We are familiar with stories of controversial speakers who were shouted down on campuses. Not long ago, students at Stanford Law School disrupted the appearance of Kyle Duncan, a federal appeals court judge appointed by Trump who was invited to address the conservative Federalist Society. The university apologized to Judge Duncan.
Retired teacher Frank Breslin offered some valuable advice about how students should act when a controversial speaker comes to campus.
Critically Responding to Guest Speakers
If these student protestors are convinced that they’re right and can make their case, why don’t they do so and teach these speakers why they are wrong? Why protest when they could simply let these speakers have their say, then refute them publicly?
Then during the Q & A period have these students come to the microphone to ask their questions and have those speakers respond? Wouldn’t this be better than protesting and giving their college a black eye in the media?
Unfortunately, however, they fail to do this, but pressure their colleges and universities to disinvite these speakers, or protest against them if they do come, and demand that even their own professors whose courses challenge their beliefs be fired because this is the only way they can cope with ideas that frighten them.
College & the World Not One’s Personal Nanny
Somehow these 18- to 21-year-olds have never learned that their college is not their Personal Nanny, who should dry their tears when something upsets them. What they need is a crash course in Real Life 101 that would teach them to accept the world as it is while at the same time trying to change it by learning to deal with ideas critically in a calm and dispassionate manner rather than running away to hide in “safe places.”
Raising Objections
They must learn to raise objections that challenge these speakers by questioning their assumptions, exposing fallacies if present, and determining whether their claims are certain, probable, or only possible. Many claims may sound impressive, but cannot be proven, and the ability to point this out publicly will weaken a speaker’s case.
Many explanations may not be true, but only arguable, and if a claim is based upon arguable assumptions or debatable value judgments, that claim can also be weakened. Or a claim that is offered as a fact may not be a fact at all, but only a hope, a fear, a wish, or bigotry.
How many arguments have you heard in your lifetime that were nothing more than appeals to the man, fear, authority, or antiquity?
The ability to stand back from a line of argumentation and see at once whether any of two dozen different kinds of fallacies are present, or whether the various statements that make up that argument are not facts, but arguable value judgments, explanatory or metaphysical theories would also weaken a case.
It goes without saying that the self-confidence that comes with this ability to refute an argument can be a life-altering experience for students and the mark of trained young scholars well-read in the humanities and afraid of nothing but running away. Tragically, however, the ability to do this in these colleges rarely occurs.
Instead, the spirit of dogmatism has these students tight in its grip, There is no compromise, no attentive listening to what a speaker is saying, no opening oneself to another’s truth. There is only digging in and defending one’s turf as each surveys the other from within one’s own fortress mentality.
What an anti-climax to spending years in educating themselves! Instead of becoming more aware, open-minded, and tolerant, these young protestors make a virtue of closed-minded belligerence.
There may be other protestors motivated by a love of political theater, headlines, and the local celebrity these protests confer, while for others it may be the need for a permanent grievance to give their lives meaning or themselves an identity, both of which they may see as more urgent than resolving their grievance.
These reasons are especially likely if those leading these protests are zealots with private agendas, whereas some of their followers may simply be bored, in need of excitement, or victims of Groupthink.
Danger of Groupthink
If you’re one of those few high-school graduates trained in critical thinking, you should be able to cope with this anti-intellectualism — up to a point. I say this because there is one conditioning factor you yourself may have to overcome upon entering college or becoming a member of any group or organization later in life.
I am referring, of course, to the power of Groupthink that may pressure you into becoming part of this irrationalism should you find yourself on one of these campuses.
As usually happens in “closed universes” like prisons, hospitals, monasteries, or the military, for instance, a form of Groupthink inevitably occurs. In colleges and universities, it will be only a segment of the school population that over-identifies with the particular viewpoint of this group.
As a new freshman on campus, one will naturally want to be welcomed and accepted by those in this new social environment where one will be spending the next four years of one’s life.
Once on campus, however, one may not want to protest but feel that one must or lose acceptance by failing to do so, and so will “go along to get along.” Some of this may explain the more reluctant protestors who don’t want to disappoint or alienate the “pack” or its leader….
