The University of Houston has offered the latest example of how free speech is being rapidly eradicated on our campuses. Rohini Sethi, vice president of the university’s student government association, was given a 50-day suspension from her student government post for saying “all lives matter” on social media. She has now been told that the suspension will be lifted after she publicly apologized and agreed to attend cultural events.
Sethi originally wrote “#ForgetBlackLivesMatter; more like AllLivesMatter.” This was done in response to the murder of five police officers. She was immediately denounced as racist and various students claimed that she had created a hostile environment by stating her viewpoint. Student government President Shane Smith responded with the draconian measures.
Now, Sethi will be allowed to return after a type of public confession that seemed more appropriate to a reeducation camp than an American campus. Sethi issued a joint statement with Smith that said that “I have chosen to take these steps on my own because of the division I’ve created among our student body,. I may have the right to post what I did, but I still should not have. My words at the time didn’t accurately convey my feeling and cause many students to lose their faith in me to advocate for them. I will always continue to learn and be ready to discuss these issues.”
So she has the right to speak but will be sanctioned if she does?
Smith is qouted in the Washington Post as saying:
“Her post and subsequent actions were very divisive. It caused some in our student body to become very upset with her. They lost faith in her ability to represent them because they felt that she did not understand or respect the struggles in their lives.”
Smith actually apologized to those who wanted more of a sanction, writing “For those that are disappointed by the change, this is a compromise based in the reality of the situation. My stance on racial injustice has always been clear. For all involved, this is truly the best outcome.” No, I do not believe it is the best outcome. The best outcome would be to respect the right of all students to speak freely.
We have previously discussed (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here) the erosion of free speech on college and university campuses as students and faculty are punished for expressing views deemed offensive to any group. In the meantime, we have also seen protests by Black Lives Matter and other groups that silence other students with little response from university administrators.
The controversy of University of Houston shows how schools are now instilling speech regulation as an accepted part of academic environments. The result is a new generation of students taught that they must conform to majoritarian or official views if they want to be educated or avoid sanctions. The primary responsibility for this rollback on free speech rests with the faculty and administrators of our schools, who have often supported such notion of speech as “microaggressions” or hostile acts under school codes.
While Sethi originally stood by her comments, she has now been brought to heel under a de facto speech code. None of this has anything to do with the merits of the rivaling views on the use of “All Lives Matter.” It deals with the right of students to engage in an open debate on such issues. I recently spoke with a student at Missouri (groundzero for the controversy over Melissa Click), for example, who told me that he no longer felt that he could even raise concerns over the demands of “Black Lives Matter” at his school. Despite his support for measures to fight inequality and racism, he said that students no longer felt that they could question even the list of demands being made by the group. This is someone who supports the effort to reform aspects of his school but still fears speaking about the issues. He noted that his faculty has also been silenced in the aftermath of the controversy. His experience is not unique as faculty and staff have succeeded in chilling the speech of those with questions or opposing views on our campuses.
@Autumn
It is not about white superiority. It is about black behavior and conduct. I think there is no physical or mental reason why black women can not take birth control pills, or get married, or maybe even stop at just one illegitimate child by one baby daddy. But no, they tend to go for a bunch with different baby daddies, and then raise the poor little kids to be just as violent and stupid as they are. While the rest of society p!sses and moans about racism and White Privilege and Black Lives Matter, instead of telling the black idiots to get married and behave themselves.
Sorry, but you don’t get a 75% illegitimate birth rate from racism, unless somebody is barring the door to the Marriage License Clerk. Which nobody is, But, you do have people who love to pass out welfare money for votes! A comet DID NOT pass the Earth in 1965 or so, and leave a fine layer of comet dust which affected mostly black people, and cause them to start eschewing marriage. Nope. BUT, I do think there was a little thingie called The GreaT Society which started about then. . . hmmm. . . . wonder if there could be a connection???
I do not think there is a physical or mental reason why black kids can’t go to school, sit down and shut up, and learn. And do their homework. But, we have white liberals who want to blame it on low teacher pay, and rust on the stairwell. More Hogwash!
There are some black people who are writing books and telling you the same thing I am. There are black people on Youtube doing videos and explaining these things, also. Maybe you should check them out! Tommy Sotomayor is a good place to start! Here is one of his tamer ones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hidDvV5GVKY
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@phillyt
I flipped the script, because your script was upside down. That’s why why you said made little or no sense.
The reason why I dare some whites to go into the ghetto, is because they have little or no idea what life is really like in some of those neighborhoods. Those white people still live in the Norman Rockwell world where the poor little colored girl, in her little white dress, is being escorted by Army troops, into a school. So she can get an education.
