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Comment by necubi

9 days ago

Oh hey, Wesleyan on HN! I’m an alumnus (matriculated a year or two after Roth became president). Wesleyan has a rich history of activism and protest, and not always entirely peaceful (Roth’s predecessor, Doug Bennet, had his office firebombed at one point).

I’ve had a few opportunities to speak with Roth since the Gaza war started, and I’ve always found him particularly thoughtful about balancing freedom of expression with a need to provide a safe and open learning environment for everyone on campus. In particular, he never gave in to the unlimited demands of protestors while still defending their right to protest.

In part, he had the moral weight to do that because—unlike many university presidents—he did not give in to the illiberal demands of the left to chill speech post-2020, which then were turned against the left over the past year.

I don’t see any particularly good outcome from any of this; the risk of damaging the incredibly successful American university system is high. Certainly smart foreign students who long dreamed of studying in the US will be having second thoughts if they can be arbitrarily and indefinitely detained.

But I hope the universities that do make it through do with a stronger commitment to the (small l) liberal values of freedom of expression , academic freedom, and intellectual diversity.

93 comments

necubi

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beepbooptheory  9 days ago

Ok, I'll bite: in your view, what were the illiberal "demands" post-2020? Reading tfa, this kind of rendering feels a little too pat for him. Namely, its one thing to argue against the kind of knee-jerk moralism of well-meaning woke liberal arts kids, its quite another to imply a kind of "capital L" program to "chill speech."

Like, c'mon, are we really still doing this now? Roth himself is sensible enough to not be, in his words, "blaming the victim" at this point, what calls you to essentially do it for him anyway? It's nothing but out of touch at this point, and adds nothing to the discourse but conspiratorial noise. If I may assume a rough age based on your forthrightness, any single kid in school in 2020 was and is a lot less culpable for this current moment than you or I. We can set an example and be mature enough to own that, instead of, I don't know, forever being tortured by the real or perceived condescension of kids.

  • throwaway389234  8 days ago

    It is a smaller step to further the justifications than to deal with the often severe implications (to the self-image) of having been wrong. The more obvious it becomes having been wrong, the more necessary the justifications are and the more absurd they become. As having someone accepting your absurd justifications becomes proof of being blameless.

    • throwaway389234  8 days ago

      I should add that I'm not referring to beepbooptheory, but in response to "are we really still doing this now?".

  • throwawayqqq11  8 days ago

    It's nothing but out of touch at this point, and adds nothing to the discourse

    Exactly. Its a communications problem.

    Its hard to have a decent critical conversation when one side has a biased view about $symbol. Both communicating parties need to reach the same interpretation of a message, otherwise the conversation is broken. Thats why you shouldnt say the N-word or throw out a heil heart on stage (unless you want to hide behind this ambiguity). Or why its so difficult to have critical conversations with strong believers, for you its just evolution or vaccines but for the other side it may affect the core of their identity and the ape goes defense mode.

    The result is that the discourse does not deal with differentiated cases but _only_ with simplistic labels like "chill speech", "woke", etc. because the more biased side drags it down into the mud.

    For instance, the "chill speech" label is actually dependent on the "racist" label that initiated it. If a case shows clear racist behavior, then dismissing the lefts reaction as censorship is unjustified or biased. The other way works too, if there is no racist behavior, the censorship blame would be justified.

    And since you cant look into peoples heads to clearly identify racist intentions, it falls back to interpreting messages. The problem with biased people is, they are not aware even of their unawareness. If you would ask Musk whether he is a neo-nazi, his response would be something like "hell no". Fast forward the dystopian timeline and his response might be "always have been".

    The left has IMO more unbiased awareness about systemic issues -- but is not free of bias either. The right is in its core biased indentity politics about $culture -- but is not totally host to tribalism either.

    My advise, avoid popular symbols at all cost and if you come close to using one, augment it with case specific background, even a vague "_unjustified_ chill of speech" would suffice. If someone opens with "the woke left" and shows no signs of differentiation -- or even better, acknowledgement of core leftist topics -- i mentally turn away. The comment you replied to was about personal anekdotes and projections and the one symbol that rubs me the wrong way too, even before trumps abuse.

mlindner  9 days ago

[flagged]

  • matteoraso  8 days ago

    >It's not that hard as a foreign student to not join political protests in favor of terrorist groups.

    I obviously don't support terrorism, but people unambiguously have the right to protest in favour of terrorist groups. It's only when they provide material support to these groups that they actually commit a crime.

