There is a new example of how free speech values are declining in England, particularly on college campuses this week. Students at Cardiff University launched an online petition trying to bar Germaine Greer, the Australian feminist author, from speaking at the school next month because of her views on transgender women. Rather than recognize that Greer has an opinion to share as part of the pluralistic academic forum, these students sought to bar her from sharing her views and engaging in a debate in the area. To its credit, the university has thus far stayed committed to free speech and refuses to bar Greer.
Rachael Melhuish, women’s officer at the Cardiff University Students’ Union, is reportedly the architect of the petition, which denounces how Greer has “demonstrated time and time again her misogynistic views towards trans women, including continually ‘misgendering’ trans women and denying the existence of transphobia altogether.”
England has seen the rise of calls for speech prosecutions, including this month. We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here).
As we have seen in France and the United States, there is a distressing trend among students in becoming agents for censorship and intolerance of rivaling views. Once the defenders of free speech, college students now often treat the censorship of opposing views as an article of faith.
The controversy over Greer is a good example. Some 880 students signed a petition to bar Greer, 76, who wrote “The Female Eunuch.” The book is viewed as one of the classic feminist works and attacks “traditional” suburban, consumerist, nuclear family” values that Greer views as repressive for women. I do not agree with many of Greer’s views but she is a provocative and passionate voice to bring to a campus. Critics however cite a 2009 column in which Greer describes transgender women as mere parodies of women and reflecting “a man’s delusion that he is female.” She is also quoted as telling the Varsity, Cambridge University’s student newspaper, that transgender women do not know what it is like to have a vagina.
Greer correctly questions the basis for barring someone from speaking solely because you disagree with their values or arguments. She objected that “[w]hat they are saying is that because I don’t think surgery will turn a man into a woman I should not be allowed to speak anywhere. . . . That happens to be an opinion.”
The effort to ban Greer from the university is no noble act. It is actively seeking to prevent other students from hearing the views of a controversial figure. While some of us may disagree with Greer on many of her views, she is unquestionably one of the most influential figures in the area. Barring her is little different from maintaining a speech code at Cardiff.
Source: NY Times
Of course some see this as an opportunity to get overwrought about feminism. I think it would be a good idea as Mic brought up with the Dan. Savage video, for the students ro come to the speech, then protest by walking out en masse.
Why is this even a story? Now if the students get their way, then it is a story.
And who is ninian?
The aim of all leftism is compliance with prescribed speech by coercion.
It always degenerates into fascist repression of BadSpeech.
And, no, this NOT exactly the conversation they are supposed to be having.
A petition to bar someone from speaking is not a “conversation”.
It is unreasonable to consider saying “Shut up” as part of some kind of “discussion.”
If you believe that, then kristallnacht was just free speech against an unpopular set of beliefs.
Greer is getting what she deserves.
Feminists have been howler monkeys shrieking against Western Civilization for decades, and now that it has been upended, they think they can rely on its fragments to support their own disagreement.
Sorry, Germaine.
Cultural Marxism is a juggernaut of destruction.
You helped push it forward, now you’re being ground under its wheels.
Soon you’ll be an unperson, like your former enemies.
What a shame she didn’t read any Soviet history, or this would have all been quite clear to her.
Let Greer speak. Show up then walk out.
That’s what happened when gay activist Dan Savage was speaking at a high school journalism convention about the bible.
Dan takes a swipe at students walking out on him with some derogatory comments.
Sorry, but this is exactly the conversation they are supposed to be having. The school did not cave in the way so many do here in the U.S. The students said their piece. Let the dialogue continue.
We allow war criminals like Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger speak over here–they can probably handle a little Germaine Greer.
Move on.
Hats off to England for having the conversation. It was a petition, a freedom of speech. Greer has not been banned from speaking. The issue is alive and being discussed, the essence of free speech. England is alive and well. Of course this does make some Americans feel better about themselves and America’s shortcomings regarding freedoms. So, blather on Turley.
What if a priest who was a member of the Hitler Youth group showed up to preach? How about if that priest was Pope? Like the last Pope before this Jesuit guy who is Pope now?
I think that students who think that they are disinfected should go to work as garbage men. Even if they are women. Maybe they need a new Major at that school called Political Correctness Studies. What is the point of speaking to these dumbschmucks anyway? They went in dumb and will come out dumb too. They are hustlin round Birmingham in their alligator shoes. They are keeping the bent people down. They dont know nuthin bout electricity either. Or birthin babies. That school is gone with the wind. Call all those little fruits “Prissy”. Show the movie Gone With The Wind on that campus and teach em some things.
It is an interesting issue and I can see both sides of the argument
The Science Geek
http://www.thesciencegeek.org
So someeone on the blog please explain what a “transgender woman” is. Someone here in the dogpac describes it technically as a “WWW” or Woman With Weeny”. Now what the heck is that?
When such people show themselves on campus they should show themselves so that we know what we are dealing with. What about the right of a rapist to get what he prays for? Equal strokes for equal folks and all that.
England does not need a First Amendment. It needs a gulag.
“Ah England… … In America they just kick you around.”
So the answer to SRO violence in the class room is to have fewer unpopular speakers, that embarrass the administration, on campus?
I had no idea. That is a totally unexpected causal relation: unpopular speakers on campus cause SRO violence in the class room?
“People need to understand that it far more embarrassing when a school hosts a ‘speaker’ and no one shows up or cares to attend because the speaker has unwelcomed views versus banning their appearance…”
Since when is embarrassment the metric to determine when some one is allowed to speak?
Who stood up in front of the mob and called out ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it; so long as it is not too embarrassing to me and my associates?’
BFM, there’s no better statement than this: “Since when is embarrassment the metric to determine when some one is allowed to speak? . . . Who stood up in front of the mob and called out ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it; so long as it is not too embarrassing to me and my associates?’”
Isn’t it an exercise of the students’ free speech to circulate such petitions?
p.s.
For chewing gum.
Ah England…
… In America they just kick you around.
I can defend Ms. Greer’s speech while enjoying the irony in many aspects of the attacks on her.
The second best part is hearing modern feminists and social justice warrior declare that Germaine Greer is not a feminist.
https://twitter.com/_hannahryan/status/658690002881269760
germaine greer is not a feminist. if your feminism does not include transgender women, then it is NOT feminism. it’s as simple as that.
And the best part is to come, when Ms. Greer explains to us all how the Patriarchy was to blame for this.
People need to understand that it far more embarrassing when a school hosts a ‘speaker’ and no one shows up or cares to attend because the speaker has unwelcomed views versus banning their appearance…
What Prof. Turley wrote kind of says it all.
Where is Ninian?
It is amazing that those who wish tolerance and freedom believe that they have the right to silence others. They are clearly blind and ignorant.
It’s always fascinating to watch as the cannibals turn on their own.