Dan Kalb, an Oakland City Council member, is an ardent environmentalist and liberal politician. He was considered ideal to speak at the University of California, Berkeley, on the environment . . . until students found out that Kalb is also a supporter of Israel. Kalb was reportedly disinvited this month by Natural Resources Professor Kurt Spreyer after students objected and threatened a protest.
More than 30 students signed a letter, which was shared on X that is a model of the Orwellian logic long used on campuses to silence conservatives and libertarians.
The students call Israel a “colonial and imperialist project” that “thrive[s] on the oppression and exploitation” of the Palestinians. After saying that they will not tolerate Kalb being heard on campus due to his support for Israel, they add that “it is not our intention to stifle diverse voices, but rather to ensure that the voices we engage with are grounded in a sincere commitment to knowledge and truth.”
The students wrote to Kalb: “Considering your active role in retweeting and spreading pro-Israeli propaganda . . . on social media, questions arise regarding the validity, legitimacy, and authenticity of your views in regard to the advocation of our community.”
It is not hard to see where these students have learned this absurd understanding of free speech. It is the same logic used for years by professors to rationalize the echo chamber on faculties and campuses. In “The Indispensable Right,” I discuss how academics are now leading an anti-free speech movement on campuses that challenges the centrality (or even the necessity) of free speech protections in higher education. Students have been taught to be leery of free speech arguments. Free speech is often portrayed as harmful or some views as inimical to higher education.
Recently, we discussed an article titled “Dear Administrators: Enough with the Free Speech Rhetoric! It Concedes Too Much to the Right-Wing Agenda” by two Arizona State University professors — Richard Amesbury and Catherine O’Donnell. The authors wrote that free speech concerns yield too much to the “right wing” and that free speech should not be given the protection currently afforded by universities and colleges. Indeed, they argue that free speech may be harming higher education by fostering “unworthy” ideas.
In fairness, to the two professors, they do not reject the overall value of free speech and refer to free speech as among the important values to be balanced in the academic setting. While referring to free speech as “essential,” we clearly differ on what that means. They are less supportive of intellectual diversity in my view.
While many of us expressed disgust at the treatment of a federal judge shouted down by Stanford law students, Professor Jennifer Ruth wrote a column in the Chronicle of Higher Education heralding their actions. It is an extension of her book It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom (with Penn State Music Professor Michael Bérubé) declaring certain views as advancing “theories of white supremacy” and thus having “no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever.” Once declared as harmful, it is no longer free speech and therefore worthy of censorship or cancellation. It is that easy.
Most recently, over 70 faculty members at the University of Utah signed a petition demanding that the university reinstate funding for a radical student group that disrupted events to prevent conservative and pro-Israel views from being heard on campus. The letter called for the “immediate reinstatement” of funding for Mecha de U of U.
The professors were not concerned with the group preventing others from being heard and instead objected that there is “a deeply troubling contradiction: the free speech of transphobic ideologues is protected by the university, while the free speech of students standing against the genocide of Palestinians is not.”
While Kalb reportedly said that Professor Spreyer did not agree with the students, he feared that his presence would be disruptive. The result is precisely what these students had hoped to achieve in getting the event cancelled due to the chilling effect of threatened protests. Rather than warning that any disruption of a class would be treated as a violation of the school code, the speaker was simply disinvited. Problem solved.
There is an irony for many in the free speech community to see the sudden concern over free speech by some on our campuses who have remained silent for years as conservative, libertarian, and dissenting faculty were attacked, cancelled, and fired.
For many, this is a monster of their own creation either due to their action or acquiescence in past years as a political orthodoxy took hold of higher education.
NB: After posting the column, I ran a link to one of the cited articles and an added paragraph on the views of Professors Amesbury and O’Donnell. As noted in an earlier column, they maintain that they are supportive of free speech.
Democrats should fully support Israel and oppose Netanyahu.
Any Democrat, Liberal or Progressive could live quite freely in Israel, very similar to America’s freedoms. Not so in Palestine, that same Democrat would be persecuted or killed for exercising those same freedoms in those areas. Women and LGBTQ persons especially would be persecuted in places like Palestine.
The theocratic government of Iran (which persecutes many American style values) funds and supports the terrorist group Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7 (an attack on scale of America’s 9/11).
