We have yet another event cancelled by students who are opposed to allowing others to hear opposing views on campus. Students at Washington College blew whistles and yelled over Princeton University Professor Robertle George to prevent him from speaking. While expressing disapproval, the College has yet to announce any disciplinary action against any student.
Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland is the 10th-oldest college in the United States. It was the first college chartered after American independence. Yet, it has now become the latest example of an anti-free speech movement that has taken over our campuses with the support of some faculty.
Professor George was giving a speech titled “The Truth-Seeking Mission of the University.” Protesters were allowed to march around the room, blowing whistles and blaring music. As reported by the Star Democrat, “we have the power here to make our voices heard.” They also had the power to stop others from speaking or hearing opposing views.
Notably, Washington College President Mike Sosulski was in attendance. Yet, the campus police reportedly decided not to intervene to ask the students to leave because “they did not want to escalate the situation.” Instead, they allowed the protesters to shutdown a free speech event with the university president there.
The College also sent mixed messages. Brian Speer, a spokesman for Washington College, explained that “the students took issue with homophobic and transphobic statements that Professor George has made in the past.” However, there was no explanation of why the protesters were allowed to take control of the room or why there were no disciplinary actions announced by the college.
Antoine Jordan, director of student engagement, said he could not be more proud of the protesters, though that comment may have come before the disruption.
Speer noted that the college declined to cancel the events and offered alternative forums for protesters. He added that the disruption “is not consistent with the core values of the liberal arts to which Washington College is committed.”
However, the College harrumphed as protesters stopped George speaking but did nothing to stop it. Instead, the university president reportedly sat there like a decorative ficus plant.
The Star Democrat reported that Washington College Associate Professor of Political Science Joseph Prud’homme, founding director of the Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture, tried to get the students to respect free speech. One protester yelled in response “How did Hitler rise to power?” The student then added “because he was given a platform.”
It is that simple. The college then backed off and the protesters won, again, in silencing an opposing voice.
The pattern is all too familiar. For example, Stanford Law School dean Jenny Martinez released a powerful defense of free speech in a 10-page letter to the entire school. The letter also revealed that Associate Dean Tirien Steinbach has been put on leave after her disgraceful condemnation of conservative appellate judge Stuart Duncan. Martinez chastised the students responsible for cancelling Duncan’s remarks by shouting him down. However, Martinez decided not to hold a single student responsible for the disgraceful treatment of the judge and the disruption of the event.
That is also the case at other schools.
Northwestern University has been consistently ranked as one of the worst university’s for free speech. Students previously succeeded in cancelling a speech by former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Student Zachery Novicoff embodied the rising intolerance to free speech on campus. He is quoted as saying “There’s a limitation to free speech. That ends at overtly racist old white dudes.”
I previously criticized former Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro for his lack of support for free speech on campus. Schapiro denounced what he called “absolute” free speech positions and endorsed speech sanctions, including treating speech as a form of assault.
Schapiro helped create the environment of intolerance at the school. For example, we previously discussed a Sociology 201 class by Professor Beth Redbird that examined “inequality in American society with an emphasis on race, class and gender.” To that end, Redbird invited both an undocumented person and a spokesperson for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to speak to the class. It is the type of balance that is now considered verboten on campuses.
Members of MEChA de Northwestern, Black Lives Matter NU, the Immigrant Justice Project, the Asian Pacific American Coalition, NU Queer Trans Intersex People of Color and Rainbow Alliance organized to stop other students from hearing from the ICE representative. However, they could not have succeeded without the help of Northwestern administrators (including Dean of Students Todd Adams). The protesters were screaming “F**k ICE” outside of the hall. Adams and the other administrators then said that the protesters screaming profanities would be allowed into the class if they promised not to disrupt the class.
Of course, that did not happen. As soon as the protesters were allowed into the classroom, they prevented the ICE representative from speaking. The ICE official eventually left and Redbird canceled the class to discuss the issue with the protesters that just prevented her students from hearing an opposing view.
