Authored by Alex Morey and Samantha Harris via TheFire.org,
In anti-intellectual email, Wellesley profs call engaging with controversial arguments an imposition on students
In an email to fellow faculty yesterday afternoon, a committee of Wellesley College professors made several startling recommendations about how they think future campus speakers should be chosen. If implemented, the proposals by the faculty Commission for Ethnicity, Race, and Equity would have a profound impact on the quality and quantity of voices Wellesley students would be permitted to hear.
FIRE has obtained the email, sent by one of the signatories to a faculty listserv, and republished it in full below.
While paying lip service to free speech, the email is remarkable in its contempt for free and open dialogue on campus. Asserting that controversial speakers “impose on the liberty of students, staff, and faculty at Wellesley,” the committee members lament the fact that such speakers negatively impact students by forcing them to “invest time and energy in rebutting the speakers’ arguments.”
And here we thought learning to effectively challenge views with which one disagreed was an important part of the educational process!
They point specifically to a recent appearance by Northwestern University professor Laura Kipnis, a self-described feminist who has criticized Title IX implementation and a “culture of sexual paranoia” on campuses.
Censorship Awareness Week brought @jmlarkin from @wburEDify to cover @laurakipnis talk. Listen here: https://t.co/RY0lH9ENaz
— Freedom Project (@WellesleyFP) March 12, 2017
The idea of trauma, says provocative @laurakipnis at @wellesley, isn't helping feminism "if it turns its adherents into would-be censors." pic.twitter.com/b3AWw557wO
— Edify (@wburEDify) March 8, 2017
(Kipnis’ visit elicited a video response from Wellesley students who disagreed with her.)
The committee recommends that those inviting any future speakers “consider whether, in their zeal for promoting debate, they might, in fact, stifle productive debate by enabling the bullying of disempowered groups,” adding that the committee would be “happy to serve as a sounding board when hosts are considering inviting controversial speakers, to help sponsors think through the various implications of extending an invitation.” They also argue that “standards of respect and rigor must remain paramount when considering whether a speaker is actually qualified for the platform granted by an invitation to Wellesley.”
But the implementation of such reforms would, in itself, establish a campus orthodoxy and a climate in which any speaking invitation might be subject to prior review by a select few faculty.
Kipnis, reached for comment by FIRE, disapproved.
“I find it absurd that six faculty members at Wellesley can call themselves defenders of free speech and also conflate my recent talk with bullying the disempowered,” Kipnis told FIRE in an email.
“What actually happened was that there was a lively back and forth after I spoke. The students were smart and articulate, including those who disagreed with me.”
“I’m going to go further and say — as someone who’s been teaching for a long time, and wants to see my students able to function in the world post-graduation — that protecting students from the ‘distress’ of someone’s ideas isn’t education, it’s a $67,000 babysitting bill.”
FIRE will be looking more into this development at Wellesley in the coming days.
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Full email below:
From: ?Michael P Jeffries? <[email protected]?>Date: Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 1:43 PMSubject: [FacStaffDiscuss] Statement from CERE faculty re: Laura Kipnis Freedom Project visit and aftermathTo: Faculty-Staff Discussion <[email protected]?>
To: Wellesley CommunityFrom: Faculty on Commission for Ethnicity, Race, and Equity (CERE)Re: Laura Kipnis visit and aftermath3/20/17
Over the past few years, several guest speakers with controversial and objectionable beliefs have presented their ideas at Wellesley. We, the faculty in CERE, defend free speech and believe it is essential to a liberal arts education. However, as historian W. Jelani Cobb notes, “The freedom to offend the powerful is not equivalent to the freedom to bully the relatively disempowered. The enlightenment principles that undergird free speech also prescribed that the natural limits of one’s liberty lie at the precise point at which it begins to impose upon the liberty of another.”
There is no doubt that the speakers in question impose on the liberty of students, staff, and faculty at Wellesley. We are especially concerned with the impact of speakers’ presentations on Wellesley students, who often feel the injury most acutely and invest time and energy in rebutting the speakers’ arguments. Students object in order to affirm their humanity. This work is not optional; students feel they would be unable to carry out their responsibilities as students without standing up for themselves. Furthermore, we object to the notion that onlookers who are part of the faculty or administration are qualified to adjudicate the harm described by students, especially when so many students have come forward. When dozens of students tell us they are in distress as a result of a speaker’s words, we must take these complaints at face value.
What is especially disturbing about this pattern of harm is that in many cases, the damage could have been avoided. The speakers who appeared on campus presented ideas that they had published, and those who hosted the speakers could certainly anticipate that these ideas would be painful to significant portions of the Wellesley community. Laura Kipnis’s recent visit to Wellesley prompted students to respond to Kipnis’s presentation with a video post on Facebook.
Kipnis posted the video on her page, and professor Tom Cushman left a comment that publicly disparaged the students who produced the video. Professor Cushman apologized for his remarks, but in light of these developments, we recommend the following.
First, those who invite speakers to campus should consider whether, in their zeal for promoting debate, they might, in fact, stifle productive debate by enabling the bullying of disempowered groups. We in CERE are happy to serve as a sounding board when hosts are considering inviting controversial speakers, to help sponsors think through the various implications of extending an invitation.
Second, standards of respect and rigor must remain paramount when considering whether a speaker is actually qualified for the platform granted by an invitation to Wellesley. In the case of an academic speaker, we ask that the Wellesley host not only consider whether the speaker holds credentials, but whether the presenter has standing in his/her/their discipline. This is not a matter of ideological bias. Pseudoscience suggesting that men are more naturally equipped to excel in STEM fields than women, for example, has no place at Wellesley. Similar arguments pertaining to race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, and other identity markers are equally inappropriate.
Third, faculty and administrators should step up in defense of themselves and all members of the Wellesley community. The responsibility to defend the disempowered does not rest solely with students, and the injuries suffered by students, faculty, and staff are not contained within the specific identity group in question; they ripple throughout our community and prevent Wellesley from living out its mission.
In solidarity,
Diego ArcineagasBeth DeSombreBrenna GreerSoo HongMichael JeffriesLayli Maparyan
[emphasis added]