monkeymangler said:
NiPah said:
thaluikhain said:
Eh, not this again. A university is not under any obligation to welcome any particular person to speak there.
It is not censorship for a university not to allow someone to speak at that university.
Their under no obligation, correct.
But explain how banning someone from speaking at your university because you disagree with their ideas not censorship.
I get it that people don't want to call this censorship because it's the Kindof thing bad people do, but couldn't you just say Kim Jong is under no obligation to welcome any particular person to speak in his country? This is censorship pure and simple.
Explain why a private institution should give their resources and location for hate speech.
Because a student group requested that that person speak at the university. The fact that a student group requested the speaker shows that there is indeed demand for the speaker and people who would want to listen to their speech. It was a student
group that made the request, not a lone student, after all. Of course, a sole student group is likely to be a minority of the students--and probably a small minority.
However, just because a university may not have the resources to have all speakers that minority groups may want on campus to come does not mean that all speakers that minority groups want should be rejected.
To argue such is to miss
one of the basic points of free speech: we give everyone a right to speak in order to protect the
minority's right to speak, not the majority's.
If a student group requested a speaker, there
is demand. There may be people who don't want that speaker to come, but there are also people who
do want that speaker to come. Moreover, in your request, you specified a
private institution. That means they are free to have whoever they want come speak for them--even if some would view it as "hate speech."
There is a
lot I could respond to and say on this, but the time for a lot of it has passed, I think. So I'm only going to respond to a few more general things.
First, some people are making comments and arguments about universities just "letting anyone who wants to speak have a platform." This doesn't make sense to me because, as I understand it, speakers are typically
invited; they don't "request" a platform. That is, usually
a student group requests the platform--meaning the university isn't giving (or denying) a platform to someone who wants to speak, but rather to a speaker who
the students (or at least some of them) want to speak.
Second, there have been a lot of arguments and discussion about why/if universities should use their limited resources to host controversial speakers. (See: the post I was replying to before.) But this seems slightly off from the main issue, since when universities no-platform someone, they usually cite
the harm they believe would result from the speaker's viewpoints rather than economic constraints. Yes, there obviously are economic constraints, or else they could just have a free platform for anyone to use at any time. But it doesn't change the fact that the reasons universities give for denying speakers a platform is the resulting harm, rather than economic limitations.
Third, @Pluvia: Since Zontar seems unwilling to explain this, you seem to insist on harping on this point rather than engaging in any actual discussion, and I've grown tired of seeing you two copy-paste posts back at each other without going anywhere, I'll spell it out for you. First off, I don't think there's anything "offensive" about this. I think the better word to use is "problematic." The first person to bring up "offense" was you, and I suspect that Zontar was simply adopting your terminology in order to try to convey his general ideas rather than intending them to be a precise formulation of them. Now, to respond to the meat of your claim, what is "offensive" (or rather, "problematic") about "people being happy" is that
they are being happy over doing wrong. Person A kills Person B. Person A is happy that they killed Person B. Person A did nothing wrong, right? They're
happy, after all. Yes, it's an extreme analogy. It still conveys my point, though. Now, whether pulling fire alarms at speeches (and no-platforming at universities, etc.) is "wrong" is up to debate. But in Zontar's opinion, it is. So, to quickly recap, Zontar finds these people's glee "offensive" ("problematic") because they are happy over doing something that Zontar considers wrong.
Finally, @Something Amyss: I find myself disagreeing with pretty much everything you say, but... I have to admit that your avatar is perfect.
EDIT: Oh, right right right, one more quick but very important thing:
All this talk over whether a university "can," "is obligated to," or "has a right to" give/deny a platform is over a non-issue. Of course they can deny someone a platform. They
do.
The true issue is whether they
should. It's a normative issue; discussion of rights and obligations should be left out.