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Some Students at Middlebury College Say They’re Afraid to Disagree

Some Students at Middlebury College Say They’re Afraid to Disagree

“saying they feel pressured to vocally disagree without really listening”

https://youtu.be/utwrCc5cSRY

Middlebury is the school where American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray was attacked by an unhinged mob of students shrieking “racist, sexist, KKK!” so it’s no surprise that some students don’t feel comfortable expressing their views.

The College Fix reports:

At college where violence greeted Charles Murray, students say they’re afraid to disagree

It will be some time before Middlebury College stops being associated with violent left-wing intolerance – even among its own students.

A writing and linguistics professor is conducting an ongoing survey of students at the Vermont liberal arts school where American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray and his faculty interviewer were physically attacked, sending the latter to the hospital.

Early results suggest that true ideological diversity is being inhibited because students are afraid of being seen as insufficiently woke.

Writing & Rhetoric Program Director Shawna Shapiro writes about student attitudes for Inside Higher Ed, saying they had “complex reactions that didn’t fit the simplistic ‘free speech vs. inclusion/diversity’ dichotomy” that typically prevails.

Seven in 10 students in the sample identify as “left-leaning,” yet even these students say by a 4-1 margin that it’s “very important” or “important” to talk about controversial issues with people whose viewpoints are different than theirs.

Most of the entire sample are already having such conversations, more so over meals or in residence halls than in class or public lectures.

Four in five say these conversations “can be difficult to navigate,” with some students saying they feel pressured to vocally disagree without really listening:

They have been taught that in some situations — for instance, as a bystander to bullying — silence equals complicity. As a result, they worry that simply listening, without offering a rebuttal, might be interpreted as tacit support for a particular viewpoint. Hence, while they may want to “just listen,” they feel tremendous pressure to “speak out.”

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Comments

When the Brownshirts showed up in the Reichstag, opposition parties tended to not have a voice. I suspect most of the Brownshirts weren’t real versed on the nuance of Nazi policy, either.

But the college was so proud of this…