The comments of the Northwestern students were predictable after being told by people like Schapiro that some offensive speech should be treated as a form of assault. SESP sophomore April Navarro rejected that faculty should be allowed to invite such speakers to their classrooms for a “good, nice conversation with ICE.” She insisted such speakers needed to be silenced because they “terrorize communities” and profit from detainee labor. Here is the face of the new generation of censors being shaped by speech-intolerant academics like Schapiro:
“We’re not interested in having those types of conversations that would be like, ‘Oh, let’s listen to their side of it’ because that’s making them passive rule-followers rather than active proponents of violence. We’re not engaging in those kinds of things; it legitimizes ICE’s violence, it makes Northwestern complicit in this. There’s an unequal power balance that happens when you deal with state apparatuses.”
So Northwestern had the names of the students who disrupted an actual classroom, but elected to do nothing.
Other faculty have supported the use of a heckler’s veto. Years ago, at Rice University, I debated NYU Professor Jeremy Waldron who is a leading voice for speech codes. Waldron insisted that shutting down speakers through heckling is a form of free speech. It is not. It is a rationalization for stopping certain views from being voiced or heard in higher education.
CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,” Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned). Even student newspapers have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free speech.
The solution is obvious but it requires courage. School administrators need to suspend students for disrupting such events and to expel repeat offenders. In this latest incident, a college president just sat there as the students took over an event as his staff muttered aspirational statements about free speech.
American higher education is facing an existential moment in the rise of the greatest anti-free speech movement in our history. We must either stand firm against the forces of intolerance and orthodoxy — or cede control of our campuses to whatever mob has the loudest members.
“One protester yelled in response “How did Hitler rise to power?” – the place which was welcoming early to the Nazis where the Universities. (“Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany, Robert P. Ericksen” Cambridge University Press,) – the book burnings were done by University Students. The white rose is such an exception which proves the rule. University students have a long history with regards to totalitarian regimes – be it China, Russia or Germany.
“However, the College harrumphed as protesters stopped George speaking but did nothing to stop it. Instead, the university president reportedly sat there like a decorative ficus plant.”
*************************************************
Why lawyers should run things (and not German teachers):
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4501895/user-clip-brendan-sullivan-potted-plant
Is privately hacking into your neighbor’s computer and stealing his private files an invasion of his privacy? It would seem so, even though the hacker is doing so in the privacy of his own home.
Below an anonymous commenter says shouting down a speaker so he cannot speak or be heard is not anti-free speech.
But how are those two scenarios materially different?
I think there’s an obvious difference. One is a clear property violation (including criminal trespass) the other is not if we assume the speaker being heckled is on public property. If the speaker is on private property (or public property that is being rented by a private organization or individual) the again there is a clear property violation and the heckler(s) can be invited to leave (by force if necessary). You can heckle to your heart’s content some preacher of politician on a soapbox in a public park. That’s the the real power of the so-called “heckle’s veto.” It’s odd to me that as fare as I can tell not one commenter has even mentioned property rights here. Once you include property rights much of the normative “1st amendment/anti free speach” ruminating disappears.
Michel de Montaigne: ‘The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, that passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents.’
Or Francis Bacon: “De Augmentis Scientiarum” ‘Nothing terrible except fear itself’.
Or Franklin D. Roosevelt: ‘So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.’
Are Morals and Manners abstract and easily abandoned because of passions, ignorance or self-conceit? Fools without exception use the excuse “yes but” when they have no other reason for their actions and want avoidance of self-reflection.
