I think this is about right. Modern conservatism seems to need its followers to believe that they are the oppressed underdog at all times, and officially sanctioning their bigoted rants only contributes to their Rand-like view that the Man is out to oppress them, poor banished children of Rove.

On the other hand, come the fuck on. I don't believe for a minute that the conservatives would be cheering on someone who took Christian or Jewish texts out of context in this way. I have no idea what the correct response would be but, christ almighty this game of "i'm not touching you, i'm not touching you" is getting old.

Modern conservatism seems to need its followers to believe that they are the oppressed underdog at all times, and officially sanctioning their bigoted rants only contributes to their Rand-like view that the Man is out to oppress them, poor banished children of Rove.

Stop oppressing me, Cala.

So true: it is getting old. I think coming down on the students via harrassment charges is a bad idea-- what's really needed is jihad, if you catch my drift.

I would gladly contribute to parallel ads re Christianity and Judaism. Well, I'd feel badly about the latter, since anti-Semitism is still a thing.

I'm not touching you, Idealist. I'm not touching you!

Well, I'd feel badly about the latter, since anti-Semitism is still a thing.

Yeah, this is really the point. Picking on Christianity when it's the majority religion in the country and even the abortion bombers aren't taken as representative of Christians is practically speaking, unlikely to lead to any violence. A smaller group? Not the same. Still, I think the best response would be for a student group to take out a parallel ad showing why the other group were idiots.

My point is just that I'd be willing to bet money than the handwringers of the apocalypse wouldn't be defending freedom of speech if the university had sanctioned a group promoting hate speech against Jews or Christians. The cartoon controversy was about Freedom Of Speech. Chocolate Jesus? A horrible assault upon religion and daffodils and ponies.

I'm not sure it really increases the potential for violence, but it sure is a prickish thing to do to someone.

I hate people.

People: boo!

Down with people!

Down with people who can't pronounce "shibboleth"!

Down with undergrads!

Get down!

[embrace jihad!!]
[twinkle!]

I don't know that the disciplinary action is a bad idea. Don't you think a university can successfully maintain the distinction between (A) expressing disfavored points of view and (B) being a hostile asshole, and ban the second in university-supported contexts? "We don't care what positions you put forth, but be civil about it, and civility is enforced on an 'I know it when I see it' basis" seems workable to me.

Sure, they'll feel put upon, but there's a limit to how hard anyone should worry about that.

Yer man Spencer is obviously a prick.

Just in case some people need reminders—[embrace jihad!!].

13: The problem with that is that the article in question is pretty much assholish, but it's just a list of "facts" and points of view. It's why it's the "I'm not touching you" game... they're not coarse, or hostile, or doing anything really wrong. It's just an opposing view of Islam Awareness week, right? What's your problem, LB, can't you handle opposing views? &c.

LB, come on, in practice that's going to be transparently "boo for stuff we don't like but hurray for inflammatory positions we do like."

yeah, what Cala said. FIRE has half a point in saying that, had the same stunt been pulled by the Moderate Muslims for Reform, it would have been a bold stand for freedom.

You think? There's no hope of reasonably evenhanded enforcement by a university administration? It just seems that enforcement of civility is a lot more intellectually honest than any other approach (in terms of what the university actually wants to mandate), and there's a value to having university-sponsored speech be reasonably civil.

This is Tufts, right? Informal methods of shunning should work fine. (That said, Dems and Dem-friendlies tend to be overly forgiving.) I'd rather administration actions were minimal, and came into play only where clearly necessary. Otherwise, it's an unnecessary fight on unnecessary terms.

But it *is* reasonably civil. The reason the content is rude is that it's inaccurate and made by a bunch of whiny enwhitled wannabes, not that it's namecalling or crude. I really think the best response would be for someone (preferably another student) to go through blow by blow in an editorial and explain why each of their assertions was wrong and calling them on their bullshit. ("Gee, why would you be so hellbent in taking everything out of context....?")

