Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

If is he supposed to educate himself he can do that through a million other ways than going in to a college where other people are paying lots of money to hear this expert talk about stuff and ruining their value.

what are you talking about?

he got thrown out of a discussion section.

College is not a place where you go and everyone in class talks to the professor about their shared experiences and they learn organically. You pay money to take classes. The professors are teaching the class, not the students.

If is he supposed to educate himself he can do that through a million other ways than going in to a college

glad we're making college a safe space from being educated. i can't wait for the inevitable story of an identity studies professor explaining to an inquisitive student that it's not their job to educate them and that asking them to do so is like demanding free labor.

xxp no doubt that's a rationale for a professor asserting control over a classroom when a student monopolizes a discussion. but… he got thrown out of a discussion section. we're not talking about 'let the professor teach, he's who we paid to hear'.

Please explain again why this guy did what you are supposed to? Do you realize how many actual victims (that he has discounted as not existing or numbers being inflated) have "done what you are supposed to do" and report their shit and get turned away because of attitudes like his?

lol @ identifying listening to a load of mra bullshit from some creep with 'being educated'

The professors are teaching the class, not the students.

I like this too ^ I mean totally insane formulation but I can dig it.

I don't like what he says, and fucked if I'm gonna defend his right to say it, life's way too short

xxp well, for example, when people make claims that cite statistics, you're supposed to inquire about their validity. when people make controversial claims you're supposed to challenge the reasons given for them in order to eventually produce the strongest reasons possible, to better understand the reasons given, and (if it comes to that) to see that the reasons are insufficient for the claim. standard critical-thinking stuff, practically an ideology, like i said. it seems the student has that part of it down. he might not be doing it well, and he might be doing it from a position with unpalatable beliefs or unexamined assumptions of its own, but still… the assumption is that you do it in order to improve, generally, the state of everyone's beliefs. if there's something wrong with his, then the whole point of being in college is that he go through the long and often uncomfortable (not just for him) process of putting his wrong beliefs to the test of discussion with others.

standard liberal-arts crap, no?

Yo, Bruneau, might be worth your while to check into not only how colleges generally, but Reed College specifically, actually works. Here, I will be a bro and get you started:

Reed maintains a 10:1 student-to-faculty ratio,[14] and its small classes emphasize a "conference" style, in which the teacher often acts as a mediator for discussion rather than a lecturer. While large lecture-style classes exist, Reed emphasizes its smaller lab and conference sections.

Although letter grades are given to students, grades are de-emphasized at Reed. According to the school, "A conventional letter grade for each course is recorded for every student, but the registrar's office does not distribute grades to students, provided that work continues at satisfactory (C or higher) levels. Unsatisfactory grades are reported directly to the student and the student's adviser. Papers and exams are generally returned to students with lengthy comments but without grades affixed."[15]

I have friends who graduated from Reed. "The professors are teaching the class, not the students," is cuckoo bonkers crazy talk.

Conference member Tom Maude-Griffin ‘18 says: “The decision to ban him from the conference was virtually unanimous. There were two guys who vocalized issues with banning him… but neither actually said in the conference that they did not agree with the decision.”

probably they were scared of being next

lol yeah next step the gulag

it would've been so insane to me if a professor i took in college banished someone for a period so the class could discuss whether they should be allowed back

Reed College is a private liberal arts college located in southeast Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon.

Ok, ok. LOL. I am just really confused about why this guy is going to this college.

yea who would choose to go somewhere where their thinking doesn't conform in every area of life to the people around them p crazy

cool to let a hundred flowers bloom about whether victims of rape are liars

i don't think anyone's saying that.

it would've been so insane to me if a professor i took in college banished someone for a period so the class could discuss whether they should be allowed back

― Mordy, Thursday, March 19, 2015 1:39 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree with this, but idk, the student's own quotes in the Reed Quest article make it seem like he could have easily met whatever definition of "hostile environment" they're using.

