Conservative Speaker Targeted at Yale Law School: “This wasn’t a protest. This was physical intimidation”
Kristen Waggoner of Alliance Defending Freedom: “These students were not only physically intimidating the other students and the speakers, they were pounding on the walls, blocking the exits, and disrupting the event throughout”
Two days ago we covered the latest temper tantrum by law students, Yale Law Students Disrupt, Try To Intimidate Conservative Speaker:
We have been here before, intolerant students trying to purge and punish people with whom they disagree. It’s not just an undergraduate problem, it’s happening in law schools also, with faculty and administrators condoning or even encouraging this cancel culture.
The most recent example was the shout-down of Ilya Shapiro at UC-Hastings Law School, which involved a student getting within inches of Shapiro as he tried to speak in a clear attempt at physical intimidation….
Now something similar has happened at Yale Law School. The Free Beacon broke the story ….
Only a short amount of video was available, but as I wrote, based on the Free Beacon reporting “a lot of the physical intimidation took place outside the room….”
That off-camera part of the story was confirmed by Kristen Waggoner, the highly-successful and accomplished lawyer at Alliance Defending Freedom, who was the targeted speaker. Fox News reports on her appearance on Fox and Friends:
About 120 student protesters showed up with signs attacking the ADF to shout down the speakers, with one reportedly recorded on audio telling a member of the conservative group that she would “literally fight you, b—-.”
Waggoner told host Steve Doocy that the situation was very volatile and she was disappointed there was only one video circulating of the chaotic event.“These students were not only physically intimidating the other students and the speakers, they were pounding on the walls, blocking the exits, and disrupting the event throughout. … It shouldn’t take place on a law student campus in the law school classroom,” Waggoner said.
Physical intimidation is one of the things that distinguishes criticism from cancel culture. There’s a line between vigorous protest and physical intimidation, a line that long ago disappeared at the undergraduate level, and is vanishing fast in law schools when a school like Yale focused its ire on campus police for protecting the speaker under attack:
The law school released a statement claiming police officers were not needed to quell the crowd, as Fox News further reported:
“Yale Law School follows the University’s free speech policy, which includes a three-warning protocol… YLS staff spoke to Yale Police officers who were already on hand about whether assistance might be needed in the event the students did not follow those instructions. Fortunately, that assistance was not needed and the event went forward until its conclusion. Members of the administration are nonetheless in serious conversation with students about our free speech policies, expectations, and norms.”
Waggoner, however, pushed back saying Yale “blatantly misrepresented” what took place and that she needed a police escort to leave the event because of physical threats.
“This wasn’t a protest. This was physical intimidation and bullying that took place in the presence of Yale administration. … I just want to underscore the importance that Yale administrators shouldn’t be cowering to mobs. They should be insisting on embracing a culture of free speech.”
I know I sound dramatic when in my many speeches and appearances I warn that higher ed is gone and cannot be reformed from within. Dramatic maybe, but correct, as the Yale student and administrative reaction shows.
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Yet again we see it. In The Coming of the Third Reich, historian Richard J. Evans explains how, in the early days of National Socialist Germany, Stormtroopers (Brownshirts) “organized campaigns against unwanted professors in the local newspapers [and] staged mass disruptions of their lectures.” To express dissent from Nazi positions became a matter of taking one’s life into one’s hands. The idea of people of opposing viewpoints airing their disagreements in a civil and mutually respectful manner was gone. One was a Nazi, or one was silent (and fearful).
Today’s fascists call themselves “anti-fascists.” Just like the Nazis, they are totalitarian: they are determined not to allow their opponents to murmur the slightest whisper of dissent. Forcibly suppressing the speech of someone with whom one disagrees is a quintessentially fascist act.
Seems the MO of all authoritarian systems, small to large. It certainly wasn’t only Hitler’s thugs that did this. So did Stalin’s, Mao’s, Mussolini’s…
Nothing legitimate requires coercion.
I know it’s unsavory but it’s time to start hurting these people. They are physically threatening folks. Said folks need to make it cost something.
<blockquoteI know it’s unsavory but it’s time to start hurting these people.
I’ve been saying or thinking this very thing for quite a while. Being polite and using reasoning has not ever worked with these people.
“Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.” – Mike Tyson
I said the same thing about a week ago and got deleted for it.
Of course you did. If it’s left up, it will show up at a law license revocation hearing for Professor Jacobson.
Don’t you think a comparison to Mussolini may have been more appropriate and accurate than Hitler who really isn’t present and no the people you hate today are not Hitler.
There are other totalitarian movements to, i.e. how about oh I don’t know Salazar in Portugal? The term “Hitler” is thrown out way too easily and eagerly.
“I just want to underscore the importance that Yale administrators shouldn’t be cowering to mobs.”
There is no reason to believe they are “cowering.” Since there appear to be no repercussions on the so-called protesters, it seems more likely that the administration approves of their thuggery.
‘Support’ might even be more accurate a term than ‘approve’ of the thuggery.
