There aren’t many idiots at a place like Yale. Even so, hundreds of Yale students rose up in protest of the freedom of speech. You read that correctly.
They were not protesting a violation of their right to free speech; rather, they protested that the freedom of speech was itself a problem. This derives from a trend toward political correctness in far-left politics. “P.C.” politicians want to remove protection of offensive or incendiary speech in the 1st amendment. It is easy for the average Hillsdale student to condemn these ideas as Hillsdale is on the opposite end of the political spectrum. But I believe there are valuable lessons for us here.
Last week, 500 students at Yale University were seen protesting a campus-wide email sent out by one of their faculty, Erika Christakis, regarding appropriate Halloween attire. To the average Hillsdale College student, the story already seems absurd because Hillsdale can’t even get 500 students to enter for a chance to win $15,000 at a Hype Night, let alone get 500 students to actively protest something as trivial as Halloween costumes. The Hillsdale student’s incredulity is heightened upon finding out how benign Christakis’ email is.
The email written by Christakis was written in response to another email sent out by the Yale Intercultural Affairs Committee which set out rigid guidelines in order to avoid offending people with choices in festival attire. These guidelines (posted to Pinterest) ranged from prohibiting blackface to avoiding costumes from any exterior culture. Christakis’ email was very sensitive to the wish for an offense free Halloween but suggested that the students should be self-governing in their choice of costume.
To quote the email directly: “Have we lost faith in young people’s capacity — in your capacity — to exercise self-censure, through social norming, and also in your capacity to ignore or reject things that trouble you?” This suggestion invoked in these Yale students a fiery passion rivaling that of the French Revolution, the Civil Rights Movement, and possibly even the removal of Saga, Inc. here at Hillsdale.
The Yale students wanted something to be done about this faculty member who had the audacity to claim students could avoid offending each other without school-mandated policy. Amid the tumult, one Yale activist’s screams rang out high above the others: “It is not about creating an intellectual space! It is not! Do you understand that? It’s about creating a home here!” Truly, a noble sentiment to hold at one of the most highly-regarded intellectual institutions in the country.
All jokes aside, the fervent arguments set out by these students are far more troubling than entertaining. How can a place with such a high bar of entry allow backwards ideas to not just exist, but take hold in a large number of students? I would argue that the relatively homogenous political identity of Yale is the source of these wild, widely-held ideas. Yale is considered one of the most liberal of the Ivy League schools, when all of the Ivy League schools are already quite liberal themselves.
Hillsdale ranks highly as a right-wing college. From my observation of political conversation here at Hillsdale, I’ve found that political conversation usually begins from a belief already held by the majority of conservatives. Students don’t go about reinventing the wheel; instead, they aim to fine tune the performance of the wheel. This is great for reaching beyond the basic political talking points and moving on to nuances within those points.
If this same sort of fine-tuning occurs at Yale, which I believe it does, then entire intellectual discussions might be built on shaky, if not flat out incorrect, ground. While it is easy for Hillsdale Students to ridicule the blatant disregard for rights of free speech and sing a South Park song about “safe space,” maybe we should look at the Yale students as a warning.
These students put a lot of energy into their beliefs; as evidenced by their strong reaction to dissenting opinions. However, the basic premise of the P.C. movement is a violation of the Constitution. As Hillsdale students are well-removed from this conversation, it seems almost intellectually insulting to point out the fault in their argument.
But what if a Yale student were to observe all of our discussions here on campus? What if one of our assumptions on which we build arguments is as wrong as the assumption made by the left? We would be wasting hours of discussion and the wearying the patience of our politically inactive friends for no reason at all.
I want to challenge students to try approaching their basest assumptions from an opposing angle. Try thinking like a liberal (or a Republican, if you are one of those special few leftists here on campus) and really challenge your beliefs.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” If you disagree with me and Aristotle, we could try just being a Republican safe space.