Adam Smith “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”: “…A lack of correspondence of our sentiments with regard to objects that don’t concern either me or my companion is easier for me to take than such a lack with regard to something that concerns me as much as the misfortune that I have encountered or the injury that has been done to me. There’s not much danger that you and I will quarrel over a picture, a poem, or even a scientific theory that I admire, and you despise. Neither of us can reasonably care very much about them. They ought all of them to be matters of little significance to us both, so that although our opinions may be opposite, we may still have friendly feelings towards one another. But it’s quite otherwise with regard to objects by which one of us is especially affected. Though your judgments in matters of theory or your sentiments in matters of taste are quite opposite to mine, I can easily overlook this opposition; and if I’m not temperamentally angry and quarrelsome I may still enjoy conversation with you, even on those very subjects. But if you have no fellow-feeling for the misfortunes I have met with, or none that bears any proportion to the grief that is consuming me, or if you have no indignation at the injuries I have suffered, or none that bears any proportion to the resentment that is taking me over, the two of us can’t talk together about this subject. We become intolerable to one another… You are bewildered by my violence and passion, 9 Smith on Moral Sentiments The same continued and I am enraged by your cold lack of feeling…’
‘…That is why resentment, more than almost any other passion, can’t become graceful and agreeable unless it is humbled and brought down below the pitch to which it would naturally rise…’
George W – Nietzsche saw “Ressentiment” as an explanation for the intellectual framework of good vs evil.
“People who suffered from oppression at the hands of the noble, excellent, (but uninhibited) people valorized by good/bad morality—and who were denied any effective recourse against them by relative powerlessness—developed a persistent, corrosive emotional pattern of resentful hatred against their enemies, which Nietzsche calls ressentiment. That emotion motivated the development of the new moral concept evil, purpose-designed for the moralistic condemnation of those enemies. . . .
Moralistic condemnation using these new values does little by itself to satisfy the motivating desire for revenge, but if the new way of thinking could spread, gaining more adherents and eventually influencing the evaluations even of the nobility, then the revenge might be impressive—indeed, “the most spiritual” form of revenge .
. . For in that case, the revolt would accomplish a “radical revaluation” . ./ . that would corrupt the very values that gave the noble way of life its character and made it seem admirable in the first place.
For Nietzsche, then, our morality amounts to a vindictive effort to poison the happiness of the fortunate . . . instead of a high-minded, dispassionate, and strictly rational concern for others.”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/
Doesn’t this analysis fit the modern American Left? A fervent, and condemnatory zeal in which the enemy (people, or perhaps just males, or perhaps just Christian, descendants of European settlers) are not just wrong, but evil, the malignant source of all the problems of modern society. Since this group has historically probably been the most successful and satisfied part of the country, they are also the most hated and resented. Thus, they must be evil and all others, to some extent, are good. The object of the denunciation of this evil group is to lead them to internatize hatred of themselves. Consider: what are the defining characteristics of the American Left? Moralism and condemnation. Nietzsche saw it in the Marxism of his day, and we see in the modern Left.
Talking to anyone on the left is as useless as trying to dissuade the 9/11 hyjackers to turn the planes around and go home. Their fanatical ideology will not allow them to break with their baked-in requirement to follow through to the bitter end. They have nothing else in their lives but inculcated hatred for “the other” and they will not desist anymore than a jihadist willing to blow up himself in an feeble attempt to dominate the world.
These modern citadels of learning would kill Socrates again if given the opportunity.
Waldron insisted that shutting down speakers through heckling is a form of free speech. It is not. It is a rationalization for stopping certain views from being voiced or heard in higher education.
The above is correct. Does anyone seriously disagree?
P.S. I don’t care if JT is using the term “heckler’s veto” correctly or not. My question is about substance, not labels.
Anon– “There’s no law, constitutional or otherwise that you can’t heckle or shout down a speaker. There’s no law that says you’re entitled to a compliant audience. None.”
+++
I think there are, particularly in a setting like this. Apart from university regulations that essentially have the force of law to students, there are disturbing the peace types of laws.
An authority genuinely concerned about allowing invited speakers to have their say likely would have little difficulty in finding a legal tool to enforce decorum.
The problem isn’t lack of law but lack of will.
Anon – thanks for your response, and I mean that sincerely. It helps me flesh out these ideas.
There’s no law, constitutional or otherwise that you can’t heckle or shout down a speaker.
For the most part, that’s true. However, I’m not so much focused on the things that are banned by the First Amendment – a document written with the intent to limit governmental powers, not as an attempt to set forth a comprehensive set of rules for civil behavior by private citizens. In this regard, the First Amendment only limits state action, and most of the people shouting others down are not state actors. IOW, it is irrelevant what the First Amendment does or does not prohibit by the government.
