The Oxford Union bills itself as “the most prestigious debating society in the world” based on the values of free speech. It is a well-earned reputation for one of the world’s oldest forums for debating the great issues of the day. However, Oxford students are outraged that the Union will allow a debate over transgender ideology. In response, as reported by the The Times UK, the Union has promised to provide a “non-student support team that will remain in a separate welfare space to offer counseling and advice.” This is to deal with the trauma of free speech in simply allowing Dr. Kathleen Stock to speak about her views that biological sex is real and “gender identity” should not alter certain biological truths.
Stock is a feminist who has joined those (like the author J.K. Rowling) in raising concerns over transgender ideology. Her book, “Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism,” explores the subject and calls for a reaffirming of fixed biological realities.
At the same time, Stock has stressed her support for trans rights generally, writing that trans people “deserve to be safe, to be visible throughout society without shame or stigma, and to have exactly the same life opportunities as non-trans people do.”
Nevertheless, Oxford’s LGBTQ+ society called for censorship of the debate society and objected to her being allowed to be heard on campus as a “transphobic and trans-exclusionary speaker.” They alleged that the union was ignoring the welfare of the society’s members under the guise of free speech.
It really is not a “guise” but the very essence of free speech.
Stock was previously a faculty member at University of Sussex, but was effectively forced out due to protests. She is now a Founding Faculty Fellow of the University of Austin, a school founded on free speech principles.
The Oxford Union deserves considerable credit for maintaining its commitment to free speech in the face of yet another cancel campaign. What is most notable about the campaign is the objection to “letting Stock bring her campaign of hate and misinformation to Oxford [and] allowing her to stoke fear against trans people without challenge or opposition.”
This is a debating society. Stock will be challenged and questioned. That is the point. What the LGBTQ+ society is advocating is the cancellation of such speakers to bar “challenge or opposition” to its own views.
The creation of “welfare spaces” is a bit difficult to square with the free speech foundation of the Union. It is also unlikely that emotional support teams are available when writers and professors are denounced as Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs).
There has long been an anti-free speech movement based on the notion of free speech as harmful. 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 Union reinforces this view by promising to have emotional support ready and safe spaces set aside for those traumatized by hearing opposing views.
I have previously written of my pride as an alumnus of The University of Chicago in how the school has led the fight for free speech in higher education. It is also ranked as the number one free speech school in the country. (I will be speaking at UChicago next week on Friday and Saturday, including one event on free speech).
UChicago shocked many in 2016 when it sent a letter to incoming students that promised an unfettered and uncensored education without the protection from disturbing or offensive ideas. While most schools are actively curtailing free speech, its letter warned the students that they will not be protected against ideas or given “safe spaces.”
Again, Oxford Union has remained faithful to its noble commitment to free speech inviting Stock. I can also understand the desire to be responsive and understanding to the deep-felt sense of injury by some. However, universities do not have to protect people from the trauma of hearing opposing views. They need to empower everyone to speak freely and to associate with others who share their values.
I may be naive, but I also hope that a few critics might also want to hear Stock and engage in a productive and civil debate at the Oxford Union.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” [1]
Ten years ago, Edward Snowden leaked massive NSA spying and revealed that many countries around the world have been targeted by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, and US aiming to achieve “Total Information Awareness” by mastering the Internet with analytical tools such as “Boundless Informant”. During this time the header was a quoted perennial favorite. Only the citation is taken out of context and far from its original intention.” Our Assemblies have of late had so many Supply Bills […] and the large Supply of Money offered by this Bill, might enable the Governor to do every Thing else that should be judged necessary for their farther Security, if he shall think fit to accept it.” The letter was about $$$ and not about liberty. The situation is similar with “free speech”: Usually admonished by those who are either powerless or take positions without exercising power.
Oxford University is still proud of its students’ “capacity to think deeply and critically, to entertain alternative perspectives, and to undertake creative and generative research”. [2] The question is: Are there enough students who are familiar with moral of John Godfrey Saxe’s 19th century poem “The Blind Men and the Elephant”:
“So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!”
BTW: “Oxford University’s role in educating leaders, who put their academic training to work serving societies around the world, has been highlighted as the names of a dozen Oxford graduates are among President Biden’s new administration” [2]. Like Eric Lander, Susan Rice, Jake Sullivan, Jonathan Finer, Bruce Reed…
[1] “Founding Father” Benjamin Franklin, 11/11/1775: https://franklinpapers.org/framedVolumes.jsp?vol=6&page=238a
[2] https://www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/article/oxonians-in-the-biden-administration
If you are ” Triggered” by a” Microaggression” and need a “Safe Space” you are a P**SY! GROW UP!!!
Yes, just how did all of humanity prior to prog/left agendas. Where were the safe spaces and affirmative action programs for the past 10,000 years of human existence?
I have previously written of my pride as an alumnus of The University of Chicago in how the school has led the fight for free speech in higher education.
