Kathianne
12-30-2015, 09:39 AM
Well yeah!
https://www.thefire.org/faculty-focus-how-three-professors-banded-together-to-beat-back-a-free-speech-threat-at-clemson/
Faculty Focus: How Three Professors Banded Together to Beat Back a Free Speech Threat at ClemsonBy Alex Morey (https://www.thefire.org/author/alexmorey/) December 28, 2015
In late 2014, members of Clemson University’s Coalition of Concerned Students (CCS) were setting the stage (https://www.thefire.org/debate-hateful-speech-heats-clemson-university/) for what would become a louder drumbeat of campus protests over allegedly racially insensitive behavior. Their list of demands, presented to Clemson administrators in an effort to rectify perceived racial inequality on campus, were among the first in the recent (http://thedemands.org/) wave of such demands to be presented by students to administrators at dozens of colleges nationwide.
But among the students’ seven demands (http://seestripescu.org/?page_id=70)—which included requests for increased affirmative action, the creation of a multicultural center as a “safe space” for minority students, and diversity training for staff and freshmen—the first demand stood out to Professor C. Bradley Thompson (http://www.clemson.edu/capitalism/faculty.html). And for all the wrong reasons.
It read, in relevant part:
[W]e want a public commitment from the Clemson University Administration to prosecute criminally predatory behaviors and defamatory speech committed by members of the Clemson University community (including, but not limited to, those facilitated by usage of social media).
Thompson, a political science professor and executive director of The Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, strongly objected to CCS’ demand that the university criminally prosecute certain kinds of constitutionally protected speech. (It’s worth noting that this request is technically impossible, given that universities cannot legally prosecute crimes.) But it wasn’t until January of this year, when Thompson heard that 110 faculty had signed on to support the full list of student demands—including the speech provision that would have serious repercussions for speech and academic freedom—that Thompson decided to do something about it.
“We wanted it to be about the statement.”
“I got wind that a faculty group was going to take out a full-page ad in the student newspaper,The Tiger, in which they were going to support the demands of the Coalition of Concerned Students,” Thompson said. “So I very quickly wrote a response that would be titled ‘An Open Letter to Clemson Students.’” With only 24 hours to spare, Thompson got two other faculty members—astronomy and physics professor Bradley Meyer (http://www.clemson.edu/ces/astro/People/meyer.htm), along with Alan Grubb (http://www.clemson.edu/caah/faculty-staff/facultyBio.html?id=254) in the history department—to sign his letter.
“We didn’t have time to go out and get 100 signatures, which I’m sure we could’ve,” Thompson said. “But it also seemed to me that the statement would’ve been more powerful if it were just the three of us. We didn’t want it to be about names. We didn’t want it to be about who could put the biggest list together. We wanted it to be about the statement.”
Thompson said the morning the newspaper came out “was kind of a dramatic moment—a very dramatic moment—on campus.”
“In the very same issue in which [the other faculty’s] full-page ad appeared, our full-page ad appeared as well, unbeknownst to them. So they opened the student newspaper and on the inside cover page, they very proudly saw their full-page ad, supporting the notion that the university should prosecute criminally defamatory speech. They turned the page, and there was our full-page ad defending Clemson students and their right to freedom of thought, conscience, inquiry, speech, et cetera, et cetera.”
...
https://www.thefire.org/faculty-focus-how-three-professors-banded-together-to-beat-back-a-free-speech-threat-at-clemson/
Faculty Focus: How Three Professors Banded Together to Beat Back a Free Speech Threat at ClemsonBy Alex Morey (https://www.thefire.org/author/alexmorey/) December 28, 2015
In late 2014, members of Clemson University’s Coalition of Concerned Students (CCS) were setting the stage (https://www.thefire.org/debate-hateful-speech-heats-clemson-university/) for what would become a louder drumbeat of campus protests over allegedly racially insensitive behavior. Their list of demands, presented to Clemson administrators in an effort to rectify perceived racial inequality on campus, were among the first in the recent (http://thedemands.org/) wave of such demands to be presented by students to administrators at dozens of colleges nationwide.
But among the students’ seven demands (http://seestripescu.org/?page_id=70)—which included requests for increased affirmative action, the creation of a multicultural center as a “safe space” for minority students, and diversity training for staff and freshmen—the first demand stood out to Professor C. Bradley Thompson (http://www.clemson.edu/capitalism/faculty.html). And for all the wrong reasons.
It read, in relevant part:
[W]e want a public commitment from the Clemson University Administration to prosecute criminally predatory behaviors and defamatory speech committed by members of the Clemson University community (including, but not limited to, those facilitated by usage of social media).
Thompson, a political science professor and executive director of The Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, strongly objected to CCS’ demand that the university criminally prosecute certain kinds of constitutionally protected speech. (It’s worth noting that this request is technically impossible, given that universities cannot legally prosecute crimes.) But it wasn’t until January of this year, when Thompson heard that 110 faculty had signed on to support the full list of student demands—including the speech provision that would have serious repercussions for speech and academic freedom—that Thompson decided to do something about it.
“We wanted it to be about the statement.”
“I got wind that a faculty group was going to take out a full-page ad in the student newspaper,The Tiger, in which they were going to support the demands of the Coalition of Concerned Students,” Thompson said. “So I very quickly wrote a response that would be titled ‘An Open Letter to Clemson Students.’” With only 24 hours to spare, Thompson got two other faculty members—astronomy and physics professor Bradley Meyer (http://www.clemson.edu/ces/astro/People/meyer.htm), along with Alan Grubb (http://www.clemson.edu/caah/faculty-staff/facultyBio.html?id=254) in the history department—to sign his letter.
“We didn’t have time to go out and get 100 signatures, which I’m sure we could’ve,” Thompson said. “But it also seemed to me that the statement would’ve been more powerful if it were just the three of us. We didn’t want it to be about names. We didn’t want it to be about who could put the biggest list together. We wanted it to be about the statement.”
Thompson said the morning the newspaper came out “was kind of a dramatic moment—a very dramatic moment—on campus.”
“In the very same issue in which [the other faculty’s] full-page ad appeared, our full-page ad appeared as well, unbeknownst to them. So they opened the student newspaper and on the inside cover page, they very proudly saw their full-page ad, supporting the notion that the university should prosecute criminally defamatory speech. They turned the page, and there was our full-page ad defending Clemson students and their right to freedom of thought, conscience, inquiry, speech, et cetera, et cetera.”
...