By Adam Hoffman
Monday, January 04, 2021
Has the college-speaker-disinvitation craze ended? Some
would have you believe so. The Niskanen Center proclaimed
that “the campus free speech crisis” ended in 2018. In 2019, Commentary magazine optimistically argued
that things were “looking up on campus.” The numbers seem to support this view.
According
to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), university
disinvitations peaked in 2016 and have slowly declined since. However, my experience
at Princeton University has taught me that the attack on free speech is hardly
over. Conservative voices are still being stifled on campus, only now through
more-cunning methods.
As president of the right-leaning party of Princeton
University’s American Whig-Cliosophic Society, the oldest collegiate literary,
political, and debate society in the nation, I am responsible for bringing
conservative speakers and voices to the heart of Princeton’s political scene.
In 2020, I tried to do my job, only to be shut down by an intolerant Left.
Several months ago, I submitted a list of potential
speakers to the American Whig-Cliosophic Society’s Speakers Council. They
flagged a number of my speakers as controversial and decided to put them to a
vote before the group’s student Governing Council, in accordance with
procedures laid out to prevent a repeat of a 2018
disinvitation incident. My “provocative” speakers included Washington Post columnist and Pulitzer
Prize winner (and Princeton alumnus) George Will and Neomi Rao, a former law
professor and currently a circuit judge on the United States Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia. Predictably, none of the left-leaning party’s
choices, including extreme progressives such as bell hooks and provocateurs
such as Jamelle Bouie, were deemed controversial enough for further review.
Unfortunately, the speakers’ fates seemed sealed before
we even began consideration. Some on the Speakers Council deemed George Will
too controversial for campus, on the basis of his writing on “marginalized
groups,” particularly his accused insensitivity for victims of sexual assault.
The Governing Council feared his heterodox views would trigger discomfort and
lead to protests. Not even his 2019 baccalaureate address at Princeton — at the
university president’s invitation — and his former position on the university’s
Board of Trustees could turn the tables in his favor. According to this group
of Princeton’s political elite, Princeton students could not handle Will’s
arguments. And so I was not allowed to invite Will to campus.
A similar debate ensued about Judge Neomi Rao. Rao’s
college writing on sexual assault and race apparently disqualified her from
lecturing on constitutional theory. In recent years, Rao has distanced herself
from her past controversial writing, as seen in her public apology during a
Senate confirmation hearing. But for these righteous progressives, sins can
never be forgiven. Seated around a mahogany table, these future leaders voted
to prohibit an invitation to Judge Rao. Her influence is heard and felt across
America — but not by these Ivy League students.
While my renowned speakers were not disinvited, their
prospective invitations were blocked. Contrary to recent reports, free speech
has not won at the university. A near
majority of college students believe that the First Amendment should not
protect so-called hate speech, and a majority
support disinvitations. Open debate is only rarely found on most campuses.
Free-speech-advocacy groups must recognize that
disinvitations are no longer the standard for quashing debate and curbing
conservative views. Campus activists have become wily. By holding back
invitations absolutely, they can quietly keep students in their echo chambers.
Today, right-leaning speakers are shut down before they can even open their
mouths.
A disproportionate
share of university events and commencement speakers around the country are
progressive. Some universities have reported as high as a 32:1
ratio of left-leaning to right-leaning speakers. Nationwide, just 3 percent of
commencement speakers in 2018 were considered
conservative. These numbers show that my experience is a broad problem:
Conservatives are being prohibited from extending and receiving invitations.
Conservatives have in effect been exorcised from academic settings.
This attitude belies the purpose of universities as
truth-seeking institutions. College is a time to entertain the most-persuasive
arguments of all sides. Students ought to welcome reasoned arguments from
across the political spectrum and to reexamine their most cherished beliefs.
College ought to be a place of thought, not of comfortable indoctrination. The
debate over free speech on campus concerns the central value of a university.
Two groups will need to speak up to reclaim the
university: courageous students unafraid to disagree and to feel uncomfortable,
and both professors and administrators committed to an educational vision
supporting free inquiry. There have been a few promising examples, including
the Princeton
Open Campus Coalition and Professor
Joshua Katz on my own campus and President
Robert Zimmer at the University of Chicago. But students, professors, and
administrators have yet to stand up in significant numbers.
The American Whig-Cliosophic Society was founded by James Madison, author of the First Amendment and a free-speech warrior. It would be wise for Princeton students to reacquaint themselves with Madison’s thought — that is, if he were even allowed to speak on campus in 2021.
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