https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/EsEmmi
Much has been written about the attacks on free speech, especially at universities and colleges. Speakers with conservative viewpoints are routinely banished from important venues, denied attendance, picketed, or subjected to the “hecklers’ veto.” At the University of California Berkeley and other campuses where conservative speech has been met with disorder, activists have justified it because, they claim, “speech is violence.” Gone is adherence to the maxim of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, “If there be time to . . . avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
Speakers must be held accountable for their words, to be sure. But sometimes “accountability” is ideological and unfair. Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers discovered this when, at an academic conference in 2006, he speculated about the preponderance of men working as professors of mathematics and physical sciences at elite universities. Although Summers acknowledged that women confronted barriers such as discrimination and disproportionate family responsibilities, he hypothesized that there might be other factors, like men’s superior performance in tests measuring mathematical ability. Summers was vilified and ridiculed, and eventually resigned.
Another example of caving to mob rule at Harvard was the law school’s decision to strip law professor Ronald Sullivan, Jr., of his position as faculty dean of a college residence hall. The reason? Some students felt “unsafe” because Sullivan represented Harvey Weinstein against charges of sexual misconduct. As Sullivan put it, “Unchecked emotion has replaced thoughtful reasoning on campus. Feelings are no longer subjected to evidence, analysis or empirical defense. Angry demands, rather than rigorous arguments, now appear to guide university policy.”