There's no hope of reasonably evenhanded enforcement by a university administration?

Wouldn't mandating civility just turn things into a downward spiral of who can complain the loudest about being offended the most by making it university policy to react to such complaints, without the countervailing factor of "the university's mission is the search for truth, and sometimes people will be offended by this, and while we are sorry this occurs, we cannot let it change our purpose"?

I do think. Administrations botch this stuff all the time. Also, campuses are known for all sorts of uncivil displays-- is The Vagina Monologues civil? Is that awful undergrad dance piece about abortion rights? (I sat through one of these a long time ago. Wow, was it awful.)

I've been at two schools where, over the time I was there (about 1995 to 2005), the conservative paper went from publishing well-reasoned conservative argument/opinion to being papers that only indulged in backbiting, ridicule, and personal harrassment. There was a very clear shift in chosen method, and it was depressing to watch.

I think it may have something to do with the National Review's funding of little [College] Reviews everywhere.

Tim, you're too polite. We have to kidnap the conservative editorial staff and tell them they all look like Mr Bean.

It's clear that LB is a total dhimicrat. Of course she wants speech codes; she probably secretly wants burkas.

There's no hope of reasonably evenhanded enforcement by a university administration?

Even-handed in light of the political/social views of the administrators, sure.

Even-handed in light of the political/social views of the administrators, sure.

There's no way around that, even in the most minimal of codes. But it's worth remembering that, by and large, The Very Face of the Left has, by far, the stronger hand on social matters on most US campuses. I'd be astonished if that isn't true at Tufts.

When I was in high school, there was a group of Southerners and Texans (mostly the Texans) who were obsessed with the confederate flag. They put one up in the auditorium as a prank one night.

This was at the same time that Malcolm X was really popular. Denzel Washington's movie came out that year. At some point the headmaster impsoed a moratorium on both of those symbols. Treating them as equivalent was really crappy.

One day some kids started singing Dixie as an African American girl walked down the hall. There were a couple of kids who cried "Free Speech." There was a lot of lamenting, and the husband of one of the teachers who worked ina corporate environment said that that sort of behavior would never be tolerated in an office.

It was total bullshit. The idea that students at a private school have a right to free speech is absurd. Private schools have every right to try to inculcate moral values.

Private universities are in a different position, because undergrads are supposed to be adults, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to have administrators distance themselves from the views without imposing official sanctions.

They could say something like, "We welcome debate; vigorous debate requires that peopel argue their views, and this is the side that we come down on."

The only Tufts professor who comes to mind is D C Dennett. I wonder what his position on all this is.

Eh, maybe. You'd need a competently evenhanded administration to do it.

But I'd disagree that this isn't uncivil -- deliberate inaccuracy to make a group look bad is uncivil, and I think the mature response to "We weren't being deliberately inaccurate - we believe everything in this ad is absolutely true in detail and implication." is "Oh, grow up. As the administration, we may not be able to prove if you were maliciously wrong or just nitwits, but this isn't a court of law and we don't have to."

(I'm resting a lot of this on the assumption that the university is sponsoring the paper. If it's completely privately funded and not affiliated with the university at all, yeah, the sanctions were inappropriate.)

Eh, maybe. You'd need a competently evenhanded administration to do it.

HAHAHAHAHA. [tears] HAHAHAHAHA.

But I'd disagree that this isn't uncivil -- deliberate inaccuracy to make a group look bad is uncivil, and I think the mature response to "We weren't being deliberately inaccurate - we believe everything in this ad is absolutely true in detail and implication."

I think you'd run into the problem that any inflammatory position is likely to be deliberately inaccurate in some respect. Any flyer or ad about women's issues, or the plight of Palestianian children, or the Falun Gong could probably be nitpicked to the same extent.

