Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Okay, there are many reasons. But one of the main reasons is that he will not compromise his principles to silence his opponents. In a post at Positive Liberty, he quotes an email sent to Pam Spaulding from someone who was proud to have disrupted and prevented someone they disagree with from speaking on a college campus:
The Smith College Republicans sponsored a speaking event featuring Ryan Sorba, author of the upcoming book The Born Gay Hoax. After about twenty minutes he was forced to abandon his speech after protesters forced their way into the room and drowned him out. I'll send videos and articles when they are available, but I thought I'd give you a heads up and ask you to please cover this action. I couldn't be more proud to be a Smithie right now, after I saw so many amazing young feminists come together to stand up against this asshat and his hate.
And Jason's response is perfect:
I haven't read the book, but I suspect from the clips I have seen of Mr. Sorba speaking that I probably would disagree with most of it and find the rest of it tendentious nonsense. It doesn't matter. I'm even gay, I'm pretty sure I've always been that way, and even that doesn't matter. This is America, and we don't answer bad ideas in the public square with violence. The rot in our political culture runs deep these days, and it's hardly conservatives alone who are responsible (though they are, in part). Real Americans shouldn't behave this way no matter what policy outcomes they favor.As far as I can tell, Mr. Sorba was there legally. There is no hint in any of the coverage that I can find on the story that would suggest Sorba was trespassing at the university, however questionable the choice may have been to invite him. A university is a place where people come together precisely so that they may encounter many different ideas, and often highly disagreeable ones. A principled response might have included some non-disruptive demonstration of disagreement, perhaps a few very pointed questions, and maybe a counter-lecture the following day or week aimed at rebutting the claims Mr. Sorba made.
The answer to an event like this is never to shout down the speaker. Not even if it were Hitler himself: Shouting down people you disagree with is the essence of the fascist method, regardless of the message on your lips. It fits badly with civilized behavior and reflects only the protesters' own lack of faith in their cause.
The students at Smith should not be proud of what they did, they should be ashamed. That Mr. Sorba should equally be ashamed of his ignorance and bigotry does not change that conclusion at all.
Comments
I think, based on things like this and my own school days, that there should be a mandatory seminar for all first year students titled "on protesting". In particular it should go into the dangers of mob mentality, and point out that if you cannot defend your reasons for being there, you should not participate.
In my school (way back in the day now) two of five campuses needed to be closed. The buildings were falling apart, there wasn't enough classroom space for large classes, and the campuses were 30 minutes on the bus from the other areas, making the classes there more difficult to attend. But... some upper years who felt strongly about the campuses for emotional reasons (it's where their residences were) managed to whip a large number of first years into an emotional frenzy that ended with 11 of them barricading themselves in the Dean's office for 32 hours... didn't end well... And when the first years in my residence were bemoaning the injustice of it all we finally sat them down and explained the real situation to them (which not a one of them had bothered to sort out themselves) which was that the school had enough room for all classes at the moment and that it was getting prohibitavely expensive to manintain two campuses that were falling apart and underutilized... and that keeping them open would mean higher tuition to the tune of thousands for the next few years to bring the buildings back up to code.
Ya, they hadn't really looked at the consequences or the reason that decisions were being made.
Short version: I think too many kids think that University is somewhere to explore being "radical", but they don't realize that they need a truly radical and righteous cause to carry that off.... and someone should tell them so before they get themselves into trouble.
Posted by: kodiak | May 5, 2008 9:51 AM
This kind of action can backfire. For a personal example, back when recovered memory therapy was spreading, a skeptical researcher attempted to give a debunking talk at a Canadian university (sorry, I don't have the specifics). He was shouted down by a group of "activists". Of course, this hit the national news, It also informed me that there was a controversy about this issue, and got me looking into it. I quickly realized what a dangerous fraud this therapy was. If the talk had gone on (with or without non-disruptive protests), I would never have heard about it, and I wouldn't have investigated till at least a couple of years later.
Note: I am not a therapist, but forensic science was part of my studies at the time.
Posted by: T. Bruce McNeely | May 5, 2008 10:12 AM
This brings back flashbacks from my undergrad days at MSU and just about every speaker the Young Americans for Freedom brought to campus. It seems almost like a right of passage for some of these people to show how committed they are to the cause.
