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#8: What happens when students try to silence other students?

Chapter 12 talks about the rights of students, in particular, I am going to focus on student press. Both the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District and Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier cases show schools trying to censor the expression of their students. But what happens when the students want to suppress another student's ideas?
This is exactly what happened two years ago at Wesleyan University. Brian Scatsavage, a 30-year-old student and Iraq veteran, who describes himself as a "moderate conservative" (Washington Post), wrote a piece in his school's newspaper, the Wesleyan Argus. He wrote an opinion column that criticized the tactics of the Black Lives Matter movement, making sure not to criticize the mission or message. It had no racial stereotypes or offensive language but still caused a huge uproar on campus. Other liberal students wanted to silence him, but the school's president backed him up and even issued a statement titled “Black Lives Matter, and So Does Free Speech” (Washington Post).
Still, the student government voted unanimously to dramatically cut the newspaper's funding immediately after this controversial piece. I found this extremely interesting because it questions not only authoritative views on freedom of speech but also views from peers. It also shows a dramatic shift in roles and opinions of school officials compared to earlier cases. 
The newspaper is still available today, so not all the funding was cut, but the efforts to cut it reflect students opinions on free speech. I am interested to know my peers' opinions: do you think this effort to silence opposing views is from increased sensitivity among students? Do you think it would have been worse had the school attempted to silence the student as seen in those previous court cases?

Sources:
Rampell, Catherine. “Free Speech Is Flunking out on College Campuses.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 22 Oct. 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/free-speech-is-flunking-out-on-college-campuses/2015/10/22/124e7cd2-78f5-11e5-b9c1-f03c48c96ac2_story.html?utm_term=.1c55f3bca0ad.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 15, 2017 at 1:32 AM

    While I believe the original critique of the Black Lives Matter movement contained a number of faulty arguments, I think it's concerning that funding for the Wesleyan Argus was voted to be drastically cut because of it. The position being taken in this piece and the reasoning behind it both appear to fall well within mainstream conservative thought, and because of this, I believe it's important that it's accessible by those who disagree. I think many would agree with the notion that the political climate on many universities, both public and private, isn't likely to fully mirror the environment a student finds themselves in when they graduate and begin to pursue a career. Because of this, I believe productive engagement with different viewpoints is the best way for someone to strengthen their own because it exposes them to ideas they may not normally come across. I also think it prepares them for when they might encounter these viewpoints more often outside of a university setting later in their life.

    I posted this in an earlier blog response, but I think Van Jones summarized the benefits of ideological diversity very eloquently at a panel he did earlier this year at the University of Chicago.

    http://politics.uchicago.edu/news/entry/clip-van-jones-on-safe-spaces-on-college-campuses

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