It's not that deliberate inaccuracy isn't uncivil, in that arguing in bad faith isn't civil, it's that it's very hard to establish a rule like that ("Don't say anything inflammatory unless you can prove your interpretation is accepted") that doesn't also get rid of other inflammatory positions that a university might want to support.

But it's worth remembering that, by and large, The Very Face of the Left has, by far, the stronger hand on social matters on most US campuses.

My point exactly. That is what is problematic with LB's suggestion. It sounds nice when you know that those with whom you share political/social views are in power, but when the pendulum swings, it is far less appealing. This is the beauty of the almost complete lack of discretion courts have under the First Amendment. The Constitution does not leave it up to those in power to decide whether criticism--including criticism of them--is appropriately "civil."

It wasn't clear to me from Volokh's posts what the "sanctions" amounted to.

If the sanctions just amount to saying "You're a bunch of dicks," then I guess that's okay, but probably unnecessary, since that's obvious.

If they amount to suspension or expulsion of students, then that's not okay.

If they amount to "you're no longer receiving University funding," then I lean toward thinking that's not okay, for pretty much the reasons that Volokh gave.

This is a hard issue to think about without invoking banned analogies.

This sounds to me like one of those situations in which we have to agree that, yes, people have the right to be assholes. Luckily, we also have the right to call them assholes.

From a skim of the pdf linked at FIRE's site, it looks like the consequence is that all content has to be attributed to specific persons, and the committee asks student government to consider the behavior of student groups in making future funding decisions.

36: That seems fine.

Right, there are a long list of activities that might be parsed as uncivil. Things I've seen that might be in danger from an evenhandedly-enforced policy: mock Palestinian checkpoints, abortion demonstrations, poverty shanties, affirmative action bake sales...the whole genre of political theater is going to be rife with "unfair implications," but that's what makes it something different from the carefully-worded argument.

37: it's getting cold in here, so put on all your clothes. You have to wonder what happens to the named student who publishes something that constitutes harrassment. Remember the water buffalo incident? It can be an enormous pain to be charged with violating this sort of policy.

39: I'm not sure I understand your concern. I assume it's an enormous pain to be charged with violating any sort of policy, even those--say sexual assault--we think of as uncontroversially appropriate.

36: In that case, I say "not okay", since that constitutes an implicit threat to suspend or expel a student who wrote something similar non-anonymously (nonymously?).

41: Disagree. I can't see how "ask others to look at the group's history in funding decisions" can be interpreted to be "we'll expel them if we catch them."

40: the problem is the chilling effect that comes with the university signalling that the consequences for the student who writes the next obnoxious thing will be pretty severe.

an implicit threat to suspend or expel a student who wrote something similar non-anonymously

Doesn't have to be. Could just be a requirement to stand, publicly, behind what you write.

On the other hand, does that really ban anonymous writing? That can't be good.

the problem is the chilling effect that comes with the university signalling that the consequences for the student who writes the next obnoxious thing will be pretty severe.

I guess I'm unclear where "pretty severe" comes from. Also, I'm fine with a chilling effect--that's rather the point of such policies--I just want it not to be very significant.

Private school, so all bets are off. These are rich winger kids, they can go to a winger college or a public school to pull this shit.

42: In 41, I'm talking about the ban on non-anonymous writing. That's an implicit threat to expel or suspend an author of similar future writings. I'm on the fence about the explicit threat to defund the publication.

44: That's why it's an implicit threat, not an explicit one.

45: "Pretty severe" is my guess as to the punishments for an individual student found to have violated the policy. (I looked quickly, but didn't find any document stating the usual punishments.)

46: All bets are off wrt the legal right of Tufts to do this, I suppose. If the group sued Tufts, I guess their claim would be dismissed because Tufts is private, although IANAL. (Although I'm sure Tufts receives government funding, and that may complicate things legally.)

The question is this: was this particular judgment justified ethically or pragmatically for Tufts, and would similar judgments be justified for other private universities.

