After Heather Mac Donald was recently shut down by a mob of students who support Black Lives Matter at Claremont McKenna, the president of Pomona College, which is part of the consortium of Claremont colleges, defended her and the importance of free speech. That didn’t sit well with some students.
The Claremont Independent reports:
Students Demand Administrators ‘Take Action’ Against Conservative JournalistsIn an open letter to outgoing Pomona College President David Oxtoby, a group of students from the Claremont Colleges assail the president for affirming Pomona’s commitment to free speech and demand that all five colleges “take action” against the conservative journalists on the staff of the Claremont Independent.The letter, written by three self-identified Black students at Pomona College, is a response to an April 7 email from President Oxtoby in which he reiterated the college’s commitment to “the exercise of free speech and academic freedom” in the aftermath of protests that shut down a scheduled appearance by an invited speaker, scholar and Black Lives Matter critic Heather Mac Donald, on April 6.“Protest has a legitimate and celebrated place on college campuses,” Oxtoby wrote. “What we cannot support is the act of preventing others from engaging with an invited speaker. Our mission is founded upon the discovery of truth, the collaborative development of knowledge and the betterment of society.”In their open letter, the students sharply disagree.“Free speech, a right many freedom movements have fought for, has recently become a tool appropriated by hegemonic institutions. It has not just empowered students from marginalized backgrounds to voice their qualms and criticize aspects of the institution, but it has given those who seek to perpetuate systems of domination a platform to project their bigotry,” they write.“Thus, if ‘our mission is founded upon the discovery of truth,’” the students continue, citing Oxtoby’s letter, “how does free speech uphold that value?”The students also characterize truth as a “myth” and a white supremacist concept.
Here are some excerpts from the letter:
Dear David Oxtoby,We, few of the Black students here at Pomona College and the Claremont Colleges, would like to address several of the points made in your ‘Academic Freedom and Free Speech’ email sent out to the entire student body on April 7, 2017 in response to a student protest against Heather Mac Donald’s talk at Claremont McKenna College’s (CMC) Athenaeum. We believe that given your position as President of this institution your voice holds significant weight in campus discourse. That power comes with immense responsibility, especially when you could dictate campus culture, climate, and the alleged mission of this institution…The idea that we must subject ourselves routinely to the hate speech of fascists who want for us not to exist plays on the same Eurocentric constructs that believed Black people to be impervious to pain and apathetic to the brutal and violent conditions of white supremacy.The idea that the search for this truth involves entertaining Heather Mac Donald’s hate speech is illogical. If engaged, Heather Mac Donald would not be debating on mere difference of opinion, but the right of Black people to exist. Heather Mac Donald is a fascist, a white supremacist, a warhawk, a transphobe, a queerphobe, a classist, and ignorant of interlocking systems of domination that produce the lethal conditions under which oppressed peoples are forced to live.
The entire letter is embedded below:
Pomona Student Petition Against Conservative Journalists by Legal Insurrection on Scribd
This is similar to what recently happened at Wellesley.
The left can’t fight free speech so they’re simply trying to end it.
Hat tip to the Simple Justice blog.
Featured image via YouTube.
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