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With Governor Roy Cooper (D) taking no action on the bill, the state of North Carolina has enacted the Restore Campus Free Speech Act, the first comprehensive campus free-speech legislation based on the Goldwater proposal. That proposal, which I [Stanley Kurtz (Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center)] co-authored along with Jim Manley and Jonathan Butcher of Arizona's Goldwater Institute, was released on January 31 and is now under consideration in several states. It's fitting that North Carolina should be the first state to enact a Goldwater-inspired law.
[...] The North Carolina Restore Campus Free Speech Act achieves most of what the Goldwater proposal sets out to do. It ensures that University of North Carolina policy will strongly affirm the importance of free expression. It prevents administrators from disinviting speakers whom members of the campus community wish to hear from. It establishes a system of disciplinary sanctions for students and anyone else who interferes with the free-speech rights of others, and ensures that students will be informed of those sanctions at freshman orientation. It reaffirms the principle that universities, at the official institutional level, ought to remain neutral on issues of public controversy to encourage the widest possible range of opinion and dialogue within the university itself. And it authorizes a special committee created by the Board of Regents to issue a yearly report to the public, the regents, the governor, and the legislature on the administrative handling of free-speech issues.
Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/450027/north-carolina-campus-free-speech-act-goldwater-proposal
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @02:12PM (14 children)
Extremely liberal here and I don't see this as a problem. It's not the place of the university to take sides. When you start encouraging the university to take a side you will invariably end up in scenarios where they take the 'wrong' side for whatever reason. I think the whole ideal is respectful disagreement. Attend the creationists talk. When they take questions ask them poignant questions with relevant facts that contradict their view. Or organize a date such that you'll have e.g. Richard Dawkins speak the following evening.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 11 2017, @02:21PM (1 child)
Abso-fucking-lutely. This is how one behaves in a free, civilized society.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @07:23PM
Nice to see your more sane personality get control of your fingers, if only for a single post.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Grishnakh on Friday August 11 2017, @03:54PM (11 children)
Why the fuck would I want to waste my valuable time attending a talk by a creationist, when I already know what they're spouting is utter bullshit? It's not my job to make sure everyone stays convinced of that fact. Arguments like yours seem to assume that everyone has infinite time and patience to listen to bullshit and then successfully argue it down. In reality, a lot of the bullshit-spewers are actually very talented at getting people to believe their bullshit, despite how horribly wrong it is. Just look at Hitler; he drummed up support from an entire nation with his bullshit. And look at Trump; much of the same there: millions of Americans fervently follow and believe in him no matter how much it's contradicted by factual evidence. Or look at all the anti-vaxxers, homeopathy fans, etc.: evidence (or lack thereof) means nothing to them and their religious beliefs in that stuff.
As for having Dawkins speak the following evening, you'll just get an entirely different crowd the next evening. How does that help anything?
Honestly, these controversial speeches seem to me like they really don't serve any useful purpose and only promote more extremism. Giving a nutcase or extremist a legitimate platform to air their views in effect lends the sense of credibility to their views, in a way that relegating them to ranting on a street corner does not.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 11 2017, @04:02PM (8 children)
You believe then that you have the right to tell people they are not allowed to even hear beliefs you disagree with, much less believe them? Dude, fascist much?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday August 11 2017, @04:40PM (7 children)
Where the fuck did you read that in my post? All I said was this crap is a waste of my time and frequently convinces other people despite its wrongness. My official position is that universities don't have any responsibility to provide a podium for these people. If they want to spout their bullshit, they can do it elsewhere, like on a street corner. We had morons like this (usually religious nuts) when I was in college, but they didn't get to reserve auditoriums, they had to stand outside in the sun and hope passerby students would stop and listen to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @06:16PM (3 children)
What he read is exactly what you wrote.
- 1. 'Things I do not agree with are bullshit.'
- 2. 'I can't be bothered to go to events with views I don't agree with and prove them wrong.'
- 3. 'Other people are too stupid to know as much as I do, so they can be conned without me being there.'
- 4. Hitler
- 5. 'Things I don't agree with serve no useful purpose and only promote extremism'
- 6. Due to #3 and #5 people trying to say things I disagree with should only be allowed to speak on street corners.
This is the problem with echo chambers. You don't realize how your views sound to people who are not part of your echo chamber. I don't think you even realize the dangerous levels of extremism in what you're saying.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday August 11 2017, @08:13PM (2 children)
You seem to be a nutcase, making up things in my post that aren't there. How is it "extremist" to advocate that a University has the right to be selective about who they invite?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @09:49PM
Oh wow, you put me in an awkward position here. You're in the wrong though. I think the key point you're missing is that universities won't be giving a podium to anyone, it is student groups who will invite speakers and every university has rules about doing so. If you were only talking about private universities then you'd have a point, but a public university should NOT engage in censoring the views of speakers invited by students. When you advocate for censorship it becomes normalized, and people will just go along with it.
Do you think the ACLU defends the KKK because they agree with them? Nope!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 13 2017, @11:32AM
Nobody here cares what you decide is worth your while. What we care about is who gets to decide who can or can't speak on a college campus. So when you say that there are some things you're not going to bother to go to certain talks, it's not to inform us that you are not indeed the single human on the planet who is perfected interested in every topic and has infinite time to attend every possible instance of public speech on a college campus.
And given that you immediately segued into this question indicates you did indeed advocate blocking speakers whose speech you're not interested in:
Who's doing the selection? You gave only one criteria for selection, whether you could be bothered to attend.
Because it's a university. Its whole purpose is to give the participants a place to communicate knowledge and ideas. A key part of that is to empower them to invite people with this knowledge and ideas to attend. Thus, students should have this power.
What's the mechanism behind this "forcing"? You've already stated that you wouldn't attend such speech, indicating that you don't believe that a random, little, extremist student group actually can force an extremely provocative and controversial speaker on you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FakeBeldin on Saturday August 12 2017, @09:43AM (2 children)
Out of mod points, so I'll comment instead of upvoting:
This.
Universities are places where young adults are rapidly maturing in a formative phase in their lives. I get it, everyone wants a piece of the pie. But the university is under no obligation to allow that. Their job is to make sure people get educated and research happens. Anything beyond that is up to the institutions and their sponsors.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday August 12 2017, @08:11PM
Thank you, finally someone who gets it, that universities are not places for people to endlessly argue left vs. right political issues or worse, arguing about whether the Holocaust happened or whether white nationalism is a good thing or not. If students want to argue that stuff on their own, that's their right, but that shouldn't be something a reputable university fosters by granting generous auditorium space and publicity. They really should stick to things like having eminent scientists lecture, or other academic arcana. If someone wants to hear Ann Coulter or her buddy Ahmadinejad speak, let them book some other venue for that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 13 2017, @11:41AM
Almost all universities have free speech policies or at least the pretense to such. Inviting speakers is a key exercise of free speech. And it's worth noting free speech is part of the job of making sure people get educated and research happens.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday August 11 2017, @07:18PM (1 child)
Maybe to find out *how* they spout it, to engage or convince people? If only the actual text mattered, you could probably just read the transcripts later for most talks.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday August 11 2017, @07:38PM
Why would I want to spend my time this way? If people are stupid enough to believe Creationism, that's their problem. I'd rather do something I enjoy with my very limited free time, not argue with morons. And giving a podium to these hucksters is only going to succeed in giving them more followers.