NYU won’t tolerate public display and discussion of something it deems intolerant, even if some might reasonably disagree. Dissent from NYU’s position on what constitutes “tolerance” will not be tolerated. After all, we must be tolerant!
Seriously, how farcical is it that, in the name of “tolerance,” not just newspapers but major academic institutions are now forbidding people from having open and fully informed discussions about important social and political topics? (And if you think it’s possible to be “fully informed” about the Muhammad cartoons without looking at them… well… I can’t help you.)
I actually ran into this same thing at Ithaca College where they formed a “bias related incident committee.” If you were so much as overheard saying something that might be deemed as offensive regarding race, age, gender or sexual preference, you could lose your housing or be expelled.
The “bias related incident commitee” went so far as to protest a visit from bay buchanan…
A member of the committee tried to report Buchanan to campus police as a bias incident because she defended the Ithaca College Republican’s use of the words “feminazi� and “Nuremburg� on a flier for her event. What was the horrible statement made by Buchanan that enraged the committee? “You people need to get a life.�
This is where the snowball ends up for the far left. Having delt with this nonsense for four years you begin to see why I lean just a little to the right.
There are quite reasonable safety concerns involved here. Of course, NYU won’t cop even to those, as admitting to fear of fanatic Muslim violence would be intolerant of . . . Islam.
NYU is a private not public institution. They can set up campus sposored events on campus pretty much however they see fit.
No one is disputing that. Indeed, the linked article explicitly points it out. However, when a university violates its own policy — and the very principle of academic freedom — for the sake of a short-sighted P.C. ideology, it is a profoundly disturbing thing. Suggesting that it is fine for them do things “however they see fit” ignores academic freedom altogether, something not even the most ardent anti-Vagina Monologues folks at Notre Dame would propose.
As for the “choice” … I’m sorry, but when you are having an event with invited guests from off-campus, and I tell you at the last minute that you can either disinvite them or change the nature of your event, that is a bullshit “choice.”
Moreover, it does not comport with any definition of academic freedom that I’m aware of to force students to “choose” between a) free, open, fully-informed discussion of a legitimately important social and political topic, and b) the presence of outside speakers and others from outside the university community. Again, that is bullshit.
No one is claiming that NYU doesn’t have the legal right to make this ridiculously awful and completely hypocritical decision. But if you are trying to actually defend it as a good choice… wow… how completely idiotic.
They did NOT violate their own policies with regard to their OWN student population…
I mean if you’re going to throw terms like “idiotic” around– when I never leveled any personal insults– you should at least have some kind of substantive issue.
It all depends on how you interpret their policy.
They are obviously not required to have EVERY NYU event be open to the public.
There’s NO CONTRADICTION in keeping the event closed to the public.
“Academic freedom” is just that…It applies to the acadmic community and does not require constant full openness to the public.
The self-righteous intolerance that wreaks of condescension and elitism really is the worst kind of intolerance, because those practicing it are the last to question themselves.
Discussing NYU’s “right” to regulate its venues is akin to talking about Cindy Cheehan’s “right” to criticize the President. Yes, the rights exist. And then what? And so what? Were these cartoons anti-Christian or anti-Semitic there is absolutely nothing to indicate such a heavy hand on the part of NYU; thus it is moral cowardice on NYU’s part to enforce its power on any grounds other than the physical safety of its students and faculty. Claiming anything else is a lie that should relfect upon the university.
Discussing NYU’s “right� to regulate its venues is akin to talking about Cindy Cheehan’s “right� to criticize the President.
Yes. Or — to use an analogy that will perhaps go over better with the intended audience — akin to talking about Ann Coulter’s “right” to say vile, borderline racist things. As you say: Yes, the right exists. No one is questioning it. But we aren’t talking about rights, we’re talking about what is right. So declaring that there’s a legal right doesn’t end the discussion.
Bottom line: NYU didn’t “violate” or “contradict” any of its policies.
