College students at the University of Pittsburgh left a campus speech in tears after a speaker said something they didn't like. Where is my safe space? The Pitt News reported:
Yiannopoulos, a controversial conservative writer and activist who tours colleges to speak about the need for free speech, spoke at Pitt Monday evening to a crowd of about 350 students, some of whom protested the lecture. The Board had allocated funding to Pitt College Republicans, who had invited Yiannopoulos to campus.
During his talk, Yiannopoulos called students who believe in a gender wage gap “idiots,” declared the Black Lives Matter movement a “supremacy” group, while feminists are “man-haters.”
The Board said in a release earlier on Tuesday that it understood and empathized with students who were offended by Yiannopoulos’ talk, but that it had a duty to “fairly represent the voice of all students in the allocations funding process.”
In the release, the Board said it must follow the precedent set in the U.S. Supreme Court case Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth, saying a student governing body must “operate under the principle of viewpoint neutrality.”
According to Board member Jack Heidecker, when SGB considers funding for allocations, it must take a neutral stance and cannot consider the content of the speaker. Despite its legal binding, the Board apologized to the students who were hurt from the speech.
Mr. Yiannopoulos gave his speech but then the real fun started. The student newspaper continues:
Contempt. Nothing but contempt for these people. A university is supposed to be where ideas are exchanged and challenged. Mrs. Denise Schifres at Hinds and Professor Scarbarough at Millsaps were great at taking the opposite tact of a class's mood just to challenge their way of thinking. These students are pathetic and short-changed for life. They are the result of a lifetime of helicopter parenting and a culture where everyone gets a trophy and no feelings are hurt. Can anyone imagine these students riding the buses during Freedom Summer. Can you see them risking arrests and beatings that regularly took place back then?
Just because we have to be neutral with our funding doesn’t mean we’re personally neutral — we feel strongly about these things,” Heidecker said. “I hurt yesterday, too.”....
Board member Everett Green said, in his three semesters on the Board, this was the first time he had seen a student response of this magnitude at a meeting....
More than 15 students expressed their concerns at the meeting, focusing on issues of diversity and inclusion at Pitt, particularly in terms of race and sexual identity.
Marcus Robinson, president of Pitt’s Rainbow Alliance, said after leaving the lecture on Monday, he felt unsafe on campus for the first time.
“So many of us shared in our pain. I felt I was in danger, and I felt so many people in that room were in danger. This event erased the great things we’ve done,” Robinson said. “For the first time, I’m disappointed to be at Pitt.”
Robinson suggested that the University should have provided counselors in a neighboring room to help students who felt “invalidated” or “traumatized” by the event.
Other students suggested that the Board research the speakers before it makes an allocations decision or warn students if the speaker will contain content that could be racist or violent or focus on rape and sexual assault. In response to the lecture, students expressed interest in holding a committee to discuss how to prevent future issues.
Board member Lia Petrose said one solution would have been to form a coalition of leaders from student groups before the event to discuss potential concerns, in light of protests at other universities in response to visits from Yiannopoulos.
While SGB focused on the issue of championing free speech in its release, students argued the lecture was “hate speech” and should not follow the same rights.
“This is more than hurt feelings, this is about real violence. We know that the violence against marginalized groups happens every day in this country. That so many people walked out of that [event] feeling in literal physical danger is not alright,” Claire Matway, a social work and urban studies major, said.
Tim Nerozzi, the president of College Republicans and a junior at Pitt, said SGB did not pay Yiannopoulos to speak at Pitt but did fund his hotel and part of his travel expenses.
“I’m not here to rain on your parade. We put a trigger warning on our fliers for the event. We never claimed it would be a family friendly or a politically correct lecture,” Nerozzi said.
Nerozzi, who is an opinions columnist at The Pitt News, said while he understands it is a “messy issue” and does not agree with all of Yiannopoulos’ values, he does believe in the free speech ideal.
“I do realize that some people were genuinely hurt, and I’m not going to ignore that,” Nerozzi said. “But free speech should not trump safety. We need to see the school work around that.”..
