We know how these protesters would react to speech differing from theirs, since we've seen how the same people wanted police to smash heads during anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination, neonazi etc protests. The left are not friendly to dissent.
I don't mind that the protests are disruptive. That's generally the point of protests. But I think it'd be reasonable for universities to have the police issue move on orders to protesters who were not staff or students. Likewise, universities ought to be able to fail students and sack staff for lack of attendance to lectures etc. Nor are universities obliged to provide food and sanitary facilities to camping-out students, indeed if the staff and students make a mess, the universities should be able to get financial redress for this; certainly if a group of students (for example) broke the window of the student building cafe because they were having a drunken party they'd be charged for it, it should be no different because it happened sober during a protest.
And of course we have well-established law about making threats, incitement to violence and so on, which can and should be used to deal with people going beyond ordinarily offensive, stupid or wrong speech and into those other areas.
As soon as one physically blocks another from using public or private land and facilities other than one's own, perhaps leaving to one side picket lines, one is far beyond any legal protection for freedom of assembly, à fortiori speech.
In my basically irrelevant and quite humble opinion, that UK decision was with all due respect quite wrongfully decided (notwithstanding the much smarter and more learned judges who so decided) in a way that unfortunately reflects very poorly on the law. The twisting anf turning around the proper appellate review of proportionality was important, but seems to have obscured the more important issue as to whether such a protest could be proportional under the EHRC.
The poor Divisional Court judge has grounds to be aggrieved!
Happily Australian judges tend to be more (judicially) conservative (and Australian parliaments have never passed anything like the horrible EHCR). Accordingly I hope, am indeed confident, that Australian senior appellate courts would not indulge such broad deference to a statute with no historical or structural basis for it.
*Rubs hands* excellent question. Thank you for asking it!
So - I think you can be sharp, argumentative or even downright adversarial as an academic, and still be within the bounds of what is professional, when you’re talking to other academics (as Stone and Evans have argued). It may not be civil, but it is still within academic freedom. In other words, of course, academics are going to disagree (just as water is wet). You do have to be able to back up your arguments with scholarly analysis, though, it can’t just be “I think you’re an idiot and I’m going to say so.” As I understand it Ridd had done scholarly analysis and had real reasons for arguing as he did, although others disagreed with him. That’s the difference between advocacy and activism. Activism is “there is only one view which is right, everyone else is evil and unjust”. Advocacy is “I think I am right for X, Y and Z reasons, and here is my justification.”
I do think you have to be much more careful with students - more objective, less adversarial. If Ridd had gone around picking fights with student groups, for example, I would have felt differently about him. As it stands, I think the High Court of Australia was right. But these are the difficult questions I’m trying to ask. Where do we draw these lines?
I was just worrying that I had shown the overconfidence of all of my privilege by suggesting 'new' content to an actual expert! While I'm glad that didn't happen this time, I will still try to remember the stark limits of my knowledge!
Protesting is not their point. Their encampment was never about Palestine. It is about seizing power at the University. And by capitulating to their demands, the University has rewarded them and handed that power to them. The result will of course be more protests, wilder behaviour and more insane demands, all under the guise of protesting in favour of the rights of some group or other.
For some, I suspect this is true: they will grasp any cause and cloak themselves in righteous rage. I saw this with my brief flirtation with student politics - such people would grab on to any of the causes of the day (which at that point (mid 1990s) were Tibet - what happened to people caring about that? - Indigenous rights and Palestine). It’s weird what has persisted, and what has gone out of fashion. I guess Tibet’s annexure is a done deal these days. I also think the Middle East is a persistent screen for people’s fantasies about the West, and that this has been the case since the Crusades or earlier.
FWIW, it is all an application of oppressor/oppressed logic as a proxy for justice. I have no doubt that there are many sincere protesters among the crowd of psychopaths vying for power. Lenin had a name for them…
The oppressed/oppressor rubric is so simplistic. It’s what leads to a lot of the current problems: force everything into a Manichean logic. I had this weird thought the other day - maybe the French saw this risk in the Cathar heresy: this binarism could be dangerous.
I suspect that's why it's so popular. It's an easy form of thinking to learn and it can make you sound semi-intellectual. No effort or depth required, and it conveniently gives you a mob to band with. For those of us that are narcissistic, it also provides you with an outlet to unleash your seething resentment at the world while feeling virtuous. This is not to say anyone who believes it is stupid - there are many very clever people that support it. They just happen to be wrong :P
As for the Cathar heresy and binarism, only the Sith deal in absolutes.
We know how these protesters would react to speech differing from theirs, since we've seen how the same people wanted police to smash heads during anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination, neonazi etc protests. The left are not friendly to dissent.
