We’re all too familiar with the decline of free speech on university campuses.
The scene could be any campus in Australia, New Zealand, or anywhere in the Western world: a speaker deemed (rightly or wrongly) “conservative” is invited to speak on campus. Student groups immediately demand for the event to be cancelled. In the rare instance that faculty don’t immediately cave, the event is disrupted by a small, but noisy and violent clique of obese feminists, emaciated soyboys and black-clad beings of indeterminate gender. Speaker and guests are heckled, screamed at and, often as not, physically attacked.
It’s happened to Jordan Peterson, it’s happened to Bettina Arndt, and it keeps on happening because universities are not only gutless, they just don’t believe in free speech any more.
In the last Free Speech on Campus audit carried out by Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs, just one university was rated “Green” for supporting free speech on campus. 83% of Australia’s universities were rated “Red”, “for policies and actions that are hostile to free speech on campus”.
The situation is no better, if not worse, in the US. But, like Australia, at least one university is committed to free speech.
For once, a top university is standing up for free speech and punishing the protesters.
It all started when the controversial conservative author Ann Coulter came to speak at her alma mater, Cornell University. As shown in the below video, eight college-aged protesters disrupted her speech, shouting, “Your words are violence!” and “We don’t want you to speak here.” Coulter was supposed to speak for an hour but reportedly ended up leaving after 20 minutes because the protests were so disruptive.
It oddly never seems to occur to the screechers and shouters that their words might be violence. Not to mention their, well, violence.
This was clearly a grotesque attack on free speech.
Protesters have every right to voice their dissent outside of Coulter’s event or debate her in the Q&A, but when they cross the line into disrupting her ability to speak, that’s unacceptable. As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression explained, “Shouting down speakers and disrupting scheduled events is not free speech or peaceful protest — it’s a ‘heckler’s veto’ that deprives speakers of their right to speak and listeners of their right to listen. Nobody has the right to hijack someone else’s expressive event because they don’t like what the speaker has to say.”
Despite the anti-free speech left’s claim that “hurrr, the First Amendment only means the gubmint!”, the Supreme Court has, in repeated judgements, emphasised that the First Amendment doesn’t just stop the government silencing someone, it means that the government is obliged to stop others from exercising the heckler’s veto and shutting them down.
But this disturbing saga at least has something of a happy ending. Unlike many past incidents in which the universities have defended the protesters or failed to enforce their commitment to free speech, Cornell is seemingly doing the right thing. Security removed the protesters, and they will now reportedly face consequences.
“All Cornell students among the disrupters will be referred for conduct violations,” a spokesperson for Cornell told the Washington Examiner.
The university went on to apologize to Coulter, saying, “Cornell is committed to academic excellence and a core belief that learning flourishes in an environment where diverse ideas are presented and debated without hindrance. Cornell apologizes to Ms. Coulter and all members of the audience who hoped to hear her remarks. The inappropriate behavior displayed by disrupters does not reflect the university’s values.”
In a classic case of the Streisand Effect, the protests only served to draw more attention to Coulter’s speech.
Still, the fact remains that the students obviously felt emboldened to shout down views they didn’t like.
But Cornell still deserves credit for its apology and for the consequences it is apparently enforcing against the disruptive protesters. If the university follows through, this will send a message and hopefully stop future disruptions and free speech violations.
The Right regularly bashes woke universities that suppress conservatives and restrict free speech — and for good reason. But we’ve also got to give credit to and uplift those universities that do the right thing so more will hopefully follow their lead.
Washington Examiner