Your fourth paragraph does the best job I've ever seen in articulating the problems universities face in dealing with students, whether it's the assholes or the school shooting victims. The conservative Kuwaiti grandpa whose granddaughter is in PK's class told me in no uncertain terms that it's clearly V Tech's fault that those kids got killed, and all I could do was say, "uh, it's not really that simple."

Also, no one needs to do a response ad about Christians and Jews; what they need is to do one about Christians and campus Republicans.

Although I'm sure Tufts receives government funding, and that may complicate things legally.

Doubt it. I went to BYU for a few semesters. They get govt. funding, and they've got rules like you wouldn't believe. Students couldn't wear shorts on campus until the 90's. As a guy, hair long enough to touch my collar could get me disciplined. They've canned full professors for publishing things the church didn't like.

That aside, I personally think the administration at Tufts should back off. Unless it's open harassment or inciting violence, let it go. It's college, everyone is an adult, and it's time to learn the world is full of assholes.

When do they assholes learn that?

When someone does what you suggested in 51. Gotta learn to hit back.

Damn, B, I was hoping you'd take some crazy view so I could put off working out for a few more indolent minutes.

It sometimes seems like the university comes up with a million ways of infantilizing students, each of which is a good idea by itself but when taken together yields a culture of whine.

53: I don't think that (i.e. that the world is full of assholes) is the lesson that assholes qua assholes need to learn.

(The whiny Christians who are offended by a chocolate Jesus do need to learn that lesson. But that's not because they're assholes.)

What they need to learn is how not to be assholes. Which the university does have a role in teaching, but not via policies that threaten to expel or suspend assholes.

What they need to learn is how not to be assholes

They're not kids. At that age, it's going to have to be learned the hard way, and that means someone fighting back.

The problem is that both modern conservatism and student activism (1) absolutely love being oppressed, and (2) have strange and wondrous views of how the power structure works and what their place in it is. Trying to shut them down just encourages them. You can try to treat it as a teachable moment and hope that you reach the segment of the student population that leans toward these folks but is still persuadable, but with the hard-core wingers discipline is usually going to be couterproductive.

but not via policies that threaten to expel or suspend assholes.

On the other hand, the recent story about the AutoAdmit guy who got his job offer rescinded is fabulous. What we need is more shit like that happening.

The real problem is that university discipline is seen as weak or unreal--unlike losing a job. Thus it's easy to shrug off as "liberal oppression." Maybe if we just start booting people out that'll work.

How's that for you, Labs? I'm half serious. Certainly our failure to boot people caught for plagiarizing makes us seem weak.

On the other hand, the recent story about the AutoAdmit guy who got his job offer rescinded is fabulous. What we need is more shit like that happening.

'Zactly.

57: But they are kids. There's a lot of maturing that goes on between the ages of 18 and 25, and part of that is learning how not to be an asshole.

Hell, I still get occasional lessons in how not to be an asshole, and I'm 36.

Here's another issue, though, prompted by the Volokh links (god, why did I click on those??). Conservatives need to stop acting like college students are children and expect their junior counterparts to act like adults. One sentence about the article itself, and an entire blathery post about Tufts "disciplining" the students (which we all know amounts to nothing). If the kids are just kids, then it's the job of the university to discipline them for behaving badly; if they're adults entitled to free speech protection, then they should be held to some standards.

Thus it's easy to shrug off as "liberal oppression." Maybe if we just start booting people out that'll work.

"You think that's liberal oppression. I'll show you liberal oppression!"

Somehow I doubt that'll work. Or rather, the downside of such a policy would outweigh the upside. Anyway, I wouldn't want to attend a university with such policies. Of course, I wouldn't have attended BYU either. In the end, I think a lot of debates like this really come down to the question of what kind of community/university/country/world we want to live in.

Why would they do that, when they don't even expect themselves to act like adults?

Nah, just take the consumer model of education to its logical conclusion: "we reserve the right to refuse service."

64 to 62.

Also, think NRA. Trying to destroy them just makes them stronger.

