When student club jumps the shark - Univ. of Maine story

[marshwiggle]

It bothers me when people automatically assume any affiliation is equal to an endorsement. If a faculty supervises a student club, they make sure the club follows university guidelines -- they don't endorse the views of the club, nor the views of anyone the club invites to give a talk.

I also wish people realized that "banning" speakers from campus makes their (expected) message more persuasive. "Here's information [ X ] doesn't want YOU to have!!!" is the best sales pitch. Especially since, never having to air that view, people can't see through the flimsiness of the evidence. And if your students can't see through the flimsiness of the evidence... well, not a great endorsement of the educational quality at that institution, no? Sounds like those students aren't at all trained in "critical thinking."

Who was talking about banning speakers? There's obviously no need for an advisor to endorse all the actions of a club or all its views, but if I was an advisor to a club and that club brought someone to campus who was a holocaust denier or an avowed white supremacist, I would certainly resign. They can do what they want, but I don't want to be associated with people like that.

I never understand why people have these weird reductionist ideas of free speech. I can both affirm the right of a student group to bring a noxious speaker to campus, but also harshly criticize them for choosing to give such a person a platform.

The big problem is that "noxious" is in the eye of the beholder. Now that people are claiming they feel "unsafe" when hearing basically any idea that they don't agree with, this grants the heckler's (or perhaps "delicate flower's" ) veto to potentially anything.

[Caracal]

It bothers me when people automatically assume any affiliation is equal to an endorsement. If a faculty supervises a student club, they make sure the club follows university guidelines -- they don't endorse the views of the club, nor the views of anyone the club invites to give a talk.

I also wish people realized that "banning" speakers from campus makes their (expected) message more persuasive. "Here's information [ X ] doesn't want YOU to have!!!" is the best sales pitch. Especially since, never having to air that view, people can't see through the flimsiness of the evidence. And if your students can't see through the flimsiness of the evidence... well, not a great endorsement of the educational quality at that institution, no? Sounds like those students aren't at all trained in "critical thinking."

Who was talking about banning speakers? There's obviously no need for an advisor to endorse all the actions of a club or all its views, but if I was an advisor to a club and that club brought someone to campus who was a holocaust denier or an avowed white supremacist, I would certainly resign. They can do what they want, but I don't want to be associated with people like that.

I never understand why people have these weird reductionist ideas of free speech. I can both affirm the right of a student group to bring a noxious speaker to campus, but also harshly criticize them for choosing to give such a person a platform.

The big problem is that "noxious" is in the eye of the beholder. Now that people are claiming they feel "unsafe" when hearing basically any idea that they don't agree with, this grants the heckler's (or perhaps "delicate flower's" ) veto to potentially anything.

Of course it is in the eye of the beholder and the faculty advisor and anyone else on campus is the beholder. Again youre employing this move where you bring up ideas about snowflake culture that nobody introduced in order to try to portray people as victims because other people condemn how they choose to exercise their righs of free speech. There's no right not to have people say you're jerks and they don't want to be associated with you.

[pigou]

Who was talking about banning speakers? There's obviously no need for an advisor to endorse all the actions of a club or all its views, but if I was an advisor to a club and that club brought someone to campus who was a holocaust denier or an avowed white supremacist, I would certainly resign. They can do what they want, but I don't want to be associated with people like that.

I never understand why people have these weird reductionist ideas of free speech. I can both affirm the right of a student group to bring a noxious speaker to campus, but also harshly criticize them for choosing to give such a person a platform.

Sorry, this wasn't directed at you. Campuses have absolutely "uninvited" speakers -- including people like Bill Maher, whom one may disagree with, but who is hardly "noxious."

In practice, free speech is a pretty absolute issue. We don't have to go back far to see the government trying to curtail it, e.g. by making it a crime to hand out leaflets opposing the Vietnam War for "undermining the war effort." Something the Supreme Court upheld as constitutional, because there are limits to free speech... a decision, I think, we're all happy the court later reversed.

Yes, private universities aren't bound by the first amendment, but that argument would miss the point: the first amendment is there (and first) for a reason and its value exists anywhere ideas are supposed to be debated.

There's no right not to have people say you're jerks and they don't want to be associated with you.

This is, of course, right. But it stands to reason that the university should ensure clubs are able to meet the administrative requirements the university imposes on them. The faculty adviser is there largely to ensure compliance with procedures, which they can do without taking a stance on the club's political positions.

More generally, it also seems like a really sad indictment of the university's intellectual environment if they can't find a single conservative who'll keep the club going. How are the students supposed to be prepared to deal with conflicting beliefs when they seemingly aren't going to encounter them on campus?