Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the rising concern over compelled speech on our campuses and our streets.
Here is the column:
“Silence is violence” has everything that you want in a slogan: Alliteration. Brevity. Simplicity. It also can be chilling for some in the academic and free-speech communities.
On one level, it conveys a powerful message that people of good faith should not remain silent about great injustices. However, it can have a more menacing meaning to “prove the negative” – demanding that people prove they are not racist.
In a prior column, I warned of the thin line between speech codes and speech commands, as people move from compelling silence to compelling speech: “Once all the offending statues are down, and all the offending professors are culled, the appetite for collective suppression will become a demand for collective expression.”
The line between punishing speech and compelling speech is easily crossed when free speech itself is viewed as a threat. It is not just the many cases of journalists, academics and others fired for expressing dissenting views. Even expressing support in the wrong way can be a terminal offense, like declaring “all lives matter” rather than “Black Lives Matter,” as in the firing of University of Massachusetts-Lowell Dean of Nursing Leslie Neal-Boylan or Vermont principal Tiffany Riley. While most of us support Black Lives Matter, it has become an official position of many schools — and variations are not tolerated. The concern is not only the establishment of orthodox values but the forced recitation of those values.
We are now seeing that fear realized.
This week, a mob surrounded diners outside several Washington restaurants, shouting “White silence is violence!” and demanding that diners raise a fist to support Black Lives Matter. Various diners dutifully complied as protesters screamed inches from their faces. One did not — Lauren Victor, who later said she has marched in protests for weeks but refused to be bullied. The mob surrounded her, and Washington Post reporter Fredrick Kunkle identified a freelance journalist as one of the people yelling at Victor and demanding: “What was in you, you couldn’t do this?”
It is the very mantra of orthodoxy: Failing to utter certain words, prayers or pledges is deemed a confession of complicity or guilt.
That demand for public affirmation was on display again Thursday when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and his wife were threatened by a mob after leaving the final event of the Republican National Convention. The couple was ordered to “Say Her Name,” referring to Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician shot by police in Louisville, Ky. Notably, some media suggested the mob did not know who Paul was; they just demanded that he say the name if he wanted to pass.
Forced speech can occur in a variety of direct and indirect ways. The University of Southern Maine’s president, Glenn Cummings, proclaimed “we must never tire of declaring that Black Lives Matter” and asked students and faculty to add their names to a public anti-racism pledge. After objections, the school said it would keep the list non-public. The concern was that some faculty and students may not support Black Lives Matters as an organization, or have other disagreements with the pledge — yet, failure to be on the list would indicate they are racist, or at least not sufficiently anti-racist.
The University of California issued a “guidance document” requiring students to reject racism, sexism, xenophobia and all hateful or intolerant speech, including a mandate that students stop others from referring to the “Chinese virus” or “Wuhan virus.” While the use of those terms is controversial, it also is heavily laden with political meaning for people on both sides of the debate over the pandemic.
Syracuse University moved more directly not just to bar but to require some forms of speech. Professor Keith Alford, the university’s diversity and inclusion officer, declared students would be punished for simply witnessing “bias-motivated” incidents and “acts of hate.” That was a response to a student group’s demand for expulsion of “individuals who witnessed the event or were present, but did not take part.”
The transition from speech codes to commands is based on the same notion of “speech as harm.” Just as speech is deemed harmful (and thus subject to regulation), silence is now deemed harmful. UC Berkeley Law Professor Savala Trepczynski, executive director of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, wrote that “White silence is incredibly powerful … It’s not neutral. It acts like a weapon.” It is certainly not unreasonable to call out others for not supporting important causes. Indeed, I have criticized faculty for remaining silent as colleagues were attacked or fired for voicing dissent about systemic racism, police abuse or other subjects. However, once both speech and silence are deemed as equally harmful, individuals are subject to public demonstrations of faith and fealty.
Even being insufficiently alert can result in demands for termination. Nearly 2,000 people signed a petition to fire Marymount Manhattan theater arts associate professor Patricia Simon after she appeared to fall asleep briefly during an anti-racist meeting held on Zoom. Student Caitlin Gagnon started a petition which accused Simon of “ignoring … racist and sizeist actions and words of the vocal coaches under her jurisdiction.” The message seems clear: You cannot be woke if you are not awake.
The concern over speech codes becoming speech commands would have been viewed as utterly absurd just a few years ago. Now, even calls for civility in dialogue have been denounced as racist dog whistles. Trinity College professor Johnny Williams condemned those who call for civility as “uphold[ing] white supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalist power.” When MSNBC host Joe Scarborough criticized those confronting people at restaurants and called for civility, University of Mississippi Professor James Thomas denounced civility and declared: “Don’t just interrupt a senator’s meal, y’all. Put your whole damn fingers in their salads.”
It is the ultimate expression of entitlement: People either must conform to your values or face public condemnation and threats. Your salad is no more inviolate than your speech. In a world where silence is violence and civility is complicity, there is little room for true free speech.