And now I'm banned.

64: Then that's the proper approach: not "what those students wrote was really obnoxious, you know" but rather, "oh stop being such pussies: we didn't even kick you out."

Perhaps we just need to reinstitute the dunce cap. Do something stupid, wear the dunce cap for a week or two. But then there would be all kinds of pressure to extend it to faculty and administration, and pretty soon the whole damn campus would be running around in dunce caps.

Certainly our failure to boot people caught for plagiarizing makes us seem weak.

Seem?

Eh, I agree with zadfrack. Even if I thought there was value in isolating the rightwing loons on their own campuses, I wouldn't support such a policy because almost assuredly the first targets wouldn't be the conservatives, but pretty much any civil disobedience-type activist group. Unions, rape awareness groups, those dear Palestianian checkpoints would almost certainly be the first on the chopping block. No thanks.

69: Agreed.

70: Maybe we could require the victimology groups to have to present actual evidence, to be assessed by a panel of faculty.

Nah, just take the consumer model of education to its logical conclusion: "we reserve the right to refuse service."

Isn't that what the University of Phoenix does? Not that it's necessarily a bad idea, and hey, I'm sure that a lot of people get a valuable education there. Not sure it's the answer to what colleges should be about tho.

I am pleased to have successfully transformed this thread from like-minded tut-tutting to argument, and look forward to its erupting into flames any minute now.

You know, the student civil disobedience types are all cute and shit, but it wouldn't hurt anything for them to start developing an acquaintance with reality too. Which is not to say that it would be a good idea to try to suppress them, but a lot of it is fairly silly stuff, and that energy could actually do some good if it were directed somewhere besides overdramatic preaching to the choir.

Indeed. Part of it is obviously just your garden-variety adolescent forming of group identities. The problem is that stupid people graduate and then go out into the world thinking that feminists and conservatives are really like that. Whereas most of your more doctrinaire conservatives actually aren't spoiled rich liberal arts educated kids; they're rural working class and suburban middle-management types.

Dude, B, you're flaming yourself!

Kind of like a waiter friend of ours, who's gay, and who managed to dip his tie in a candle one night while leaning over a table. The kitchen had a lot of fun with that.

58: To comment once before leaving to go out and have! fun!, I would quibble here just a tiny bit. It's not so much that student activists love being oppressed (I can't really speak for student conservatives) as that the language of authenticity for student activists requires seeming to love being oppressed. Middle class student activists are always trying to figure out how to phrase things properly both out of a genuine and helpful self-awareness and because they're really anxious about seeming "authentic", when as middle class people they don't feel "authentic". This is why they often adopt the rhetoric that they assume is used by proletarians everywhere, or by "authentic" activists with world-historical standing.

This rhetoric not only shapes how they express things and hence the plans they make, but can even over-ride doubts or more nuanced thinking. IIRC, there's a lot of middle class student activists who will have a fairly nuanced understanding of things if you can talk to them off the record; but in an official activist gathering things get a bit formulaic.

That is, student activists often don't really love being oppressed, but they believe that being oppressed is the only way to correctly perform activism.

This is dumb, of course, but it's a response to a real question: how, if you're middle class/white/straight/etc and have a fancy college education, can you effectively work "against" yourself and your priviledges and "for" other people? Do you try to mimic them and ignore your origins? Do you try to use your knowledge of the system to "lead" interactions with it? Do you adopt a formula so that you know what to do all the time? None of these are really satisfactory, and all of them can lead to disaster.

College activists! It would be interesting to make a book about college activists fifteen years on and see what they think. Neither selling out nor continued activism seem satisfactory for most people.

The moral of this story? Go to the best school you can and become a corporate tax accountant, using your wealth to shield yourself from as much discomfort and anxiety as possible.

76: I was trying to keep from working on an article that's due in three days. (Un?)fortunately, it doesn't seem to have worked, and I'm actually getting some work done. Go figure.