Apparently Netanyahu actually funded Hamas, the group that attacked Israel. Support Israel but not Netanyahu!
Your handlers are not sending their better trolls. You should tour Gaza with your friends at Gays for Palestine. The views from atop the buildings there are reportedly earth shattering.
Liberal, maybe. A yesteryear liberal, perhaps classical in the conservative mold.
Insufficiently divergent for the modern model. Make him liberal and monotonic with a flavor of nation socialism, twilight faith, and ethical religion.
Apparently, the WEF’s litmus test for censorship for our little student radicals is tightening. And they obey their masters don’t they Jonathan ? With the exception of Hillsdale College and possibly a few others, free speech in Amerika’s colleges and universities has fallen.
Skyraider, this is not simply the loss of free speech. It is more. A group of fascists desires to create an authoritarian society. Listen to the fascists on our blog. They are brainless and know nothing of history. They would follow the bison off the cliff.
skyraider1717: (OT) One of my nephews chose Hillsdale College. I am impressed with his well-rounded education and personal development/success/academic achievement. He has developed a mixture of both conservative and liberal values, -telling me that he was exposed to opposing ideas and allowed to develop his own critical analyses and resultant personality.
Where did the BOTS go?
Sometimes you bite the bear; sometimes the bear bites you.
So what if they protest? What a bunch of weenies. Hard to believe that the genocide of a people for which the term was coined are now being accused of it for having tried to defend themselves. The world has gone mad.
Though I do not believe the same will happen in the US, this is how the murder of six million Jews began. The Nazis removed Jewish professors, politicians, and the elite from their positions.
The war started in 1939, but the purge and violence began right after Hitler took power in 1933. It took only five weeks from Hitler becoming chancellor to the creation of the first concentration camp. Things can move very fast once such actions begin, and that is what is happening today in the universities, just as it happened in Nazi Germany.
Take note: the professor points to censorship, but the censorship involves a lie. Israel is NOT a colonizer. Hamas and the Gazans controlled their own destiny once the Israelis left Gaza in 2005, removing Jewish settlers with force.
Colonization is a lie to cover anti-Semitism and the desire of Hamas and many other Gazans to murder every Jew, starting with those in Israel. We must remember during WW2 the same people made a pact with Hitler to exterminate the Jews.
S. Meyer,
Well said.
Thanks, Upstate.
You might be interested in the Wikipedia article about Edwin Black’s book, IBM and the holocaust. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
The book is shocking because of Black’s deep investigation and ability to retrieve documents that were not destroyed after the war. He has evidence, including letters.
This book ties the lack of conscience of many of our largest companies to the death of six million Jews, along with many others considered undesirable. It also shows how one of the most prominent businesses could support our enemy (Nazi Germany) before, during, and after the war. This lack of conscience was true of other corporations as well. Our weather reports helping the allies land at Normandy and elsewhere were also provided to the Germans.
I didn’t get to finish reading this article, saving the rest for later, but Watson, the NCR superstar, was also convicted of fraud while at NCR. Thanks for demonstrating that people can pay attention and understand the risks we are facing today.
Was AT&T also complicit, or just IBM?
“Was AT&T also complicit, or just IBM?”
Involvement is challenging to assess due to many different degrees. IBM was totally involved before, during, and after the war. They aided and abetted the German effort to exterminate the Jews, and the head of IBM, Watson, made additional profits based on sales. Many large industries had subsidiaries and different types of involvement in Germany when the war broke out. Many stopped dealing with Germany. Kodak stopped but used neutral nations to continue doing business. The banks had some involvement, notably Chase.
I can’t say one way or the other about AT&T. One needs proof to make such a claim of direct involvement. Black has it for IBM, and it exists for some other companies, but I don’t know of such a claim with evidence regarding AT&T. What do you know?
S. Meyer,
That was interesting.
And rather disturbing.
S. Meyer: Our left-radical congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, was strangely right about just one thing (although she was referring to something completely different). “It’s all about the Benjamins.”
Yes, but not only that, Omar would engage in genocide. The left is tightly bound by fascism and genocide.
