The academic environment on our nation’s campuses has deteriorated so severely, and our colleges and universities have been so completely transformed into centers of Leftist indoctrination, that many students not only oppose the freedom of speech, but don’t even know what it is. Sam Wolfe enthusiastically writes: “Something is afoot once again on the campus of Stanford University. We see it in the arrival of Robert Spencer, and in the throng of students who marched out of his lecture….Debate, dear reader, is afoot once again.”
No, Sam, that’s not what debate is. A debate is when two (and sometimes more) people present their positions on an issue, and then offer criticisms of the others’ view and defenses of their own. I wasn’t given any opportunity to engage in debate at Stanford. (I would, however, return there at my own expense should anyone there be actually willing to debate me, but given the obvious fact that only one opinion is allowed at Stanford, I don’t expect anyone there to take me up on this offer.) Instead, I was the subject of a mendacious smear campaign by the student papers the Stanford Daily and Stanford Review, aided and abetted by faculty members who made defamatory false claims about my positions and work. Then at the actual event, Stanford administrators Nanci Howe and Snehal Naik made sure that the hall was packed with students who had no intention of attending the lecture, but were there only to sabotage it by denying seats to people who actually wanted to attend. They even kept out some members of the College Republicans, the group that was sponsoring the event.
Then, after the walkout, they refused to allow in people who actually wanted to attend, refusing repeated requests to do so. They also refused to allow the Young America’s Foundation to stream the event, clearly because they knew what was in the offing and did not want video going out live that would show just how much Stanford has deteriorated and how opposed it is to free discourse. They were so petty and authoritarian that they wouldn’t even allow the members of the College Republicans who had been kept out of the event to come in after it ended for a group photo.
That, young Mr. Wolfe, is not a debate. That is the fascist suppression of dissent. It is disquieting that this bright young man doesn’t seem to know the difference between the two. Wolfe writes: “Stanford feels like an environment more conducive to freedom of expression than it has at any point since I started here two years ago.” In that case, Stanford must have been a true nightmare of Leftist authoritarianism two years ago, but it is scarcely better now. Stanford University, like most colleges and universities in America today, has a massive problem with the fascist suppression of the freedom of speech by hard-Left elements that control the administration and faculty. It’s a scandal of immense proportions, and at Stanford, as elsewhere, they don’t even have a clue that it’s happening.
“Editor’s Note: Debate Returns in Force,” by Sam Wolfe, Stanford Review, April 5, 2018:
Something is afoot once again on the campus of Stanford University.
We see it in the arrival of Robert Spencer, and in the throng of students who marched out of his lecture.
We hear it in the protests that greeted Charles Murray’s recent arrival on campus.
And we read about it, not only in the Daily and Review, but now in the Sphere as well.
Debate, dear reader, is afoot once again. Students on both the right and the left, unhappy with the mushy, anodyne consensus that otherwise characterizes the Stanford body politic, are reasserting their right to kick up a fuss. More and more, students’ response to contentious issues is not to go with the safe option (“Yeah, no, this is a really serious issue…”) but to get to the nub of things and have a debate. Should we allow a provocative Islam critic on campus? Let’s argue it out. Should Stanford invest in fossil fuels? Debate. Tax reform? Debate again.
And it’s not only students making the push. The administration, along with many of Stanford’s flagship intellectual centers (Hoover, FSI, etc.), has thrown its weight behind Cardinal Conversations, an initiative co-sponsored by the Review that brings pairs of provocative speakers to campus for a dialogue. The first two events featured Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Francis Fukuyama, and Charles Murray, an assortment of high-profile speakers that reflects the sincerity with which the university is supporting the program.
The Stanford administration has also made a welcome effort to explain and defend its decisions. The previous administration was criticized for making controversial decisions by executive ukase — for example, suspending the Marching Band — and failing entirely to justify them. President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Provost Persis Drell, by contrast, have started Notes from the Quad, a blog where they explain their thoughts on campus culture and provide thoughtful defenses of university policy.
Are things, then, looking up? I would say yes. Stanford feels like an environment more conducive to freedom of expression than it has at any point since I started here two years ago….
Bob says
…Of course they do..
One way “free speech” in America today..
