Over 600 people have signed on to a petition calling for conservative commentator Matt Walsh to be banned from speaking at Washington and Lee University on March 30. That is hardly surprising given the regular cancel campaign on our campuses. However, what was striking was how many faculty signed the petition, including a number of law professors, despite its anti-free speech sentiments. The petition notably does not even contain the customary homage to free speech before eviscerating its underlying premise. Indeed, free speech is not mentioned even once. Instead, the petition denounces the university for allowing “one-sided platforms for harmful ideologies” to be held on campus. Notably, these faculty do not object to speakers holding opposing views from being one-sided. Indeed, the letter later objects to other speakers who engage in “both-sideism” on panels. The petition also states:
“While W&L’s Facility Use Policy states that allowing an event on campus does not imply endorsement of the views shared at the event, the school cannot escape responsibility for providing a platform for one-sided, non-academic, harmful rhetoric.”
Again, the objection only raises additional questions. Have these faculty members also objected to “non-academic” speakers from the left or insisted that such speakers have opposing views stated at the event? Have they objected to controversial, one-sided speakers from the left?
A couple years ago, Ibram X. Kendi spoke at the university without opposition from these faculty over his one-sided and controversial views. Kendi, the director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, previously attacked Justice Amy Coney Barrett over her adoption of two Haitian children and suggested that it raised the image of a “white colonizer.” He suggested that the children were little more than props for their mother. In addition to calling for “defunding the police” and limiting free speech, Kendi insists that “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” Kendi also maintains that “The life of racism cannot be separated from the life of capitalism…In order to truly be antiracist, you also have to truly be anti-capitalist.”
The fact is that I would not oppose Kendi coming to my campus or insist that he should not be allowed to give a “one-sided” presentation. His views are provocative and controversial, but they are precisely the type of diversity of viewpoints that higher education should foster.
Matt Walsh is clearly a lightening rod for controversy and has described himself as a “transphobe.” I disagree with Walsh but many do not. The issue is whether universities should censor such views based on what faculty may consider “harmful.” That is particularly chilling when faculty are applying such a clearly selective standard for those speakers who hold opposing views.
The “speech-as-harmful” rationale is now a virtual mantra on our campuses. This dangerous trend in academia is discussed in my law review article, Jonathan Turley, “Harm and Hegemony: The Decline of Free Speech in the United States”, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
The resulting viewpoint intolerance has produced a chilling effect on our campuses that has both faculty and students engaging in self-censorship. The current generation of the faculty and administrators are destroying the diversity of thought that sustains higher education.
This petition to bar any speaker viewed as supporting a “hateful ideology” would only reinforce what has become an academic echo chamber in higher education. Yet, the petition has the support of law professors and other faculty members who openly seek the barring of opposing views while, fittingly, omitting even a reference to free speech.
Below are the faculty in order of their signing. These are only those who listed their academic titles on the petition. They stretch across different disciplines and departments. I have removed the large number of staff members.