Just confused about the idea that his speech has been suppressed. Dude's ideas have now been spread everywhere for free via internet quotes. No one has any idea what was actually said in that class by the teacher or other students, do they?

no one believes that false rape accusations never happen, and no one believes that real rapes never happen. no one believes that the statistics we currently have are definitively accurate. what we have are two ideological povs - one of which believes that any questioning of a particular narrative is a threat to the cause of society taking rape seriously. i find that position sympathetic, but it's an ideological position (don't question anything or you'll give ammunition to the enemy). i don't believe someone should be thrown out a classroom bc of an political dispute. equating a student asking whether we can trust the popular studies on the subject with the proposition that 'victims of rape are liars' is pretty dishonest + inflammatory.

xp adam he was thrown out of his class bc he said something ppl didn't like. that's the alleged free speech violation (a negative consequence - being thrown out of the class - bc of his speech). not that no one is able to hear his opinions in the wide world.

he studies “How to Annoy People” at Reed

tbf it is the juilliard of this

True writes: “… I questioned the largely purported 1-in-5 rape statistic. I stated that I did not believe that the rape culture exists.” Savery corroborates this statement, saying, “[True said that] in general, society was paying too much attention to rape and that rape statistics were overblown. He claimed that we needed to spend more time being sympathetic to men who were falsely accused of rape.”

“I apologize that I caused survivors of sexual assault to feel uncomfortable with my views,

I guess he must feel he was pretty damn statistically unlucky that there happened to be survivors of sexual assault in his class. What with the statistics being overblown, and all.

the whole point of being in college is that he go through the long and often uncomfortable (not just for him) process of putting his wrong beliefs to the test of discussion with others.

Disingenuous at best. This post, and everything out of that kid's mouth afaict.

Banning from class seems weird to me, but I'm not sure what leadership is supposed to do when someone is actively hostile to others, which is what it sounds like True is, and wants you to keep giving him the space to be so. Which I guess makes you "oh god HIM again??" in any group, but espesh around sexual assault issues, is going to bring up bad shit for a lot of ppl and is, I don't mind saying, just basically offensive.

Not every space is right for your issues. If you want to disprove rape stats or w/e, hold an event. Start a club. Get your own air time.

i was thinking about an analogue to this and came up w/ a student responding to a reading of Maus or Night by questioning the official death toll of the Holocaust. it's similar in that it's an inflammatory question that suggests that the motives of the person asking go beyond the superficial question (are the rape statistics correct / are the fatality numbers correct) and are more odious (rape denialism / holocaust denialism). also both cases are similarly irrelevant to the literature under discussion (what does the rape of Lucretia have to do w/ false rape accusations?). i guess in both cases i'm too attached to the 'sunlight is the best disinfectant' idea that i'd balk at banning either idiot from the classroom.

'sunlight is the best disinfectant'

What is that - some anti-vaxxer shit?

Dude sounds like such a free spirit it's amazing he is cool w them forcing him to sit at a desk for hours and hours a day. That actually leads to heart problems later in life.

Or am I about to save a whole Lotta money by switching from autoclaves?

in case you're not joking: it's a Louis Brandeis quote.
fair play to Slate; I did not know that sunlight actually is a disinfectant: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2013/08/sunlight_is_the_best_disinfectant_not_exactly.html

he studies “How to Annoy People” at Reed

tbf it is the juilliard of this

― difficult listening hour

^^ otm

it's similar in that it's an inflammatory question that suggests that the motives of the person asking go beyond the superficial question (are the rape statistics correct / are the fatality numbers correct) and are more odious (rape denialism / holocaust denialism).

Yes. Also, since he was quoted in another piece as saying he thinks "we" should be more concerned about the rights of men who are falsely accused of rape, he is basically in the same space as a Holocaust denier here.

He is a holocaust denier!

Regardless of the esoteric hierarchy at this particular school, it isn't a stretch to say the main thing a school should prepare a student for is Life in Society. I do not see any senators or congressman denying the holocaust, or successful CEO's publicly dismissing rape victims. That is because in society those people are excluded from positions of power. He is being taught a lesson right now, and this liberal arts college is preparing him for a world in civilized society.