Posted by: Chad | May 5, 2008 11:13 AM
This is the logical outcome of a righteous cause being combined with people with no critical thinking skills. They do right, they just do it wrong.
Posted by: FutureMD | May 5, 2008 11:47 AM
Everyone here should take a look at the book "How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World" by Francis Wheen. It's all about how many liberals and conservatives have surrendered their critical thinking skills. This protest is case in point.
(Sorry for the double post, I hit enter too soon)
Posted by: FutureMD | May 5, 2008 11:51 AM
"Everyone here should take a look at the book "How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World" by Francis Wheen. It's all about how many liberals and conservatives have surrendered their critical thinking skills. This protest is case in point"
Critical thinking is not taught in school today. I am amazed at my kids lack of creativity and original thought. They can all see that something is wrong but fatalism has set in and many have given up. This really worries me. I do not care that they agree with me, can copy down stuff from the board, or memorize info. I do care that they learn to think for themselves. It is the rare student. I teach at a school that regularly puts kids into Stanford, Duke, and the Ivy League.
As far as shouting someone down this is wrong. This is a good post and makes me a proud reader of Ed.
Posted by: King of Ireland | May 5, 2008 12:28 PM
ITA with Future MD and King of Ireland -- everyone runs around saying we need to fund science education, we need more science education, isn't it terrible how our science education is failing? But science classes as they're taught now do NOT teach critical thinking. It's critical thinking that people need, and the way to get it taught is to rethink what science classes are for. Merely doing more of what we have now isn't going to fix the problem we have. Speaking only for myself, I only got critical thinking classes at college, and as it is they weren't required and weren't even called "critical thinking," they were incognito as "decision making" and philosophy classes.
Posted by: ethyl | May 5, 2008 2:12 PM
I too was quite proud of Jason when he wrote this. His intellectual consistency and sense of fair play are remarkable.
Posted by: Jim Babka | May 5, 2008 2:53 PM
King of Ireland wrote:
I'm sitting here wishing you would say a ton more about this. In this paragraph, I see the outline of an article -- a testimony -- I'd very much want to read.
Posted by: Jim Babka | May 5, 2008 2:56 PM
Related subject, what is appropriate when the college is paying a stipend to the speaker? For example, Gonzales is collecting $30K speaking fees - is it suppression to try to block those funds?
Posted by: Phaedrus | May 5, 2008 3:13 PM
Was this in the early 90s? It was Carleton U. in Ottawa, where I was doing grad work at the time. As I recall, it was the campus feminist groups that crashed the talk (childhood sexual abuse being considered a "feminist" issue, and don't you dare tell any alleged victim that it didn't happen, you patriarchalist swine). I didn't know much about the subject either, but the reported objections from the feminist side didn't seem terribly well thought out.
Of course being in engineering (ie. overworked and apathetic) and an older student with a family, living way off-campus, I didn't participate in any of these "issues" events.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | May 5, 2008 5:37 PM
Jim Babka:
"I'm sitting here wishing you would say a ton more about this. In this paragraph, I see the outline of an article -- a testimony -- I'd very much want to read."
Out of respect to Ed I have tried to limit the length of my comments. I am trying to find time to start up a blog about some of these topics though. I just started back teaching and have been playing catch up.
Ethyl,
I am not a Science teacher but would love to see more money put into Science class. In fact, as much as I against tiered teacher pay, I cannot believe that someone with a Science or Math degree makes the same I do. My History stuff will not make me that much more than I can make as a teacher unless I get my PHD and teach in college or maybe Masters and do something with History. But these kids that take all this Math and Science and get paid the same I do it is not fair. They could take the same degree and go and make a lot more in the non educational world.
We need to invest more in Science and Technology at the HS level. I also like the idea of more philosophy classes. It is all the testing that kills the critical thinking. I am really shocked how hard it is to get them to think for themselves.
Posted by: King of Ireland | May 5, 2008 5:49 PM
I can understand --- sort of --- the impulse to shout down "unacceptable" speakers. But it's not a "proud" thing to do. There is protest, and then there is protest. Why couldn't those who disagreed with Mr. Sorba(who seems to have some sort of "agenda"), just picket the speech, outside? They would have made the same point, peacefully, and Sorba would have been able to continue his talk, to those who wished to hear him. That was the way these things used to be carried out when I was in college. But then, that was longer ago than I care to remember, and my hair wasn't gray then.