As I recall, Chicago was also the only university to welcome F.A. Hayek into its econ department when the rest of the west was hard-core Keynesian. A few decades later Hayek’s free market ideas became largely dominant. Perhaps something similar will happen here. Perhaps we are at peak trans, the bubble will soon pop, and the west will move back toward sanity.
@old man
I find myself simply agreeing with other posters today. I’ve had similar thoughts about it, a lot of this stuff seems to be at least beginning to fizzle out. However: I know from experience that our Dem Globalists will simply replace the hysteria with other manufactured (and likely paid for) hysteria.
My prediction: given Biden recently put Kamala in charge of ‘AI’ (a misnomer, but a destructive thing in the wrong hands, and without regs at some point, given it’s online/big data framework, software will eventually pollute search results and then begin to start regurgitating its own regurgitation, the web could be lost as a reliable resource mighty quick. Sites, if we have any sanity remaining, will need to be required to have disclaimers indicating content has been auto generated by software. But I digress) it’ll be technology, and they will spin it just as bad as these other manufactured issues, the collateral damage will be severe, and naturally, Dems will declare they are the ones with a God given right to control it, not the ‘plebes’. And also of course it will make them gobs of money.
Let’s see the tide turning.
James – you may be onto something there. The World Economic Forum is pushing trans-humanism (a physical brain-computer interface). Some theorize that that’s the end goal, with the mainstreaming of trans-sexualism being merely a stepping stone. The obvious benefit to the WEF elite of large-scale trans-humanism is the control it would give them.
Demographically we are on a rocket sled to h*ll (communism or worse). We had better act quickly, especially in the US before it is too late.
KS oldman
I see this like recovered memory syndrome. Psychiatrist claimed is was a real thing. But that like this, is nothing but a social contagion. That’s why we are seeing the explosion. Dressing and acting like the other sex has always been here. A small percentage of a small percentage.
I have come in contact with three parents struggling with their children, so afflicted. No suprise that the children were always ‘off’ And this is the latest shiny thing they are obsessing about.
iowan2 – Social contagion is right. Like you say, there has always been a tiny number of people with genuine gender dysphoria. But kids nowadays get caught up in the social contagion because (a) they’re at that age where susceptibility is high, (b) the need for peer affirmation override virtually everything else, (c) the dominant social media culture affirms gender dysphoria and homosexuality, but not cisgender, (c) so many public school teachers are pushing the ideology and sexually grooming the kids, and (d) the medical and psychiatric professions have been infected with the woke cancer, so that now the preferred treatment is to alter the body to align with the disordered mind, rather than healing the mind to align with physical reality.
All of that adds up to insanity – the insanity I’m hoping we will soon retreat from.
You said that you like to ask yourself “what if I’m wrong?”
What if you’re wrong?
Wrong in what way? In that we will not retreat from the insanity?
It should go without saying, but I guess it needs to be said: Feminists started this whole ‘gender’ mess decades ago when they began demanding that women are entitled to perform in roles traditionally held by men!
Women ARE entitled to perform in roles traditionally held by men!
And men are entitled to perform in roles traditionally held by women.
Meh. So they feel the need for welfare spaces. Are they even going to attend the debate and listen? Or just rush to the welfare spaces cry and sob about feeling unsafe?
Trying to imagine these people working in the real world.
The demise of the West. plain and simple
The “gifting” of the West.
Plain and simple.
Never forget.
You GAVE it away.
You couldn’t keep it.
You were incapable of vigorously exercising the necessary resolve, sufficient to the task.
______________________________________________________________________
“[We gave you] a [restricted-vote] republic, if you can keep it.”
– Ben Franklin
Oxford students are “outraged” over an honest discussion about transgender ideology with D. Kathleen Stock ? Seriously ? That’s it ? Like many other colleges and universities who have completely capitulated to the temper-tantrum antics of their woke students, Oxford appears to be on the verge of falling like Bakhmut. Thank you, Jonathan, for an excellent article.
Trans/homosexuals, and the politically congruent (“=”), are “transphobic and trans-exclusionary”. So much so that they have socially distanced from others in the transgender spectrum through cultural appropriation (e.g. “gay”, “lesbian”,couples in lieu of couplets) and Rainbow (i.e. albinophobic symbols and rhetoric) variance. The Democrats, for their part, have doubled-down with “Respect for Marriage Act”, which is both exclusionary and bigoted. Civil unions for all consenting adults.
The transgender spectrum disorder has no redeeming value to society or humanity. The question is should the disorder be normalized, tolerated, or rejected? Should trans/science be allowed to conflate sex and gender, and should civilized society take a knee to Levine’s Dreams of Herr Mengele?
Non Student Support Team (NSST) also know as the Snowflake Defense Squad ( or SDS). Hmm sounds like some initials right out of the 60’s and history. Those SDS guys were such great protectors of freedom and speech. Absolutely the greatest bunch of scummy characters (or worse) that I ever saw on a college campus).
