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Bloomberg: Universities becoming bastions of intolerance

donsutherland1

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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spring, it has been disturbing to see a number of college commencement speakers withdraw -- or have their invitations rescinded -- after protests from students and -- to me, shockingly -- from senior faculty and administrators who should know better," Bloomberg said...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.

Universities are certainly the place where differing views should brought up and analyzed. Their goal should be education, not indoctrination. When I went to college (1960's) things were as I think they should be. I didn't experience any political indoctrination at all. Something has changed and it doesn't feel right.
 
My youngest son is a rising Senior at UNC Chapel Hill. It became painfully obvious to me a few weeks ago that he had been subjected in his education at that particular university to a lack of diversity in the ideas accepted and taught. It was not that his thought process had turned from one of analysis of all perspectives to just one of a liberal/progressive viewpoint (which it had), but that he was obviously emulating his environment at the school in his discussions with me by adopting a combative and dismissive stance of any position or idea that was not of what could be referred to as pure from the liberal or progressive ideological point of view. As I've mentioned on this forum before, he raised his voice to me and became angry and agitated that anyone would dare to question his position. I stayed calm and let him know that his position was valid to the point that I would give him the respect to listen and consider it, however, he must do the same to opposing positions, do his own analysis and research, and then make up his own mind. I told him that he should never accept anything anyone says implicitly without question nor should he dismiss out of hand opposing viewpoints simply because they are different than what he has been taught.

In other words, I saw what the OP is describing brought directly into my own house and suffered through its attempt to co-opt my own family.

To paraphrase a far right man that I didn't agree with on every issue, yet who made a funny and salient point on the Senate floor when discussing this phenomena, Senator Jesse Helms once said in regard to the liberals and progressives in the University of North Carolina: North Carolina would be a kind and wonderful state, if you put a fence around Chapel Hill.
 
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 so rarely agree with him that it makes me happy when it happens. I could have done without reading his anti-gun comments, but the rest was very interesting and I agree with his point.
 
I don't like Bloomberg because of his ideology, but he called this one.
 
Mr Big Gulp, who wants to ban everything in NY and elsewhere, talking about intolerance:lamo
 
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Bloomberg did call it. But this is not a new problem; this intolerance of conservative professors by those who otherwise preach "tolerance" was evident by the late '80's. It's just become more uncivilly bold. I still can't believe the pie-throwing incidents, much less the more recent and embarrassing withdrawals of invitations to speak, and etc.

Some may find interesting: Rethinking the Plight of Conservatives in Higher Education | AAUP
 
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?
 
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.
 
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?
 
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?

There's a big difference between opposing a speaker being paid public dollars to speak and promote hate, and censorship of ideas generally. I don't think opposing a speaker at a public university, and opposing the public funding of that speaker, is promotion of censorship as their views aren't being silenced, they are just being prevented from speaking in one venue. And, besides, I think censorship is good in some instances, such as the examples I described previously. I don't think people who promote genocidal violence should be allowed to express their ideas.

Also, more generally, censorship isn't a cut and dry issue like many - including you - believe. It is much, much more nuanced.
 
Liberals have been immensely successful at infiltrating science, the media, education, and the court system. That was the gameplan, and its ugly effects are being seen now in every nook and cranny. The nation has lost its way and its soul as a result.
 
lol yes liberals infiltrated science

Yes have you not heard, as long as it is not in the bible or/and invented before 1775, then it is liberal trash and brain washing. The only truth is the one that conservatives have preached for 5000 years... obey us or die.
 
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.

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.
 
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.

So Bloomberg says something I absolutely agree with. Strangely I despise most of what he stands for such as opposition to second amendment rights and creating a nanny state to protect people from themselves by banning transfat and big gulps etc. He is a big government is here to take care of you progressive.

But he is right on this one. The irony is that the very fact that I can recognize some truth and accuracy from a many who'se politics I hate is precisely what universities are lacking these days. It is not just the recent cancellations of high profile speakers but a creeping change in atmosphere which has been happening for years. In the name of progress or diversity or multi culturalism or whatever intolerance is precisely what universities are all about. One cannot challenge accepted views which are usually left wing.

Speech codes which essentially make it policy to ban any expression which may offend someone is a thinly veiled attack on free speech. Now of course universities are not the government and therefore the first amendment does not apply. It is appalling however to find that they have lost any pretense at open exploration of ideas both good and bad. At the same time of course we wonder at the decline of American education.

The examples are endless such as an individual kicked out of school for reading a book with a picture of a klansman on the cover ( offended another student ) or som guy yelling the term waterbuffaloe at some noisy girls who were disrupting his study. Not to mention the Sumners fiasco at Harvard where he suggested a logical and empirically supported truth which offended countless feminazis on the faculty.

Students in the sixties took pride in challeniging the system, establishment and status quo. Only to turn around years later and act like the very fascists they acuse others of being.
 
Also, more generally, censorship isn't a cut and dry issue like many - including you - believe. It is much, much more nuanced.

You presume far too much. You have no idea what I believe about censorship because I have never spoken of it in any post here at DP. Interesting, however, that you chose to "interpret" what was a simple rhetorical question.
 
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.
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.

2. Your criticism is also based on the false premise that students should accept speakers just because they could learn from them. The flaw in this logic is best exposed by an extreme example: a genocidal dictator who has held power for decades being offered to speak at a college commencement. Students could also learn from such a person - perhaps even more than they could learn from Rice - however, I think we would both agree that it would be right for students to object to such an individual speaking at their university. Why would we agree about that? Because we know that people do - and ought to - consider more than just whether or not they can learn from someone when evaluating whether or not it is appropriate or desirable to have that person welcomed to an institution.

3. You argue that the students need to "grow up". I think it is more grown up to challenge the establishment when one disagrees with it rather than simply cower in the face of it and go along with whatever it decides as most people do.

The bottom line is that you are expressing your distaste for those who disagree with you about Rice under the guise of making a neutral assessment of the protesters' character.
 
I think it is more intellectually grown up to challenge oneself and one’s own ideas and theories against contrarian views. Strengthens the good theories, you know.
 
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.
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?
 
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