There was a Marx On Washington. Meanwhile Hitler was on Portland. Mao is in Wisconsin. And Sin City is where all the mobs go. Go fund me and don’t let the roaches out or we will all be eating sour croute.
Any minority group in history – from women to LGBT Americans to gun owners to African-Americans – politically has a “minority” of votes in any election. Outside of a court room, minority groups can only win politically by having outside-allies, from other groups. If an outside-ally agrees with the end goals of the minority group, even by different means, the minority group should embrace those allies – not demand a purity test that turns away vital allies. Viewing someone, that doesn’t agree with you 100%, as the enemy, is a losing formula. Minority groups needs allies to succeed, purity tests harm your cause. Martin Luther King, Jr understood this winning strategy.
I think most of us here support the Nazi Party. They are for jobs for all, free medical care, free day care, and the environment! Plus, they support scientific research and healthy eating! They are against high interest rates, and they want everybody to have an affordable, energy efficient car. True, they are a little wacko when it comes to Jews, and maybe they get a little feisty in streets sometimes, but I think we can sort of wall that stuff off and focus on the good things!
Right???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Out of the nut house and off her meds again.
You want to see silence, look for Squeeky supporters to call her out.
FishWings, meet sarcasm; sarcasm, meet Fishwings.
You just wish you were as sane as Squeeky.
Look for leftist, BLM supporting loyalty oaths in the near future.
You are fighing “facism”, what could be wrong with that?\
antonio
Word salad?
JT, obsequiousness to the powerful, now defined as “civility’ should not be equated to free speech. F
Free speech is being removed from our society by the powerful and the mobs the powerful support. The level of censorship has never been as high in my lifetime.
However, forced speech does equally remove free speech. We have a right of conscience and only totalitarians try to use force of one kind or another (keep your job/get beat up, etc.) to compel words from others which they do not feel. I thought the way Lauren held her ground was magnificent. That is very scary to be surrounded by screaming people, demanding you say what they want you to say. This is tyranny and she stood up to it! I was incredibly impressed with her courage!!
Patrick Wood of Technocracy News is a conservative. He is very articulate about defending free speech. As a liberal, I agree with him on that. He shows why the removal of free speech is so pervasive in our society.
Professor Turley, it isn’t your grandfather’s Democratic party anymore, i.e. the party of Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson that was concerned about the working man. They would be considered “nazis” now.
And I ask, when has the concern about being “coercive” ever stopped a leftist in their fight for “social justice”? Carried to its logical conclusion, Stalin’s USSR and Mao’s China was “coercive” with regards to many things, such collectivization, etc and resulted in the deaths of millions. But hey, they were building a “better world”, so that makes it ok right?
ALL LIVES MATTER!
antonio
It is interesting that only one young woman was willing to stand up to the mob.
That’s the one they surrounded and whose confrontation with them was photographed.
“Most of us support Black Lives Matter”? Since when. The most current polls show just the opposite. Americans who can actually think are seeing through it. After all, the founders are professed Marxists and are the products of recent, in at least one case illegal, immigration.
‘“Most of us support Black Lives Matter”? Since when. The most current polls show just the opposite. Americans who can actually think are seeing through it.’
Clever leftists love this child’s play. They like to play semantics. Ask me IF black lives matter, I say, “sure.” If I am asked if I support Black Lives Matter, I say, “no.” First is a general statement, and the second reference is the self-described marxist organization. So, I am easily referred to as being a racist for not supporting black lives matter. It’s really no bother, I don’t support any marxist organizations. I would recommend the Black Lives Matter rioters might find it more profitable to get a job, but I realize they would not be part of a marxist organization if that was the case to begin with.
Oh, and there’s the little issue of Black Lives Matter, the organization, being a major funding source as well as brown shirt policy influencers.
It’s hugely ironic that a slogan “silence is violence “ is being taken at heart by some of these protesters. The Supreme Court lately has done the same thing in regards to the 5th amendment. The Supreme Court has now contended that remaining silent under questioning by police can be construed as an admission of guilt. Turley’s concerns are a bit overblown since he’s only focusing on extreme examples of isolated incidents. Some may be from fringe extremists. That doesn’t apply the majority of protesters. It seems Turley is making it more “sinister” than it is.
If the Supreme Court itself now deems invoking the right to remain silent as an admission of guilt the “silence is violence” unfortunately may be justified in some twisted fashion. Nobody should be forced to make any proclamations of support just as nobody can be forced to stand for the pledge of allegiance or recite it.
” Turley’s concerns are a bit overblown ”
I will repeat what I said before try drinking a glass of water with a little pee in it. It’s mostly clean water.
Allan, there is such a thing as taking what Turley says with a few grains of salt. He’s already shown a willingness to deliberately mischaracterize issues and making false claims. His portrayal of these protesters makes it look like it’s what everyone is doing, but it’s just the few extremists who are being singled out. Leftists have their own extremists just as the right does. We both know their actions don’t reflect on everyone else’s, right. Just because there are right extremists who are racists or bigots or just downright insane doesn’t mean you are part of that, right? So if you generalize as you do with these protesters you risk being labeled a racist/bigot/or a nazi as well, right? You know it isn’t true,…but you can be held guilty by association just as you deem all leftists because a few extremists.
