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"This spring, it has been disturbing to see a number of college commencement speakers withdraw -- or have their invitations rescinded -- after protests from students and -- to me, shockingly -- from senior faculty and administrators who should know better," Bloomberg said...
Bloomberg noted other universities have had speakers back out. He pointed to Rutgers, where former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice withdrew amid protests, and Smith College, where International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde withdrew after a student petition.
Michael Bloomberg: Universities becoming bastions of intolerance - CNN.com
While former Mayor Bloomberg was making a commencement address, I believe the points he made went beyond even Higher Education to the larger issue of a willingness to listen to diverse viewpoints (something that also seems increasingly infrequent when it comes to discussions of politics/policy and economics). Receptivity to listen to another view point should not be confused with automatic acceptance of it. One always remains free to accept or reject messages in part or in whole. However, exposure to new or different perspectives can enrich one's own understanding, whether one is in school, at work, or simply conducting one's own life. Hence, I've added this story here. If it's the incorrect forum, it can be moved.
Michael Bloomberg: Universities becoming bastions of intolerance - CNN.com
While former Mayor Bloomberg was making a commencement address, I believe the points he made went beyond even Higher Education to the larger issue of a willingness to listen to diverse viewpoints (something that also seems increasingly infrequent when it comes to discussions of politics/policy and economics). Receptivity to listen to another view point should not be confused with automatic acceptance of it. One always remains free to accept or reject messages in part or in whole. However, exposure to new or different perspectives can enrich one's own understanding, whether one is in school, at work, or simply conducting one's own life. Hence, I've added this story here. If it's the incorrect forum, it can be moved.
I think this raises a discussion point more so than an inherent problem. Universities - many of them, at least - are public, and these speakers are being funded in many cases by student org dollars which mostly come from the university. The speakers, therefore, are being paid public dollars to speak at a public university. Now, I don't know about anyone else here, but if I was going to college and, say, someone that was calling for the genocide of Israelis or Palestinians, or who was promoting racial violence, came to speak and was being paid to do so at my university, I wouldn't want them to. I'd protest with the goal of getting it shut down.
So the real question is, where is the line? Should there be one, or should students be allowed to protest whomever they want with the goal of shutting down the speech?
Is censorship of ideas you oppose a good idea intellectually?
lol yes liberals infiltrated science
1. Universities have always been places where people challenge the establishment and the status quo. All these people like Bloomberg who are acting as if such challenges are a recent development in higher education are perpetuating, or creating, a myth. More than that, they are defending status quo and the establishment under the guise of calling out "intolerance" on college campuses. In other words, people like Bloomberg aren't concerned about intolerance in higher education - they just don't like it when people push back so they find a way to demonize or minimize their critics.
2. One of the central flaws in the recent criticism of university protests is that such criticism is most frequently rooted in the premise that the protesters haven't "considered" different opinions. This is a flawed premise because it does not acknowledge that many students have, indeed, considered different opinions, but that they have just chosen to reject them as inaccurate, immoral or inappropriate.
Is censorship of ideas you oppose a good idea intellectually?
Michael Bloomberg: Universities becoming bastions of intolerance - CNN.com
While former Mayor Bloomberg was making a commencement address, I believe the points he made went beyond even Higher Education to the larger issue of a willingness to listen to diverse viewpoints (something that also seems increasingly infrequent when it comes to discussions of politics/policy and economics). Receptivity to listen to another view point should not be confused with automatic acceptance of it. One always remains free to accept or reject messages in part or in whole. However, exposure to new or different perspectives can enrich one's own understanding, whether one is in school, at work, or simply conducting one's own life. Hence, I've added this story here. If it's the incorrect forum, it can be moved.
Also, more generally, censorship isn't a cut and dry issue like many - including you - believe. It is much, much more nuanced.
Is censorship of ideas you oppose a good idea intellectually?
Thats not censorship.
1. Your criticism is based on the false premise that the university students who protested Rice didn't realize that they could learn from her. Perhaps they knew that they could learn from her, but decided that they did not want to because they take issue with her ideas, character or actions. Perhaps they weighed what they could learn from her against how accepting her as a speaker would reflect on them and their university and decided that the lessons she had to offer were not worth the cost of her presence at their school.While someone like Rice represents a controversial foreign policy, university students need to grow up and realize you can learn from anyone in that high of a profile.
Not all injustices are the same.
So tell me then... when was the last time a prominent liberal was shouted down or was removed from a speaking engagement due to protest?When I was in college, I took all of one political science course. The prof was very conservative and went on to be a shouting radio host. Not one student in the class had the balls to disagree with him other than me.
College students mostly want good grades because they think it matters or something.
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