I can already see the complainants lining up. “OMG she said that they are only women and men, I felt faint nauseous and unsafe and was compelled to slash my wrists with my nail file. Please save me.” Bandaid applied and patients sent on their way. Another soul saved by your friendly NSST (SDS). (Always service with a smile and a pamphlet)
Intersex people exist.
People with sex chromosome variations exist.
Trans people exist.
The denial by some doesn’t change this.
A medical condition, is far afield from dysphoria, or less.
Denial by you doesn’t change this.
Mental health is part of medicine, not separate from it. Mental health conditions are medical conditions. So no, dysphoria is not far afield from a medical condition.
So no, dysphoria is not far afield from a medical condition.
The usual pedantry.
We are specifically fighting against non- psychiatric actions.
Hormone treatments, puberty blockers, surgeries.
Yes mental problems need psychiatric care. We are also fighting GOVERMENT hiding a medical condition from children’s parents and treating the problems in a clandestine manner.
Gender dysphoria is not the only mental health condition that’s treated non-psychiatrically. For example, people with eating disorders may be prescribed medicine or get bariatric surgery.
“For example, people with eating disorders may be prescribed medicine or get bariatric surgery.”
Do you mean children, without parental consent?
Because if your not, you are way off topic
Profiting through victimhood exists.
Over 300 mental illnesses in the DSM-5 exist.
Dressing-up like a different gender doesn’t make your existance special.
The fact people may disagree or dislike you is not a rational reason for self-harm.
Punishing people who don’t like or agree with you is bullying.
Catering to bullies only gets you more bullies.
People that cannot deal with debate are not fit to be at a university or to tell anyone a damned thing.
Words can do harm. In extreme cases, they lead to violent acts, even genocide and suicide. The potential for harm is presumably why Turley removes some legal speech from this site (e.g., comments encouraging someone to commit suicide, those with certain racist slurs). It’s striking that Turley never addresses the contradiction between his choice to remove some legal speech and his proclamation of being a “free speech absolutist.” If he’s really a “free speech absolutist,” then he should not object to speech that would occur in “welfare spaces.”
Airplanes falling out of the sky can do harm too, so what? Should we ban airplanes?
Learn to debate or drop-out of university.
We do, in fact, work to prevent airplanes from falling out of the sky.
We do, in fact, have psychiatrists for people that cannot maintain an existence with debate or who believe they are something they are not.
Many psychiatrists advocate for gender-affirming care.
Against the parents demands?
We are talking about children.
No, we’re not talking only about children.
Iowan2. It takes a village. Ask Hilary. She knows.
More of the famous leftist tolerance we keep hearing about.
Don’t worry s@@tlibs you’ll get your precious and long desired hate speech laws in the US soon enough.
antonio
Once again, you lead with a slur. More of the famous rightist tolerance we keep hearing about.
Sex: male or female from conception. Gender is sex-correlated attributes (e.g. sexual orientation): masculine or feminine, respectively. Trans- refers to a state or process of divergence. The transgender spectrum disorder includes homosexual, bisexual, pseudo,, quasi, sim, etc. So-called “gender-affirming care” was studied at John Hopkins 40 years ago, where they reached the conclusion the outcome cannot be predicted, and it will only aid a minority of subjects.
Meanwhile a confused woman, probably sent over the edge by trans visibility activism, aborted 6 people, including 3 children. Here’s to Levine’s Dreams of Herr Mengele.
time to whine down federal aid to colleges….if they want to teach delusion and failure…make THEM PAY FOR IT!
Test your DNA…it will TELL YOU your Gender. If you want to play pretend…fine…but we don’t have to accept your insanity!
“[T]he Union has promised to provide a ‘non-student support team that will remain in a separate welfare space to offer counseling and advice.’ This is to deal with the trauma of free speech . . .”
I suggest that the support team be a herd of goats:
“Goats can help nervous horses. They become their barn buddies.”
Increasingly I am hearing classically liberal ideas more often from conservatives than from the left. Indeed the left attacks and denigrates liberalism and conservatives such as Turley defend it.
@somsai
Professor Turley is a generational Democrat, and has stated so on this blog many, many times. He voted for Biden, as per himself elsewhere on the site. He sounds like a classical Liberal because he is one.
The fact that you seem to think he’s a Conservative speaks for itself.
We are hardened and tempered through adversity. This sheltering is malicious. The powers that should not be do not want these kids to grow up – they want them feeble, stupid, and helpless. The want them dependant slaves.
Has there ever been a better example of a “basket case” than today’s students? They are ill-equipped to deal with reality, yet they presume to have the right to change it. If you think society today is deteriorating, just give it another 10 years when these incompetents fill the professional workforce. There won’t be a single profession — from doctor to lawyer to airplane pilot — that will be safe for humankind.
@GioCon
My thoughts too, as I have shared many times. We could be in for the mother of all collapses in the West.
If you are bent you are bent!
You are bent all the way!
From your first piece of flesh…
To your last dying day!