What I’m getting at is the more general concept of “free speech” rather than the exact legal limitations on the state. Most people I know value freedom of expression, and that valuing is not limited solely to preferring restrictions on state action.
In this broader sense, I would argue that shouting someone down is no more “free speech” than burning down someone else’s church is freedom of religion, just because the arsonist’s religion requires it. I recognize arson is illegal, but again I’m not talking about legalities here, but rather, what constitutes free speech in the more general sense. To make the hypothetical work we can imagine we’re in a jurisdiction where arson is legal – what then, is burning down someone else’s church merely “freedom of religion”?
If we go the route of suppressing-someone-else’s-speech-is-free-speech, which you seem to support, then in my view we are going into a nihilistic no man’s land in which there really are no rules of civil conduct. Perhaps you’re fine with being in that territory, but I’m not. I think the continuation of civilization depends on staying away from it.
The right of free speech is not only for the speaker, but those were there listening.
Why would you think it’s OK to disrupt someone else’s freedom of speech and freedoms to listen to the speech?
Why should a group of students who disagreed overtake a lawful assembly?
They should have protesting outside, thus allowing other people to enjoy their rights to freedom of speech and Assembly.
Common sense should allow you to understand a basic concept that our forefathers put in place. Our forefathers knew that groups like this would come together and try to inhibit the freedoms of each American. I think if you take some time to look at the preamble of the constitution, you will see that your ideology makes zero sense. Each person is entitled to their life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn’t get dictated by a group of ignorant young people who don’t understand the constitution, and the freedoms that it provides for all.
American – I agree with you. Did you read my entire comment?
Yours,
Uncle Henry
Only an idiot would disagree.
In a civil society, people sit, listen to differing points of view. Then some offer even other points of view, even countering the first.
These debates can go back and forth. Some will agree others will disagree. In the end, those listening take in both or more points of view, the evidence they present and make their own decisions.
Whereas leftists see it as “free speech” to prevent any of that kind of discourse from happening. Thereby stopping civility and destroying societal norms by way of their own violence.
Unfortunately the only way to stop leftist violence is with the fist or the gun. I fear that day is coming and soon.
In Anonymous’ world view if you INVITE a speaker to speak to YOUR GROUP it is a free speech right for others to close it down. This is the mindset of the left. This is why they never debate. This is why they never appear on a non-compliant news show. This is why they never allow a follow-up question.
It is not illegal, but it is anti-free speech if only the loudest side can get heard.
Yeah, say it in Siberia!! Very Stalin.
Thanks for recognizing that free speech principles exist, and that the left is constantly violating those principles.
“Heckler’s veto” is a convenient phrase, but you’re using it outside its legal definition. What these students were actually doing can be better described as “verbal terrorism and bullyism.” It takes a mob of know-nothing loud-mouthed brats, who know they have the permission of the impotent college president, to shut down a speaker rather than debate him. This is mob rule, and goes counter to everything a university is supposed to stand for. Just one more reason the US is becoming the laughing stock of the world.
When it’s mob rule, and the mob won’t let you speak, there is no free speech. Suggesting that the mob’s actions are promoting free speech because the mob is speaking . . is pure sophistry, and of the basest sort. Yet incredibly that’s exactly what an anonymous commenter has been arguing most of the day.
Perhaps you can cite case law supporting your statement that the heckler’s veto is free speech. In my world, it’s an obligation of government actors to uphold the speaker’s free speech rights.
You are such a shallow and illiterate person. You only read headlines.
The article continues. “The term is also used in general conversation to refer to any incident in which opponents block speech by direct action or by “shouting down” a speaker through protest.”
Oh really? Shutting down a speaker is quite clearly the very definition of anti-free-speech.
There is the exception that if a university is accredited, then the accreditation body the certifies the process works under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Education and must report to them as well as Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and the institution must follow structured guidelines. Without accreditation, the students are unable to obtain student loans and their work at the university will not transfer or be accepted. It is a complex set of regulations and processes.