Today, that picture would be a black kid, named Dequarius, being drug out of school, with his pants down around his knees, escorted by policemen, because he just raped a classmate in the girls bathroom.
Meanwhile, the liberals are still pining for those Rosa Parks years. Well, the reality is, Rosa Parks got beaten and robbed by a black dude for $53 to go buy some drugs. No. Really.
At least, Mr. Skipper was honest enough to blame his drug problem, and not White Privilege, or Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Phil T Well put. Many of us are sick of reading that racist horse…. .
Squeek,
You are spot on on so many issues and a clever, talented artist/satirist to boot.
So again I do not understand your antipathy toward blacks!
My experience past and current with black folk has been very positive. In Germany it was the blacks who adapted easily to a new culture – it was the white red neck GIs who got falling down drunk and tried to grope women.
When I moved to the US mid-80s I experienced racism first hand in a small town in TN.
I will never forget my friend RP. He was one of the few blacks on campus – he was accepted (with resevations) at frat parties because he was a football player and could do Stevie Wonder imitations. Like a minstrel I guess. But when a fraternity wanted to offer him membership the alum blocked it – said they would not allow a “n!gger” to “ruin” their reputation!!
It was a small campus and everyone knew everyone.
One evening there was a dance held off campus. I did not have a car so I caught a ride with some of my dormmates. Ran into RP who asked me to dance. We danced for quite awhile and when I returned to our table I was met with stony glares. I was informed that “we don’t care what you do in Germany” but in this country it is unacceptable to dance with “n!ggers” They said I was going to destroy my reputation.
So I went up to RP and asked him to dance. We danced the night away literally.
Then when it closed down I got in the car with the people I’d driven with – but the driver was drunk. So I got out of the car to catch a ride with someone else. RP saw me standing there so he got out of the car he was in as he did not want me to be by myself.
We figured between the two of us we knew everyone in campus and someone would offer us a ride.
Not ONE person stopped for us. Apparently a white girl and a black boy standing around together offended their “Christian” sensibilities.
We were left standing in the parking lot together. So we just laughed ironically and began the trek back on foot. I was wearing very high heels so got a blister. My dear friend RP put me on his back so I literally rode him like a mule back to campus over a mile away!!
RP graduated, got married and moved to Memphis. Unfortunately I’ve lost touch with him. But he is in my heart forever.
The ONLY time I have ever been threatened is by a white trash neighbor – a real prince of a man – who often raged about “n!ggers” “sp!cs” and “Muslims who want to take our freedoms” He was a construction worker and when the economy tanked lost his job so he began selling reefer and pills. Certainly his choice, but it affected the rest of us who lived in the apartment building including the single (white) mother of two boys (from different fathers btw) and an older woman. People came over at all hours – there were loud disputes and we were afraid there would be an altercation involving guns as his “clientele” (all white btw) were unsavory characters and we knew this guy owned both a Glock and Lueger. So I contacted the police, they did a raid (unfortunately he was tipped off so they didn’t find much) but it was enough to get him evicted.
He guessed I was behind it so approached me one afternoon when I was sitting outside by myself – he knew my husband was at work as well as the other tenants. He got in my face and started screaming that I was a “C^%T” and that he was going to come back and “take me out” I said nothing – kept my face in my book and let him rant and rant. Finally he went away and I retreated to my apartment. I had a panic attack and called my husband who told me to file a police report which I did. The cops were great, calmed me down and said they didn’t think he would kill me – that lowlife people like him were all bluster. Fortunately they were right. Never saw him again.
To say that whites are somehow superior to blacks, browns, etc. is insane IMO.
The establishment that feeds off all of us like maggots WANT us to remain divided.
I am all about unity against “the man”
Ah Squeaky,
You go off on a racist tirade like a firecracker goes off on the 4th.
Always blame the liberals. Always ALWAYS flip the script. Deny the problem. Blame the victim. If all else fails, dare a white person to go into the ghetto.
Sometimes you are really funny. Often witty. Or clever. But when it comes to race and your hard-core racism, girl you’ve got a big problem. Don’t know what it is or how it got there, but it’s like a YUUUGE zit on your face.
@TIN
re: “If I were starting my legal career today I would go into employment law” Don’t know what state you live in but here in SC workers have very few rights. The corps run this state. Boeing moved here to get away from the pesky union in WA. Got all kind of incentives at the expense of the taxpayers including a special training program for workers at the community college. Anyone remember when companies used to train their employees at their own expense?