Anne G
Posted by: Anne Gilbert | May 5, 2008 7:19 PM
Re: Critical thinking in schools - I wholeheartedly agree, and as a future English teacher (only a year or so out from it), it's something I feel strongly about introducing in that environment. Critical thinking can (and probably should) be done across the curriculum since there's not much hope of a critical thinking course being taught widely (at least not as far as I can tell).
I saw this through another source and wondered if you'd post about it, Ed. I'm glad I wasn't disappointed.
Posted by: The Christian Cynic | May 5, 2008 9:56 PM
Good on you Ed for posting this. I was intrigued by the name of the book by Ryan Sorba (The Born Gay Hoax). There has long been a debate about whether or not homosexuality is genetic. The subtext of that debate seems to be that if we can prove homosexuality is genetic then gay rights will be secured. Whereas if homosexuality is a product of ones circumstances and/or choices then persecution of homosexuals must follow.
I think this is a totally insane way to think. It belies the lack of critical thinking mentioned by many people on this thread. Homosexuals should be guaranteed their rights as a matter of principle regardless of what may or may not be the origin of same-sex attraction. Otherwise the whole discussion is smothered by fear and loathing. This explains why there was a near riot when Ryan Sorba showed up on campus. The idea of someone questioning the genetic theory of homosexuality causes a mindless panic.
Posted by: Cheddar | May 5, 2008 10:40 PM
"The subtext of that debate seems to be that if we can prove homosexuality is genetic then gay rights will be secured. Whereas if homosexuality is a product of ones circumstances and/or choices then persecution of homosexuals must follow."
I may be wrong - in which case no doubt one of the fine resident lawyers will correct me, but I believe you are focusing on a possible "bad" subtext and missing an important "good" one. My understanding is that one question is whether "gay" is a "suspect classification" which should trigger strict scrutiny by SCOTUS when assessing constitutionality of laws adversely impacting members of the class. Ie, it has to do with protecting gays from discriminatory laws.
For more, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspect_classification
especially criterion No. 1.
- Charles
Posted by: ctw | May 6, 2008 8:02 AM
King of Ireland -- not sure what science education and funding have to do with teacher's pay scales, so I'm going to skip that portion of your comment...
The problem with just increasing funding for "science education" is that it doesn't do anything to correct the fundamental issue; it would just be doing more of the same stuff, the stuff we know already is not giving our students the critical thinking skills they need.
What needs to happen is a fundamental change in how Americans think of education. American education currently focuses on "teaching to the test," something everyone knows isn't working and yet the soluton seems to be doing the same thing only more of it. A paradigm shift needs to happen and the way Americans approach K-12 education needs to change. Unlikely, and so we're doomed to regress to the dark ages and it won't be long before we're burning books and then people. We're doomed, especially as long as the people making decisions have no duty to be in touch with reality, and ESPECIALLY as long as not being in touch with reality is considered some kind of virtue.
Posted by: ethyl | May 6, 2008 9:49 AM
A few students at my high school had a nicely planned protest at a "pep rally."
The week or so before CATS (Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, maybe the "S" doesn't actually stand for anything, don't remember) testing week, the school would usually bring in some sort of motivational speaker. Waste of school funding, I think, but time out of class is time out of class. A few of my friends found the speaker's website (I don't even remember the guy's name), and saw how often Jesus was mentioned, so they decided to stage a protest. They took some fluorescent posterboards, and wrote "Seperation of church and state" and "No church in school" on one side, and stuff like "I'm not Christian, does that mean I'm excused?" on the other. They stuck 'em in their backpacks and, the moment he started speaking about God, they stood up, with the quippy side of the signs facing back towards the rest of the stands and the more serious side facing the basketball court, where faculty and staff sat/stood/walked. The principal initially suspended all seven of the students, but all of their parents raised a ruckus, so they just got a day of ICE (Isolated Classroom Environment) for disrupting an assebly. But all the Christians who stood up and booed got ICE, too.
Posted by: Mac | May 6, 2008 10:28 AM