Kind of ironic that the free speech movement started ona college campus and now it is dying in college campuses.
As for How did Hitler rise to power, the student is right that Hitler was given a platform. However, what the student does not get is that Hitler took away the free speech of others once he was in power. As I said ironic.
“Hecklers can be dealt with or the speaker can heckle back. “
When hecklers abuse their rights, eventually they take power or lose their rights. The Nazis abused their rights, came to power, and are now gone. In a matter of hours, your response and this one will be gone as well.
No one wants a complaint audience except for people like you who will use force and violence.
When a room is rented or provided for a venue, no one has a right to stop the events from taking place.
No! You cannot burn the building down.
No! You cannot threaten the people entering.
No! You don’t have a right to be so loud the event cannot take place. They have a right to evict you.
You are a violent individual, and that is why we have Second Amendment rights. To protect society from your type peacefully and to protect themselves from your violence.
S. Meyer,
Well said.
If I want to hear someone speak, and a group of protesters use their violence to silence that speaker, then they are in violation of my 1stA rights to hear that speaker.
As for the right to hear speech under the First Amendment, see here:
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1549/right-to-receive-information-and-ideas
The First Amendment’s protections are broader than you are characterizing them. But again it only cover state actors, and I think that’s the rub in this particular case.
And if I want to listen to what they have to say, but I have a group of Nazis using violence to prevent me from hearing?
Why do they get to trample on my right to listen? Why are they some how entitled to use violence but I am not?
Upstate – that’s correct, you have a First Amendment right to receive information from the speaker:
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1549/right-to-receive-information-and-ideas
The only weakness in your argument is that the First Amendment is designed to constrain the government. If those protesters are not acting as an arm of the state, they may be committing some type of criminal offense – and certainly they are committing an offense against civility (which most people care about albeit one commenter here does not), but they are not violating the First Amendment.
S. Meyer,
The parallels leftists use to stop free speech to the Nazis is very disturbing.
How did Hitler rise to power? With the help of people like them — ignorant mobs of brown shirts who eliminated all the opposition. These college brats think they know everything, but all they know are the sound bites and bumper sticker slogans their handlers have fed them. They are nothing but useful idiots for the leftists taking over and canceling all rights.
Professor Turley neglected to mention that.
Only because he didn’t bring up the First Amendment at all. His article laments the loss of free speech in academia – a valid concern for private or public institutions – and is not an argument that what the college did was unlawful.
OldManFromKS,
Well said.
What many do not see is the forest from, in this case, a singular tree.
The fact they resort to ‘whataboutism’ displays their lack of awareness the good professor is pointing out.
Professor Turley is always advocating for all institutions to adopt the principles expressed in the 1st amendment.
The ideal of free speech predated the First Amendment. You suggested Professor Turley was somehow remiss in not mentioning that this particular college is not bound by the First Amendment. But as a law professor he was well aware that it was not, and he did not remotely suggest that college’s actions were unlawful. So your criticism of him rings hollow.
Not true. Slaves and women weren’t considered part of that ideal. Only the rich and powerful had free speech.
You’re confusing the issue by conflating two distinct ideals. One is freedom of expression (reflected in Amend. I), the other is equal protection (reflected in Amend. XIV). The first could still exist while it took longer for the second to be realized.
No mention of New College of Florida where free speech has been eradicated. When DeSantis does it, it’s okay.
enigmainblackcom: You’re confusing free speech with teachers abusing their power and indoctrinating children. To most intelligent people, that is an abuse of power and not acceptable. To most intelligent people.
When they act like sniveling brats, they’re pretty much children.
Enigma, why do you always have everything backwards? Tell us about one time where a speaker was whistled down at a Fla college. Man am I sick of liars.
There’s more than one way to limit free speech. Ron DeSantis is a prime example. He has eliminated DEI programs at every stste school, teachers are fearful of discussing race and gender. When it’s not your speech you don’t seem to care.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ron-desantis-and-the-new-campus-free-speech-crisis
Of course.