Joe Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, are smiling today. So is George Soros and Mr. Obama..
Lydia Church says
Right, that sounds like them!
Expression that opposes terrorism they want to suppress.
But suppressing that expression they call ‘freedom of expression.’
It all comes down to what they want to hear based on what side they are on in this battle.
And they are on the side of tyrants who want to silence all dissent.
Westman says
And here is a prime example of one-way free speech, typical of universities like Stanford. An attack on the life of Barbara Bush by a leftist Muslim professor. Notice the Arafat patterned terrorist Keffiyeh the professor wears in the USA Today story:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/04/18/barbara-bush-racist-rant-professor/529382002/
gravenimage says
Disgusting–but not surprising.
Julea Bacall says
Actually, the only way we can shut down Islams hateful, dangerous speech is to also shut down Nazispeak (WE FOUGHT A WAR AGAINST THEM & NOT TO BRING THEM HOME) KKKlan and White Supremacists. They are all hate speech, not free speech. So is libel, slander, threats to people and our government, copy write, fightn words and a few other boundaries. Islams preaching and reading of the Qur’an in Mosques has to be stopped, it just has to be….but only by ending also Nazimanifestos taught to children even and as i said, Whites Supremacists or any kind of Supremacists. The Qur’an IS hate speech that threatens. It must be shown to all the public and same as Hitler, driven out. They are not what we are or what we are meant to be. (Stanford, like many colleges is very misguided and not consistent however)
Voytek Gagalka says
In perverted universe of Stanford, truth means lie, lie means truth, “freedom of expression” means SUPPRESSION of it – by all methods and tricks available and they are apparently ecstatically happy with it (“debate, dear reader, is afoot once again”). That is an intellectual level of a toddler who is “happy” with its pranks. Those who study currently at Stanford will NEVER achieve maturity following straitjacket of that “party line.” Some of them will become monstrous exploiters and cynical opportunists only: non-entities of future governing “elites.”
Niemoller says
Stanford & Son University Plantation masters are baizuo:
Baizuo (Chinese: literally “White left(ies)”) is a derogatory Chinese epithet that came into being in the middle 2010’s.The word received attention in Germany where it was seen as criticizing the immigration policies of Angela Merkel.
The word baizuo is, according to political scientist Zhang Chenchen, a Chinese word that ridicules Western “Liberal elites”. The term has also been used to refer to perceived double standards of the Western media, such as the alleged bias on reporting about Islamist attacks in Xinjiang.
Zhang Chenchen further defined the word “baizuo” with the definition “People who only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment” and “have no sense of real problems in the real world”; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to “satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority”; they are “obsessed with political correctness” to the extent that they “tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism”; they believe in the welfare state that “benefits only the idle and the free riders”; they are the “ignorant and arrogant westerners” who “pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours”. Baizuo is used as an insult amongst Chinese netizens.
Norger says
“Stanford feels like an environment more conducive to freedom of expression than it has at any point since I started here two years ago….”
What?!?! Refusal to allow speech you don’t like= an environment conducive to free speech?!
Absolutely mind-boggling.
mortimer says
This is surely one of those jokes that start: “I have some good news and some bad news… First the GOOD news…”
Well, the good news is that Stanford has free speech.
The bad news is that free speech at Stanford is only for those who are PRE-SELECTED by the neo-Marxist teachers and students whose every word has be CHECKED by the profs so that they won’t say anything a GOOD MARXIST would not say.
FREE SPEECH FOR ME, but NOT FOR THEE !
mortimer says
“CENSORSHIP is FREE SPEECH ! ”
– homage to George Orwell
Norger says
Perhaps it’s not an accident that Islam has similarly inverted definitions of terms like “freedom of religion” and “justice.”
Roderick MacUalraig says
Brilliant.
Lydia Church says
Spot on!
Nomad says
Thanks to the ideology of Political Correctness we have this awful situation.
It will only get worse.