That wasn’t grass-roots reaction, that was expression via learned behavior.
They were trained and organized.
This will give rise to extreme right violence in response. They instill what they claim to abhor.
The left is counting on that happening.
No, they aren’t. They could never take what they dish out.
Unfortunately I doubt that. If right wingers did that they would be expelled and jailed.
Aside from their thuggish behavior I was also totally unimpressed with their physical appearance. Slovenly is the first word that comes to mind. Fat and unhealthy are others. Most un-salubrious.
These are Red Guards. They will tear the RPC to shreds, and then the Constitution.
They are a mindless, maleducated mob. Useful idiots.
Just what a socialist revolution needs…..
“RPC”?
I warn that higher ed is gone and cannot be reformed from within
What, then, is the solution? I’ve advocated in the past for the Japanese model, but increasingly I think privatizing the whole mess and allowing the market to sort it out is the only real solution. If not reformed from within, what do you suggest?
I would start by disconnecting the electricity and telling the learned professors to use their superior intelligence to reconnect the power.
Don’t stop there. Shut down the generation of electricity they need to survive.
Who is John Galt?
Ayn Rand wrote about that as well, in Anthem.
Who is Equality 7-2521 ?
The only way that reform can succeed is by purging everyone involved. They should never be employable again as teachers or administrators.
There needs to be some real consequences for students who engage in this kind of activity, attempting to bully & silence guest speakers. Yale is not a cheap university so potential loss of tuition might be a good place to start. Perhaps suspension for a semester or longer for attempting to disrupt the event (the yelling over the speaker and pounding on walls). Finally permanent expulsion along with any other charges they may face for actually engaging in physical violence against a guest speaker and those who are there to listen to the speech. Should probably ban masks on campus too save those worn for medical or job related reasons (groundskeepers definitely need to wear them for some of the stuff they do). But anything that conceals the whole face in an attempt to hide ones identity should be banned at these events.
“There needs to be some real consequences for students who engage in this kind of activity, attempting to bully & silence guest speakers.”
Expelled and unable to enroll in any other institution for 5 years is a reasonable punishment
The solution to the toddler like tantrums and the failure of academia to either prevent or punish comes down to money. Until there are economic incentives to intervene then academia in general and the administrators without any backbone in particular will not act. At best they will pen ineffectual musings at worst they offer explicit support.
States can play a role as can the Federal government. Require not only a perfunctory written commitment to the principles of free speech, open debate and academic inquiry but also concrete actions to restore and maintain these ideals. Start with the accreditation of the institutions by requiring the various accreditation bodies to incorporate these principles as a requirement. Next use the tax authority of the State and Federal government to require adherence to these principles in order to receive and maintain their tax status.
The Students themselves should be required to agree and adhere to the same principles as part of Federal student aid submission with swift and severe consequences for violation; revocation of their aid package, recasting grants as personal loans and a bar to further aid.
The average Citizen would find nothing objectionable in these proposals to require institutions, academics and students to adhere to the principles of free speech, open debate and academic inquiry. That the progressive leftists, grievance hustlers, professional activists, d/prog politicians, woke corporate leaders, and their enablers/cheerleaders in traditional media will become apoplectic at this common sense proposal to restore what was, until recently a minimum expectation, tells us a great deal about our opponents.
If there one area where the government needs to slash spending in large swathes, it’s “higher education”. As the product devolves into utter chaos, the calls for making college “education” an entitlement grow louder. Let’s just end it and take a more “jobs training” approach for those who truly want to learn something practical to better their lives.
Higher education will survive. It doesn’t take a lot of money to run schools dedicated to teaching the traditional and civilizing liberal arts. Just get the government out of it. Completely.
There WILL be a market for education if care enough to protect those who are truly dedicated to it. There will be a desire to pay for it and if those who teach aren’t motivated by money, fame and power. In today’s world, there is no honor. Everything is job a big con job enforced by mob rule.
Here is a typical 8th grade exam needed to graduate:
https://grandfather-economic-report.com/1895-test.htm
I’ve seen several of these and today, how many college graduates could pass it? Yet today, most high school graduates in our big cities fail at reading and math. They need remedial programs just to get into even the worst colleges.
We really need to put an end to this. The only thing big government has accomplished is to become a colossal parasite on what started as a free economy that created opportunities to innovate and make life better. Today, it is just one big waste of money managed by the dumbest and most corrupt among us. DEFUND HIGHER EDUCATION!
Time to end all Federal and State Student loan programs, for a start. Then stop all grant money going to institutions that refuse to discipline students who engage in behavior like this.
Hey, Stalin showed them that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Where did antifa come from, pre-packaged and complete with thugs who were willing to duke it out on the streets with the police?
I find it hard to believe any Yale Law School student is all that physically intimidating, especially the types that go on for this kind of behavior.
Pick out the most obnoxious male in the group and knock him the f out. I honestly don’t know why these creatures are getting away with this and not getting punched in the mouth.