Being Taught “the Right Answers” is Indoctrination
Strive for the kind of knowledge that will make you aware of all the competing answers to the questions you study, for all of them contain some measure of truth, and some of them may even be misrepresented by the accepted theories. Beware of the delusion that you’re being taught “the right answers,” but if you’re told that you are, give yourself a quiet chuckle.
If you leave a course with more questions than when you entered because the answers you received didn’t satisfy you, consider yourself lucky because you’ve gotten your money’s worth just by realizing this. A good course will teach you how to look at things differently and to judge them within a broader context that will enhance the quality of your critical judgment.
People often don’t need more arguments, but more air to breathe, a longer view and broader perspective by stepping back to see the bigger picture. They need to discover that what they once thought was important is really not that important at all in the overall scheme of things.
Wherever you go, college or university, with or without protests, what you’ve learned about critical thinking in high school and college will become supremely yours as you struggle against human inertia.
Learning the theory of critical thinking isn’t enough, even overlearning it will never suffice. You have to embody the theory but, most of all, have the courage to use it.
Please open the link and read the section I omitted for reasons of space.
Frank Breslin is a retired high-school teacher in the New Jersey public school system.
I cannot help but think about the days of the free speech movement at Berkeley. Students were admonished to behave in certain ways, generally in condescending tones. Should we ask the students why they are behaving this way? Should we have real dialogue? Maybe the students feel locked out of the discussion. There are times that the people who are a part of government feel shut out of the process. How should they behave? What should we expect of a group that feels it is shut out of dialogue? What does a real two way street look like?
excellent questions, Roy
I wonder of Mr. Breslin found any data that would suggest that as the Common Bore ELA standards rose in usage, the critical thinking skills of the students decreased, thus leading to the cancel culture issue that is present on many college campuses today? How can anyone learn anything from the ELA standards as they are right now? How can students learn to think critically when they are not allowed to discuss (and sometimes banter) about how books (or history facts) make them think and feel? Mr. Breslin is correct…..Being taught “the right answers” is indeed Indoctrination and it sets up the notion that in life being “right” (because of correct answers on stupid standardized tests) makes one smarter or better than another. Life is not black and white……there are many variations of gray and we all need to live and get along in this world.
How can anyone learn anything from the ELA standards as they are right now? How can students learn to think critically when they are not allowed to discuss (and sometimes banter) about how books (or history facts) make them think and feel?
Good questions, Lisa!
Perhaps these students do not want to be penalized in their futures for standing up in a forum. They might be able to discredit bad actors and their diatribes in a closed group, but unless the university permits outsiders to televise or report on the proceedings, they are simply speaking the choir, as it were.
Maybe both of these tactics can exist as a 1-2 punch to this issue.
(Speaking *to the choir, but you most likely figured that out.)
I saw no evidence that the men and women screaming at Judge Duncan were concerned about having their reputation or work prospects damaged. I saw the opposite.
An anecdote doesn’t speak for a convention.
I don’t understand what that means.
I remember back in the days of the protests against Vietnam. There was only one acceptable viewpoint. I felt so sorry for the guys who were drafted and vilified for accepting it. I could not stomach the treatment given to guys who made it home, whole or not. Too often I think college students can be incredibly intolerant, however “right” or not.
FLERP, it means one story doesn’t tell all the other stories, too.
While influencers often
don’t, they seldom doubt
their own influence.
IOW, if your influence,
was all that, why hasn’t
it brought meaningful
change?
Holding alternative events, like the alternative Commencement held recently at New College to protest the takeover by DeSantis of the College and the Commencement Address by the Trumpanista Covid precautions denier Scott Atlas.
The arrival of a controversial speaker is an OPPORTUNITY, not an AFFRONT.
“Let her and Falshood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the wors, in a free and open encounter. Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.
-John MIlton, “Areopagitica”
Boy I haven’t read Milton closely since grad school.
He is really worth reading, isn’t he?
Define cancel culture!