A great essay on the history of PI including its ill effects on higher education:
http://www.nationalists.org/pdf/political_correctness_a_short_history_of_an_ideology.pdf
b.a. freeman says
Nomad, i see that “nationalists dot org” is not only “nationalist,” but socialist as well. how are things bad for U? the hard left is winning, which means that nazis as well as communists will be but a few assassinations away from total power; that means that U, too, are closer to power. besides, the hard left’s proxy army of pious muslims and der führer were great friends, so no matter whether the hard left or the pious muslims win the civil war, U should be able to lie your way into a juicy position. however, if i were U, i would go out and start murdering people right away for practice; the muslims have stewed in hate a lot longer than U have, so they’re more likely to kill U before U can kill them.
RichardL says
I just got an offer for a chair at a Catholic University in the US. In the interview they asked me i want to join them. I said that islam is destroying Europe. They thanked me and offered me the position. There still many places where open debate is welcome.
gravenimage says
This is great news! Do you feel comfortable naming the university, or do you feel that might compromise your identity?
RichardL says
Graven, I can’t name the university. I have friends who work for Catholic universities in the States and they tell me horror stories. I think that many smaller colleges are moving away from the madness and that that will become clear to students and parents very soon. My own Uni in Europe allows debates and has islamophile and hard critics among its faculty.
gravenimage says
Glad you had a good experience, Richard.
And I hope you are right about smaller colleges.
Roderick MacUalraig says
Wow! That sounds too good to believe.
Walter Sieruk says
This above article of ,this site, is a strong reminder that in some specific ways the idea of “Free expression “ and allowing “Dissenting views” in many American colleges and universities is hoax. Empty words promising to actually allow dissenting views had little to no meaning in the academic world.
For example only a few years back there was on the open for public view a desk set up with a number of brochures on it advertising a college. The Woman sitting at the desk who was representing the college was nice enough. Nevertheless, when I brought up the subject that just maybe the people who claim that Islam is a peaceful, non-violent religion might be wrong and that Islam might have some very violent and deadly instructions in it contained the Qu ‘ran as well as in other authorized written works of Islam. The college representative would hear none of it. She said “No religion teaches violence and killing” Then I asked her if she ever heard about or read the book by Robert Spencer entitled THE ‘POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO ISLAM…’? To that question she adamantly refused to even consider reading and then adamantly repeated “No religion teaches violence and killing.”
So much for allowing dissenting views and freedom of expression.
Lydia Church says
University of Orwell; 2018.
Exactly, the whole point is to have various dissenting views, express them, analyze them, and debate back and forth in a civilized manner. It can’t be done without freedom of expression. It can’t be done if they can’t tolerate the airing of differing viewpoints. Without that is when academia dies and any mind expanding growth is drowned out, and only the politically correct flavor of the day is allowed in their new totalitarian citizen factory. One of the advantages of considering other perspectives is learning how to refute them. But rather, no individuality is allowed, no independence of thought, no dissenting minds. Only their conformist cookie cutter production line is rolled out at the end of the spout. Minds have died, their ability to evaluate and scrutinize arguments, think critically, use reasoning skills and apply logic have died with them. Students have been hijacked on passions of emotionalism run wild based in flawed and erroneous arguments. Any fallacy can take them hostage now, and they will scream at you wild eyed and weeping why they are convinced of ________, and how could you not be…(which is whatever those in power want them to think at the time, such as taking away the right to bear arms). These are not centers of scholarship and education, but of indoctrination and brainwashing. Group think is the law and those who don’t fall in line are shot on the spot. But… all in the name of ‘diversity,’ ‘freedom of expression,’ ‘tolerance,’ and ‘liberty.’ It would not be complete without the Orwellian irony of contradiction!
Welcome to the University of Orwell!
Your conformist uniform is in your cell room. It is called ‘unique’ even though it looks identical to all the others.
Your thoughts will be delivered at orientation as soon as they are approved, then we will let you know what they are. By the way, that is what we call ‘enlightenment’!
Sadly, this does not just describe universities now, but society in general!
Both now, and before the holocaust.
Lydia Church says
And don’t forget to point them to the koran, the proof that their religion teaches violence and killing!
Peter says
I think that she is, however, correct in her assertion that no religion teaches violence and killing since islam certainly is not a religion but a socio-political framework for conquest.
Peter says
Stanford PERVERSITY
Harvard PERVERSITY
Brown PERVERSITY
etc…..
