From the Washington Post, a Left-wing opinion broadsheet that is one of the actors that helped destroy the American academia. Written by
Lucía Martínez Valdivia, an assistant professor of English and humanities at Reed College and harassed by Stalinists student cadres.
At Reed College in Oregon, where I work, a group of students began protesting the required first-year humanities course a year ago. Three times a week, students sat in the lecture space holding signs — many too obscene to be printed here — condemning the course and its faculty as white supremacists, as anti-black, as not open to dialogue and criticism, on the grounds that we continue to teach, among many other things, Aristotle and Plato.
In the interest of supporting dissent and the free exchange of ideas, the faculty and administration allowed this. Those who felt able to do so lectured surrounded by those signs for the better part of a year. I lectured, but dealt with physical anxiety — lack of sleep, nausea, loss of appetite, inability to focus — in the weeks leading up to my lecture. Instead of walking around or standing at the lectern, as I typically do, I sat as I tried to teach students how to read the poetry of Sappho. Inadvertently, I spoke more quietly, more timidly....
This academic year, the first lecture was to be a panel introduction of the course: Along with two colleagues, I was going to offer my thoughts on the course, the study of the humanities and the importance of students’ knowing the history of the education they were beginning.
We introduced ourselves and took our seats. But as we were about to begin, the protesters seized our microphones, stood in front of us and shut down the lecture.
The right to speak freely is not the same as the right to rob others of their voices.
Understanding this argument requires an ability to detect and follow nuance, but nuance has largely been dismissed from the debates about speech raging on college campuses. Absolutist postures and the binary reign supreme. You are pro- or anti-, radical or fascist, angel or demon. Even small differences of opinion are seized on and characterized as moral and intellectual failures, unacceptable thought crimes that cancel out anything else you might say.
No one should have to pass someone else’s ideological purity test to be allowed to speak. University life — along with civic life — dies without the free exchange of ideas.
In the face of intimidation, educators must speak up, not shut down. Ours is a position of unique responsibility: We teach people not what to think, but how to think.
Realizing and accepting this has made me — an eminently replaceable, untenured, gay, mixed-race woman with PTSD — realize that no matter the precariousness of my situation, I have a responsibility to model the appreciation of difference and care of thought I try to foster in my students.
If I, like so many colleagues nationwide, am afraid to say what I think, am I not complicit in the problem?
At Reed and nationwide, we have largely stayed silent, probably hoping that this extremist moment in campus politics eventually peters out. But it is wishful thinking to imagine that the conversation will change on its own. It certainly won’t change if more voices representing more positions aren’t added to it.
But at the end of her plea for understanding she still doesn't get it. Stalinism isn't about dialog. It's about power; it's about crushing your enemies. Better yet, if you can get your enemies to love Big Brother your job is complete.
