Academia, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Politics

Wellesley Students Editors Endorse Silencing Opposing Speakers And Declare “Hostility May Be Warranted”

Formal_Seal_of_Wellesley_College,_Wellesley,_MA,_USA.svgWe have been discussing the erosion of free speech on our campuses across the country.  Much of that trend is the result of faculty members who have taught that free speech itself is a threat to students.  The erosion of free speech has come in stages.  First, schools began to declare speech to be hate speech while creating “safe zones” from the exercise of free speech.  Second, schools began to enforce the ill-defined “microaggressions” to punish speech that is deemed as contributing to hostile environments or fostering stereotypes.  Now, faculty and students are increasing declaring opposing views as simply outside of the definition of free speech. That extreme argument was advanced this week by the editors of The Wellesley News who published a column entitled “Free Speech Is Not Violated At Wellesley.”  It is chilling message from the Editorial Board composed of Co-Editors in Chief Sharvari Johari and Michele Lee and opinion editors Maya Nandakumar, Genae Matthews, and Tabitha Wilson.  Once the champions of free speech, students have become the new censors and have adopted the perfectly Orwellian notion that the protection of free speech requires the denial of free speech.

The editors heralded the Wellesley students who refuse to respect the free speech rights of those deemed to be hateful.  Simply defining such people as unworthy of free speech protections then allows the editors to become actual advocates of mob action to silence them:

“Shutting down rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others is not a violation of free speech; it is hate speech. The founding fathers put free speech in the Constitution as a way to protect the disenfranchised and to protect individual citizens from the power of the government.”

So speech deemed as “undermining the existence and rights of others” is all that is needed to relieve the conscience of these students and allow them to indulge in their desire to forcibly silence those with whom that disagree.  There is no attempt of course to define what constitute speech that “undermines.” Rather the thrust is to legitimize the denial of free speech in the name of free speech.

Their bizarre understanding of free speech is laid out further in the statement that “The spirit of free speech is to protect the suppressed, not to protect a free-for-all where anything is acceptable, no matter how hateful and damaging.”  Again, there is no definition of what is deemed “hateful” or “damaging” but it clearly does not include things that the editors agree with or have been taught are the products of ignorance: “We have all said problematic claims, the origins of which were ingrained in us by our discriminatory and biased society. Luckily, most of us have been taught by our peers and mentors at Wellesley in a productive way.”

The editors identify unworthy speakers as people who “support racist politicians or pay for speakers that prop up speech that will head to the harm of others.”  The editors are entirely comfortable with that subjective line in isolating those who “prop up speech” considered “harmful.”

In a wonderfully condescending note, the editors acknowledge that their “preference for education over beration regards students who may have not been given the chance to learn.”  That is, learn that the views of the editors and other students are the correct views.  However, the editors relieve themselves of any further responsibility for “those who have already had the incentive to learn and should have taken the opportunities to do so.”  These are people in other words who refuse to be “mentored” and retain their beliefs.

Now that the editors have been properly educated that some views are unworthy of protection, they are ready to take the final step in calling for the silencing of those who “refuse to adapt their beliefs.”  If those people still insist on being heard, the editors declared that “hostility may be warranted.”  “Hostility”?

The war on free speech appears to have produced a perfect generation of petty tyrants “mentored” in the necessity — even the moral imperative — of silencing those with whom we disagree.

I suppose this is to be expected at a school with the motto: Non Ministrari sed Ministrare — Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.

 

 

80 thoughts on “Wellesley Students Editors Endorse Silencing Opposing Speakers And Declare “Hostility May Be Warranted””

  1. If one suppresses another isn’t the recipient of the suppression now the suppressed?
    Maybe Neil Peart and Rush could make a song out of this sorta along the lines of Free Will and The Trees.

  2. The far left like these students, and the far right like radical Islam, are merging. Both want to control your lives.

  3. This horsesh!t was the under the radar issue that elected Trump. So, all you Trump haters here who are ashamed of admitting you hate the 1st Amendment like these vapid students, and avoid these posts, LePen is next! Brexit to Trump to LePen. Tinkers to Evers to Chance.

  4. Speech is power, and the power struggle within our universities is the most intense I’ve ever seen. Private colleges need not restrain themselves in that power struggle because they aren’t held to first amendment limits. Of course they will say they respect it, but then justify their censorship of the political factions they oppose as the “protection” of students. The struggle continues.

    1. Agreed. I have never encountered this kind of voracity to willfilly dominate and control other people’s thinking in my lifetime. I know that human nature will triumph in the end, but it is alarming to watch.

  5. “In the latest display of virtue-signaling by denizens of the nation’s higher-education institutions, more than 500 people associated with Hanover College, including approximately 470 alumni, recently sent a letter to Pence, excoriating him for a variety of sins against modern cultural Marxist sensibilities.”

    http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/18/instead-celebrating-success-graduates-mike-pences-alma-mater-denounce/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=3682f27ebf-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-3682f27ebf-79248369

  6. “speech that will lead to the harm of others” That clearly describes the Trump administration

    2. His speech is too ridiculous to harm anyone with even an ounce of intestinal fortitude. These kids cr*p their pants walking past inert objects, for Pete’s sake.

      1. Of course – their anuses have all been so loosened up by their promiscuous sexual activity!

  7. “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” Abraham Lincoln

    Keep an eye on the political science majors.