Brenna Womer, English Professor
Alan M. Trammell, Law Professor
Chelsea Fisher, Environmental Studies Professor
Avvirin Gray, Professor of English
Michael Berlin, Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Carliss Chatman, Law Professor
Diego Millan, Assistant Professor of English and Africana Studies
Ellen Mayock, Ernest Williams II Professor of Romance Languages
Jessica Wager, Institutional History
Lubabah Chwdhury, Professor of English and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Nneka Dennie, Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies
Kary Smout, English Professor
Domnica Radulescu, The Edwin A. Morris Professor of Comparative Literature
Jane Harrington, Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Romina Green Rioja, Assistant Professor of Latin American History
Mia Brett, VAP of African American History
Allison Weiss, Law Professor
Joan M. Shaughnessy, Roger D. Groot Professor of Law
Robert T. Danforth, John Lucian Smith, Jr. Memorial Professor of Law
Kristina Roney, Assistant Professor of French
Karen Woody, Law Professor
Beth Staples, English Professor
Mattie Clear, Archivist and Assistant Professor
Alison Bell ‘91, Professor of Anthropology
Keri Gould, Law Professor
Franklin Sammons, VAP History
Zoila Ponce de León, Assistant Professor of Politics
Jon Eastwood, Professor of Sociology
Elizabeth Belmont, Law Professor
Matthew F. Tuchler, Professor of Chemistry
Lesley Wheeler, English Professor
Carla Laroche, Law Professor
Bobby Jones’14 Assistant Professor / Football Coach
Russell Miller, J.B. Stombock Professor of Law
Mikki Brock, Associate Professor of History
Henryatta Ballah- Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies
Benjamin G. Davis, Visiting Professor of Law
Jill Fraley, Professor of Law
Chris Gavaler, Associate Professor of English
Josh Fairfield, Law Professor
Chris Seaman, Professor of Law
Mary Z. Natkin, ‘85L, Emeritus Professor of Law
Fernando Zapata, Ted DeLaney Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy
Molly Michelmore, Professor of History
Stephen P. McCormick, Associate Professor of French and Italian
Erin Ness Associate Professor of Physical Education
Shane Lynch Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities
Margaret Anne Hinkle, Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Geoscience
Paul A. Gregory, Professor of Philosophy
Angela Sun, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Emerson Lynch, Visiting Assistant Professor of Earth & Environmental Geoscience Megan Fulcher, Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Science
Emily Filler, Assistant Professor in the Study of Judaism
Clover Archer, Director of Staniar Gallery
Heather Kolinsky, Professor of Practice W&L Law
Mohamed Kamara, Professor of Romance Languages and Africana studies
Nathaniel Goldberg, Professor & Chair of Philosophy
Holly Shablack, Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Science
Jenefer Davies, Professor of Dance & Chair of Theatre, Dance & Film Studies
Bill Hamilton, Professor and Head of Biology
Fiona Watson, Associate Professor of Biology & Neuroscience
Helen I’Anson Perry Professor of Biology & Research Sciences, Neuroscience
Nadia Ayoub, Professor of Biology
Gregg Whitworth, Associate Professor of Biology
David Bello, Professor of History
Lawrence Hurd, Professor of Biology
Sarah Blythe, Associate Professor of Biology & Neuroscience
Once a bastion of vigorous debate and scholarly pursuits, W & L is now a diversity freak show as our list of free speech tyrants shows. Another liberal institution falls to the radicals. It’ll completely collapse soon enough just like the rest of the hollow edifice of higher education.
We are the Hollow men, we are the stuffed men. Headpiece filled with straw.
As we grope together and avoid speech…
The issue that arises from this particular case is whether or not university administrations should deny “one-sided” presentations based on the subjectivism of any number of faculty members who think such presentations are “harmful.” What it boils down to for administrators is not so much that it is a free speech conundrum they are faced with, but rather in moving forward how can they ever be comfortable allowing any one-sided presentations on campus. I expect Washington & Lee will eventually say thanks, but no thanks to its esteemed faculty, students, and alumni who signed the position. Little may they know that in so doing the administration will have saved them from themselves.
Someone should remind these Professors that not too long ago, many felt the exact same way during the early AIDs epidemic. “Scary”/“harmful”/“valueless” voices, and even patients/victims, weren’t allowed anywhere near most college campuses in the mid-late 1980’s; and much the same reason was given. And AIDS was provably & proximately killing people, including children! – BUT, we only learned how to fight it…and how to survive & thrive, despite it…by opening ourselves up to understanding it (bad things in shadows & all that)! – How can Professors not know or not teach this?
The other side of this coin is that once the “close-minded” begin to actually engage with people or topics they’ve been told are “dangerous” & “not worthy of air time”, they frequently find that things are not always as they’ve been told. Furthermore, even those who may never learn to open up their minds may nonetheless learn that, eg: You can’t catch it just by being in the room with it! – It’s prudent also to never forget that “societal norms” haven’t & won’t always align with our individual beliefs, even if right now we think they do. One need only look at Slavery itself for that lesson!
Just wanted to note that the above comment was not made by me (Old Concerned Citizen).
