Friday, April 22, 2016

Universities Sweep The 2016 TJ Center Muzzle Awards

Will this is depressing...
,,,but not surprising to anyone who's been paying attention.
I vaguely remember someone saying to me in graduate school that universities were on a trajectory to becoming some of the places in the country least conducive/amenable to the free exchange of ideas. Can't remember who said it, but I remember thinking it was cracked. I was wrong.

Incidentally, you can contribute to the Thomas Jefferson Center For the Protection of Free Expression here.

6 Comments:

Blogger Dark Avenger said...

A list of universities and colleges, without a single word of explaination as to how any of them earned their designation, after a couple of clicks from the page in question.

You've really outdone yourself treated us to the full Seinfeld here. (a sitcom famously described as "being about nothing").

Oh, and Count Floyd called, said he wanted to take a few lessons from you on being scary.

9:26 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Oh, DA...you've disappeared completely down the rabbit-hole of lefty crazy. You aren't even trying to be *minimally* rational anymore. You're like the poster-child for the contemporary left edge of liberalism...you're unwilling to condemn even the most egregious nuttiness of the most extreme edge of the left. If you're even willing to cut free speech loose in defense of the leftiest of the left, it seems that you're not a liberal after all...and perhaps never *have* been one...

9:38 AM  
Blogger Dark Avenger said...

Anyone can name their organization after a dead President, and there was no indication of what free speech violation occurred on a single one of the campuses named, let alone all of them at the link.

As someone remarked during the Watergate hearings, a traffic citation has more information than what was on their website.

Your credulity towards such things has increased in the last few year, Winston. Why, I could probably write a fake story involving the local community college here, and you'd fall for it hook, line, and sinker, without any attempt whatsoever to verify it.


9:57 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Oh TVDA...

You've gone off the deep end. You make no effort to be critical of the PC left. You're beginning to remind me of someone on the other end of the spectrum...but who...who?

It's inevitable that I'll make mistakes...I'd be pretty surprised if I'd never fallen for bogus tales against the left...and against the right... (Though of course you're not so scrupulous about that latter stuff...) But of course that's no real criticism. Everybody will do that sometimes. I'm sure the TJ center will make mistakes too...but everybody makes mistakes, and pretending that individual (and purely hypothetical) errors matter is silly.

Incidentally, the left *repeatedly* falls for left-friendly hoaxes perpetrated by its own (e.g. the UVA-Rolling Stone rape hoax).

The important point is: there is overwhelming, undeniable evidence that the crazy left is against free expression, especially on campuses. There's just no denying it.

I *do* agree that people are starting to smoosh together violations of the First Amendment with a more generalized stance against free expression, if that's what you're trying to get at. That *does* need to be sorted out.

And, of course, what you're complaining about is an "awards" announcement. It's not supposed to be an in-depth analysis of the cases.

So, rather than complaining that the TJ center didn't give evidence where evidence isn't required, OR complaining that maybe I've made a mistake somewhere, OR complaining that, while totalitarian none of the cases actually violated the First Amendment....did you have any actual arguments? That is: would you like to defend the overall general thrust of these PC efforts on campuses?

10:23 AM  
Blogger Dark Avenger said...

i went to the site and all it was was a bunch of institutions they named, without any indication on any of them what they had done to earn such a title from them.

I want facts, Winston, not a list of names.

I'm sorry that my demand for evidence has apparently discombobolated you so thoroughly. It reminds me of the "death panel" propaganda that was flung about before the ACA was passed by Congress.

Now, to show you my good faith effort about this issue, here's a form from a university that didn't make the list, but certainly deserves to:

http://diversity.wustl.edu/students/mosaic/bias-report-support-system/bias-report-form/

I have a BA in Biology from this institution, so you can imagine my shame when I learned of this development.

10:49 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Ugh.
Yes, that's painful alright.
(Great school, though.)

But look, what's wrong with these points:

A. An "award" announcement like that is not necessarily the place for details about all the cases. Details have to be given at some point, but not at every point.

B. The TJ center has a good track record, so their opinion on these matters is not weightless.

C. We know that there's a general trend in this bad direction, so it's not as if such things are *prima facie* unbelievable.

D. We're all free to look into the details ourselves.

I don't see that this sort of thing is inherently objectionable.

Though if you've got information that the TJ center is wrong about some of the cases, lay it on me, man. I'd count it as good news.

11:06 AM  

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