In the past three weeks, multiple college campuses have faced racial tensions on their campuses. Two of those schools in particular, the University of Missouri and Yale University, have been grounds for intense conflict rooted in racial tension. The hunger strike of Mizzou graduate student Jonathan Butler in response to a series of racist incidents, most notably the vandalism of a dorm with a swastika drawn with feces, has captured the attention of the national media.
Meanwhile, Halloween weekend at Yale went poorly for the university. First, the Yale administration sent out an email warning students not to wear “culturally unaware and insensitive” Halloween costumes that could offend minority students. In response, Erika Christakis, a professor and administrator presiding over a student residence, wrote a letter to members of her residence hall informing them of her disagreement with the email’s central premise.
In response, hundreds of students have signed on to an open letter criticizing both Ms. Christakis and her husband, who also serves as an Associate Master for a campus residence hall. Students demanded that the Christakises apologize for their alleged failure to create a “safe space” for students.
Students confronted the Christakises, shouting at both of them to resign. A video shows that when Mr. Christakis refused, students started to yell at him en masse. Both sides presented imperfect cases here. The Christakises defended the right to free speech, but they placed less priority on whether or not students may feel uncomfortable in what ought to be a safe space. But the school, in warning students about Halloween costumes, and students, in their outcry, prioritized the “safe space” at the expense of free speech.
In the cases of both Mizzou and Yale, the racist actions that triggered protests, emails, and outcries are all unacceptable. Students were right to decry these actions and demand change. But there’s an additional problem, and a pretty big one
A similar sort of fight happened at Mizzou, after the resignation of media professor Melissa Click. A freelance photographer was looking to photograph the proceedings of one of the protests when Professor Click blocked him, told him to “get out,” and then asked for some “muscle” to remove him. The university even sent an email this week asking students to report any instances of “hurtful speech.”
“Hurtful speech” seems like a particularly worrisome way of putting it, however. It presents a slippery slope, as it’s unclear what constitutes “hurtful speech.” Police also can’t exactly act on any “hurtful speech” unless it presents a threat. But the police, while acting to prevent violence, are also creating another potential flashpoint by allowing students to attempt to silence each other, since groups who are silenced often see few other options available to them to make their point.
“Hurtful speech” is an arbitrary, broad-ranging term that could encompass much more than what the school intended. In the process, the school may be crossing boundaries as a public university if it ends up silencing speech that is not explicitly threatening.
This is the issue that has led to such a big battle at Yale. It also connects to the irony that students—and liberal ones at that—who protest against the administration on behalf of various freedoms have been actively looking to the administration to take action to silence any particularly vocal dissents to their ideas. In a time with more racial tension and less access to information than there is now, progressive-minded youth of the 1960s from all walks of life solved their own problems by protesting the establishment for change. Our generation doesn’t protest by and large; we just beg the establishment to solve our problems.
That’s our generation’s problem. We are too sensitive to hear what those with opposing viewpoints have to say.
Our generation is known for being very reliant on authority. We trust a lot of our private information to machines run by large multinational conglomerates. We tend to follow directions and step right into line. We are often too busy focusing on ourselves and our various outlets of expression to unite as a group. And when we do, as the Yale case illustrates, we turn to arguments about political correctness to implore our establishment to take action. In the ‘60s, students sought to control the actions of the establishment. In 2015, students want the establishment to control their own actions.
All of this relates back to what President Obama said in September: “I’ve heard of some college campuses where they don’t want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative, or they don’t want to read a book if it had language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women… when you become students at colleges, you have to be coddled and protected from different points of view.”
That’s our generation’s problem. We are too sensitive to hear what those with opposing viewpoints have to say. Our first instinct is to turn to the establishment, the administration, etc. to silence anyone who disagrees with us. Instead of protesting the establishment, we are so reliant on it that our generation turns to it whenever we do not get our way. Occasionally we protest the establishment when it takes actions we find particularly egregious (like with Mizzou, Ferguson, and the other incidents that have triggered #BlackLivesMatter protests), but most of the time students look to blame someone else and ask for the administration to silence him or her. But we need to have a dialogue instead. It’s that same dialogue that leads to an understanding among people with different views. Without it, we find ourselves prone to the same sorts of conflicts that started these controversies.
On the flip side, credit must be given to the #ConcernedStudent1950 movement at Mizzou. The students of color at Mizzou have in fact done their predecessors proud. In the same vein as the Civil Rights Movement and student protests of the 1960s, they have presented their demands via social media, pickets, and sit-ins.
So far, black students at Mizzou and their allies have stood up in the face of injustice and demanded that their voices be heard. They have rightfully demanded that there should be greater representation for African-American students and other students of color in the student body, faculty, and administration. They hope that this will lead students of color to not have to worry about discrimination and victimization on a daily basis. The Mizzou students, unlike those at Yale, decided to focus less on silencing their opponents and more on refusing to be silenced. They are voicing their opinions until those opinions turn into real change.
We don’t need to waste our time asking the school to police what Halloween costumes people wear and protesting against those who solely push for free speech. We need to make sure people who find those costumes offensive, or who don’t tolerate racist acts, get their message across. When people are silenced, they turn to other outlets to express their beliefs and vent their frustrations, often the Internet or the press, where they spread their own anger at being silenced to others inside and outside of their community. This is what has led the issues at both Mizzou and Yale to grow from schoolwide issues to nationwide issues. Trying to silence opposing views, even if those views are offensive, doesn’t work because it increases hostility. Instead, we must use freedom of speech and the power of our own words to drive out any hate and racism we see. It’s like Dr. Martin Luther King said: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”
Roey Hadar is a junior in the School of Foreign Service.
lol it was nice knowing you, Voice