College activists! It would be interesting to make a book about college activists fifteen years on and see what they think.

The ones from the Sixties are all lawyers and stockbrokers except for a few living on the streets in Santa Monica.

If the kids are just kids, then it's the job of the university to discipline them for behaving badly; if they're adults entitled to free speech protection, then they should be held to some standards.

I like this a lot and it lets us play "where is the outrage?" with Volokh.

80: I've never seen any basis for this stereotype. In every activist group I have ever worked with, there are a substantial number of gray pony tails. Peace groups, in particular, tend to be populated solely by aging 60s radicals, making you think that the left has done no recruiting since 1970. Environmental groups look much more youthful, though.

Nothing's more fun than hoisting the Volokh types with their own petards.

I agree with FL. Tufts is out to lunch if they discipline people on this.

Plus, Islam is a stupid made-up religion just like all the other stupid made-up religions. European style blasphemy laws skeeve me out.

If the kids are just kids, then it's the job of the university to discipline them for behaving badly; if they're adults entitled to free speech protection, then they should be held to some standards.

I don't buy this. It is silly for colleges to restrict speech.

Getting expelled from college is usually worse than being fired from a job. At worse you can end up wasting years of your life and tens of thousands in debt. You can always get another job.

And you can usually go to another college, too. Or get a job.

Yeah, but then they all end up going to crazy rightwing colleges which end up feeding right into the Republican policymaking wing of things, and then not only do we end up with crazy people running the country, we have a whole bunch of liberals who never heard anybody seriously argue Infamous Position X, so no one must really hold it.

Better solution: allow the administration to throw water balloons at angsty activists.

Why did I think it was a good idea to start a post going through the Tufts publication claim by claim?

Cuz you a philosophe, man.

87: I'm cool with the crazy rightwing colleges, given their track record so far.

it's horrible. I'm halfway through but I've become completely bored.

Not a lot of free speech supporters here it would appear.

78: I think partly we're talking about different sorts of activists. I'm thinking of the ones who are busy protesting some perceived outrage on campus without making any particular effort to understand or think about why the situation might have come to be as it is, what would actually be involved in changing it, what a workable alternative would look like, etc. It's all "look what The Man is doing to us" and it's tiresome as hell.

I know a guy who's 67 years old and has been continuously active for at least 40 years.

I've been active for all of my 25 years, except for when I've been asleep, and sometimes even then.

"Active" in some vegetative philosophical sense, we presume.

My appetitive faculties know no rest.

80: I figure they were mostly upper-middle class college kids then and they're upper-middle-class now. I sure didn't see any psychedelic VWs at the last '60s folk music and medical prosthesis event I attended, just a sea of gray, lots of Rolexes, and a few sullen kids semi-humoring their doddering ancients.

92: Nearly everyone has said that Tufts was wrong for censuring the students. I think the question isn't so much on where we come down on free speech but where you come down on reading.

What Cala said. Are you even reading the same thread Shearer?

It's not a free speech issue if the government isn't censoring it.

101:Nonsense.There is such a thing as substantive free speech. c.f. JS Mill.

101: It's still a free speech issue, just not one covered by the 1st Amendment.

Shearer doesn't support the free speech of the Tufts administration, it appears.

#62: if they're adults entitled to free speech protection, then they should be held to some standards.

That's exactly wrong. Yes, yes, colleges aren't the government, but if college students are entitled to free speech protection, which they are, then it is right to hold them to the constitutional limits of free speech, not to some arbitrarily-picked "standards".

Which is why Tufts was way off-base for punishing these students: If it's going to host a weeklong series of events in which some students promote a certain point of view ("Islam is super cool, dude!"), then it has a responsibility to, at the very least, tolerate other students airing an opposing view ("No way, man, Islam is wack!"). Whether one group or the other has the better argument is entirely beside the point.

There are social standards as well as legal/authoritarian ones, didn't you know, asshole?