In response to student comments, Harun said, with teary eyes, said the best way to make an impact on campus was to begin conversations like this with the Board.
“Now is a good time talk about [amending the allocations manual]. It starts here and we can take it from there,” Harun said. “We’re very sorry people are feeling the way they are and it was not intended … and we’re sorry people are not proud to be at Pitt.”.... Rest of article and copy of letter sent to students.
By the way, here is the speech. Watch for yourself and see how "dangerous" the speech is. For the record, this blogger does not agree with everything Mr. Yiannopoulos says but dammit, he has the right to say what he says. These kids need to toughen up.
16 comments:
Get a pacifier or a government titty to suck on.
Progressives, led by the empty suit in the White House, like to say that Guantanamo Bay is a recruiting tool for the jihadists. I believe that actions such as these are the prime recruiting tool. This clearly demonstrates just how pathetic that this generation of Americans is. Granted, not all are like this, but, enough are to make someone who was raised in a society that values men of strength realize that America is now ripe for the picking. God help us all.
5:23-you are right. American is ripe for the picking by electing someone like Trump who makes Mr. Yiannopoulos sound (and look) like the Tooth Fairy.
Universities should invite Black Lives Matter to debate the KKK! It's the appropriate forum-controlled debate and challenge thinking.
We've replaced critical thought and reason with monologue and disagreement.
Can't wait to see who gets thrown out of the Mussolini, I mean the Trump rally tomorrow.
And the speaker, a noted adult baby, has been been in tears and whining online because Twitter took his pwecious blue check mark.
Thanks for bringing this latest example of nonsense to our attention.
What's happened to our college kids ?
Are they all . . . weak . . . crying sissy boys and goofy lil' girls ?
I watched one little fellow throw a tantrum the other night about his Tapas order at a SodoSopa . . . I mean "Fondren" . . . Mexican Restaurant.
He's gay. How is it possible for him to say anything that resembles hate speech? Does his conservatism and being Roman Catholic negate his gay creds?
Mr. Yiannopoulos? What district is that?
I'm a bit confused.
These days, there's no distinction between propaganda and free speech?
University students should not be learning the difference between fact and opinion, bias and objectivity?
Universities are places to express feelings and not ideas?
A University is not a place for learning what great minds think or have thought through the ages, but as a platform for opinions, no matter how worthless.
Under this policy, Hitler, Stalin, bin Laden , etc. or their minions should have been politely accepted as speakers on college campuses.
The conservative view of the '50's that some speakers should be banned as propagandists and hate mongers like Communists and Nazis has changed and they have agreed with the left wing liberals of that period were right?
I learned as a child that name calling is a sign of immaturity and a lack of intellectual development and had no place anywhere. I learned there's a difference in expressing and supporting a position and throwing a temper tantrum or hurling insults.
Socrates is rolling in his grave that a person of Greek ancestry never learned the value of the Socratic method and how it fostered those ideas made Greece once the cradle of democracy and great civilizations.
Hypocrisy is from the Greek word " hypokrisis" after all!
My grandma would simply say, " This person is an example of ' the pot calling the kettle black' "!
I believe you forgot that the socratic method included bringing a student to the front of the room and embarrassing them on what they did not know.
What a bunch of whiny little sissies! Big bad words made them feel unsafe?
Now I know why PittPanther is such a coprophagic scissorbill.
The pussyfying of America continues--
I really enjoyed the speaker, he is good at what he does. His views are his only and he got paid for his thought provoking style. Then he is revelant enough for the university to ask for his services. Come on people it was fun and nothing personal or life altering. " He doesn't know you or anything about you".
Go to school, do the best you can and get into a reverent and good paying career field. Then you can sit at home like me, read many news stories and comment on Jackson Jambalaya daily!
I'm glad my kid goes to a military college. There is no "safe space" in the Rat Line.
Wonder how many of those students are in a high demand good paying field of study. Probably none. If they were, they would be in lab or study hall. However they elected to go and get their feelings hurt. What a bunch of fools!
College has changed. It used to be where people went to learn how to make an honest living. Look at colleges today. They teach more fluff classes than anything else. We need working people, not fluffy people.
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