Time to target the accreditation organizations to withdraw the title UNIVERSITY from institutions that have been neo-Marxist ideological indoctrination and reeducation centers.
Westman says
Marching out of a venue that was packed, to prevent participation by other students, is not debate; it is a narcissistic debasing of the university – a total rejection of the classical foundation of literature and philosophy upon which the American University, as an institution, was founded.
Narrow social studies are a poor substitution for preparing a student to understand and value the basis of Western society; nor does it prepare the student, nor expect the student, to personally assume any responsibility for others.
Marching, demonstrating, and disrupting is conviction of the weakest kind, full of narcisism and mob spirit yet creating nothing lasting; something we saw only too clearly in the failing Hippie communes of the 1960’s.
The university students of Russia brought about a revolution that did more damage and killed more people than than living under the Czars. This degeneration is also true of Iran. Both criminalized speech. Stanford’s faculty, who encouraged the curtailing of speech, should take a moment and imagine themselves as inmates in a re-education camp. All revolutions, ultimately, persecute their own.
gravenimage says
+1
Indiana Tom says
To preserve free speech, we have to suppress it.
Doublespeak.
brane pilot says
When you cannot win a debate on the merits of your position, you win the debate by changing the rules of interaction and gaming the definition of words in the language.
It works!
b.a. freeman says
or if U’re muslim in a muslim country, U just kill your opponent. no more disagreement!
Lydia Church says
Because they know they will lose the argument and that doesn’t fit their desired script!
Oh, and tyranny is democracy!
But no dissent allowed on that statement.
Norger says
Because now they get to congratulate themselves for being such wonderfully progressive and courageous defenders of “free speech.”
gravenimage says
Stanford labels the forcible suppression of dissenting views “free expression”
………………….
Just perverse.
b.a. freeman says
mr. spencer, really! i thought that JW was a serious forum about the vile pirate cult of islam, and here U are posting a parody of a university!
—
wow. if these folks are our future, i had better start practicing my “sieg heils;” the constitution is eroding away before our eyes. these tools are our future “leaders,” and this type won’t let a silly piece of paper written by dead white guys stand between them and absolute power. the nazis are wrapping up eurabia, but we can’t be complacent, because the brownshirts are taking over on this side of the pond. the second civil war is a lot closer than i thought.
Charles A Williams says
Orwell would have called it the “Ministry of Free Expression”.
Norger says
On further reflection I think this young man is actually applauding Stanford’s robust commitment to free speech because there was a “debate” of sorts about whether Spencer should have been allowed to speak on campus in the first instance.
PRCS says
This is the Wolfe article Robert Spencer linked to with “students who marched out of his lecture”:
https://stanfordreview.org/stanford-students-pretend-to-support-free-speech-stumble-at-final-hurdle/
Stanford Students Pretend to Support Free Speech, Stumble at Final Hurdle
By all appearances, Stanford students had done it. We had invited a controversial speaker, published varyingly coherent articles of support and opposition, and had a rational campus debate about free speech. Those who were interested in what Robert Spencer had to say would attend his event and debate him if they so desired, while those who wished to voice their dissent would attend the “Rally Against Islamophobia,” a protest organized by a new activist group named Stanford Against Islamophobia (SAI). After turning our noses up at attempts to shut down free speech at Berkeley, it looked like Stanford was going to do better.
We didn’t descend to Berkeley-level depravity. Not quite. There was no violence when Robert Spencer spoke on campus, no attempt to shout him down. But at 8:40 p.m., 20 minutes after he began his talk, over 150 members of the crowd ostensibly gathered to hear him speak promptly stood up and left, while Arabic music blared from Bluetooth speakers concealed around the hall.
The students, planted by SAI, had arrived at the event early to clog up the venue. As a result, dozens of students, many of whom were presumably interested in starting a genuine dialogue with Spencer about his views and rebuffing him, were turned away. I myself arrived at about 7:20 for an event scheduled to begin an hour later, and was one of the last people admitted.