Apologies! Will Change to “Another Concerned Citizen”. (Was going to add “younger & quicker”…but that could be just wishful thinking my part! have a great evening!)
I think I should clarify in case it isnt clear: I am accepting of all lifestyles and have been since I witnessed what happened in the 1980s with AIDs. I was a small kid then but watched in notable horror how people treated others bc of fears stoked by society, media, bad medical practitioners seeking the spotlight, and even Hollywood Blackballers. – Sound familiar? – I used the comparison to that time (above) as something these Professors might understand…since they seem to think these Conservatives Voices are a disease that must be eradicated. My point was: Even if that were true, a dangerous disease will only fester if you don’t address it head on. I added reply to that what my heart & mind personally believes; If one does engage with whatever enemy they’re so afraid of, they often find that “objects in the mirror are not as they appear”!
– I would add that there are very provable & real near-term dangers of this intolerance. For example, with such attitudes coming from our Professors, is it any wonder Gen Z & others dont want to even hear about eg, Peace talks w Russia?
– I can’t believe I am living in a time when a fairly Westernized Country & it’s people are being bombed out of existence,…for a full year now,…and our Leaders & Media refuse to even mention “Peace-talks”. In fact, just the other day, Blinken said that even cease fires were off the table!
– What Universe are we living in where our Leaders dont even see the value in at least discussing halting bombings/killings, even if just temporarily, for any reason? ANSWER: One where our Professors teach our kids to simply shut the door on anyone whose views they think are “dangerous”.
JT says that Kendi advocates against free speech and for compulsory discrimination. If true, then he is promoting the violation of countless federal statutes, norms, values, and the US Constitution. Having once been one, I’m not sure that skulls full of mush will interrogate Kendi’s theories with anything even approaching a modicum of rigor much less welcome debate. It’s a risky proposition letting Kendi’s views into the open, but the Constitution is just too hard to ignore for some of us. I hope he fails.
We’re starting to see noteworthy stupidity in academia, or at least very poor scholarly habits of mind. For them to call a speaker or perspective “one-sided” is an example. Yes, when an individual human speaks, he presents his “side”. One person = one “side”. That can’t be a serious objection. If they want to add their “side” afterward, in essay form or their own talk, they’re free to do so, as per usual.
Assertions that non-leftist discourse is “harmful” are tiresome and would be thoroughly stigmatized in a serious environment. Calling it “non-academic” is yet another charge that is not a synonym of *false*. Academics vastly overrate their intelligence and intellectual competence relative to outsiders, and their ideological bias is clearly a cult phenomenon at this point. They’re impostors.
Gen Z will somehow need to learn the lesson that if you ignore it or suppress it, it doesn’t go away. And most especially if it’s speech that you believe is “dangerous”, it only becomes louder when you try & shut it up. Activist Teachers, over-funding, and scared or ignorant parents have left kids today without this important Life Lesson. So, it must first be learned from scratch before they will actually achieve that “Progress” they’re so proud of standing for!
W&L has a lot of conservative students and a lot of conservative professors. Among students, it is regularly listed as one of the most conservative student bodies.
Inviting a conservative provocateur to campus is not adding viewpoint diversity.
WABF – Every thinking person has a unique viewpoint. The term “conservative” covers a wide-variety of viewpoints. And, it is not “provocative” to speak one’s mind, or it should not be in a free country.
So therefore Walsh shouldn’t be allowed to speak?
Does no one else find it mildly amusing / disturbing that liberals and conservatives have such differing viewpoints regarding free speech as it relates to a high school senior vs. a freshman in college?
DeSantis now wants to extend conservative safe spaces in public schools all the way to 12th grade, but liberals want safe spaces once they get to 13th grade.
Neither actually cares about free speech, just about the political content of said speech.
“DeSantis now wants to extend conservative safe spaces in public schools all the way to 12th grade, but liberals want safe spaces once they get to 13th grade”
Such foolish talk lacking the ability to delineate the issues. DeSantis is against grooming. Are you a groomer looking for a place to groom. Choose an alternative to Florida.
