
Data shows a surprising campus free speech problem - claudeganon
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/3/17644180/political-correctness-free-speech-liberal-data-georgetown
======
rumanator
FTA:

> What Ungar is suggesting here is that the “campus free speech” crisis is
> somewhat manufactured. Conservative student groups invite speakers famous
> for offensive and racially charged speech — all of the above speakers fit
> that bill — in a deliberate attempt to provoke the campus left. In other
> words, they’re trolling. When students react by protesting or disrupting the
> event, the conservatives use it as proof that there’s real intolerance for
> conservative ideas.

I don't understand their reasoning. Are they trying to downplay free speech
incidents perpetrated by "the campus left" just because they systematically
target a selection of high-profile speakers?

~~~
aricrocuta
I think you're interpreting that paragraph from the article very uncharitably.
Protesting against "offensive and racially charged speech" that is tailored to
provoke the left because it goes against everything the left stands for is
very different from silencing conservative speech in general. Why should "the
left" allow offensive speech for the sake of free speech from the right? Is
the right to be offensive and to perpetuate stereotypes and regressive
viewpoints more important than the harm such speech causes?

I don't see where the left is "systematically" targeting high-profile speakers
either considering that it's the speakers themselves and the conservative
student groups provoking and trolling the campus left. I see this a great deal
online, too, where right-wingers love to comment on left-leaning Twitter
users' posts or Reddit threads to insult people, troll, and generally just
provoke a response. Then they cite those posts as "evidence" that conservative
speech is being censored online and that everyone on the left is polarized and
unwilling to step out of their own echo chambers. It's really leftists not
wanting to feed the trolls because doing so wouldn't lead to anything
productive anyways.

The campus left wouldn't, for example, disrupt the meetings of the
conservative student groups themselves, prevent conservative students from
organizing, or encourage school administrations to ban harmless conservative
viewpoints, for example. That's what I see as "systematically targeting"
conservatism, not the the article is talking about.

~~~
rumanator
> Protesting against "offensive and racially charged speech" that is tailored
> to provoke the left because it goes against everything the left stands for
> is very different from silencing conservative speech in general.

Your assertion is not only oblivious to the point (suppressing free speech)
but it is also miopic and self-serving (i.e., "if a speaker expresses ideas I
don't like then I somehow have the right to suppress it").

The whole moral lesson that a free society depends on the right to express
ideas that you personally don't support is lost to you.