DEI is by its basis is face of evil.
By segregating children as the oppressed and the oppressors based on their skin color is evil. It promotes hate and division. Why are leftists doing so much to roll back all the gains the Civil Rights movement made in the 1960s?
Talking to 6 year olds about sex, having pornography in elementary schools so much so that RFK Jr. recently read a passage from one of these books at a Senate hearing that started with,
“I began to slide into him from behind…”
Why is that needed to be provided to 6 year olds? 9 year olds? 13 year olds? Why are teachers outside of Health Class discussing sex to children? When I was in school, teachers were expected to separate their personal lives and political views from their professional one.
I knew we had at least 2 teachers who were gay in the school system. Suspected 2 or 3 more. No one cared. I had/have family that were gay. It had no legitimate need to be discussed in school.
Now, the one teacher who tried to have sexual relations with some under-aged boys in the Jr. High locker room, got him fired and soon afterwards he blew his brains out, that may have warranted some discussion but the school system swept it under the rug.
People who want to see sexual discussions with inappropriate aged children are, well call them what they are, groomers.
And that is evil.
A lot of Asians see it that way. A lot of Hispanics see it that way. They may have friends or even family who are gay and accept them but they all know forcing it upon children is evil.
Evil wins when good men (and women) do nothing.
We need to stop ducking in fear of the leftist racism/transphobe/homophobe/xeniphobe and do what is right.
That would also be stop human trafficking/sexual exploitation of children.
Vote against the DNC. They represent and support those things.
You have gotten yourself turner around by the propaganda. DEI has nothing to do with segregation, it promotes the exact opposite. Eliminating DEI promotes segregation, which you’ve turned into a discussion about child pornography. Get an education before commenting again.
Get an education before commenting again.
This from a Fisk University graduate!!! Hysterical. OTOH, no one has ever accused you of being intelligent. And at your ripe age, the cerebral cortex is not as plastic as needed to learn anything new precisely due to your lack of exposure to rigorous, intellectual pursuits. DEI is Marxist, as espoused by Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Michel Foucault.
Rankings
For 2021, U.S. News & World Report ranked Fisk University tenth among 79 historically black colleges and universities in the U.S, tied for 29th for “Most Innovative Schools”, tied for 126th for “Top Performers on Social Mobility” and 171–221 overall among national liberal arts colleges
For 2020, Washington Monthly ranked Fisk 199th among 218 liberal arts colleges in the U.S. based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service
Forbes ranks Fisk 642nd on its 2019 “America’s Top Colleges” list of 650 colleges, universities, and service academies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisk_University#Rankings
Your ignorance about Fisk Unioversity is astonishing.
Your ignorance about Fisk Unioversity (sic) is astonishing.
imbecile
For 2020, Washington Monthly ranked Fisk 199th among 218 liberal arts colleges in the U.S. based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service
Forbes ranks Fisk 642nd …of 650 colleges, universities, and service academies
“Is Fisk University prestigious?
Fisk University – UNCF
Princeton Review places Fisk in the “Top 15% of America’s Universities.” Sixty-one percent of students who earn a Fisk degree enter graduate or professional school within one year of their graduation, ahead of the national average of 23 percent.”
“Fisk University has a strong record of academic excellence: it has graduated more African Americans who go on to earn PhDs in the natural sciences than any other institution.”
“Eliciting comparisons to the Ivy League, the most elite historically Black colleges and universities are often called the “Black Ivies.” These schools — including Howard University, Fisk University, Morehouse College, Tuskegee University, and Hampton University — were first singled out in Barnard psychology professor …”
“Fisk University is ranked #6 among historically black universities, according to U.S. News and World Report, and is the oldest institution of higher learning in Nashville, Tennessee. Fisk’s outstanding faculty and students continue to enhance the University’s international reputation for academic excellence. Our scholars continue to make strides in all areas of the industry from Social Justice to the sciences. A Fisk education prepares our students to become beacons in servicing the community and well-rounded leaders and scholars in their respective fields. Fisk offers more than 20+ undergraduate and graduate programs in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Clinical Psychology with a bridge Masters to Ph.D. programs through a partnership with Vanderbilt University.”