Also when I say "any" there I don't mean there are zero, none, just that usually when these anti-social attitudes come to light there are consequences. There is no consequence-free free speech.

not sure about that -- i feel like his comment could be read two ways, "we needed to spend more time [than the time we spend on rape victims] being sympathetic to men who were falsely accused of rape" or "we needed to spend more time [than we have been spending] being sympathetic to men who were falsely accused of rape." the second one is less analogous to overt holocaust denialism and i could see a legitimate argument for (that maybe in our quest to take rape seriously we have not been sympathetic to false accusation victims at all - so even a little bit of concern would be 'more concern'). the first interpretation i agree is essentially a conspiracy theory about women. nb there is even a kind of analogue for the second interpretation too in holocaust studies -- someone like wg sebald demonstrating more concern than usual for the victims of hamburg, dresden bombings, etc. and it has even come under fire (are you focusing on German victims to take attention away from holocaust victims), but at its root it is legitimate to call attention to all victims, and there are definitely victims of false accusations (tho the question is how many). sorry i feel like i'm degenerating into sophistry here a little so whatever. in the end, this dude seems like an idiot but i don't think classrooms should be voting out assholes like it's an episode of survivor.

especially not for 'feeling unsafe'

“This is an excellent example of a professor taking initiative to take care of his students,” senior Rosie Dempsey told BuzzFeed. “Of course, we are an institution that encourages dissent and active discussion, but there is a difference between stimulating discussion through opposition and making other students feel unsafe.”

none of the reports make it seem like he was (in the old-style sense) disrespectful or abusive, nothing indicates he made anything personal, it's not even clear that he was monopolizing class time (tho banishment at the hands of his peers would be a crazy way for a teacher to deal with that).

Yeah we already as a society give every possible advantage to men over the women who accuse them of sexual misconduct or violence--that's BUILT IN to the way things are. No one is saying that false accusations aren't "bad," but statistically they barely exist, whereas we do know that rape and sexual assault are under-reported by between 200 and 300%. (RAINN estimates only about 36% of rapes are ever reported to police at all.) To push back against women in preference for men who are "falsely accused" (which sometimes doesn't even mean she lied, it just means a court didn't accept her proof as "proof") in a broad way is a hallmark of misogyny. (Not to say that a researcher with an actual very fine-grained view of the data collection of "X" study would be out of line to ask about it, but this guy in freshman Social Studies certainly is.)

I do find the professor's actions somewhat odd, but maybe I don't get the ethos of the college's being more student-led than other places. I consider the prof responsible for the safety and progress of the class overall--being a good facilitator, moving discussions forward, and caring for & respecting your group members is integral to leading a group.

With that responsibility in mind, it's weird that the prof put it to a vote and let the decision rest with the students. He is responsible for this class, and knowing that True was out for blood/controversy, he should have kicked this decision upstairs instead of downstairs imo.

ultimately if you're committed to unlimited free speech it's bc you understand that allowing controversial good views to be aired necessitates allowing controversial bad views as well. if any place should have an absolute commitment to free speech it should be, imho, a university, whose ideals should be about airing all ideas regardless of how distasteful they are. i feel like maybe this is a big subtext of this thread -- should the highest principle of universities be the discovery of truth through debate, or should it be creating a safe space for young adults to prep for employment. adam obv feels it's the latter (society would censure this pov, so the classroom should as well). i think it should be the former.

/he studies “How to Annoy People” at Reed/

tbf it is the juilliard of this

― difficult listening hour

^^ otm

yeah this was a legit amazing post but I think you'd have to be a pnw person to clock it

lmao that reedquest post is amazing

“Every person in the room was upset by the comments he had made, and by his general attitude for the whole semester,” says Savery.

Conference member Tom Maude-Griffin ‘18 says: “The decision to ban him from the conference was virtually unanimous. There were two guys who vocalized issues with banning him… but neither actually said in the conference that they did not agree with the decision.”

According to Savery, True had made other unsettling contributions to the conference this semester, including a comment about Theocritus that “lower class people didn’t have the ability to create art” and a comment about how “we shouldn’t blame the people who were responsible for the Holocaust… because they didn’t know any better.”

Maude-Griffin says that True’s behavior started out only “a little bit patronizing” and then escalated from there over the course of the semester.

“As soon as we started discussing Aristotle he said how did not believe that people who were drunk could not be held responsible for their actions, and similarly (in his line of logic), that racists could not be blamed for their actions because they had ‘never been taught otherwise,’” Maude-Griffin recalls.