Is showing a second grade class a PG rated Disney movie about a 6 year old protagonist, who is a living hero of the civil rights movement?
If your answer is “yes” then I suppose I am a groomer.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2023/03/27/removal-ruby-bridges-film-pinellas-school-sparks-outrage/
This parent is scaring the district because the Stop Woke Act gives her a private right of action to sue over something as harmless as this movie because she doesn’t want her child (or any others in the school – the school granted her request to have her students sit out) to learn about the difficulties are country faced with integration. That is my definition of a “safe space.” What is yours?
“If your answer is “yes” then I suppose I am a groomer.”
My answer doesn’t matter. If you wish to sexualize children, you are a groomer.
” the Stop Woke Act “
You can’t get the name right. How are we supposed to listen to anything you say? One can’t even focus on your gibberish. Rewrite it so that one can be sure about what you are saying. If you do, I will respond.
It is safe spaces for children, not conservatives.
How is it a safe space for all children if one parent’s objection denies a parent who wants their kid to learn about the civil rights movement or classical sculpture that opportunity?
No, it is a safe space for conservatives.
ATS, what public school has been stopped from teaching about the civil rights movement?
Small snippet of Wikipedia piece on Matt Walsh: “Walsh is a former talk radio host for stations in Delaware and Kentucky.He is outspoken against the LGBT movement, especially the transgender community, and has campaigned against people and hospitals providing transgender health care to adults or to minors. Walsh did not attend college.”
Why should any college allow an uneducated and outrageously- bigoted person (i.e., actively campaigning against transgender care) a platform to speak on campus? How does campaigning against LGBTQ and transgenderism qualify as an academic topic useful to further a college student’s education? Turley once again attempts to eqate bigotry with conservatism, but these concepts are not the same. No one is saying Walsh can’t spew his bilious BS–just not on this particular private college campus because he isn’t welcome by a large number of faculty and students who believe his bigotry is wrong. Turley claims: “diversity of viewpoints [is something] that higher education should foster.” There’s a vast difference between bigotry and “diversity of viewpoints”, which Turley knows. Rhetorically: should the university invite Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists to the campus to speak about their “diverse views”? Walsh is just as polarizing in his activism against LGBTQ people. Just more red meat to foster the Fox theme that the disciples are having their freedom of speech curtailed by academia, and that, somehow, bigots like Matt Walsh have something valid to say and should be allowed to spew their vitriol on college campuses.
Gigi – you describe Matt Walsh as “an uneducated and outrageously- bigoted person.” If lack of a college education means that someone is uneducated, you would have barred Abraham Lincoln from speaking. Your suggestion otherwise is a form of bigotry. You call Walsh a bigot for “actively campaigning against transgender care”. What you mean is he is trying to stop hospitals from destroying the lives of minors by amputating their body parts. This is described as “healthy care” by certain lunatics. I call it a crime.
What minors have ever received surgical gender affirming care? Such surgery is not allowed to be performed for someone who lacks legal capacity to consent, which would be anyone under the age of 18. Hormone therapy is different, because it is reversible, but even then, it requires parental consent and the confirmation of necessity and need by a psychiatrist and medical doctor. Pandering to the lie that there are crazy doctors out there mutilating children who are “just going through a phase” is just more culture wars BS–red meat for the disicples. Has there ever been any minor who came forward and claimed to have had a body part amputated when s/he was under the age of 18 and felt mutilated? I haven’t seen one. Walsh has no college education whatsoever. And Abraham Lincoln lived in another time in which attendance at law school was not a prerequisite to obtaining a law license. Anyway, Lincoln was against bigotry and the sort of ignoramus rhetoric spewed by Walsh.
As to surgery on minors, see:
Lindsey Tanner, “Trans kids’ treatment an start youngern new guidelines say” apnews.com (June 15, 2022):
“The World Professional Association for Transgender Health said hormones could be started at age 14, two years earlier than the group’s previous advice, and some surgeries done at age 15 or 17, a year or so earlier than previous guidance. The group acknowledged potential risks but said it is unethical and harmful to withhold early treatment.”
