[Vision2020] WSU Did the Right Thing on Campus Free Speech

[Nicholas Gier]

Good Morning Visionaries:

It took me some time to get clear on this issue, but it became obvious to
me that I had to support the ACLU position.'

A shorter version of this column was published last Thursday in the DNews,
but this version will go in the Sandpoint Reader on Thursday.  The full
version is attached.

You all have a great day,

nfg

*WSU Did the Right Thing on Campus Free Speech*

By Nick Gier

            In my 50 years of political activism, I have never shouted down
a speaker, but it has become far too frequent these days.

Especially unfortunate was the disruption of a joint meeting of College
Republicans and College Democrats at UC Santa Cruz on October 15,
2017. Peaceful
joint discussions of these two groups are on-going at Washington State
University, where a former College Republican president was forced to
resign after attending the Alt-Right rally in Charlottesville (see below).

On October 4, 2016, a speaker from the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU), the foremost champion of First Amendment rights, was forced from
the stage at William and Mary College by members of Black Lives Matters.
They were upset with ACLU legal action that secured the permit for the
“Unite the Right” rally at a park in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The night before the rally several hundred protestors marched without
permission through the University of Virginia campus. They carried with
tiki torches, gave the Nazi salute, and chanted hate-filled chants such as
“the Jew will not replace us,” “blood and soil” (white blood only on
America soil), and “white lives matter.” The next day one of the protestors
drove his car through a group of counter-protestors, killing one woman and
injuring 34 others.

Implicitly admitted to a serious mistake, ACLU President Anthony Romero has
responded to the Charlottesville tragedy saying that they will not
represent any group “carrying loaded firearms.” But he added that “even
odious hate speech, with which we vehemently disagree, garners the
protection of the First Amendment when expressed non-violently.”

This standard policy was in effect when ACLU attorneys filed a suit against
the Washington, D.C. Metro for removing ads for Milo Yiannopoulos’ book
*Dangerous* from subway stations and cars. Yiannopoulous is a notorious
“Alt-Right” speaker, who has caused controversy for his on-campus
appearances, as well as when he has been barred from speaking.

After I have reviewed all the news coverage, I’ve concluded that the WSU
administration did the right thing regarding the controversy surrounding
its College Republicans. In October of 2016, they erected a 24-foot replica
of Trump’s border wall. Hundreds of students reacted by climbing the wall
and/or engaging in spirited debate with the young Republicans.

In January of last year the group invited Yiannopolous to campus, but the
speech was cancelled because of icy roads. Yiannopolous had just spoken at
the University of Washington the night of Trump’s inauguration, and a Trump
supporter, claiming self-defense, shot an anti-Trump protestor in the
stomach.

Former College Republican president James Allsup interviewed white
supremacist Richard Spencer on YouTube, but he claims that he is not a
racist nor a white nationalist. But the *Spokesman-Review* quotes him as
saying: “Other cultures have a right to exist, but they can exist [only] in
their own countries.” He added that when you bring in those “who don’t look
like you, you lose a sense of national identity.”

Although he says that he attended the Charlottesville event only in a
“media capacity,” he marched with the torch bearers and was thrilled to
greet white supremacist Richard Spencer at the rally. When the College
Republican National Committee learned of Allsup’s participation, it forced
him to resign his executive post.

Some students on campus were joined by 12 Democratic legislators in
demanding that the College Republicans’ campus club status be revoked.
Late last month, WSU President Kirk Schulz responded to the legislators,
saying that “we can’t shut down a viewpoint no matter how horrific or
upsetting it is.”

WSU student body president Jordan Frost says that as a black man he has
felt the full impact of racist comments, but he still follows the ACLU: “If
you’re openly inciting violence, that’s a problem. But other than that, we
can’t start doing this filtering of people’s words and what they say.”

Our universities and colleges are the principal venues for the presentation
of all views. Our founding thinkers were convinced that rational public
debate would separate truth from falsehood, and they gave us the First
Amendment to guarantee that all of us have a place in a free exchange of
ideas.

Although the rise of Trump and fake news makes attainment of this ideal far
more difficult, we cannot start down a slippery slope where we find
ourselves at the receiving end of the limited speech that we have forced on
others.

What if College Democrats somewhere say or do something outrageous?  Won’t
Republicans then ask that they lose their right to participate in campus
life?

Nick Gier of Moscow taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31
years.  Read the full version at www.NickGier.com/FreeSpeech.pdf
<http://www.nickgier.com/FreeSpeech.pdf>. He can be contacted at
ngier006 at gmail.com.

-- 

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
shall never sit in.

-Greek proverb

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.

--Immanuel Kant
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