes up on another opportunity to challenge those ideas head on and
gives the charlatans another instance of suppression to use as a rallying cry.

Perhaps what students should insist on is instead of giving them an open
platform to speak, invite them to a debate. Force them to defend their ideas
under harsh scrutiny.

~~~
vkou
> Bad ideas fall to reasoned debate.

No, they don't. For that to work, this requires the proponents of bad ideas to
respond to logic, and for the acolytes of reprehensible ideas to be ashamed of
what they are doing.

The skinhead shouting "Hitler did nothing wrong" isn't going to back down when
you call him out for what he is, and he isn't going to be convinced by logic,
facts, or rationality.

If he were, the second world war would have been called "World Rational Debate
Competition, Part II."

Likewise, the religious fundamentalist isn't going to back down, or stop
preaching hate, just because you point out the absurdities and inconsistencies
in his holy book, or the hypocrisy in his prattle.

For some reason, though, liberals are falling head-over-heels to defend the
right of the former to amplify his message.

Freedom of political discourse is not fundamentally incompatible with zero
tolerance of fascism - just like freedom of religion is not fundamentally
incompatible with zero tolerance of violent fanaticism.

What is fundamentally incompatible in a tolerant society, is toleration of
intolerance.

~~~
hackinthebochs
>No, they don't. For that to work, this requires the proponents of bad ideas
to respond to logic

You're missing what's at stake here. It is emphatically _not_ to convince the
speaker he is wrong. Often times they have ulterior motives at play that
prevent them from recognizing or acknowledging that they were wrong. The point
is to convince those who are on the fence or otherwise could be persuaded by
the bad ideas. Seeing someone like Milo get pummeled in a debate does
incredible damage to his brand and his ideas. It may do absolutely nothing to
convince Milo he's wrong, but the ideas he's espousing now have resistance in
the minds of potential followers.

Give potential followers the mental tools to resist the appeal of these
messages, and the ideas die out with the hardliners.

~~~
vkou
> Seeing someone like Milo get pummeled in a debate

Milo doesn't host events so that he can be debated. He hosts these events so
he can preach to the choir.

It's not like he showed up to a meeting of the debate club - he's holding what
is, essentially, a political rally.

I repeat - they are not debates. They are lectures, speeches, whatever the
hell you want to call them - but no part of them leave open the possibility
that Milo will be proven wrong.

You can't openly engage with someone who is not willing to listen to reason -
or someone who is not willing to listen, at all. He doesn't care to stand up
to public scrutiny, or discourse - only to have a megaphone.

------
abandonliberty
Let's not forget Erika Christakis who was bullied into not teaching at Yale
after she suggested that colleges be about free speech and debate rather than
censorship.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-
new...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new-
intolerance-of-student-activism-at-yale/414810/)

There's tons of stories like this one.

What John misses is that this isn't a university problem. It's a society
problem.

~~~
josephagoss
Perhaps the focus on university is somewhat a good thing, as oftentimes that's
where some change can originate from. A lot people's views are often formed in
their university years.

~~~
abandonliberty
I really want you to convince me of this right now :)

I'm not a psychologist or sociologist, but there's a lot of evidence this
forms earlier, via peer group, media, and parenting.

Unfortunately universities are capitalist organizations with all the
accompanying weaknesses. We'll only see action from them if the probable
return of action is positive.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Unfortunately universities are capitalist organizations

Most traditional universities are either state institutions or private charity
nonprofits, neither of which are "capitalist organizations" in any normal
sense of the word.

------
_rpd
While this letter appears to be sincere, it is willfully ignorant of the
decades long shift of some academic departments from a stance of "ivory tower"
objectivity to the deliberate choice to use their prestige and power as
political activists. It isn't like they are hypocritically pretending to be
objective, they actively sneer at people who make the attempt.

------
didibus
"But we all need worthy opponents to challenge us in our search for truth."

That's the problem, where's the worthy opponent? I'm sure they exist, but I
rarely see or hear of them. I see a lot of demagogues, and those are not
worthy by definition and should not be brought into the conversation
especially in a University.

Bring us worthy opponents and I'm sure there won't be protests from students.

~~~
aero142
I'll propose that there is a reason for this. The tactics of the Social
Justice movement is to demonize people who disagree with you and attempt to
get them fired or ostracized from society. The tactic is to find the most
extreme version of that opinion and try to make that the model for the whole
group, even though the center of it might be more moderate. For example, there
are a lot of people that have been concerned about the amount of immigration
to the US for years and any attempt to restrict immigration was called
racists. It's easy to do since there will be extreme racists that also support
restricting immigration. You just need to interview one of the clear racists
and make them the poster child for the whole group. I saw tons of the meme
with Pepe the frog from the alt-right and never saw a single one that was
racists. When it went mainstream, someone found out that racists were using it
too, so they attached the racist label to the whole thing and tried to get any
discussion from the alt-right tied directly to racism and Nazism. There are
racists in the group for sure, but I heard a lot of other parts of it as well.