“Under section 319(1), everyone who, by communicating statements in a public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of an indictable offense punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment, or of a summary conviction offense.” : Canada Are Canadians truly less free.
I suspect there is an argument to be had that hate speech should not come out of students activity fees. That the University who allows their facilities to be used by a hatemonger is violating the free speech rights of those whose tuition and fees pay for facilities. The same logic applied to fair share fees by SCOTUS in Janus.
The poster child of cancel culture abuse was Milo ,free speech is not hate speech. Ask the Australians while we fret about Milo Yiannopoulos being canceled at Berkley, they wont let his putrid ass in the Country. Are they less free.
When Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak at Berkeley, student protesters donned masks, broke windows, threw Molotov cocktails, assaulted other students, and threw rocks at police to shut down the event. It was clear to most sane people that this was insane and cowardly behavior, especially given what an absurd and inconsequential man Milo was. In retrospect it should be clear to everyone. This behavior was not justified by the view that Milo’s speech was “hate speech.” This shouldn’t need to be said but unfortunately it does.
FLERP!,
The most violent protesters at controversial speaking events at my university were not associated with the university in any way. The same might have been the case at Berkeley.
I am sure that was the case.
People leave out of this story that MY had been doxxing people throughout his tour, and that the UCB protests escalated after the College Office of Student Affairs, in its letter requesting the hosting student organization rescind/cancel the event, took the frankly astounding step of specifically naming the expected doxxing of students as a safety concern. And while the letter didn’t itself specify this, they were expecting him to dox undocumented students in particular.
“As a strategic decision to protect vulnerable people who the police would have otherwise targeted later, escalating in the police controlled space until they shut down the doxing event was justified” is a perfectly plausible argument here. MMV as to whether it is actually a correct/winning argument, but it’s perfectly plausible.
FLERP!
If you are “sure that is the case ” then why bring up the violence ‘downtown’ committed by a few dozen NON STUDENTS after the roughly 1500 students dispersed .
My father was on theBerkley campus the day that protesters surrounded the police car containing Jack Weinberg. My Dadsaw the crowd while on his way to class. By that time a large crowd had gathered and no one on its outskirts had any clue about what was happening. Ironically, my father, who didn’t finish a degree until unchanged later in life, wound up studying the event in a political science class. I realiz this post is only tangentially related to the discussion at hand. The historical perception seems to be that the crowd consisted entirely of supporters, when in reality, only those in the center knew what was going on and everyone else was just trying figure out what was going on.
I should have written that it does not seem unlikely to me that the most violent of the protesters were not students.
Meant this to reply to Joel’s comment at 8:55 am above.
I didn’t see the link to the Breslin article in your 7/22 blog.
View at Medium.com
Thank you, Bob, for adding the link!
Good article and I’m very glad to see it here.
“Somehow these 18- to 21-year-olds have never learned that their college is not their Personal Nanny, who should dry their tears when something upsets them. What they need is a crash course in Real Life…”
Was this written in 1967? Sounds like it.
People a bit older than me were involved in a lot of political activity. Civil Rights demonstrations. Anti-war protests. Maybe they were right and maybe wrong, but a demeaning attitude—the above quote certainly evidences such— suggests the inability to get solidly in the shoes of someone you don’t want to understand.
I never condone violence. I always proposed dialogue. Demeaning a group does not start dialogue. Often, it seems to me, the accusation of “cancel culture” is leveled at people who reject your ideas. A person does not have a natural right to be heard. In our culture, some things seem to grant this right, and others seem to remove it. Money buys a bullhorn for certain ideas. Being a part of some group removes that right. Freedom of speech exists on the balance beam, and society, even when it is run by colleges, often fall off the beam.
Well said.
Agreed. Young people, on the whole, have a keen sense of fairness untainted by professional loyalties and, so, university students, throughout history and geography, take their rightful place as harsh critics of injustice. Their voices are not to be marginalized by calling them closed minded, not in government, not in the classroom, not in the family. Youth are anything but closed minded. What they are doing is not groupthink. Believe in young people.
