‘People who have traditionally held power’ are suppressing speech?
Nizam Arain of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse doesn’t think there’s any danger in people speaking their minds in politically incorrect ways.
In fact, their fear of being blacklisted, disciplined or fired for questioning the prevailing progressive wisdom at the public university is a sign of their “fragility.”
At a campus “teach-in” on free speech and civil discourse last week, the “Affirmative Action director and Title IX coordinator” (also a lawyer) gave 50-60 students an overview of the First Amendment and common misunderstandings of its effect, the La Crosse Tribune reports.
Arain went over useful territory about exceptions for “direct threats or defamation and slander,” and explained that free speech doesn’t shield the speaker from “criticism, condemnation or the counter-arguments or protests of those who disagree with you.”
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Then he decided to pontificate on “offensive speech”:
But that doesn’t mean hateful remarks don’t have an impact on people.
“Language has a real impact and harm on people,” he said. “It has a real effect.”
He also addressed the issue of political correctness during his remarks, saying marginalized groups also have the right to free speech, and those who have privilege are now being called out for their views. It’s a new experience for people who have traditionally held power, he said, and they are reacting poorly to the experience.
“It is evidence to me of a kind of fragility,” Arain said, “where people can only feel free to speak their mind if no one is going to contradict them.”
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This is a novel interpretation of the increasingly dominant campus climate across the country, where speaking your mind by itself is an invitation to be physically attacked, kicked out of your program or fired – all because your words made a progressive person feel subjectively unsafe.
Arain also teaches “a graduate-level course on higher education law for the Department of Student Affairs Administration,” so surely he knows just how many tools administrators have to punish and chill speech – even on public campuses like UW-La Crosse – precisely so it doesn’t offend “marginalized groups.”
He also surely knows that the university can outspend practically anyone who tries to hold it accountable in court, guaranteeing it can disregard the First Amendment with impunity. (Reminder to any victim of UW-L’s censorship: FIRE and Alliance Defending Freedom take pro bono cases.)
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Certainly those groups Arain considers “marginalized” deserve the same right to speak their mind and criticize as those who have “traditionally held power” (conveniently left undefined).
But who exactly is demanding trigger warnings and safe spaces, shouting down and threatening controversial speakers, and destroying flyers for other groups’ events? The College Republicans? Young Americans for Freedom? Young Americans for Liberty?
Arain would make an excellent ninja, because he seems to be walking across campus daily with his eyes closed and ears plugged to be so utterly ignorant of who is demanding restrictions on speech.
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IMAGES: Kues/Shutterstock, Pa Moua-Yang/UW-La Crosse
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