If you (anyone here reading this blog– not Brendan in particular) THINK they violated their own policies, what NYU did was “violate” or “contradict” YOUR PERSONAL INTERPRETATION of their policies.
The other point everyone here seems to miss is that if you’re a student, faculty, or staff member at NYU you can go look up the cartoons on the internet.
If you’re a member of the public, you can go look at the cartoons on the internet.
EASY SOLUTION: The dorks at the “Objectivist Club”– I mean they have to be dorks to belong to a club with that name– can do NUMEROUS thngs to sidestep NYU’s administration on this matter.
Potential solution #1: Have members of the club hand out the cartoons off campus as people approach the campus or whatever building on campus was going to be used. (NYU simply required the cartoons not be displayed AT THE FUNCTION.)
Potential solution #2: The OC could include information on their posters and website about where to gain access to the cartoons for those who were/are curious about them.
It is in my opinion ridiculous to blow the whole discussion out of proportion and to assume that simply because the cartoons could not be displayed at the actual speech or debate– when the cartoons are readily available online and could be provided off campus by the club involved– that the presentation somehow was significantly damaged and that some serious infraction of NYU’s own policies on “academic freedom” had somehow taken place.
It seems that people think some horrible crime against “academic freedom” has taken place at NYU.
This argument is based on the incorrect assumption that “academic freedom = 100% openness with no exceptions.”
In other words, if NYU does not have a 100% open policy towards the display of any and all materials then they are actively attacking academic freedom.
I just want to state the assumption because I believe simply by stating it it is revealed as being riudiculous.
(There are many possible conceptions of “academic freedom.”)
Sure. And Cindy Sheehan could have protested in Spokane instead of Crawford. And Anne Coulter could give her speeches to her cats instead of on college campuses.
The point isn’t the violated policies, Mouse. Only that the policy is wrong, on grounds of free and open debate. Or, in terms that the Objectivist Club would appreciate: SLAVERY!!!
Explain to me how, if everyone attending the speech has already seen the cartoons in question on the internet, NYU stopping the displays at the actual event in any way hinders “free and open debate” as you put it….
Just labelling it “wrong” doesn’t really explain anything.
In the same way that the gov’t preventing the media from broadcasting casualties of war, either as they’re happening in the field or when they come home in flag-drapped caskets, hinders free and open debate despite the fact that everyone watching already knows the name and number of casualties and where they died.
It would go a long way towards understanding this issue if people stopped bullsh*tting themselves into thinking that the content of the speech in question isn’t shading their views.
If I started a private university, and in my code of conduct the rules disallowed any speeches on campus by a list of people drawn from who A Nun Mouse believes in and gets her opinions from, including A Nun Mouse herself, would A Nun Mouse defend my code of conduct like she is now defending NYU?
That’s obviously NOT what NYU did so the analogy seems pointless.
Let me be clear: I’m all for 100% disclosure and openness in situations like this.
But no one has even given me a reason to believe that “academic freedom” or “free speech” has in any way been damaged in this situation.
Everyone who goes to that lecture or debate will probably have seen the cartoons by the time they get there. So when the presenters/debaters say, “…I’m talking about the cartoon where the Prophet Muhamed’s turban is a bomb with a fuse coming from it…”…do you really imagine that people in the audience WON’T know what that person is talking about?
The debate can go on….Everyone can express their views….No one’s ideas are being “censored”….
And the timing doesn’t bother you, Mouse? That the event was planned a month ahead of time, that the administration knew of the large number of off-campus invitees, and that they decided to inform the group holding the event that they either had to change the information content or disinvite over 150 people with less than 24 hours notice? That doesn’t raise any concerns at all?
I wouldn’t assume that everyone who attends that discussion would have seen those cartoons. If they were “active” consumers of news on the internet, than yes, they probably have. But for “passive” news consumers who still read from a variety of MSM sources, it’s entirely possible, if not probably, that they might not have seen those cartoons, especially considering how many MSM outlets refused to publish them. If I’m an old fart who isn’t computer savvy and doesn’t surf the web, and this topic is important enough to warrant a discussion about it, than I shouldn’t have to go out of my way to know what all the hubub is about.