Zachary Faria, “The Biden administration wants taxpayers to fund gender transitions for children” (December 4, 2022):
“Other countries have moved away from gender transitions for children because, unsurprisingly, puberty blockers and hormone treatments can have permanent effects on bones and the brain, and gender transition surgeries are obviously irreversible. But the Biden administration is recklessly pushing forward, threatening to bring down the might of the federal government on any state that wants to protect children from being rushed down this path.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/community-family/biden-administration-wants-taxpayers-to-fund-child-gender-transiti
Whatever “health care” is being offered now, it is likely to move on to surgery, unles people like Walsh can stop it.
As to the importance of a college eductation, here are some “modern-day” people who did not even finish high school:
Richard Branson; David Karp; Aretha Franklin; Joe Lewis (businessman); Mike Hudack (Facebook product manager); Philip Emeagwali (computer scientist);
Quentin Tarantino; Francois Pinault (French billionaire); David H. Murdock (Dole Foods CEO); Jame H. Clark (co-founder of Netscape).
https://www.businessinsider.com/wildly-successful-people-who-dropped-out-of-high-school-2015-9#francois-pinault-dropped-out-at-11-8
If we look at people who started college, but never got a degree, we see names such as Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman and Steve Jobs.
Given the costs of college, the evident low quality of faculty, the lowering standards, and the atmosphere of intolerance, it is likely that many talented people will be foregoing the pleasure in the future. I suppose they will all be banned by you and your friends from talking at colleges.
The Washington Examiner is NOT a credible source of anything.You still haven’t cited a single case in which someone under the age of 18 received gender changing surgery. Alleged “guidelines” from an advocacy group don’t count. Walsh never even STARTED college.
The names are protected, but if one wishes to learn more about the left’s gender identity scam they can refer to the following.
A Parent’s Guide to Radical Gender Theory
How to combat gender ideology in your local school district.
https://rufo.substack.com/p/a-parents-guide-to-radical-gender-theory
“The Washington Examiner is NOT a credible source of anything.”
Or you could just check the actual facts presented rather than putting blinders on because of your judgement of the source.
Tavistock in the UK – recently shutdown handles almost entirely those under the age of 18.
“Chloe Cole, a young woman who once identified as transgender, is suing the medical professionals and hospital that administered sex change procedures to her as a child which she now regrets, according to a complaint her attorneys published Thursday.”
Cole is one of many who are now suing those that rushed them into drugs and surgery often long before they were 18.
I would presume that since you do not think that children under 18 are being given drugs or surgery, that you fully support suing to bankruptcy, doctors, hospitals, clinics, psychiatrists etc who provided drugs and surgery to children ?
If you think it is not being done, then no one will be sued for what they did not do.
RHETORIC, NOT SEEN IN THE CONSTITUTION
Is there a prohibition in the Constitution against having opinions and “prejudices?” Let’s say I don’t like ———— because she’s a leeching, parasitic, communist dependent, and illicit and illegitimate beneficiary of unconstitutional affirmative action, quotas, etc. Is that unconstitutional? May I not remain obstinately or intolerantly devoted to my opinion which some call prejudice, using it as a pejorative?
Were the American Founders bigoted against Great Britain?
Was it bigoted for Washington to cross the Delaware and seize victory?
Ya’all let these gold digging, illegal alien invaders use your own language against you.
____________________________________________________________________
Merriam-Webster
bigot
noun
big·ot ˈbi-gət
Synonyms of bigot
: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices
Gigi, I assure you there are others who view your comments here as the bigoted rhetoric of someone who is ignorant and not as well-educated as they are. Should we not allow you to post Comments on Internet Sites bc of that view? (NOTE: Do I mean your view or their view? – See how this works? Or, maybe you don’t, and we should just leave it up to those more “educated” than you?)
Turley: “free speech is not mentioned even once.”
+++
Why would they? They hate it.
In other news, Washington & Lee professors sign petition declaring that ME-TV should not show this week’s episode of “The Monkeys”.