Turley is on the left side of the aisle so he has tendencies to give democrats a little more leeway than he should.
It is not a few extremists. It is a good number of people and a lot of people that have extreme views are more than happy to participate as long as the other people perpetrate the violence.
Peaceful protestors leave the scene to separate themselves from violent people. Those that remain are not good people. You make so many excuses for people that are rioting. That makes you one of them not one of the good people.
“It is not a few extremists. It is a good number of people and a lot of people that have extreme views are more than happy to participate as long as the other people perpetrate the violence.”
Well said. A well-funded and organized national group with the intent of violence is very dangerous when it gets to two or more. Bonnie and Clyde were pretty effective, and if my math skills have not abandoned me, they were not a mob, but two.
Did the surgery mean to say “can become free speech” ? Can became doesn’t make sense.
Martin Luther King, Jr believed that violence and looting ultimately hurts your cause and empowers bigots. The Black Lives Matter organization is winning huge gains but may harm that great progress if they support violent means. Martin Luther King, Jr used the “constitutional rule of law” system to win the big prize. Maybe instead of violence, BLM protesters should simply demand police chiefs and prosecutors be faithful to constitutional Oath of Office under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution – that every officer and prosecutor agreed to as a condition of retaining authority. Being faithful to that loyalty oath means “equal treatment” by authorities, regardless of what zip code you live in. For example: if you betray your loyalty oath practicing “Stop & Frisk” in Harlem, you perform “equal treatment” on the more affluent Long Island suburban neighborhoods. Violence and looting will erase all of the huge gains and progress.
Demanding that someone agrees with your right to express yourself by intimidating them into expressing themselves, is the antithesis of the very right in question. I use ‘in question’ as this behavior places our rights in question. No one has the right to force themselves on another. My ‘safe distance’, the space around me that I maintain belongs to me, is the distance from my center out the length of my outstretched arm/fist or leg/foot. If I feel threatened by anyone, I give myself the right to control this space. Get in my face and yours is threatened, by you.
Nobody. I mean nobody is going to dictate me what to think or feel – ever !!!
The fact remains: these are almost exclusively idiot children under the age of 30. We do not have to capitulate to children. It’s that simple. All of us not pandering for votes really need to find our spines. At present these little tools are still a minority.
Nobody should have any doubt that the real threat to our freedom and democracy, comes from the Jacobin mobs on the left.
We can survive a crude and inarticulate President but we will fail as a nation if we allow these woke mobs to impose their beliefs and demand we kneel before their altar.
Riot is a mass crime. Yet when a bunch of priests commit sex crimes on children it does not get discussed at mass
What do you mean “ While most of us support Black Lives Matter”?
I initially supported the concept of such a movement to create awareness (not police violence in particular, outside of potential racism, but violence in the inner cities where so many young blacks are killed. Democrats don’t seem to care about that type of black life.) but with all the violence and intimidation it is impossible to even support the idea of such a group though of course black lives matter just as much as any other life.
Yup. I think that would more accurately be phrased thusly: ‘Most of us pretend to support BLM out of superficial fear.’. Americans have become far too complacent and comfort loving. I support my black friends, I do not support BLM (neither do they! More white people trying to tell them who they are and who they should be!), they can go to hell. I’d love to drop these little fools into the middle of an actual, non-Western fascist nation, cut off from mom and dad, and see how they fare.
“Yup. I think that would more accurately be phrased thusly: ‘Most of us pretend to support BLM out of superficial fear.’. ”
James, my first glimpse of black lives matter was of peaceful people trying to help other blacks with the idea that black lives matter and ‘yours matters as well’. At that initial and short period of time I didn’t see any violence nor did I know that the formal heads of BLM were Marxists. They have destroyed what could have been a good idea.
BLM was a fraud at the outset.
If they cared about black lives they would have been doing something in Chicago or Baltimore instead of Portland or Seattle.
Young, I agree with you, but when I first heard about them they were not rioting and seemed to be helping their neighbors telling them their lives mattered just like other lives. Sometimes it takes time to recognize the driving force of a movement and one doesn’t want to stop movements offering help just because others might be violent. Unfortunately what I saw rapidly disappeared and became a cover for violence in the streets.
They were founded in response to the Trayvon Martin affair. Martin was shot to death by a man he’d attacked. The man was on the ground while Martin was practicing his MMA moves on him. It never meant anything but a complaint that ordinary people had rights of self-defense contra blacks and a complaint that police officers are empowered to arrest blacks.
It’s chilling what’s happening here. This has all happened before in history, here to some limited degree (McCarthyism) and most especially in other countries. The blatantly open racism in painting public streets and indoctrination requirements in workplaces and schools and in attacking and violating those who refuse to be in lockstep, is shockingly misguided.
Do you want a bullet in the head or in your heart? If you don’t respond we shoot you in the _____s.
Now you might ask. What does he mean by that censored last word. There is no free speech on the blog. We all are a bunch of Frogs (French).