The mere idea that these cartoons warrant a discussion at a place of purported academic freedom, but can’t actually be shown at that discussion, is so mind-bending as to be almost comical.
“President Bush isn’t a fascist, and I can prove it.
“We’ve seen what American bookstores and publications and universities do when confronted with real fascists: they knuckle under. You might not be able to find those Danish cartoons anyplace respectable, but you’ll sure find lots of anti-Bush stuff.
Ipso facto, America is doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.”
March 29th, 2006 at 6:31:22 pm
All hail tolerance!
March 29th, 2006 at 7:06:39 pm
I actually ran into this same thing at Ithaca College where they formed a “bias related incident committee.” If you were so much as overheard saying something that might be deemed as offensive regarding race, age, gender or sexual preference, you could lose your housing or be expelled.
The “bias related incident commitee” went so far as to protest a visit from bay buchanan…
A member of the committee tried to report Buchanan to campus police as a bias incident because she defended the Ithaca College Republican’s use of the words “feminazi� and “Nuremburg� on a flier for her event. What was the horrible statement made by Buchanan that enraged the committee? “You people need to get a life.�
This is where the snowball ends up for the far left. Having delt with this nonsense for four years you begin to see why I lean just a little to the right.
a link:
http://www.ithaca.edu/ithacan/articles/0211/21/opinion/7another_angl.htm
March 29th, 2006 at 7:08:25 pm
There are quite reasonable safety concerns involved here. Of course, NYU won’t cop even to those, as admitting to fear of fanatic Muslim violence would be intolerant of . . . Islam.
March 29th, 2006 at 7:09:31 pm
better link
http://www.cornellreview.org/viewart.cgi?num=157
March 29th, 2006 at 7:52:39 pm
Just to be clear about this, NYU was NOT preventing the display of the cartoons…
It gave the group two choices. One involved displaying the cartoon but not allowing people from off campus to attend the event.
NYU is a private not public institution. They can set up campus sposored events on campus pretty much however they see fit.
March 29th, 2006 at 7:55:06 pm
NYU is a private not public institution. They can set up campus sposored events on campus pretty much however they see fit.
No one is disputing that. Indeed, the linked article explicitly points it out. However, when a university violates its own policy — and the very principle of academic freedom — for the sake of a short-sighted P.C. ideology, it is a profoundly disturbing thing. Suggesting that it is fine for them do things “however they see fit” ignores academic freedom altogether, something not even the most ardent anti-Vagina Monologues folks at Notre Dame would propose.
March 29th, 2006 at 7:58:13 pm
As for the “choice” … I’m sorry, but when you are having an event with invited guests from off-campus, and I tell you at the last minute that you can either disinvite them or change the nature of your event, that is a bullshit “choice.”
Moreover, it does not comport with any definition of academic freedom that I’m aware of to force students to “choose” between a) free, open, fully-informed discussion of a legitimately important social and political topic, and b) the presence of outside speakers and others from outside the university community. Again, that is bullshit.
No one is claiming that NYU doesn’t have the legal right to make this ridiculously awful and completely hypocritical decision. But if you are trying to actually defend it as a good choice… wow… how completely idiotic.
March 29th, 2006 at 8:22:35 pm
They did NOT violate their own policies with regard to their OWN student population…
I mean if you’re going to throw terms like “idiotic” around– when I never leveled any personal insults– you should at least have some kind of substantive issue.
It all depends on how you interpret their policy.
They are obviously not required to have EVERY NYU event be open to the public.
There’s NO CONTRADICTION in keeping the event closed to the public.
“Academic freedom” is just that…It applies to the acadmic community and does not require constant full openness to the public.
March 29th, 2006 at 8:23:17 pm
I mean how idiotic.
March 29th, 2006 at 8:27:10 pm
The self-righteous intolerance that wreaks of condescension and elitism really is the worst kind of intolerance, because those practicing it are the last to question themselves.