When you have people pushing socialism this should be of no surprise. The top down one size fits all is the only philosophy compatible with socialism. Differences can’t be tolerated.
What’s hard to understand is the large number of W&L law professors who signed the petition. They should know better.
I find it interesting that the given list of faculty includes the “usual suspects” related to grievance peddling in a campus environment.. a preponderance of Law, English, Social Sciences, Philosophy, Languages and “XXX” studies with a few traditional sciences sprinkled in. Maybe the ones that were removed because they did not identify their title/appointment will offset this demographic.
Kjgreenwhite,
The one that worries me is Law. The others will end up flipping burgers to pay their debts but lunatic lawyers can destroy this country.
“[Kendi’s] views are provocative and controversial, but they are precisely the type of diversity of viewpoints that higher education should foster.” No–provocative (in the academic sense) connotes erudition and deep thought.” Nietzsche was provocative.. Kendi is a hack with a shtick. His “work” is drivel, and while I wouldn’t support banning him from campus or shouting him down, I think he’s little better than Ward Churchill and listening to him would be a colossal waste of time.
It is time to face the fact that, not including the directors of the prog/left movement, the remainder of these sheeple are utterly oblivious to reality. How a nation can contain that many unhinged and destructive citizens is a question no one wants to debate but as calls for the murder of conservatives increase from just old hanoi jane to college professors, those on the other side of the spectrum and going to realize that self-preservation is their number one issue at this point. I am wondering why those inciting lethality towards American citizens are not being arrested and incarcerated.
Part of the problem is the American Universities giving every staff member the title of Professor which seems to give these people a sense of importance. Change to the European system where the honor of being a professor is earned and you have maybe 1 or 2 professors to a faculty the rest are “Lecturers”.
“IT IS THEIR RIGHT, IT IS THEIR DUTY, TO ACT WITH A TERRIBLE RESOLVE”
_________________________________________________________________
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
– Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
_______________________
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off
such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
A little housekeeping:
Matt Walsh is clearly a lightening rod for controversy and has described himself as a “transphobe.” Should be “lightning.”
Fifteen years ago, a group of 88 professors at Duke signed a petition basically convicting three completely innocent people. Are you really all that shocked by this?
“Are you really all that shocked by this?”
Not at all.
It is the same cause: Those academics are propagandists and political activists, not scholars and educators. With the same effect: They punish those who do not support their propaganda and activism.
P.S. Good reference to Duke’s Gang of 88.
Contortionist a plenty in academy striving to change society into their desired Utopian Paradise having no regard for decency or understanding that their utopian path leads to chaos (but MAYBE that’s their desire in the first place?). Do they not understand that speech is what separates human for all other species? Are they so full of themselves they refuse to listen? Are their brains shallow and at capacity, full of consternation that others may be right? Do they even know what the constitution stands for (We the People?)? Are their actions not tantamount to shredding the document (We the People) agreed to live under? These neophytes (meaning unlearned scholars?) are a curse, with all their conceit of self-worth and superior intellectuality must be separated from the pack and shown the door.
Washington and Lee university is a small private liberal arts college. They are not really required to give Matt Walsh a platform to speak in their campus is the majority of students and staff oppose him speaking there. There is a distinction that Turley does not make and ironically it’s not at all different than what he does with his blog.
The students and the staff signing the petition are not no more anti-free speech than Turley is. They don’t want to squash Matt Walsh’s right to free speech. That is not the issue. The issue is that they do not want him to speak at their school. This is a private school and clearly the majority of students and staff don’t want someone of Walsh’s ilk to speak at their campus. The students and staff have a right to say they don’t want him to speak there and they also have a right to petition the school to not allow him to speak on campus. That doesn’t mean Walsh can’t speak anywhere else in town. Just not at their private school. The reason for not wanting him to speak at their school is because of Walsh is a massive bigot and a very unsavory individual. He does not represent the school focus on diversity and his views have no academic significance or are any contribution to diversity. He’s just a nasty bigot.
The school can and should ban him from speaking if they want to. They are a private school and they are not bound by the 1st amendment any more than Turley’s blog is.