S. Meyer…..excellent comment, as always!
Cindy, it is all very sad. I am getting reports from my friends of the deaths in their families and friends. My wife and I lost no one. Most were killed in the pogroms or the Holocaust, denied by the anti-Semites. It is all unfortunate, even the loss of Gazans’ lives, who were trapped by terrorists, forcing them to pay the ultimate price.
The Jewish people are small in number, so those with an affinity toward Israel are bound to grieve over their losses. Thank you.
Cindy, I just saw this and it gives hope from the past, MLK.
For those who want to save 28 seconds, start at 28, but his words provide calm in a turbulent time.
Cindy, I just saw this and it gives hope from the past, MLK.
For those who want to save 28 seconds, start at 28, but his words provide calm in a turbulent time.
“but rather to ensure that the voices we engage with are grounded in a sincere commitment to knowledge and truth.”
Oh, that is too funny!
Hardly a surprise. Professors are usually cowards who have feared their students for decades and won’t stand up to them. It’s actually takes some courage to stand up there in front of a class or a meeting or anything else where people meet and say something not popular with the local crowd.
Although not academics, maybe that is why Trump, outlandish as he is, is refreshing. So is Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron Desantis, and to some degree RFK Jr. Professors used to have this courage but have forgotten how to lead and how to teach unless it all adheres to the party line.
What’s wrong with having an argument in front of a class. There sure were disruptions and arguments in classes in 1966-1970 when I was in college and yet we still had people who could teach and argue at the same time and the rest of us learned a lot about how to put together a thought and then argue for it. A great teaching tool was being forced to defend a thought or concept you radically disagreed with but you learned how to think, research and look for the holes in your own beliefs. That’s essential. Self assessment and reassessment and a change in your path is always about growth. Unless you’re a moron, you change as a result of maturity, experience, pain, failure, success, illness, loss. Growth and knowledge is not a straight line but a series of hairpin turns on rough mountain roads where staying on the real path gets you safely home and not into a smoking wreckage.
Better to learn about those concepts young otherwise you just risk being a useless drone and cannon fodder for some other moron who thinks he or she can lead you to salvation or more likely oblivion.
Even the Bible warns of false prophets and we all know that there were plenty of them.
Students need to learn of skepticism. A healthy dose of skepticism , closely nourished in your mind, is something to be cherished.
Professors, well, most of them are probably a lost cause because they’re already guzzling the Kool-Aid.
GEB,
Excellent!
GEB,
Well said!
I’d like to know what Mr. Kalb has to say about his cancellation.
Excellent Question, There are a lot of ‘Canceled People’ from all Walks & Venues that I’d like to hear Their side of the story.
Sad for them mentally that They are Shut Down, it is a personal blow. Sad that We don’t get to know what They had to offer.
When I see Leftists devouring each other I can only say “Bon Appétit!”
From your linked article:
He was invited to address an undergraduate course called Environmental Problem Solving…..
2 red flags:
addressing undergrads
a non-science course
I recently gave a lecture to upper level medical science students on a fairly complex topic, epigenetics and molecular mechanisms of endothelial dysfunction in the setting of HIV. Everyone applauded and thanked me. Not surprisingly I got no questions because no one understood it, except for faculty members. After class students milled around me and shared their goals, histories, etc, but they were too afraid to engage the topic I presented.
If you’re going to address students, they can’t be undergrad students and they must be upper level science courses, where registration for such courses are done by motivated students. A course entitled Environmental Problem Solving is less worthy of one’s time than Basket Weaving. And yet, in the Spring Term, the course had an enrollment of 591 students…..online. What’s more troubling is the course description. It has nothing to do with science.
Universities today are the nursery schools of yesteryear. Federally backed student loans should be pulled from all of them, forcing students to either pay their way through school, or learn a trade. I know tradesmen who make 6 figures as electricians, and seem very fulfilled. These undergrad students are miserable people, and misery loves company. No thanks. I understand Democrats will welcome them with open
armsballots.Introduction to Culture and Natural Resource Management
Kurt Spreyer
Jan 17 2023 – May 05 2023
M, W, F
11:00 am – 11:59 am
Internet/Online
Class #:27534
Units: 4
Enrolled: 591
Course Catalog Description
An introduction to how culture affects the way we use and manage fire, wildland and urban forests, rangelands, parks and preserves, and croplands in America. The basic concepts and tools for evaluating the role of culture in resource use and management are introduced and used to examine the experience of American cultural groups in the development and management of western natural resources
https://classes.berkeley.edu/content/2023-spring-espm-50ac-001-lec-001
“epigenetics and molecular mechanisms of endothelial dysfunction in the setting of HIV.”