@PhillyT
Black lives matter to certain severely mentally ill white people who have a form of Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy. Let’s examine my charge:
White Liberals make up the illness of White Privilege and overplay the illness of racism. There is nothing wrong in the black community, that the black community can not fix itself. Blacks can decide to start getting married again, and end the 75% illegitimate birth rate. Blacks can decide to quit killing each other, and quit stealing from each other. Blacks can decide to avail themselves of education. But they don’t.
White liberals also “cause” many of the problems in the black community. They encourage out of wedlock births (Families come in all shapes and sizes!). They give bonuses to blacks who live irresponsibly. They encourage criminal behavior by making excuses for it. A thug, like Trayvon Martin or Mike Brown, is lauded as a martyr to them! They excuse every failure and bad life choice and blame “the system” instead of encouraging blacks to make good choices.
Here, White Liberals draw attention to themselves by their great tolerance, and desire to fight for blacks. You will see silly, sick white people marching in BLM parades for attention. They go on TV and blogs everywhere to rage against all the racism. They see racists everywhere, and are quick to call anything they disagree with “racism”, and anybody they disagree with, racissst! Fighting Racial Injustice has become their very life. While what they are really saying is “Look at me! Look at me! Ain’t I wonderful!”
While racism is real, any serious look at black cultural norms blows “racism” out of the water as a diagnosis. Blacks do it to themselves. They kill the heck out of each other, and make life miserable for each other, while the White MSBP’ers ignore all that, make excuses, and pose for the camera.
White MSBP’ers NEED blacks to be victims of racism, so white MSBP’ers can play at poor, suffering caretakers and mighty warriors for justice.
The whole schtick is sick.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@dieter
Houston is not a bad city, as long as you stay out of certain predominantly “ethnic” neighborhoods. A lot like New Orleans in that fashion. But as for the Lesbian mayor, my take is that people who are proud of that are sort of thing are in the “Oh whoopie! Look, we got a Lesbian mayor! Aren’t we cool and hip and trendy!” crowd.
Diversity is a chimera, literally and figuratively. It is something desired by college educated white people, as a wonderful thing, a good quality, something to be appreciated in and of itself. But we never really get it. We let Mexicans sneak in, but not their cock fighting and dog fighting and bull fighting. We airlift in Muslims, but we sort of ask them to leave the genital mutilation thing and the “Death to Homosexuals!” thing at the airport lost and found. We love going to Chinese restaurants, but would draw the line at “Sesame Shih-Tzu” and “General Tso’s Golden Retriever.”
In short, diversity is just another smarmy middle-upper white class symbolic construct. Like the whole Confederate Flag thing. Which, a love of diversity would seem to dictate it would be OK to fly. But it doesn’t. Did life for anybody get better in any way for any person when it became taboo to fly or display it? Did one single black person decide to get married now that it was gone. Did anybody get a job? Did the murder rate go down in Chiraq? Nope.
Diversity is but
A chimera.
It promises a lot,
And delivers squat.
IMHO.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
PS. For the mythologically challenged, a chimera is a fantastical creature “usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat arising from its back, and a tail that might end with a snake’s head.” Sometimes they have wings. The word also means, ” A fanciful mental illusion or fabrication.”
The fight against free speech is happening in every quarter, and as US history shows, always has been.
Show up at a trump rally in your Hillary or Bernie or Jill Stein t-shirt and see how you fare.
Professor T likes to single out the BLM and student PC crowd because, I don’t know, he likes to see his right-wing blogfans get all stirred up and righteous.
But the truth is the right wing christians in America have been playing their perverted version of the free speech card for decades: what do you mean I can’t discriminate against the gays and the blacks? Where’s MY free speech?
The people who think BLM are saying that ONLY black lives matter, have missed the point entirely, either willfully or through their racist ignorance. People who say “save the rainforest” aren’t saying “screw all the other forests”. Women at a breast cancer rally aren’t saying “to hell with your lung cancer”. It’s just that black lives haven’t mattered much for a long long long time in America.
When I was in high school, I spent one summer helping create the first curriculum for an African American history course in our city’s history. Someone recently asked me what effect all that research had on my outlook, and I replied that it broke my heart. And that no one knew the history was even worse.
With all the silly exceptions aside (gee whiz did you know there was this BLACK dude who owned slaves?), blacks in America went from slavery to Jim Crow to massive economic and social segregation to mass incarceration to the persistent harassment (ticketing, fines, drug arrests, stop-and-search, nuisance arrests) by the police. And yes, liberals and conservatives alike have been party to this. But let’s stop pretending racism is over, because it isn’t even close to over. And Black Lives Matter because we all keep ignoring the fact that we think they don’t.
