University of Oregon President Michael Schill probably thought that he would be the least likely university president to find himself silenced by the raising anti-speech protests by students. After all, Schill himself has been denounced as part of the anti-free speech trend after he supported the university’s punishment of a law professor for wearing an allegedly offensive Halloween costume at her own party off campus. However, Schill was unable to give his annual state of the university speech after students took over the event and denounced him a “CEO” of a “business firm.”
We previously discussed the case of law professor Nancy Shurtz who was found to have committed “discriminatory harassment” against students by wearing a custom of a black scientist in her own home at a party attending voluntarily by some students.
Much like the recent incident at Berkeley where a professor struggled to tell students taking over his class that he was himself a protester, Schill clearly did not believe that he would ever be considered one of “them” by protesters. Schill recently said that he would bar the Immigration and Customs Enforcement from campus without a warrant but the students still demanded that he “denounce” the INS and immigration policies. Students called for everyone “to take a stand against the fascism at University of Oregon” and denounced “the entire systems of oppression which exist within the halls of our school.”
The group also accused Schill of having an “ignorantly happy-go-lucky attitude” while attempting to “suppress [UO] students and to create a wage/class gap between the haves and havenots.”
The Daily Emerald broke the story of the protest against “fascism and neo-Nazis.” Schill was hoping to highlight a $50 million gift that he hoped to use, among other things, to fund a new Black Cultural Center.
Charlie Landeros led the protest against “CEO Schill” with a bullhorn and insisted that , “Over the summer there has been a huge proliferation of neo-Nazi propaganda plastered all over campus. We’re here to stand against that.” In other words, stand against the right of opposing views (which are now collectively treated as Nazi propaganda) to be heard on campus by silencing even the university president from speaking without their permission. Landeros, a fourth-year planning public policy and management student, also railed against oppression generally, indigenous rights, and tuition increases.
He added: “Our demands will be heard, we will be heard, we are the students, we will not be ignored. Expect resistance to anyone who opposes us.”
One would have hoped that all students and faculty would join together in denouncing the denial of free speech by these students. However the vice president of the Faculty Senate, Bill Harbaugh, blamed not the protesters by Schill and said that the president should not have left and should have “let them say their peace and waited them out.” He added that “instead of promoting free speech, the administration hurt free speech.” Really? The students had taken over the event and refused to yield or listen. How long are faculty and students expected to sit as protesters chant insulting and repetitive slogans? More importantly, why should the school reward students in blocking events or speeches by turning over the program to them. The resolution is obvious but not easy. Students must be told that disrupting classes or speakers will result in their suspension and repeated violations will result in their expulsion. Protests are a valuable part of the dialogue and exchanges of campus. However, those protests cannot take the form of silencing others at a place of higher education.
Notably, in his prerecorded speech, Schill lamented that “in other instances and at other universities, students seek to disinvite or shout-down speakers they don’t agree with. Faculty who ask probing questions are sometimes vilified as sexist or racist, creating a chilling effect on campus speech.” He can now include his own university.
1) they’re mad he had a ‘happy’ attitude.
2) He was planning to forward the $50 million donation to a new Black Culture Center.
3) they turned on the dude who was
‘Down with their cause’.
Either this is like some form of brain cancer,
Or we are watching the 3rd remake
Of: Invasion of the body Snatchers.
If I was a parent of a student at that school I would have a very long discussion about my $$$ being wasted and threaten cutting them off. On a resume, what do these students plan to say? They probably won’t graduate. I would give my permission to lock my student in study halls for the whole following weekend. I might mention that these outbursts are really the result of treating these students like children.
This institutional dysfunction IS the end game of the Marxist concept of the “March Through the Institutions.” When propaganda is relabeled “research,” and then presented as factual to the young we increase dysfunction. When history is revised to such an extent that it is unrecognizable we have dysfunction. The question University Overseers should be asking themselves at this time is how much policing do they
want to be paying for with taxpayer money? The rule should be learn and let others learn OR get out. Without intervention from legislatures, our Universities are at risk for becoming 1st Amendment-free zones.