Or you could just bring them a lecture that will bore the teeth out of their heads, while demonstrating your condescension and self absorbed brilliance. You’ll get polite applause and a hearty thank you for shutting the fvck up.
Or how about a nice lecture entitled: Saving the Environment: how the Catholic Church was complicit in the rapes of thousands of children.
Estovir,
More useless courses, teaching next to nothing to students who go on to produce . . . nothing.
Curious that the emphasis is on “western.”
If “western” were capitalized in the course description, I would have inferred that the course was focusing on Western Hemispheric natural resources.
But, –notwithstanding the central heartland’s cropland, the expansive waterways around Michigan and NY, and the major presence of forestry in the Eastern U.S. (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel-Dey/publication/263808260/figure/fig1/AS:669527700434952@1536639251678/Major-forest-regions-of-the-Eastern-United-States-Johnson-and-others-2002.png),– I am left to consider that the course emphasis on “culture” and “the experience of American cultural groups” regarding “western natural resources” might, in reality, be a Woke course about how American settlers destroyed the American Indians and their “western natural resources.”
True, our ancestors did much harm. But call it what it is: I propose a revised course title: ” The destruction of Native American Culture and Environs by early American Settlers.” Perhaps the enrollment might drop from 591 to a more manageable audience.
(ooops. I meant American western hemisphere. I blindly conclude that this would be the focus, and doubt that the course focused much on Canada or S. America, but I may be wrong.)
This course is the type of pseudoscience college courses that political “science” and social “science” undergraduates enroll in to provide “science” cred on their résumé after graduation. This is especially true for government employees who land positions that common sense would expect to warrant a background in a true (left-brain) science major. Witness our current Dept of Energy Secretary, a lawyer whose undergraduate majors were political “science” and French. Her Deputy Secretary is also a lawyer with a B.A. in an unstated major. Any wonder why US energy policy is tanking?
Because a large number of these “students” have been accepted to university for non merit and are talentless, they’ll find their way to government. The real problem are the universities.
Censorship is almost used to protect people in authority from questioning. When we read a history of WW II, we are struck by how the civilian populations never seemed to question the actions of their governments, including our own. The most obvious answer is the those governments, including our own, controlled the information that reached the populace. The nitwits in charge of modern US colleges also use censorship to protect their words and actions from criticism.
In some ways the shameful cancellation of a man strongly promoting one part of the Left’s ideas was cancelled because he does not affirm a second portion of the same movement. The Catch 22 nature of extremism seems to be lost on the genuineness whose fervor for ideological purity demands perfection in their religious fundamentalist rituals.
History is replete with how these ideologues are never pure enough as they eventually devour themselves. Just look at the aftermath of the French Revolution
“. . . grounded in a sincere commitment to knowledge and truth.”
Said every philosopher king, prince, dictator, and tyrant ever since Plato.
“. . . not our intention to stifle diverse voices . . .”
But if you don’t have a “sincere commitment to knowledge and truth” (which, of course, only We can know), then we will stifle you — while claiming with a straight face that we are not stifling you.
The Left sure loves to embrace contradictions.
“. . . disinvited this month by Natural Resources Professor Kurt Spreyer after students objected and threatened a protest.” (JT)
Along with the WEF, et al., behold the “misinformation” tyrants:
We will use any tactics necessary to keep you from finding alternate information. Dissent is “misinformation.” Claiming that we are censoring you is “disinformation.” And we have our methods of “persuasion.”
The censors have come for traditional liberals, many of whom happen to be Jewish. Campus “free” speech is only afforded to those of sufficiently radical views, and invitations to speak on campus will be limited to those of a similar outlook.
Don’t you love it when they start eating their own?
Whig98 – My first thought as well.
This is evergreen.
The lefts ideology never withstands any discussion. That’s why they instinctualy silence anyone that offers anything but the approved bumper sticker slogans.