This is the same reason I was so opposed to the witch hunt of punishing
everyone associated with Peter Thiel. Trying to get someone fired for their
political beliefs sends the middle people underground. They are fearful, and
their whole lives are not centered around their political identity, so they
just stop talking about it.

The result is that the only people willing to talk about these things are the
extremes, or the weird or the people who really take "I don't care what you
think of me" to the extreme. This is why Milo Yiannopoulos is the spokesman
for these ideas to people. He is the only one willing to talk publicly. He is
an extreme, and deeply flawed person, but he is willing to say things no one
else is, so he has a following. Trump is also a version of this. Lots of his
supporters are more reasonable than him, but they got shouted out of the
public discourse and were call racists anyway, so that only left the extremes
left to represent the center.

I think there are lots "worthy opponents" out there, but if they said they
support less immigration, they would be called racists and everything they
ever said would be quote-mined until something unacceptable was found and they
would be run out of the public space.

~~~
malcolmreynolds
I'm in total agreement with this reply. Regarding the silence of the centrists
it is due to fear of being labeled with a pejorative that will be difficult to
shake, even if it's within a small community and not widely publicized. That
kind of ostracization, even if only in your neighborhood/town/city/workplace,
can have a significant negative effect on your life, and the lives of your
loved ones. For example, if you vocalize even mild support of some sort of
immigration restrictions you are branded a racist, regardless of whether your
reasoning for your support is logically sound or whether your implementation
approach is measured or thoughtful.

The result is that the extremism rampant today has a chilling effect on the
voices of what I believe is the vast majority of people. Where that may lead
is something that could be quite scary.

------
castle-bravo
PC culture has been in the headlines a lot recently, so instead of addressing
the progressive thought police, I was hoping that the author might say
something about the other ways in which the universities are eating themselves
alive.

What of the transition from full-time tenured faculty to adjuncts with little
income, less job security, and who are terrified of students' reviews? Should
universities continue to shift away from employing instructors and
researchers, and towards supporting increasingly byzantine hierarchies of
administrators?

What of the publish-or-perish imperative that emphasizes quantity over
quality, and shiny new results over testing results obtained elsewhere?

What of dramatic inflation in tuition costs and resulting student debt?

It seems to me that these factors are all slowly undoing the universities.
It'd be really interesting to hear a high-ranking administrator discuss these
issues seriously instead of carefully confessing his preference for free
speech over highly charged identity politics (which is a totally safe and
uncontroversial thing to do).

------
narrator
He's right that ad hominem is intellectually lazy. People should be ashamed of
themselves, especially if they consider themselves to be academics, if that's
the only argument they want to use in a debate.

------
jmarbach
There are a few diamonds in the rough of academia who are still promoting free
speech. Look to recipients of the Alexander Meiklejohn Award for Academic
Freedom for examples:

[https://www.aaup.org/about/awards/alexander-meiklejohn-
award...](https://www.aaup.org/about/awards/alexander-meiklejohn-award-
academic-freedom)

Alexander Meiklejohn was a former president of Amherst College and a staunch
defender of the First Amendment and the ALCU.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Meiklejohn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Meiklejohn)

------
uptownfunk
I think this is phenomenon is itself a byproduct of the education system, more
specifically that liberal values and ideals are seen as more intellectually
correct. In fact I think liberals are as guilty of this occurring as the
conservatives. Part of the solution should be in consciously emphasizing the
need for empathetic listening and respect (though not necessarily agreement)
for the opinions of others even if they conflict with our own "intellectually
superior" liberal values. Once that becomes embedded in the educational
culture we can begin to see a turnaround.

~~~
chetanahuja
_" liberal values and ideals are seen as more intellectually correct"_

The irony here is of course is that those complaining about not being heard on
campuses today are actually the most privileged members of western society who
support restrictions on media and suppression of freedoms for marginalized
groups. Tolerance as a value can't survive if the tolerant are required to
provide a platform to the intolerant.

------
thetruthseeker1
I agree with this article 100%. If universities are worried about "ignorant"
people spreading misinformation (if they give a podium to people who they
think are un-intellectual), what the university could do is have a framework
on how such ideas or all ideas are communicated. With some rules and fact
checking guidelines in place, it is possible to hear the opposing (or what is
viewed as un-intellectual view point ) with proper analysis.

~~~
thetruthseeker1
Not sure why I got down voted. What I am saying here is - from the university
point of view, if universities are worried that the platform is used for
spreading fears via nonintellectual arguments, they can create a framework to
mitigate such problems... I dont know why I got downvoted, please attempt to
understand the point I am making here before down voting me.

I dont think universities should shut down the other side, but they can create
a framework for communicating ideas .... one way OXFORD does it is via
debating (which you can find on youtube).

------
chetanahuja
I agree with most of the article about academic environments being open to
vigorous debate among opposing ideas. But I find this phrase: "diversity of
thought" problematic.

Not because I don't actually value diversity in philosophies or modes of
thinking, but because the phrase itself has been used recently as a weasel
phrase by reactionary forces acting to scale back decades of work to improve
actual diversity of backgrounds including race, national origin, genders,
sexualities etc. in the workplace and positions of power. I'm not accusing him
of using it deliberately in that sense but I think it's important to keep that
connotation of this phrase in mind while discussing his talk.