The only thing different now, is that a lot of it is being captured on cameras. Otherwise it’s the same old same old.
Kudos for this post. It is the most thoughtful and accurate post on the substance of BLM and JT’s original post that has appeared on this blog. BLM now has published a platform, which can be linked to at this article
. While much of the platform needs further discussion, clarification, etc., it represents an accurate view of the history of race relations and racial discrimination in the US.
My last post at 12:17 pm as in reference to the post by phillyT.
Given the fact that most African-Americans in Houston are seriously practicing Christians and are probably mostly “pro life” the statement that all lives matter is a recurring theme of the Sunday sermons of their ministers so what is the problem?
This is a perfect example of the “my way or else no way syndrome”.
It is obvious that the University (which is a campus of the University of Texas) chose to stay clear of this issue. I think that is normal in such cases.
The critiques of Houston here are examples of dumb ignorance. My city is in every respect the most diverse large city of our nation. It has twice elected a married lesbian mayor without any raucous anti demonstrations. It is far from perfect but it is not Ferguson, Missouri. Or Baltimore, Maryland. Or Chicago, Illinois.
“It is obvious that the University (which is a campus of the University of Texas) . . .”
The University of Houston is not related to the University of Texas. They are both independent institutions.
But Irish Setters Lives Matter Too. BISLMT. Not talking about Irish Settlers. Remember Blazing Saddles: But Not The Irish! No, I talking about dogs here.
You East Coasters who went to Harvard and Yale and think your poop don’t stink and who read all the propaganda from the FDR and Kennedy Foundations and think that those dorks passed civil rights legislation or did good executive orders for integration. Noooo. It was Harry Truman, the so called failed haberdasher from Missouri, who as President, integrated the Armed Forces. And it was LBJ who passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. LBJ was from Texas.
Don de Drain – that is a very apt phrase.
Autumn – I cried in that movie, too. So sad that it was a true story.
Don
Have you ever seen the film Miss Evers’ Boys? I cried through out, it remains in my heart of how much blacks have suffered in this country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Evers%27_Boys
@Don
merci beaucoup I will see if my library has it.
I do know from my Dad who was a soldier in Iceland in the 50s that blacks were forbidden there. Every now and then they would fly them in and the locals would freak out as they did not want their gene pool to be contaminated. So it was almost like a bizarre minstrel show. Very amusing for the white military folks – not so much for the black soldiars who were place under lock.
Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation by Charles Glass
@Don
what is the name of the book? historically many black artists fled to to Paris as they were treated better.
I just finished a book about US citizens who lived in Paris under the nazi occupation. Great book. Learned quite a bit. One person who lived there was a black US citizen who served in the French Foreign Legion at the start of WWI. He later became a member of the French Air Corps and then the US Air Corps. His superiors in the US Air Corps, unlike his superiors in the French Air Corps, would not let him fly, because he was black.
When Pershing’s troops marched into Paris after WWI ended, Pershing would not let black troops march with them. That soldier, who stayed in Paris after WWI, years later watched US troops March into Paris in 1944. The US Generals would not let blacks March with those troops either.
During WWI, that soldier wrote on his airplane “All blood runs red.” I like that phrase.
Don de Drain – the French had black from their African colonies fighting in the trenches for them. When US troops showed up they wanted them to be integrated into the Allied Forces. Pershing said no, he was waiting for tanks and would not fight until he had tanks, planes and trained men. However, he did allow his black troops to the Allies for integration and they were. To prove how integrated they were, they died right along side the French and British troops.
Uh, blaming black pathologies on the rowdy Scotts who settled in the South 300 years ago seems rather a stretch. It was only about 25 years ago that the Hutus slaughtered more than 1 million Tutsis in 100 days, using machetes and clubs. The Rwandan population was decimated by 40%, and the massacres were directed by the government, which distributed the machetes, as well as scissors and saws, and directed neighbor to kill neighbor over the radio. This well documented, extraordinary and horrifically brutal massacre was black-on-black violence that can no more be blamed on the Scotts than the carnage in South Chicago can be blamed on the Irish. Perhaps it makes Sowell happy to negate the obvious violence of black people, but his premise is patently ridiculous and completely at odds with the history of Africa, as well as the crime statistics of anywhere that blacks live, whether in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean or Europe. All the cities in the U.S. with high rates of violent crime: Baltimore, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, Washington, D.C… guess who lives there and is commiting the crime? Sorry, Mr. Sowell, but the only people responsible for black culture are the people who live it and perpetuate it.
TIN – it is Scots, not Scotts.
KarenS
thanks for recommending that essay. I will pull it up and read it.