March 29th, 2006 at 8:35:32 pm
NO ONE DISAGREES THAT NYU HAS THE RIGHT TO SET UP THEIR EVENTS HOW THEY SEE FIT, INLCUDING OPENING THEM AND CLOSING THEM TO THE PUBLIC AS THEY CHOOSE.
I’ll be copying and pasting that at regular intervals in this thread, since it undoubtedly won’t sink in on certain people for quite a while, if ever.
March 29th, 2006 at 8:56:25 pm
Mouse, I apologize for calling your position idiotic. That was uncalled for.
I still think you’re wrong, but don’t have time to get into it now… Becky is putting my feet to the fire and making me read for class. :)
March 29th, 2006 at 10:01:29 pm
No Brendan, you’re right, her knee-jerk defense of NYU is pretty idiotic.
March 29th, 2006 at 11:46:41 pm
Tenacious Mendacious Mouse strikes again ?
March 30th, 2006 at 12:19:35 am
Discussing NYU’s “right” to regulate its venues is akin to talking about Cindy Cheehan’s “right” to criticize the President. Yes, the rights exist. And then what? And so what? Were these cartoons anti-Christian or anti-Semitic there is absolutely nothing to indicate such a heavy hand on the part of NYU; thus it is moral cowardice on NYU’s part to enforce its power on any grounds other than the physical safety of its students and faculty. Claiming anything else is a lie that should relfect upon the university.
NYU has its rights. And we have ours.
March 30th, 2006 at 12:57:32 am
Discussing NYU’s “right� to regulate its venues is akin to talking about Cindy Cheehan’s “right� to criticize the President.
Yes. Or — to use an analogy that will perhaps go over better with the intended audience — akin to talking about Ann Coulter’s “right” to say vile, borderline racist things. As you say: Yes, the right exists. No one is questioning it. But we aren’t talking about rights, we’re talking about what is right. So declaring that there’s a legal right doesn’t end the discussion.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:17:32 am
Well, I wrote Cheehan when I meant Sheehan.Anyone want to have at it one those grounds, do your worst.
March 30th, 2006 at 7:45:34 am
I think I already expressed my opinion long ago about “censorship’s ugly cousin.” Just in case anyone forgot:
Free and open communication good. Gagging discussion bad. No matter who does it.
Oh, yeah. And if you want to stop debate, stop calling yourself a liberal. Real liberals like Jefferson and Locke would smack you.
March 30th, 2006 at 9:41:52 am
Bottom line: NYU didn’t “violate” or “contradict” any of its policies.
If you (anyone here reading this blog– not Brendan in particular) THINK they violated their own policies, what NYU did was “violate” or “contradict” YOUR PERSONAL INTERPRETATION of their policies.
The other point everyone here seems to miss is that if you’re a student, faculty, or staff member at NYU you can go look up the cartoons on the internet.
If you’re a member of the public, you can go look at the cartoons on the internet.
EASY SOLUTION: The dorks at the “Objectivist Club”– I mean they have to be dorks to belong to a club with that name– can do NUMEROUS thngs to sidestep NYU’s administration on this matter.
Potential solution #1: Have members of the club hand out the cartoons off campus as people approach the campus or whatever building on campus was going to be used. (NYU simply required the cartoons not be displayed AT THE FUNCTION.)
Potential solution #2: The OC could include information on their posters and website about where to gain access to the cartoons for those who were/are curious about them.
It is in my opinion ridiculous to blow the whole discussion out of proportion and to assume that simply because the cartoons could not be displayed at the actual speech or debate– when the cartoons are readily available online and could be provided off campus by the club involved– that the presentation somehow was significantly damaged and that some serious infraction of NYU’s own policies on “academic freedom” had somehow taken place.
March 30th, 2006 at 9:59:14 am
Clarification
It seems that people think some horrible crime against “academic freedom” has taken place at NYU.
This argument is based on the incorrect assumption that “academic freedom = 100% openness with no exceptions.”
In other words, if NYU does not have a 100% open policy towards the display of any and all materials then they are actively attacking academic freedom.