One of us is wrong, of the two of us, which one has never set foot on the campus?
”
“Princeton Review places Fisk in the “Top 15% of America’s Universities.”
Are we supposed to be impressed? Do you know what the Princeton Review is? It has nothing to do with Princeton. It is a for-profit organization that helps raise testing grades.
How can one trust the rest of what you said about school ratings? We can’t.
The ratings likely help tell us who their customers are. It sounds like, of the two Estovir has the better view.
I actually do know what the Princeton Review is, having worked for them and helping others prepare for the SAT, ACT and other exams. That was but one example of several I provided. Instead of recognizing that UpstateFarmer has no clue as to what DEI is, other than he believes it’s evil. You and Estovir try to belittle the education provided at an institution you both know nothing about.
“That was but one example of several I provided.”
Enigma, when you mix different things, don’t mix crap with the good stuff if you have any because the good stuff will look like crap as well.
I find no need to look at the rest of your examples. You provided your best at the beginning.
“You and Estovir try to belittle the education provided at an institution you both know nothing about.”
I said nothing about your university, but you are not an example of one rigorously educated. I would trust Estovir a lot more. His education was rigorous, and he understands how to mix fact and logic.
“UpstateFarmer has no clue as to what DEI is…”
It is not Upstate that has no clue about DEI. It is the guy without rigorous training who fails this test.
Enigma, when you mix different things, don’t mix crap with the good stuff if you have any because the good stuff will look like crap as well.
He is bereft of any intellectual heft. He plays the victim card to a tee which is to say he, like all Leftists, appeal to emotion to persuade others, and as you noted, moves the goal posts, i.e. relativism. I jumped into this thread only because Enigma attacked Upstate Farmer (UF) incredulously over his supposed lack of being educated (on the topic of DEI but the dog whistle by Enigma was established: you’re stupid, get an education). Hence my replies.
I have never met nor will I ever meet UF. Based on what he has told us, we can conclude he is an honorable man: he served his country in the military, he loves his country, he loves his spouse, his children, his family, his neighbors, serves those locally in need, works the land to feed his family and others, and came from a challenging background. Enigma has never spoken about these honorable activities as they apply to his personal example. Thus we can conclude, until proven otherwise, that Enigma has failed at marriage (divorced), his family is not terribly important in his life, though Enigma did author an article on his low traffic blog, describing why he should divorce one son because of his employer. Enigma has never has told us how he serves people in his midst, and for all intents and purposes, he is a keyboard warrior, who routinely comes to this forum to insult the host and others, minorities or otherwise. Imagine if Enigma were to invite white, Independents, Republicans, Democrat conservatives into his home. I know, when hell freezes over. However, extending the example of what Professor Turley does, imagine if Enigma invited these people to his home and all they did was insult him, his home, his personal relations, his employer, his livelihood, his thinking, and made demands on him that he pivots on these deficits. Enigma would never put up with it, nor should anyone else. Yet, it doesn’t stop Enigma from defecating on JT regularly.
Thus when I push back on Enigma’s lack of intellectual input, behold the wailing he does. Typical leftist. It’s always about him. it was actually about him insulting UF and his need to “educate” himself.
As for Fisk U, enrolling in a university doesn’t automatically bestow intellectual ability on students. Community colleges and hospital nursing diploma programs have produced some hard working, dedicated, exemplary nurses. School buildings and titles do not. However, if Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Condi Rice, John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, etc, all can achieve impressive academic stature, what’s Enigma’s excuse? As Glenn Lowry and John McWhorter articulated, black culture is the problem. Enigma is the face of black mob culture.