This is an interesting piece with Chris Hedges. While it contains propaganda, it does explore what is happening on campus and on the “left” in general:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/10/06/hedg-o06.html
Nothing Hedges ever says is of any value. This interview is no exception.
The inmates are running the asylum. And that Faculty Senate person should be put on leave for a month.
No, the Faculty Senate needs to meet and depose him. Unless idiots are humiliated in from of their peers, they will continue to be idiots.
Each organization has to define and defend its processes which keep a healthy balance between authority and constructive dissent. Every University President has to be prepared to act decisively in the “define and defend” role. Students need to be given specifics of how to participate in the governance process of the University, be rewarded with influence for adhering to process, and punished when violating process. I wonder how many University Presidents are confused about “free speech” justifying a channel for unconstructive, defensive, non-meritocratic, ad-hominem, “us vs. them”. identity politics-based theatrics? I wonder how many University Presidents are uncomfortable acting as process manager and defender?
I’m convinced these little snowflakes don’t really know what they’re protesting about. They just show up when some VIP speaks to cause trouble.
Mindless automatons: they never realize they are simply useful idiots to those elite few who in the background seek to wreck us.
👍🏼
Obama’s Red Guard is feeding on its own.
I will drink 🍹🍷 to that. 🤣
Have our Colleges become day care centers
For Retards.
Or maybe the Retards are running the Colleges.
Sad.
“The resolution is obvious but not easy. Students must be told that disrupting classes or speakers will result in their suspension and repeated violations will result in their expulsion. ”
Why then does the administration not do the obvious thing?
Is it due to their own self defeating philosophy or the economic pressure of rising college costs/falling enrollment causing fear of proper administrative leadership?
I think both. They fear they cannot afford expulsions and their own philosophies discourage it.
U of O – state uni right? Simple, cut off funds. Let those “students” go back home and live in their parent’s basements. I am totally disgusted by this farce of a protest.
This is considered a disreputable thing?
So what comes next? Students refuse to allow faculty to teach their classes, then the students award their own grades? Students assume administration positions and run the college? Why would any parent spend their hard earned money on these places?
Communists and socialists turn on each other. Schill best review history.
The remarks of the vice president of the Faculty Senate are indicative of problems in institutional culture, as was the college president’s peace money to black nationalists and inane genuflecting to La Raza types.
If the Oregon legislature were worth anything, this institution would be hit hard and high.
‘System of Oppression’? In Eugene, Oregon? Can someone give these juveniles something real to cry about?
Yes, nearly all of these kids are privileged and grew up in a bubble. I am of the opinion that there is something legitimately wrong with many in that generation for a variety of reasons, but regardless, this is acting out related to conditioning that had zero to do with politics or justice. I guarantee that they will carry it with them into every walk of life. My concern is that they will be a lost generation and what that portends for the future, their parents have much to answer for.
See the remarks of the ‘vice president’ of the ‘Faculty Senate’. There’s a constituency among professional-managerial types for never saying ‘no’ or ‘shut up’ to the young. Gotta be the guide-on-the-side (TM).
Law School Deans, University Presidents. These students are big game hunting and they won’t stop until the game figure out that they can shoot back.
These are kids. Kids are notoriously naive and poorly-informed (these especially so). What happened to being the grown up? They should all be suspended, the worst expelled. Seems pretty simple to me. The administrators at these schools have no one to blame but themselves, and it’s pathetic.
Yes, it is to the point were I almost think they like the protest to get the news to look at their college. Why else would they put up with this?
Corporations Lowe’s and Home Depot are totally freaked out because these idiots encompassing this generation have no idea how to use their products. H. Depot had to put out a video on ‘how to use a tape meaure’. 🙄
This has really become a broken record and a bore.
Totally. It’s tedious, not alarming. Act like professionals and do your jobs for Pete’s sake, administrators. What the heck are we paying you for?
Yes it is a ridiculous bore. Not even newsworthy anymore. If I were JT, I would stop blogging these events.
The Farrelly Brothers are working on a movie based on this, right now. “Fifteen minute abs, no, seven minute abs.” Warhol said something about everyone getting fifteen minutes of fame. There surely is something there now about everyone getting to shut down someone protesting by protesting by protesting……