  • nl  9 days ago

    Who is supporting terrorist groups? Pro-Palestinian protesting is not support for terrorism.

  • _fizz_buzz_  8 days ago

    > Many countries completely ban non citizens from joining political protests, even ostensibly western countries.

    Which ones?

    • switch007  8 days ago

      In the UK we don't discriminate based on citizenship, or even if the protests are political or not !

      Protest marches - no wait, the term is less specific: "public processions" - can have restrictions imposed for basically any reason. Restrictions can be imposed if (this is just a selection):

      - They basically generate noise

      - May cause prolonged disruption of access to any essential goods or any essential service

      - May cause the prevention of, or a hindrance that is more than minor to, the carrying out of day-to-day activities

      - May cause the prevention of, or a delay that is more than minor to, the delivery of a time-sensitive product to consumers of that product

      Not forgetting there are probably 10-20 general Public Order Offences that can be used against a person, such as wilful obstruction of a highway or public nuisance.

      Then we also have Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (SDPOs). SDPOs are civil orders that enable courts to place conditions or restrictions on an individual aged over 18 (such as restrictions on where they can go and when) with the aim of preventing them from engaging in protest-related activity that could cause disruption. Breaching an SDPO is a criminal offence.

      And the cherry on the cake: by law you must tell the police in writing 6 days before a public march if you're the organiser (which is to say, get the police's permission)

      4 replies →

    • immibis  8 days ago

      Germany bans pro-Palestine protests (officially they're still legal, but they've been arresting people since it began and they've just started deporting people for participating in completely legal protests) but I think that's a slightly different criterion than the one you asked for.

      20 replies →

  • ok_dad  8 days ago

    > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

  • adhamsalama  8 days ago

    Supporting Palestinians that Israel has been killing for over a year (+50k killed, most were women and children), while starving the rest and ethnically cleansing them, is not supporting terrorism.

  • rob_c  8 days ago

    I strongly agree, unfortunately they feel strongly differently after spending a lot of money to get on the courses. Frankly the law of the land is the latter, but this is one of the problems with cladding cultures and attitudes which needs addressing rather than glossing over...

brightlancer  8 days ago

> Wesleyan has a rich history of activism and protest, and not always entirely peaceful (Roth’s predecessor, Doug Bennet, had his office firebombed at one point).

Arson is not protest. Arson is a VIOLENT type of activism, which is legally classified as terrorism.

Trump (or anybody) shouldn't be allowed to punish folks for speech or peaceful protest. Unfortunately, folks are calling VIOLENT acts like arson and battery "protest", and threats of bodily harm "speech" ("harassment" or "assault" under most US criminal law) -- we should be in favor of the government stepping in to protect people from arson, battery, and assault/ harassment.

> he did not give in to the illiberal demands of the left to chill speech post-2020,

Roth has been president since 2007. What was his response to Nick Christakis's struggle session (plenty of video of that) or Erika Christakis leaving Yale, after she penned an e-mail that students should be able to handle Halloween costumes they find offensive?

The American Left has been illiberal and going after speech for decades; it didn't start post-2020.

  • cess11  8 days ago

    If the state is illegitimate then it is permissible or perhaps an obligation to topple it, according to people like the revolutionaries that founded the USA. That is, it doesn't necessarily matter what is legal or not, if the state misbehaves then you should put it to the guillotine or fire or bear arms or whatever suits you.

    As an outsider it's always funny to see people write about the "American Left", as if there were any leftist movements of national importance in the US. As if Food Not Bombs had at some point had a majority in congress or something, it's just a ridiculous idea. If that happened there would be a bloody purge, Pinochet style but bigger.

  • ath3nd  7 days ago

    > The American Left has been illiberal and going after speech for decades; it didn't start post-2020.

    Good that the free-speech absolutist Musk is there to ban everyone on Twitter who calls him out on his lies, trying to buy democratic elections, and do nazi salutes.

    > Arson is a VIOLENT type of activism, which is legally classified as terrorism.

    Lithium-ion batteries in badly made cars are prone to ...combustion.

  • lupusreal  8 days ago

    Just so. The First Amendment assures the right to peacefully assemble and speak your mind, not to commit arson. Violent attacks aren't free speech and should always be prosecuted.

kubb  8 days ago

They'll make it through if they bend the knee. Otherwise the regime will destroy them, and the conclusion will be that it's all because of these darned radical leftists.