U Chicago Divinity School Students call for curtailing free speech

On February 6, University of Chicago professor Rachel Fulton Brown (described as “Associate Professor of Medieval History, Fundamentals, and the College at the University of Chicago, and Associate Faculty in the Divinity School”) published a piece about Milo Yiannpoulos on “Sightings,” a column at the University’s Divinity School website. Called “Why Milo scares students, faculty even more,” the column was a defense of Milo’s right to speak, claiming that he could inspire conversation, that his motivations for so doing were fundamentally religious in origin, and that protests against him prove that students are embracing secularism as a flawed substitute for religion (Fulton Brown is clearly a believer, but at least one who thinks one’s faith should be be continually questioned). Fulton Brown begins by describing the riots that Milo’s appearance created at Berkeley, and then lays out her thesis:

The tradition of higher education in America is deeply indebted to Christian ideals. In his talk at Minnesota State University shortly before Christmas, Milo cited a commitment to education as one of the most important things Christianity gets right. “The first law in America to require general education,” he noted, “was called ‘The Old Deluder Satan Act’ to teach children to read the Bible in 1647. 122 of the first 123 colleges in America were Christian universities. Think about Harvard University, one of the epicenters of liberalism today. This is the founding statement of Harvard: ‘Let every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, John 17:3.’”

. . . As a consequence of this self-secularization, religion became an object of academic study considered only from the outside, not tested intellectually or experientially from within. Universities, particularly public universities, became places for the purportedly neutral exchange of ideas, not for conversion to any clearly articulated and tested faith. Religion was a matter for the heart; education a matter for the head.

. . . This, I would argue, is why American college students and faculty find Milo’s talks so threatening. The issues that Milo talks about are usually considered political, but in fact have to do with people’s deepest convictions: the proper relations between women and men, the definition of community, the role of beauty, access to truth. Milo professes himself a Catholic and wears a pair of gold crosses around his neck. He speaks about the importance of Christianity for the values of Western civilization. As he put it in one interview: “[Western civilization] has created a religion in which love and self-sacrifice and giving are the highest possible virtues… That’s a good thing… But when you remove discipline and sacrifice from religion you get a cult.”

None of these issues, most especially the civilizational roots of culture and virtue in religious faith, are typically addressed in modern college education in America. Rather, they are, for the most part, purposefully avoided.

. . . Not to address these issues openly does not allow students to keep an open mind. Their minds are already open—and being filled with what they are given in place of religion: multiculturalism; race, class, gender; the purportedly secular ideals of socialism and Marxism. Particularly for those students, and faculty, who have little to no religious education outside of school, these ideals have become their faith.

. . . Thanks to his near charismatic appeal as a speaker, at least for those who attend his talks rather than stand outside protesting, he holds out the possibility of conversion, of changing hearts and minds.

It is much easier to call Milo names than to accept the challenge he presents.

Well, this is distressing on several grounds, most notably Fulton Brown’s criticism that secularism is an inadequate substitute for religious ideals. I question whether religious colleges encourage dissent and open speech about faith, homosexuality, and so on.  I’d also argue that she oversells Milo’s appeal to reason, since he’s most often a provocateur, and sometimes I’m not sure he even means what he says. But I would still argue that some of his points, like the need for affirmative action, the issue of equity versus gender feminism, and so on, could call for a conversation, even if he doesn’t engage in one himself. Students are all to ready to demonize people rather than argue with them,  and at the last someone like Milo, if you listen to him, could help you hone your ideas.  I remain firm in my view that if Milo is invited to speak by a college group, it is censorship to disinvite him, particularly at a public university.

But a large group of Divinity School students went further, calling Fulton Brown’s article (and the Divinity School website) an enabler of white supremacy (there they go again!), saying that both Fulton Brown and the University have endangered people by publishing her piece, and implicitly calling for a ban on not just MiloSpeak, but FultonBrown speak. Read the letter in the student newspaper The Maroon, “Divinity School students call for more inclusive environment in light of Fulton Brown Controversy.”

What strikes me first is how absymally written and full of jargon their letter is. Someone needs to teach these students to write clearly! I’ll be brief because the letter, signed by several dozen students, is long and torturous (also tortuous). Here’s the first paragraph:

We, the undersigned students, write to address the recent controversy over Rachel Fulton Brown’s February 16 article in Sightings. We welcome commitments made by our administration and faculty to defend students genuinely threatened by harassment. However, we are compelled to contextualize Fulton Brown’s argument in our current political climate and wish to insist on further concrete actions from the Divinity School moving forward. These actions must cultivate an environment where all students are free not merely to express themselves but to exist as they are. No institution can thrive while significant portions of its population are at risk of being marked, targeted, threatened, or silenced.

They are “compelled to contextualize”!  But the argument boils down to this: what Fulton Brown said was racist and endangers marginalized students. They don’t even care whether she or the Div School agree with Milo, simply that she was allowed to express her opinion. Work your way through this thicket of prose (my emphases):

The publication of Fulton Brown’s article must be understood in its proper context: the escalation of bigotry and its violent effects, both locally and nationally. In fact, the central ideas Fulton Brown relates in her essay resonate with and act as means of harassment and recruitment common to the informal coalition of the self-identified alt-right. The correlations are straightforward. Her praise for Yiannopoulos amplifies his antipathy to trans students and has welcomed threatening anti-trans flyering on our campus by white nationalists. Her selective valorization of European history along with her critiques of the modern academy and so-called multicultural Marxism aligns with the platform of another recently active white nationalist organization. One need not establish whether or not Fulton Brown supports or collaborates with these groups, given the bare ideological similitude. What remains essential is the welcome offered to such individuals and organizations by national politics, University policy, and Sightings editorial standards. Unwittingly or otherwise, the publication of Fulton Brown’s article has provided a platform for the proliferation and mobilization of white supremacy, nativism, and patriarchal chauvinism.

That’s a common trope: hosting speakers somehow implies endorsement of their views.

Here’s the kicker (my emphases):

Various interested parties have made public displays defending this kind of speech by resorting to arguments for “freedom of expression.” We find this line of reasoning disingenuous. The University itself deploys the rhetoric even as it threatens student activism with disciplinary action. Sightings, for its part, deferred to freedom of expression only in response to public critiques, none of which took into account the bodies this article endangered or the inability for the response to uproot the cause of bigotry. In both instances, a highly circumscribed idea of free expression has been deployed selectively and after the fact to dismiss criticism out of hand, to defend discriminatory speech, and to leverage “shared ideals” against anyone who merely expresses opposition to established authorities. Under these conditions, “lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation” is impossible.

Freedom of expression cannot exist without freedom of subjects.

But what are these sweating students trying to say in the last sentence?  What is “freedom of subjects”? Simply that there are limits on free speech: one cannot use it against marginalized groups, and if you do so you’re abrogating their “freedom”:

Freedom of subjects requires a prior commitment to protecting the physical, emotional, and intellectual security of all people, especially those most concretely and historically threatened: people of color, LGBTQ+, trans, gender non-conforming people, immigrants, undocumented people, women, religious minorities, and people with disabilities. Failure to adhere to these commitments is reflected in the University’s recent Campus Climate Survey, in which students who identify as members of marginalized groups report higher incidence of physical violence, intimidation, discrimination, and harassment. In spite of these facts, University statements have not addressed freedom of subjects, instead focusing on free expression. This preference denigrates the creation of safe spaces and the use of trigger warnings, vital resources both for those who have experienced trauma and for the cultivation of effective educational environments.

In other words, “unsafe speech” is not free speech, and apparently both Fulton Brown and the University have promulgated such speech.  While of course people’s physical safety must be protected, there is no requirement to protect the “emotional and intellectual security” of anyone on a campus. Am I endangering that when I criticize Islam, adhered to by “religious minorities”? Do I violate the emotional security of women when I decry the Muslimophilia of white western feminists?

Amidst all the students’ turgid prose, one sees that they simply don’t want to permit speech unless it doesn’t “threaten” (i.e., offend) “all people”, but especially members of marginalized groups.

Seriously, I am dead against Trump’s immigration program, but it’s not a “threat” to call for enforcement of existing immigration laws. It should be a discussion. It’s not a threat to say that a Catholic who is gay is somewhat of a hypocrite. But these Div School students (and I find them the worst of the SJWs, as they are not only progressive, but also have a sense of god-given entitlement) are setting themselves up to be the arbiters of speech. Milo shouldn’t speak, and Ceiling Cat help us if someone defends him!

What is happening to my university?