~~~
ZenoArrow
>"to scale back decades of work"

If I say something controversial, I don't automatically undo decades of
change. The impact of a statement grows as more people react to it. If you
disagree with a statement, the best response is to debate and illuminate the
foundations of the statement.

This isn't directed at you per se, but in general I hope people come to
understand the Streisand effect is an observable phenomenon. I'd even go as
far as saying it was a major contributor in getting Trump elected.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

------
BatFastard
We need a system that encourages students to discuss topics based on "facts",
no who screams or bullies that other party. Certainly there are subjects which
are indeed subjective. But there are many that are not. And in the process of
uncovering these facts as the basis for an argument, one may learn...

------
nether
[https://youtu.be/iKcWu0tsiZM](https://youtu.be/iKcWu0tsiZM)

------
carsongross
Always interesting when the (anonymous) upvote to supportive comment ratio is
as high as it is for this submission.

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toehead2000
How long until this guy gets screamed at by students claiming he made them
feel unsafe and then is forced to resign?

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tomp
That's at most one inconvenient fact away (e.g. that there are more extremely
smart men than extremely smart women).

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ultrahate
Wow!!!!!

Stanford is the last place on earth that I'd expect to actually confront
university PC culture.

What an exciting discussion that will follow this!

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aswanson
No mention of the ridiculous amount of wealth a university education costs,
the lack of economic education in the formal track and how the academic class
(of which the author is a member) is rendered mostly immune from forces most
of their students will have to face (investment for retirement, time value of
money, etc). But yeah, free speech to yell at homosexuals and feminists and
minorities and all that. Most important thing in my fucking life.

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HoppedUpMenace
The point is being made that free speech is being suppressed by the very
people who should wholeheartedly support and debate it, being that college is
the appropriate place to do such things. The author is also pointing out that
it has far greater negative implications on the world at present than any
other current issue facing college campuses.

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aswanson
"it has far greater negative implications on the world at present than any
other current issue facing college campuses."

I call bullshit. The price of college, the elevation of it's utility in our
society, and the economic illiteracy of most of it's professors and attendant
lack of preparation of it's students all present far more danger to society in
the long term than blocking a speech from Milo or some other overblown vacuous
controversy surrounding "free speech".

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lsiebert
I think the growing threat from within has much more to do with the ballooning
costs of higher education, and the way that higher education no longer means a
better life, and sometimes a worse one, with crushing student loan debt
ruining credit ratings.

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babesh
Selective outrage over free speech is biased. If you take a stand for free
speech you do it both inside and outside the institution. Where is his outrage
over lies and hate speech from the President? Words can be weapons and
quelling one side only is arming the other.

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bjd2385
I disagree with almost everything Etchemendy states here. Having been a
student at a private institution, public university and community college, his
(rather liberal) arguments simply aren't grounded in reality.

Perhaps he should go and live in the dorms, where scam after scam after scam
is apparent. From dining/meal plans to textbooks and all of the additional
fees we're charged, while the college builds millions of dollars of new
buildings, facilities and infrastructure.

Education is no longer about education (not that it ever was, but in a time
long past---perhaps when he was getting _his_ education---it was a closer
ratio), it's about money. And all I feel I'm going to get from them for my
money in the end is a piece of paper. Everything I learn while I'm there is on
me.

In short, I think we should tax the hell out of them if it's for the benefit
of the American taxpayers.

When Universities, creditors and banks see numbers double [1], all they do is
build twice as fast, hire twice as many adjuncts and raise tuition.

Sources:

[1] [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/times-up-student-loan-
in...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/times-up-student-loan-interest-
rates-set-to-double/)

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abandonliberty
>I disagree with almost everything Etchemendy states here. Do you?

The central point is: >I have watched a growing intolerance . . . a kind of
intellectual intolerance, a political one-sidedness, that is the antithesis of
what universities should stand for. It manifests itself in many ways: in the
intellectual monocultures that have taken over certain disciplines; in the
demands to disinvite speakers and outlaw groups whose views we find offensive;
in constant calls for the university itself to take political stands. We decry
certain news outlets as echo chambers, while we fail to notice the echo
chamber we’ve built around ourselves.

You may want to reread the article because it appears you're missing the
point.

