Brown University Tag

The students who shouted down Ray Kelly at Brown University have received some support on campus, most notably from three faculty members, Linda Quiquivix, Naoko Shibusawa, William Keach. The Brown administration, however, was not at all pleased and is convening a panel to examine whether to commence disciplinary action against the shout-downers for violating campus policy. There also has been widespread condemnation of the shout-down from students, who according to one poll, overwhelmingly were against the shout-down, but not against a protest outside the lecture hall. The majority of students at Brown appear able to distinguish that which Profs. Quiquivix, Shibusawa and Keach, and the student protesters themselves are unable to do: It's one thing to protest, it's another thing to shout-down. The shout-downers are in a hole, so they have decided to keep digging, with an "anonymous" column in The Brown Daily Herald, Organizers and supporters of the demonstration against Ray Kelly: Standing for racial justice: A public statement . It is a model of how grievance politics and loopy leftist social power theories pervert campus politics.  There was nothing that prevented the students from presenting their own views; they could have held a counter-lecture, protested outside (which they also did), or done any number of things to get their view across and present counter-arguments.  Instead, they opted to prevent Kelly from speaking, and thereby crossed a line which apparently is invisible to them. Read the whole thing, here's an excerpt: