Ken Berwitz
Is it unreasonable for Yale University to suggest – not demand outright, but suggest – that, on halloween, students should be aware that some costumes could be offensive to others and that they should consider not wearing such costumes?
Nope.
Is it unreasonable for a faculty member – also an administrator at one of the residence buildings – to say that, while she agrees with the letter\’s general sentiment, it is up to the students to decide what kind of costume they will wear, and that free speech means they have latitude to be obnoxious or even offensive?
Nope.
Now: is it unreasonable to her husband – also a faculty member – to be accosted, subjected to a profane tirade, and intimidatingly told he has to apologize for what his wife said…in the name of free speech?
Uh….what was that?
Here is a key paragraph from the faculty member/residence administrator, Erika Christakis:
I don\’t wish totrivialize genuine concerns about cultural and personal representation, andother challenges to our lived experience in a plural community. I know thatmany decent people have proposed guidelines on Halloween costumes from a spiritof avoiding hurt and offense. I laud those goals, in theory, as most of us do.But in practice, I wonder if we should reflect more transparently, as acommunity, on the consequences of an institutional (which is to say:bureaucratic and administrative) exercise of implied control over collegestudents.
And here is what her husband was subjected to, as excerpted from Liam Stack\’s article in today\’s New York Times (where you can read a full account of this incident…which I hope you do):
Ms. Christakis\’s email also led to at least one heatedencounter on campus between her husband, Nicholas Christakis, a faculty memberwho works in the same residential college, and a large group of students whodemanded that he apologize for the beliefs expressed by him and his wife, whichthey said failed to create a “safe space” for them.
When he was unwilling to do so, the students angrilycursed and yelled at him, according to a video posted to YouTube bya free speech group critical of the debate.
Let me get this straight: a “free speech group” cursed at, and demanded an apology from the husband of someone who dared to exercise her right to…free speech?
What the eff are they learning over there? Doctorates in Professional Aggrievement? This is what is supposed to prepare them for the post-Yale real world?
This, folks, is what our colleges and universities have become. Cesspools of intolerance and narrowmindedness — run almost exclusively by the intolerant, narrowminded left.
Let me know when you hear about a protest demanding more intensive learning in areas that can benefit students and the people around them when they leave their uber-PC campus bubble – their self-imagined “safe space” where everything is juuu-u-u-u-uuuust right, and deal with reality, OK?