The early signs were ominous. Music began to play from somewhere in the crowd just a few minutes into Spencer’s speech, though it was quickly silenced. There was palpable tension as Spencer continued. He thanked the College Republicans, “the most marginalized community at Stanford University,” for organizing the event, and grinned wickedly at the guffaws and incredulous murmurs emanating from the crowd. He went on to lament what he described as a “relentless smear campaign” from both the Stanford Daily and this very publication, and questioned the Stanford administration’s decision not to allow live streaming of the event.
“If [Stanford] wanted to expose my hate speech, they could have said ‘film away.’ I don’t deal in any hate speech — I just deal in unwelcome truths,” said Spencer.
Shortly after, the activists in the crowd disgraced themselves.
Instead of attempting to debate Spencer on his arguments, or allowing those who would have to attend the event, over 150 SAI affiliates stood up and departed, chanting and playing music. SAI have since released a statement denying that they had officially sanctioned the playing of music, but this made little difference.
Loadsman says
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. _ Voltair.
UNCLE VLADDI says
ALL so-called institutes of higher learning and education suffer from this, and here’s both how and why:
Here’s how the so-called “soft” sciences aka “humanities” (anthropology, psychology, sociology, and even Law or criminology) really work: They all started off by examining the various symptoms and EFFECTS of human behavior, thinking, group-thinking behavior, and of criminal free-will CHOICES, respectively, but then self-invalidated by looking for hidden mysterious predestined and predetermined inevitable force “CAUSES” of it all, which degraded them all into only one criminal, excuse-making alibi topic: “VICTIMOLOGY!”
So we get these two, permanently opposed philosophical poles:
Law-abiding Conservatives: “Criminal behavior is an effect of free-will choice!”
Criminal libertines: “But what CAUSED that choice? There’s always a cause!”
Their implication is that there are no crimes nor criminals because we’re all “victims.”
In short: they went from studying HOW people CHOOSE to act, to focusing on WHY (ruling out free will choice entirely)!
And that “why” PRESUMES a fear of pain will ALWAYS trump rationality! “So” we are all really ever only helpless victims! Asking “why” people (‘always’) give in to the fear of pain, presumes that: “SINCE anything CAN go wrong, SO it WILL always go wrong, SO we MUST forgive everyone for their mistakes, as being helpless victims!”
But in reality, the only reason WHY people commit crimes, is that they still think they can have rights without responsibilities, and so they weigh all the risks and rewards in different situational circumstances first!
And they only try to do so in each and every separate circumstantial situation, because they haven’t learned that rights ALWAYS only come with responsibilities, causes with effects, and effects with causes, and so they either remain ignorant of, or choose to ignore, the simple Golden Rule of Law moral Principle:
“Do Not Attack First.”
BOTTOM LINE:
These days, PITYING the victims (and the criminals AS “fellow victims,”) is held up as the highest moral virtue, while being ANGRY at, (or “hateful” towards) criminals and crime is deemed to be the most vile sin.
But what is more useful in solving problems and remedying crime: being angry at criminals for their predatory choices, or encouraging them to commit more crimes, by pitying them as helpless victims too?
The answer is obvious.
So it’s high time to educate these higher-learning “educators” of their mistakes!
In always asking “But WHY?” like perverse little children bedevilling their parents, they can always step back any given answer and exploit it into a whole new and lucrative “specialized” academic field of study!
But the focus they pretend to thereby gain in minutae actually loses the focus on the big picture or “unified field” of science itself – by deliberately reducing everything they become absurd, or “reducio ad absurdum,” to the Latins.
And, while the simple answer IS obvious to us, unfortunately so is their own criminally negligent desire to “fail upwards” by ignoring the simple easy and permanent solutions to any and all problems, in favor of exploiting and selling the almost infinite number of mere symptoms and effects of unsolved problems as causes in them selves, as eternal crises for which only temporary band-aid therapy reliefs can ever be applied.
After all, the motto of all responsibility-averse and willfully delinquent libertine “liberal” criminals must be: “There’s No Money In Solutions, so Please Give Generously – AGAIN!”
So their final message these days seems to be:
“Anyone who doesn’t automatically pity all criminals as fellow victims should be hated!”
gravenimage says
The Humanities are not necessarily like this. I am an artist and art historian, and reject what you describe.
You are right that this perverse approach is rife now, though.