Q&A: What’s Driving “Mob Actions” in Chicago?
https://glennloury.substack.com/p/q-and-a-whats-driving-mob-actions
“Enigma did author an article on his low traffic blog,”
You assume because the first thing you have access to is a WordPress blog where I haven’t written in several years. I’d direct you to my main blog on Medium where I have 21,000 followers. Low by Turley standards of cult members but I do okay, You think you know what I write about and what I value. Telling others what my values are demonstrate you to be a fool. UF couldn’t have been more wrong as to what DEI is and none of you will correct him. Friends don’t let friends remain ignorant.
Don’t get too frustrated….you are entangling with the Obtuse One….aka Enigma.
Estivor,
It appears WP will not allow me to reply to your kind comment below, so I just want to say thank you.
I may not be as “educated” as Enigma, but I am clearly of higher moral character.
I was insulted in how he addressed you which is why I jumped into the thread. In my professional dealings I literally interact with prostitutes, pimps, homeless, drug users and petty dealers, people with violent criminal history, and severely mentally ill people, e.g. Axis II and psychotic patients. None of them phase because when they come to me, they are broken, sorrowful, needy people. They deserve compassion and mercy. Some of my colleagues refuse to see these people but I gladly embrace them. There is only one type of person that brings out the worst in me: the arrogant. Be they rich or poor, educated or non-educated, arrogant folks who go out of their way to abuse or harass / intimidate others, will have to deal with me. Enigma is an arrogant pr!ck with no honor.
besides we People of Color need to stick together!
😉
“besides we People of Color need to stick together!
😉”
Are there any people who have no color? Maybe Enigma because I can see right through him.
touché
I provide several examples of the evils of DEI and you claim I do not have a clue about DEI?
If that is your version of education, I will gladly keep my non-educated status and be the better of the two of us.
Your examples were not of DEI, try again.
Thanks for the inspiration!
https://williamspivey.medium.com/what-is-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-dei-and-why-it-isnt-evil-88d877c60cc5
Put a link on your same page as a counterpoint, to Thomas Sowell’s interview, not that you have the cojones.
I put a link to a counterpoint. Christopher Rufo’s story with all his lies about DEI. If you want lies to get top billing, you have to look somewhere else. I wouldn’t have written the story if even one of you had acknowledged UF didn’t have a clue as to what DEI is and does. You chose to attack me instead. How about you have the cojones to admit he was wrong?
A very short lesson in DEI. Enigma will have no comment because Enigma is one of the most prominent supporters of racist ideas in our schools, businesses and government.
https://manhattan.institute/multimedia/chris-rufo-on-dei-and-floridas-reforms-to-higher-education
For more information and a longer look at Chris Rufo
Free speech is being resuscitated at the New College of Florida. Everyone’s free speech is now protected.
I can’t stand it when you want to resort to the Jim Crow tactics of the old South.
S. Meyer – these types of “the professor neglected to mention this other case” comments are kind of pathetic. JT is not obligated to mention every single case of something bad happening. If people are disgruntled that he didn’t write about *their* pet peeve case, they can start their own blog and write about it.
They are petty tyrants and some, despite advanced age never grew up.
You are right. They should start their own blog.
S. Meyer – they would do better to say: the professor is correct about this case, but I’d like to mention another case and comment on it. I’d be very willing to listen to that kind of proffer. It’s the whiny complaining tone, suggesting the professor is acting in bad faith, that I find objectionable – as if he’s somehow obligated to make their point.
Washington College Mike Sosulski is utterly spineless. Although his decision to let the little temper-tantrum attention seekers parade around the room was brilliant and will secure his tenure as President.
There’s a follow the money issue worth exploring. Which of the universities that have leadership that fail to discipline are also financially sick? What might proper discipline to enforce speech do to revenue streams from alums and tuition? Not by way of excuse, but to identify causation for the glaring absence of a remedy for speech cancelling.
Professor, you neglected to mention Cornell University, my alma mater, which looked the other way after a similar group of protesters screamed down a speech by conservative Ann Coulter, also an alumna, last year. The gutless President MARTHA POLLACK, knows all of the perps. They still roam free on campus. She is proud of their exercise of free speech.
Wise – It’s been downhill ever since Frank Rhodes retired, sigh.