I just want to state the assumption because I believe simply by stating it it is revealed as being riudiculous.
(There are many possible conceptions of “academic freedom.”)
March 30th, 2006 at 10:04:02 am
Sure. And Cindy Sheehan could have protested in Spokane instead of Crawford. And Anne Coulter could give her speeches to her cats instead of on college campuses.
March 30th, 2006 at 10:12:17 am
The point isn’t the violated policies, Mouse. Only that the policy is wrong, on grounds of free and open debate. Or, in terms that the Objectivist Club would appreciate: SLAVERY!!!
March 30th, 2006 at 11:08:32 am
Sean
Explain to me how, if everyone attending the speech has already seen the cartoons in question on the internet, NYU stopping the displays at the actual event in any way hinders “free and open debate” as you put it….
Just labelling it “wrong” doesn’t really explain anything.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:20:13 pm
Mouse,
In the same way that the gov’t preventing the media from broadcasting casualties of war, either as they’re happening in the field or when they come home in flag-drapped caskets, hinders free and open debate despite the fact that everyone watching already knows the name and number of casualties and where they died.
It would go a long way towards understanding this issue if people stopped bullsh*tting themselves into thinking that the content of the speech in question isn’t shading their views.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:54:38 pm
If I started a private university, and in my code of conduct the rules disallowed any speeches on campus by a list of people drawn from who A Nun Mouse believes in and gets her opinions from, including A Nun Mouse herself, would A Nun Mouse defend my code of conduct like she is now defending NYU?
March 30th, 2006 at 4:15:17 pm
Andrew,
That’s obviously NOT what NYU did so the analogy seems pointless.
Let me be clear: I’m all for 100% disclosure and openness in situations like this.
But no one has even given me a reason to believe that “academic freedom” or “free speech” has in any way been damaged in this situation.
Everyone who goes to that lecture or debate will probably have seen the cartoons by the time they get there. So when the presenters/debaters say, “…I’m talking about the cartoon where the Prophet Muhamed’s turban is a bomb with a fuse coming from it…”…do you really imagine that people in the audience WON’T know what that person is talking about?
The debate can go on….Everyone can express their views….No one’s ideas are being “censored”….
March 30th, 2006 at 5:11:15 pm
And the timing doesn’t bother you, Mouse? That the event was planned a month ahead of time, that the administration knew of the large number of off-campus invitees, and that they decided to inform the group holding the event that they either had to change the information content or disinvite over 150 people with less than 24 hours notice? That doesn’t raise any concerns at all?
March 30th, 2006 at 5:33:37 pm
I wouldn’t assume that everyone who attends that discussion would have seen those cartoons. If they were “active” consumers of news on the internet, than yes, they probably have. But for “passive” news consumers who still read from a variety of MSM sources, it’s entirely possible, if not probably, that they might not have seen those cartoons, especially considering how many MSM outlets refused to publish them. If I’m an old fart who isn’t computer savvy and doesn’t surf the web, and this topic is important enough to warrant a discussion about it, than I shouldn’t have to go out of my way to know what all the hubub is about.
March 30th, 2006 at 5:36:03 pm
The mere idea that these cartoons warrant a discussion at a place of purported academic freedom, but can’t actually be shown at that discussion, is so mind-bending as to be almost comical.
March 30th, 2006 at 8:55:33 pm
Joe Mama @ 5:33 pm - you’re not “an old fart who isn’t computer savvy “, you’re more of a “status quo auntie” …
(innocent smile)
(Yes, David - I’ll pick on conservatives for their spelling abilities, too …)
March 31st, 2006 at 12:52:30 pm
From Vodkapundit:
“President Bush isn’t a fascist, and I can prove it.
“We’ve seen what American bookstores and publications and universities do when confronted with real fascists: they knuckle under. You might not be able to find those Danish cartoons anyplace respectable, but you’ll sure find lots of anti-Bush stuff.
Ipso facto, America is doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.”
http://vodkapundit.com/archives/008731.php