Violence is self defeating, and responding with critical questions is easily ignored. Protesting can draw attention to a problem, but if not done properly can also be scoffed at by the powers that be as mere complaining. Petitioning can too. There is only one way, in my humble opinion, to effectively fight for justice, Gandhi and MLK’s way, nonviolent action. Action. You have to peacefully shut the university down. You have to force the school to punish you, to arrest you for blocking entrance, revealing the oppressiveness of their decisions. Sit in. Boycott. Strike. When people do wrong, force them do do more wrong. Force them to look in the mirror.
LCT– my fave post in this thread. Thanks.
Students should shut the university down when there is an event with a speaker that some number of students (10? 50? 100?) believe is wrong?
Somehow these
18- to 21-year-oldscollege administrators have never learned that their college is not their PersonalNannyplatform for their own political views.Fixed.
The blog needs a bot to type comments with stock phrases like “so-called ‘cancel-culture’” and “right-wing narrative” and “freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences” when a live human isn’t available.
I like the idea of indicting bad arguments by calling out the fallacies, but if Mr Breslin’s recommendations were an effective strategy for political engagement I’d expect to have had some different election results in 2016.
And from a quick google about the incident, Judge Duncan isn’t actually a compelling example for how LGBT protesters could do better by engaging respectfully. His wikipedia page has:
So in his own courtroom (where he holds arbitrary power via the contempt holding) he doesn’t offer basic decency if it’s not required by law. But the people he wants to erase need to listen respectfully when he talks? TBH, I would probably have tried the Breslin approach myself. But the condemnatory tone on this case… that don’t impress me much.
For those curious, here’s a summary of the issues and posture of the case that the Wikipedia entry is referring to.
https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-134/united-states-v-varner/
Text starts below:
In 2012, the federal prisoner in Varner received a fifteen-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to a child pornography charge. While completing this sentence, the Varner defendant wrote to the district court, asking it to change the name on the judgment of conviction from “Norman Keith Varner” to “Kathrine Nicole Jett” because the defendant, who was born male, now identified as a woman.
The district court took this letter as a motion to amend the judgment of conviction and proceeded to deny the motion. The court cited precedent from the Fifth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits to conclude that a “new, preferred name” could not justify “amend[ing] the previously entered Judgment.” Inmates, the court explained, have no constitutional right to update prison records with a new name, so the name change document attached to the motion made no difference. The district court also questioned the validity of the name change order, which a Kentucky state court had granted: state law required in-state residency for name changes, a condition the defendant apparently had not met. Regardless, the district court denied the motion on the basis that a new name does not warrant amending an old judgment.
On appeal, the Fifth Circuit vacated the district court’s ruling. Writing for the panel, Judge Duncan held that the district court had no jurisdiction even to entertain the defendant’s motion to amend. The panel enumerated “the recognized categories of postconviction motions,” concluding that none authorized jurisdiction over such a motion to amend a judgment. Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (FRCP) — which confers jurisdiction to correct a sentence — did not apply: the motion was made more than two weeks after sentencing and was not made by the government. FRCP 36, authorizing correction of clerical errors, failed because “[a] name change obtained six years after entry of judgment” does not count as a clerical error. After considering and rejecting two other statutes, the Varner court lastly ruled out 28 U.S.C. § 2255 because the motion did not contest the validity of the sentence or conviction. Having eliminated any statutory basis that could justify ruling on such a motion, the panel held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain it.
The panel also denied a separate motion that the defendant had submitted directly to the Fifth Circuit together with the appeal. This motion sought the use of feminine pronouns to describe the defendant, who was “‘biological[ly]’ . . . male” but identified as a woman. The panel interpreted this motion as aiming “at a minimum” to compel the government and district court to use feminine instead of masculine pronouns. The court proceeded to deny the motion, finding it had no authority to “require litigants, judges, court personnel, or anyone else to refer to . . . litigants with pronouns matching their subjective gender identity” rather than their biological sex. In other cases where a party who was born male identified as a woman, courts had sometimes opted to use the party’s preferred pronouns. But no court, the panel found, had done so “as a matter of binding precedent” or had “purported to obligate litigants or others to follow the practice.” Nor, the court held, did any federal statute justify imposing such a requirement.
@Flerp, Thanks for the further context, this is helpful and interesting. I note the dissent as to the motion to refer using preferred pronouns (same source):
IE, read on its face the motion was just a request for respect within the court in which it was filed, this was a free action that Duncan (and peers) could have granted or not at discretion, and they chose to deny respect instead of granting it. (I don’t find anything here inconsistent with or my characterization off of the wiki page, nor surprising given how wiki wrote it up, though added context is interesting and valued.)
Yes, I didn’t mean to suggest the summary contradicted anything you wrote. Just more context. The way this was talked about in the press, it came off like everyone was in a hearing and Varner was simply being asked to be referred it by preferred pronouns. As opposed to formal motions where the relief being requested wasn’t entirely clear (as is often the case in pro se prisoner matters).
I may be in the minority on this (I would hope not, but who knows), but I don’t think Judge Duncan should have been screamed down by law students at Stanford. (Nor do I think students should have “shut the university down” to protest Judge Duncan’s appearance at a Federalist Society event, as one commenter here seems to suggest would be proper.) Thankfully, Stanford ultimately agreed.
Wow that was unintelligible. Meant to say “Varner was simply asking to be referred to . . . “
sorry, not talking to you with that last comment. was talking to myself after a comment that got hung in moderation
Having taught at the university level, I agree with Breslin’s view, but with one caveat: for critical thinking and open debate to happen you first need tolerance.
People use terms like cancelation and cancel culture without defining them.
So, Define “cancelation”.
Explain how protesting of (a Constitutional right, not incidentally) an invited university speaker is “cancelation”
Breslin never uses the term and his essay isn’t about “cancel culture.”
I didn’t say he did.
I asked for a definition and an explanation for how protesting is cancelation.
Perhaps you would like to define it.
I suspect that the poor dears who whine the loudest about cancelation actually can’t define it.
Can you?
You should ask Diane, she’s the one who used the term.
SomeDAM Poet
I suspect that those that whine the loudest about cancel culture are seeking to cancel far more than the free speech rights of others.
That said their is quite some difference between a speaker who is opposed to abortion and one who incites hate against minorities of any kind.
Yiannopoulos was not ineffective as Flerp! claims . He was a point man for the American Goebbels, Bannon. That college tour was designed to draw a response that would be used to feed the claims of victimization so prevalent on the right. Witness any Trump rally.
And as we have seen since 2017 if the right in this country does not have an incident to feed those grievances they are more than willing to help create them.
Two of the most prominent news stories in the BLM violence turned out to be White Nationalist looking to establish a race war which they felt they would win.
The very first windows smashed in Minneapolis(in fact anywhere ) during the George Floyd protests, turned out to be a White Nationalist police officer from out of town. The two Police officers shot and killed on the West Coast were shot by boogaloo boys looking to start a race war. When an extremist ideology releases their version of Mein Kampf . Perhaps we should believe them, since the 90s the Turner Diaries has been public. Since the early 2000s the FBI has been warning about Right Wing Terrorists organizations.
So you are correct define ” Cancel Culture ” Cancelling an insurrectionist fascist like Bannon/ Milo/ Coulter (it was a joint tour) is quite different than an abortion opponent unless of course that abortion opponent is advocating violence against Doctors , patients , or opponents which many are.
As usual (x) Their = There
Joel, given that Milo was the “point man for the American Goebbels, Bannon,” I assume you think it was a good thing that protesters shut down his event with violence?
FLERP!
Pillows were not working.
But you must have missed when I questioned who exactly started the violence. There may be no excuse for others to follow. But when someone repeatedly tells you who they are perhaps it is time to believe them. The entire tour was staged to elicit a response and they were going to get one. No matter what it took.Or who had to throw the first stone.
You and I disagree there. Milo was awful and I have no idea why he was speaking at Berkeley, but the violent protests were inherently bad and also terrible optics, giving Milo exactly what he wanted.
FLERP!
