Student Protesters Storm Columbia Library To Protest
The Right Of Conservatives To Invite Conservatives To Campus
We have been discussing
the increasing practice of students interrupting classes or speeches to prevent
others from hearing opposing views. This has included protests where
students have been prevented from
studying as other students accuse them of privilege or racism.
Administrators at schools like Dartmouth
have allowed such abusive conduct to occur without disciplinary action, even apologizing
to the protesters. Now, twenty students were allowed to
storm the Columbia University library Wednesday to protest the fact that
College Republicans were allowed to exercise their free speech in bringing
conservative speakers to campus. It was a demonstration that not only sought to
deny other students free speech but did so in a way to deny students their
right to study. Columbia has been silent on any effort to discipline the
students. The Liberation
Coalition occupied the library staircase while holding signs
proclaiming “Decolonize Columbia” and “Divest from White Supremacy Now.”
The Columbia University
College Republicans (CUCR) group has invited such speakers as Dennis Prager,
Ann Coulter, and Mike Scaramucci to campus. The protesters objected that
“Columbia’s actions last October—giving a platform to white supremacists and
seeking to punish students for protesting them—was not an isolated incident.”
Columbia students had to
endure such other students screaming “Dear students, what is anti-Black
racism?” and “Can any student in this room right now tell me what anti-Black
racism is? Ivy League! Ivy League! How does anti-Black racism play a role in
what’s happening now?”
The protesters demanded
“decolonization” of the curriculum since, as one protester explained,
“Almost all of the readings, are white men.” They demanded that
professors be forced to assign an “equitable amount of literature . . . from
marginalized people: black people, women of color, trans people.”
I have previously written
that universities have shown a striking lack of courage and commitment in defense
of academic freedom and free speech. I previously discussed the utter
failure of Northwestern to support these values in a conflict over a
Sociology 201 class by Professor Beth Redbird that examines “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. It is the type of
balance that it 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. Really? They were screaming profanities and seeking to stop
the class but would just sit nicely as the speaker answered questions?
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 representatives
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.”
It is reminiscent of
chilling recent editorial by students at Wellesley
dismissing free speech protections for those with whom they disagree.
We have also seen physical attacks on pro-life advocates at the
University of California justified on the
basis that such views constitute a form of “terrorism.” Likewise,
leaders like Howard Dean have
dismissed the notion of free speech protection for anything that he views as
hate speech.
As for Northwestern, the
official response to students shutting down a class to silence an opposing view
resulted in a statement that the actions of the students were “disappointing
that the speakers were not allowed to speak.” That is a disgrace.
Students interrupting classes or speakers should be suspended and, for repeated
such violations, expelled.
In Berkeley,
students stopped other students from taking a midterm examination as
the professor virtually pleaded that they allowed other students to finish their
work. Students are being reinforced in their disruption of classes by
Administrators and faculty. For example, I recently discussed the bizarre
response of CUNY Law Dean
Mary Lu Bilek in such a case. 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. It reveals the twisted logic overtaking our schools on both
tolerance and free speech.
Blackman, a law professor
from the South Texas College of Law Houston, often writes thoughtful
conservative takes on legal issues and was appearing at an event with the CUNY
Federalist Society. While Bilek says that the heckler’s caused only a
“limited” interruption, Blackman says that it was prolonged and prevented him
from being able to give his full speech.
The protesters reportedly
chanted things like “legal objectivity is a myth” and called him “a white
supremacist.”
Bilek responded in an
email to Inside Higher Ed,
that the interruption was acceptable because it was short: “For the first
eight minutes of the 70-minute event, the protesting students voiced their
disagreements. The speaker engaged with them. The protesting students then
filed out of the room, and the event proceeded to its conclusion without
incident.”
She added “this
non-violent, limited protest was a reasonable exercise of protected free
speech,” adding that “it did not violate any university policy.” Not a
single CUNY law professor is on record opposing this view, though non-law
professors have courageously asked for an explanation of the policy.
I recently wrote how Antifa and other college protesters
are increasingly denouncing free speech and the foundations for
liberal democracies. Some protesters reject classic liberalism and the belief
in free speech as part of the oppression on campus. The movement
threatens both academic freedom and free speech — a threat that is growing due
to the failure of administrators and faculty to remain true to core academic
principles.
A clear line must be
drawn between protesting and preventing speech or teaching or studying.
There is no easy way to deal with such obstruction. Students who shutdown
classes or speeches or libraries should be disciplined and, in
appropriate cases, expelled.
