Mr. Jefferson Would Be Ashamed of UVA's Woke Campus Journalists
America’s colleges have a free speech problem. They are increasingly hostile to those whose views dissent from campus orthodoxy. Late last year, a survey of more than 37,000 college students found that two-thirds thought it acceptable to shout down a speaker (Not coincidentally, 81 percent said they self-censor their thoughts). Just recently, after penning a New York Times column lamenting the cancel culture of quiet intimidation on campus, a University of Virginia student was harassed by an online woke mob seeking to silence her.
Confronted with a wealth of evidence that campuses are increasingly hostile to free thought, the editors of the University of Virginia’s student newspaper have mustered a truly bizarre response: They’ve concluded that the real problem is that there is too much free speech and freedom of thought at their institution.
In a group editorial entitled “Dangerous rhetoric Is not entitled to a platform,” the editors of the Cavalier Daily ask how much intellectual diversity should be permitted on campus and then explain, “For us, the answer is simple. Hateful rhetoric is violent — and this is impermissible.”
A declaration that speech should be “impermissible” if someone deems it “hateful” is, of course, wildly at odds with a free press or the First Amendment. That’s troubling enough. But the bitter irony is that it’s being offered up by the student journalists who oversee the campus newspaper at the esteemed public university founded by Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson was something of an absolutist on free speech. After all, it was he who famously observed, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
Of course, gradations matter here. After all, there are narrow standards under which we agree it’s permissible to circumscribe speech. It’s not okay to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. So, what exactly do the students have in mind as examples of “hateful rhetoric” that should be barred from a college campus?
Well. The editors were moved to outrage because former U.S. vice president Mike Pence has been invited to speak on campus next month. Upset that campus leaders have blithely observed that hosting the former vice president is part of a commitment “to hear from, and engage with, leaders and experts from a wide variety of fields and perspectives,” the editors insist that “so-called ‘perspectives’ should not be welcomed when they spread rhetoric that directly threatens the presence and lives of our community members.”
What threat does Mike Pence’s rhetoric supposedly pose? It turns out that the editors judge it “hateful” that Pence calls for enforcing immigration laws, urges a measured approach to pandemic response, believes biology matters when determining gender, and disagrees with the agenda of Black Lives Matter.
Or, in the editors’ bizarre and smear-laden rendition of Pence’s record, “For Pence, gay couples signify a ‘societal collapse,’ Black lives do not matter, transgender individuals and immigrants do not deserve protection and the pandemic should not be taken seriously.” Thus, they write, “We refuse to condone platforming Pence.”
Indeed, these student journalists go on to declare:
There is a blatant dichotomy between the values that Pence and the University hold. Once so-called politics turn into transphobia, homophobia and racism, they are no longer mere political beliefs — but rather bigotry that threatens the well-being and safety of students on Grounds. The Cavalier Daily’s Editorial Board does not condone platforming [anyone who] participates in the violent rhetoric that perpetuates harm against these individuals.
This is a journalistic credo that would’ve appealed to Joe McCarthy during his anti-communist witch hunts. This is a stance that substitutes ideology for science, inquiry, or civic debate. This is a perversion of the journalistic ethos.
Indeed, taking their words at face value, the editors of the Cavalier Daily want the University of Virginia’s leaders and students to disinvite or silence any voice who would challenge progressive orthodoxy on matters of race, immigration, gender, or even pandemic response.
This stance, of course, also makes the case for silencing, shouting down, or barring from campus pretty much every Republican elected official in the land. (Indeed, that rather seems to be the point.)
Mr. Jefferson would be ashamed.
Frederick M. Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
