I just find it fascinating that the right-wing folks who a minute ago were screaming about encroachments of freedom of speech on campus are suddenly concerned with encroaching on the wrong kind of freedom of speech -- which, of course, was the issue all along. No one opposes freedom of speech in the abstract. It turns out that the extent of one's free speech absolutism turns out to depend on whose ox is being gored. Color me shocked.
To be fair, what I've seen from the more genuinely principled free-speech folks-- FIRE and the like-- has been less schadenfreude and more "This is ALSO terrible." I should've linked the Ken White Substack post about the whole situation; I'll save it for the next Links Dump.
There are absolutely some jackals cackling about behavior they would've deplored were the political valences reversed, but there are also plenty of people wringing their hands over recent events who were knives out when the transgressors were on the right. I don't have much use for either.
I'm actually not as critical of FIRE as many on my political side of the aisle are. Yeah, I think they lean right in their proclivities, but I have also seen them give a full-throated defense of faculty in Texas, including a quite well known case where a professor was fired from a community college for profanely (but accurately) criticizing Mike Pence.
In Texas we wrestled with a lot of these issues in what amounts to the System Faculty Senate, and we tried to show how the supposedly free speech Chicago Principles were problematic precisely because we thought it allowed hate speech, threats, and the like. Well, lo and behold, here we are.
I think one kid of answer could have been, "it depends on context but for example when xyz happened, we did A because of N and if pqr were to happen we would probably do B.
Another kind would be a process answer, "We would refer behavior xyz to our committee F who would take a, b, and c into consideration in coming to a conclusion.
Yeah, I think that's probably your best shot. "We would absolutely refer it to the proper authorities for investigation and potential punishment," and if they ask about why you would follow procedure you do your best Paul Scofield impression.
FWIW, given this was a trap, "Yes or No", I would have been provocative. "No".
"No? [roars of furor from the feckless hypocritical congress people]"
"No. Genocide is a simple policy proposal. As long as it was done with acceptable levels of civility and did not involve physically harassing a specific Jewish person, not even a micro aggression was committed"
"How dare you call genocide a simple policy proposal, you freak?"
"Well, I'm sure this august chamber in eons past did just that. Say, while discussing the 1830 Indian Removal Act. Or the 1862 Homestead Act. Yet a Native American who, perchance, was visiting Washington DC during the time those debates took place would likely not have felt physically threatened or harassed. So fuck off you hypocrites".
This is useful context. (Given how much context apparently matters!) It looks like the only intelligent course of action was -- don’t go! Or were they legally obliged to attend?
I don't know if they were formally subpoenaed to attend. I kind of doubt it, but they might've been. Even if not, though, it takes some balls to refuse to show up when asked to testify before Congress.
I just find it fascinating that the right-wing folks who a minute ago were screaming about encroachments of freedom of speech on campus are suddenly concerned with encroaching on the wrong kind of freedom of speech -- which, of course, was the issue all along. No one opposes freedom of speech in the abstract. It turns out that the extent of one's free speech absolutism turns out to depend on whose ox is being gored. Color me shocked.
To be fair, what I've seen from the more genuinely principled free-speech folks-- FIRE and the like-- has been less schadenfreude and more "This is ALSO terrible." I should've linked the Ken White Substack post about the whole situation; I'll save it for the next Links Dump.
There are absolutely some jackals cackling about behavior they would've deplored were the political valences reversed, but there are also plenty of people wringing their hands over recent events who were knives out when the transgressors were on the right. I don't have much use for either.
Lots of jackals ...
I'm actually not as critical of FIRE as many on my political side of the aisle are. Yeah, I think they lean right in their proclivities, but I have also seen them give a full-throated defense of faculty in Texas, including a quite well known case where a professor was fired from a community college for profanely (but accurately) criticizing Mike Pence.
In Texas we wrestled with a lot of these issues in what amounts to the System Faculty Senate, and we tried to show how the supposedly free speech Chicago Principles were problematic precisely because we thought it allowed hate speech, threats, and the like. Well, lo and behold, here we are.
I think one kid of answer could have been, "it depends on context but for example when xyz happened, we did A because of N and if pqr were to happen we would probably do B.
Another kind would be a process answer, "We would refer behavior xyz to our committee F who would take a, b, and c into consideration in coming to a conclusion.
Yeah, I think that's probably your best shot. "We would absolutely refer it to the proper authorities for investigation and potential punishment," and if they ask about why you would follow procedure you do your best Paul Scofield impression.
FWIW, given this was a trap, "Yes or No", I would have been provocative. "No".
"No? [roars of furor from the feckless hypocritical congress people]"
"No. Genocide is a simple policy proposal. As long as it was done with acceptable levels of civility and did not involve physically harassing a specific Jewish person, not even a micro aggression was committed"
"How dare you call genocide a simple policy proposal, you freak?"
"Well, I'm sure this august chamber in eons past did just that. Say, while discussing the 1830 Indian Removal Act. Or the 1862 Homestead Act. Yet a Native American who, perchance, was visiting Washington DC during the time those debates took place would likely not have felt physically threatened or harassed. So fuck off you hypocrites".
This is useful context. (Given how much context apparently matters!) It looks like the only intelligent course of action was -- don’t go! Or were they legally obliged to attend?
I don't know if they were formally subpoenaed to attend. I kind of doubt it, but they might've been. Even if not, though, it takes some balls to refuse to show up when asked to testify before Congress.
It’s not so ballsy if it saves your job! :-)
It depends on how committed they are to the bit. If they formally subpoena you, then you've got even bigger problems.
"I'll testify the day after Jim Jordan does."