  8. Sharvari Johari writes: AMERICAN DEMOCRAT, INDIAN CONSERVATIVE

    I identified with similar language utilized by BJP in India. It was easy to be pleased with the result as an upper-class Hindu woman. The BJP and Modi’s policies will lead to increased economic liberalization of India, favoring Hindus. My position in India is part of the majority, whereas in the United States, as an immigrant woman of color, I am a minority. When Modi won, I thought only about a candidate who was explicitly on my side despite the fact that overwhelmingly life is better for Hindus than it is for Muslims in India. When you’re in the majority, it is all too easy to forget the diversity of ideas that exist outside of your own. As a minority in the United States, I vote for the candidate who supports my needs. Despite the fact that I believe in liberal social values, part of me was still happy when the conservative party in India, the one that spoke for the Hindu majority won.

    1. The upper crust of these desperately poor Third World nations (such as India) always have to find some way to rationalize their immense wealth amidst open sewers.

      How is she able to vote in elections in both India and the US, I’d love to know.

      1. The upper crust of these desperately poor Third World nations (such as India) always have to find some way to rationalize their immense wealth amidst open sewers.

        Per the World Bank, the most affluent decile in India collects about 30% of personal income. That’s a distribution less equalitarian than that in the Antipodes or most of Europe, about on a par with the U.S., and passably even compared with Latin America. Given given production levels in India (with per capita product about 1/10th that of the U.S.), that suggests an income stream about 45% of the American median, which does not qualify as ‘immense wealth’.

  9. First they came for the anti war agitators and I didn’t say anything to object cause I wasn’t one.
    Next they came for the Catholics and I keep quiet cause I was not one.
    Then they came for the duck lovers and I did object cause I ain’t a duck.
    Then they came for the news editors and there was no one left to object.

    —Harold Rectum

  10. (music- to the tune of Rednecks)

    Went in dumb.
    Come out dumb too.
    Husltin round Wellesley in my alligator shoes.
    Keepin the damp at the barbeques.

    We’re Rednecks, Rednecks!
    We don’t know our arse from a hole in the ground.
    We’re Rednecks.
    We are keeping the n guys, whites. pollocks, jews, gypsies, complainers, asians.. Down!

  12. If you go and read anything from this “paper” it’s so poorly written you’ll weep for the future. This is supposed to be an elite school. Judging by the editorial you have question how it can claim that title anymore.

  13. Here’s a video of Sharvari Johari. She wants more control over the cafeteria & sports department too.

    2. These little dictators are in for a real shock after commencement comes and goes. If yhis portends anything I will simply never be on board with the DNC ever again, as well. At present, as an independent, I can’t in good conscience vote for anyone affiliated with that organization. The irony and hypocrisy, which are bedfellows of supreme ignorance/arrogance/greed are shocking to me at this point. I don’t wish harm on any one, but these kids have some very, very hard lessons to learn.

  14. All of which answers the question: why college grads can’t get jobs? They graduate college dumber than when they entered.

  16. “We have all said problematic claims, the origins of which were ingrained in us by our discriminatory and biased society. Luckily, most of us have been taught by our peers and mentors at Wellesley in a productive way.” A more Orwellian couple of sentences I have not seen in years. This sounds like a confession from a victim of the Cultural Revolution.

    BTW, isn’t Wellesley where Hillary went?

  17. These as*holes at Wellesley are some of the future 1% of tomorrow, and also the future leaders of the “Democratic” party..

    Don’t forget that Hitlery is a Wellesley alumna!

    1. Ecept there is no Democratic Party anymore. DNC went Latino. The few left in elected office have no home base and the rest of it is the Splinter Coalition ….at best. The former ha ha leadership of Marxist Leninist extremists cut and ran when they found it this really ISN’T an Democracy. Now if we could just get Ryan and the RINOs there former right wing of the left to go with them…..

  18. The fact remains that the several states each find some speech criminal: inciting to riot…

    Congress can pass no such laws but the states can and do.

    And of course it is not up to a few students.

  19. I believe the only effective way to address this problem is, and I am sad to say, through legislation to protect free speech from the tyranny of school administers. Alas, it won’t happen in most states where democrats have majorities since their party is in partly responsible for fostering this mess.

    2. it’s a State issue. Federal Government has no ‘rights granted’ in the Education field..which reminds me there is another 100 some billion available for real needs. Add to that the savings in sending Dept of Education Home with a permanent pink slip.

      1. “For [God] maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” Alas, the gift of clarity is not so equitably distributed.

    3. Wellesley’s a private institution. You can hold them liable for breach of contract, but you cannot properly require they adopt disciplinary practices in accord with those preferred by the Massachusetts legislature. You can do it, of course, but it would be wrong.

      What you can do properly is modify Massachusetts corporation law to require that educational philanthropies in existence for at least 20 years allocate a certain share of the votes on their board of trustees to members elected by stakeholders and that those in existence for at least 60 years have the entire membership elected by stakeholders, with board size fixed by law at between 5 and 20 depending on the size of the alumni pool. (You could have a dispensation for ecclesiastical institutions). The body of stakeholders might be defined as alumni registered to vote in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. You could put an additional question on Massachusetts voter registration forms and then cross-check them with alumni records to build an electoral roll for each institution. All such trustees would be elected for four year terms the year before a federal presidential election. Aspirants would register their candidacies with the secretary of state or state board of election by paying a (contingently refundable) deposit and dropping off a 600 word statement. The board or secretary of state would mail out to each person on the roll a prospectus consisting of candidate statements and a ballot. It would be an ordinal ballot tabulated according to the conventions of the alternate vote. (Instead of having a single stereotype for the printed ballot, you’d have as many as you had candidates who qualified for the ballot with each candidate having an equal chance to occupy a given spot in the order. There will be numbnutzes who will fill out the ballot in its printed order, and you need for these people to cancel each other out). Trustees once elected would be administered an oath of office whose text emphasized their duty to maintain the academic integrity of the school.

      This might give you a shot at a board of trustees with an inclination to supervise the faculty and administration in the interest of the institution’s heritage, not just fret over bad publicity, fundraising, and the athletic program.

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