The week after True’s Theocritus comment about social class and artistic capability, Maude-Griffin says that True “began the class abruptly and loudly in an angry tone, reading the Honor Principle stating how no student should face a hostile environment, and demanding an apology of only female members of the class despite the equally strong reaction by the male ones.”

Savery, taking into account the conversation he had with his Hum 110 conference and his conversations with True, made the decision that True could not return to the conference. Instead, Savery suggested that True could receive credit for the class by writing the remaining assigned papers, completing the final exam, and optionally attending Pancho’s office hours to discuss the readings.

True does acknowledge that things he said may have made some students in his conference uncomfortable, but emphasizes both that he was polite and that some level of discomfort is inherent in an education that is supposed to make people question their own beliefs.

“I apologize that I caused survivors of sexual assault to feel uncomfortable with my views, but the views were in no way threatening or hostile,” he states in his online petition. “I did not use any obscenities in class, I did not declare any fighting words, I did not commit perjury, I did not blackmail anyone in the class, I did not engage in incitement to imminent lawless action, I did not engage in ‘true threats’, and I did not engage in solicitations to commit crimes.”

i have no idea what standard of "disrespectful or abusive" this crap meets but if i was this prof OR these students i would be so fucking relieved this kid was 86'd. like, who can talk about anything with this kind of bullshit going on.

xxxp that's just it though, throwing 'safety' in there like that is a non-sequitur. i've had a student who disappeared from class due to apparently mental health problems, and had the police come around looking for him for causing disruptions in other classes. i've had a student who didn't know how to fend off an overly aggressive/clingy/inappropriate classmate's sexual overtures outside class and became afraid of coming to class as a result. there, safety makes sense. but if there was significant discomfort around non-abusive, in-class, school-procedure-appropriate _discussion_, in the course of a presumably short ~16-week college course, how is the educationally and intellectually appropriate response to it anything other than 'more discussion'?

i don't think it's even right like mordy (less than fully seriously) suggests, that the alternatives are TRUTH or PERSONAL RESUME EMBETTERMENT, obviously the way that the 'safe space' criticism has a foothold is that it appeals to the educational quality of the student's experiences in the institution. but the nature of the idea of 'an education' that backs that appeal is unclear here.

the prof kicked him out WITH the offer to do a whole bunch of 1-on-1 work for him FOR CREDIT just to keep him from bothering other students.

like, who is putting whom in the gulag here

xp to Mordy: I don't think those are the only two options. I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that a certain example of "controversial" speech may not be appropriate in every environment. And especially when it's not teaching anyone anything new, and its only effect is to elevate the speaker into public view again and again and feed some other need that person has. His need for therapy and personal growth is not more important than the time and education and agency of every other person in the class.

i guess my concern is that i can imagine some theoretical controversial speech that is deemed inappropriate + is suppressed for less than valid reasons. who do we make the authority about censoring speech in classrooms? can a professor unilaterially decide what is or isn't okay in their classroom? what if they decide a particular political ideology is 'triggering' for them (like that professor who found the anti-abortion protestors triggering)? and i feel positive that we shouldn't be making it a democratic vote in the classroom otherwise anyone who has vaguely right-leaning opinions is going to be at risk for falling afoul of the groupthink. maybe if this was sent up to the dean and they decided that this was controversial speech that shouldn't be tolerated in the classroom (or if there was a specific rule against, eg, holocaust denialism - such as in europe). but throwing someone out bc of "fear of safety" seems way too open to abuse to me.

in some of the other (fuller?) quotes of student reax, they make it sound like he was saying, i dunno, jenny holzer style, 'racism should come as no surprise', 'yeahp unquestioning participation in systems of oppression wiiiill give ya things like the holocaust'. are those… absurd things to hear from a black student? given what's been reported i'm not even clear why his classmates were offended by them, rather than at least puzzled by or curious about them, as opinions.

nb i should clarify i'm not a fan of europe's holocaust denialism laws but at least there's some consistency by having censorship delineated and enshrined in law/written policy

xpost
idk, it's basically impossible to interpret "we shouldn’t blame the people who were responsible for the Holocaust… because they didn’t know any better." without context, though it's not a statement I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt

I doubt this guy is a nazi. What if his argument was something like "all human behavior is deterministic and free will is bogus therefore..."