I’ve made this point before and it is even more relevant now. Turley is a big supporter of free speech and accepts that there is going to be controversial speech or even offensive speech or views. His blog reflects that with one glaring exception, he won’t tolerate openly racist comments. He will censor those comments on his blog because he believes they have no place on his blog. That is perfectly fine. However Washington and Lee students and staff also believe free speech is important and they do support those rights, however just like Turley, they also have an exception, that is individuals and those who support Matt Walsh’s rhetoric and views. Just like in Turley’s blog, they also reserve the right to deny certain speech they don’t like on their private school campus. Otherwise it would be hypocritical of Turley to chastise the school for doing something he does on his own blog which is censoring or banning openly racist comments.
By Turley’s own rationale he is anti-free speech because he censors openly racist comments, despite being a free speech absolutist. This is why Turley’s arguments are often full of hypocrisy.
What a silly comment. What are they afraid of at W & L? Were he alive, Washington would be the first to condemn this idiocy.
Sorry, but you are mistaken. We often forget, and I include myself in this, that the first amendment applies only to public entities. So the comments that W&L as a private institution is not bound by it appear to be correct.
A majority of us do not want you to speak on this blog. Why don’t you go speak elsewhere on the town blog?
Do what I do, just scroll past.
I was just turning the tables on him, for what he just wrote above,”The students and staff have a right to say they don’t want him to speak there and they also have a right to petition the school to not allow him to speak on campus. That doesn’t mean Walsh can’t speak anywhere else in town. The reason for not wanting him to speak at their school is because of Walsh is a massive bigot and a very unsavory individual. He’s just a nasty bigot.”
This comment section is mostly used by very smart people. I wish everyone would just scroll past Svelaz. It seems like a bad car accident, people can’t help but look. Then the thread ends up being consumed with people knocking down the nonsense he/she spews. Waste of time.
Why place Svelaz’s ignorance into hiding? His comments are erroneous, so when a person like John Say takes each of Svelaz’s statements and demonstrates how stupid they are, it might help a naive person understand the stupidity and give up on those ideas.
Svelaz doesn’t have the intellect to change viewpoints or stop contradicting himself, but others are reading and trying to separate right from wrong.
John Say is right. Svelaz is wrong.
Feel free to do so. But everyone is not obligated to do so.
Actual liberty requires a little bit of everything.
Free speech does not ONLY means the best and the smartest get to speak.
It means the nazi’s the racists, and the socialists and communist get to speak.
And the rest of us can decide if we wish to ignore them, follow them or refute them.
What we can not do is silence them.
be honest: you show contempt for our host and blatant disregard for his requests. Respect the host: refrain from engaging trolls.
https://jonathanturley.org/civility-rule/
Like all sites, we attract trolls and juvenile posters who want to tear down the work of others. It is a sad reality of the Internet and the worst element of our species. Don’t feed the trolls. Ignore them. They are trolls and live under cyber bridges for a reason.
I am perfectly Honest. I do not always agree with Turley.
I respect him. I read his articles and agree with alot of what he says.
Nut not everything.
I do not agree that Svelaz should always be ignored.
I am not sure that Turley would either.
But if he does – I respectfully disagree.
I will continue doing as I am – time and itnerest permitting.
And if Prof. Turley does not like that – he can Ban me.
I am not expecting that.
I also do not agree with Turley’s position on racist speech.
I do not think that should be banned.
I think there is more value in knowing how many and who the racists are.
I also do not think we can get to truth without all views being uttered.
Svelaz – Of course, JT can bar some content from his blog, although I don’t see the evidence of censorship of different points of view. But a college, even a private one, is a different place. It consists of thousands of students who go to college to see and hear different points of view, to have their minds opened, not closed. A mob, even if it is the majority of the faculty and student body, should not be able to determine what anyone desires to hear, short of exhortations to violence.
“I’ve made this point before . . .”
We know. You peddle ad nauseam the same ad hominem fallacy.
It’s all part of your smear Turley campaign.