Read on Twitter
https://www.straight.com/education/ubc-announces-changes-to-event-bookings-in-response-to-concerns-about-hate-speech Some thoughts on this. I'm on record* as saying that universities are under no obligation to rent space to any yutz who wants to give a talk, and that faculty and admin should take on a leading role on here rather than letting students run the show.
"on record": https://www.cjnews.com/perspectives/opinions/the-case-for-keeping-faith-goldy-and-others-out-of-our-universities
So if @ubcprez doesn't think his school should be rolling out the red carpet for (to quite the examples in the Straight piece) Jordan Peterson, Jenn Smith, Ben Shapiro, Frances Widdowson, and Andy Ngo, whatever - his call. This is quite literally why he gets paid the big bucks.
Where @ubcprez gets himself into a pickle is that he frames this in terms of '“controversial speakers whose views are deeply offensive and hurtful to members of our community” and which “also threaten to undermine our community’s broad commitments to inclusivity and diversity”'
(In my piece, I defended the rights of university faculty and admin to deny room bookings on the basis of upholding *standards* of academic inquiry. Faith Goldy is a grifter, ergo, why would you let her drag down your school's reputation?)
The reason I make this distinction is that if you're going to list "controversial speakers" who have visited UBC despite their views being "deeply offensive and hurtful to members of our community” and "threaten[ing] to undermine ...commitments to inclusivity and diversity", then
https://www.thestar.com/vancouver/2019/05/28/ubc-defends-decision-to-host-chinese-academic-accused-of-playing-a-role-in-internment-of-muslims.html why would you list Peterson and Smith, and omit the school's decision to host Hu Angang, the Chinese academic "has provided the ideological basis that justifies the internment and cultural genocide of the Uyghurs and Kazaks [and others] in western China"?
Hu Angang was hosted not by some two-bit student group but by UBC's own Institute of Asian Research, ie, this isn't just some outside agitators trying to smuggle in right-wing provocateurs, but rather *an issue of academic freedom*. The controversy is coming from inside the house
If you don't want to give student groups carte blanche to import internet clickbait to campus, then go for it, you can just sign on the dotted line and change your policy. No big loss as far as I'm concerned. Universities are not open mics, etc etc etc.
But if you're genuinely committed to curtailing "controversial speakers whose views are deeply offensive and hurtful to members of our community”, then you have a much bigger problem. Your issue is with YOUR FACULTY and with the very protections that come with academic freedom.
The alternative, and I suspect @ubcprez will go with this one, is to continue to present Jordan Peterson as the face of offensive speech, and hope that no one brings up the inconvenient matter of the invited speaker whose published works inspired the genocide of Chinese Muslims.
(This thread is not a love letter to Jordan Peterson; if you're considering filling my mentions with examples of why Actually, Jordan Peterson Is Bad, then for both your sake and mine I implore you to save your breath.)
My point, and I do have one, is that if you selectively bar “controversial speakers whose views are deeply offensive and hurtful to members of our community” then you're making a value judgement. The "Jordan Peterson is bad" activists are louder than the "Hu Angang is bad" ones.
It is within @ubcprez's mandate to establish and enforce a set of values for his university's community. If he drafts those values based on how well their proponents have managed to get his attention, then that's crap leadership that sets a terrible precendent.
And if he privileges the input of young Canadian-born activists while ignoring that of Chinese human rights activists, he will have done a better job "undermin[ing the] community’s broad commitments to inclusivity and diversity” than any "provocative speaker" ever could. /fin