Seems to me we agree. The violence gave Milo just what he and Bannon wanted. Not only were the two doing joint tours at the time. Bannon and
Coulter were advertised to be at the event. Changed only when the University objected to not having approved their appearance.
I suspect you aren’t familiar with how the right wing echo-sphere operates. You might want to ask ex Congressman Suozzi about that.
I can honestly say I almost felt guilty when he was the victim of a hit job.
Where we seem not to agree is that the appearance was designed to create a response. Preferably a violent one.
Well it certainly was not designed to expand the intellectual horizons of the student body. I think even you might have to agree with that.
Where we also may disagree is who may have thrown the first stone hours or Molotov cocktails after the 1500 peaceful protesters went home ,having achieved their goal of shutting hate speech down.
Exactly what they wanted
We definitely disagree. I asked you if “you think it was a good thing that protesters shut down his event with violence,” and you didn’t say no.
I’m gonna butt in to this argument about the Berkeley protest to refer to my reply above in Joel’s thread – the riot was done to protect vulnerable students (undocumented) from being doxxed during the speech, which was an active concern not just for the protesting students but for the college Student Affairs Office.
After cancellation and then some misc. property damage, the students have never been doxxed. You’re going to say that wasn’t worthwhile because of optics???
Getting deep in the weeds here. But give me any links you have that explain the details of this threatened doxxing. My general principle is that violence is bad, so the evidence needs to be compelling.
Optics aren’t unimportant. You may not be aware but the students came off extremely poorly in national media in this. When you make someone like Milo Y. look good by comparison, you are losing the game of public relations badly.
Doxxing as a recurrent feature of MY’s tour generally is pretty well known / easy to confirm by arbitrary googling.
sfgate. com /news/article/UC-warns-campus-group-Yiannopoulos-event-could-10901517.php describes the letter sent by the Student Affairs Office.
The wikipedia article wiki/2017_Berkeley_protests affirms with citation that BAMN is a radical immigrant (et al) rights group which was significantly responsible for the ‘infiltration’ of the peaceful protest and that their escalation very rapidly succeeded in getting the speech cancelled.
I’m interpolating between these somewhat for surety of the motive, but it is established that undocumented students were understood to be the specific targets, which salon. com/ 2018/01/31/antifa-vs-milo-yiannopoulos-who-won/ confirms while retrospectively assessing that this event significantly impeded his future speaking engagements by associating him with the implicit threat of property violence.
I don’t mean to denigrate optics in the abstract. But I think optics is a poor answer to specific individualized harms.
Nothing screams
“I peaked in a class room”,
like the use of semantic
gymnastics or linguistic jujitsu,
to keep the Bozos on the
School Bus in order…
You can’t engage in good faith with bad faith actors. People who spread hatred and intolerance and then whine when people try to prevent that are, by definition, bad faith actors. You wouldn’t expect a Jewish university to support anti-Semitic speakers or an HBCU to have racist speakers just to “show the other side” or something. So why should LGBTQ students or other minorities that it still seems to be okay to demean have to put up with speakers who deny their right to exist?
I think that Riley Gains is acting in good faith when she argues that trans female athletes have a uniform advantage of going through puberty as a male. It appears that the protesters at San Francisco State were not interested in a good faith discussion: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/04/07/us/former-ncaa-swimmer-riley-gaines-assault-san-francisco-state-university/index.html
“Wouldn’t this be better than protesting and giving their college a black eye in the media?
NO!
Those universities have started the fight and they should expect a black eye or even worse.
Good point. The University knew exactly who they were allowing on a Student and Publicly supported Campus. Hate speech is not an intellectual endeavor.
By doing so the University is forcing the Students and the Public to economically support hate speech.
A public university has to abide by the constitution, so it can not treat invited speakers differently based on the content of their speech. Private universities, on the other hand, can ban invited speakers based on the content of their speech.
“Somehow these 18- to 21-year-olds have never learned that their college is not their Personal Nanny, who should dry their tears when something upsets them. ”
This is typical condescending student hater speech. Often these ultraconservative speakers come to campus to spread their dogma. Students feel their campus is not these speakers’ temple.