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Wednesday, December 07, 2005
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Free Speech Trashed, But Only for A Few Months One of the more pathetic free speech stories has resolved itself properly, but not before reactionary forces on campus were able to do a good deal of damage to people and institutions. A women’s studies professor at a New Jersey university sent out, a few months ago, an unsolicited, pretty much university-wide email, publicizing a film about homosexuals that was going to be shown on campus. A pious Muslim who worked at the university was among those who got the email, and he wrote back to her that he believed homosexuality was a perversion, and that he’d prefer not to get any more emails along these lines. The professor decided this man was a threat to her. She decided that his language in the email constituted hate speech, and that he himself constituted a physical threat to her. She demanded that he be disciplined by the university. Put aside what this vindictive reaction tells us about the ability of a strong feminist, the director of the school’s women’s studies program, to withstand a little heat. Note merely that this woman does not understand what a threat is. Nor did her school. The university backed her up completely and condemned the man. It devised various nasty punishments for him. But when rights organizations (among them FIRE) got to work on the case, the outcome was utterly predictable: In a ruling issued Monday and received by [the man] on Tuesday, university hearing officer Sandra DeYoung determined that his "use of the term 'perversion,' although it may be upsetting to some, does not appear to have caused any discriminatory actions." … His punishments have all been rescinded. The university, though, has been subject to general ridicule, and the man himself has gone through a very damaging ordeal. As for the timid, clueless woman who made all the trouble, she continues to run the women’s studies program. |