I don't mind that the protests are disruptive. That's generally the point of protests. But I think it'd be reasonable for universities to have the police issue move on orders to protesters who were not staff or students. Likewise, universities ought to be able to fail students and sack staff for lack of attendance to lectures etc. Nor are universities obliged to provide food and sanitary facilities to camping-out students, indeed if the staff and students make a mess, the universities should be able to get financial redress for this; certainly if a group of students (for example) broke the window of the student building cafe because they were having a drunken party they'd be charged for it, it should be no different because it happened sober during a protest.
And of course we have well-established law about making threats, incitement to violence and so on, which can and should be used to deal with people going beyond ordinarily offensive, stupid or wrong speech and into those other areas.
As soon as one physically blocks another from using public or private land and facilities other than one's own, perhaps leaving to one side picket lines, one is far beyond any legal protection for freedom of assembly, à fortiori speech.
In my basically irrelevant and quite humble opinion, that UK decision was with all due respect quite wrongfully decided (notwithstanding the much smarter and more learned judges who so decided) in a way that unfortunately reflects very poorly on the law. The twisting anf turning around the proper appellate review of proportionality was important, but seems to have obscured the more important issue as to whether such a protest could be proportional under the EHRC.
The poor Divisional Court judge has grounds to be aggrieved!
Happily Australian judges tend to be more (judicially) conservative (and Australian parliaments have never passed anything like the horrible EHCR). Accordingly I hope, am indeed confident, that Australian senior appellate courts would not indulge such broad deference to a statute with no historical or structural basis for it.
Without changing the subject too radically, how does JCU's recent treatment of Peter Ridd (appealed all the way through) sit with this analysis?
*Rubs hands* excellent question. Thank you for asking it!
So - I think you can be sharp, argumentative or even downright adversarial as an academic, and still be within the bounds of what is professional, when you’re talking to other academics (as Stone and Evans have argued). It may not be civil, but it is still within academic freedom. In other words, of course, academics are going to disagree (just as water is wet). You do have to be able to back up your arguments with scholarly analysis, though, it can’t just be “I think you’re an idiot and I’m going to say so.” As I understand it Ridd had done scholarly analysis and had real reasons for arguing as he did, although others disagreed with him. That’s the difference between advocacy and activism. Activism is “there is only one view which is right, everyone else is evil and unjust”. Advocacy is “I think I am right for X, Y and Z reasons, and here is my justification.”
I do think you have to be much more careful with students - more objective, less adversarial. If Ridd had gone around picking fights with student groups, for example, I would have felt differently about him. As it stands, I think the High Court of Australia was right. But these are the difficult questions I’m trying to ask. Where do we draw these lines?
If you've not listened to this 'cast, particularly starting at about minute 54, I think you will appreciate it.
In-group dissent FTW!
https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/198/anne-wilson-academic-group-think-free-speech-norms-and-the-psychology-of-time/
Ooh, thank you! This looks right up my alley.
I was just worrying that I had shown the overconfidence of all of my privilege by suggesting 'new' content to an actual expert! While I'm glad that didn't happen this time, I will still try to remember the stark limits of my knowledge!
No, not at all. I welcome any interesting material. I’m basically curious about everything and anything.
Protesting is not their point. Their encampment was never about Palestine. It is about seizing power at the University. And by capitulating to their demands, the University has rewarded them and handed that power to them. The result will of course be more protests, wilder behaviour and more insane demands, all under the guise of protesting in favour of the rights of some group or other.
For some, I suspect this is true: they will grasp any cause and cloak themselves in righteous rage. I saw this with my brief flirtation with student politics - such people would grab on to any of the causes of the day (which at that point (mid 1990s) were Tibet - what happened to people caring about that? - Indigenous rights and Palestine). It’s weird what has persisted, and what has gone out of fashion. I guess Tibet’s annexure is a done deal these days. I also think the Middle East is a persistent screen for people’s fantasies about the West, and that this has been the case since the Crusades or earlier.
FWIW, it is all an application of oppressor/oppressed logic as a proxy for justice. I have no doubt that there are many sincere protesters among the crowd of psychopaths vying for power. Lenin had a name for them…
The oppressed/oppressor rubric is so simplistic. It’s what leads to a lot of the current problems: force everything into a Manichean logic. I had this weird thought the other day - maybe the French saw this risk in the Cathar heresy: this binarism could be dangerous.
I suspect that's why it's so popular. It's an easy form of thinking to learn and it can make you sound semi-intellectual. No effort or depth required, and it conveniently gives you a mob to band with. For those of us that are narcissistic, it also provides you with an outlet to unleash your seething resentment at the world while feeling virtuous. This is not to say anyone who believes it is stupid - there are many very clever people that support it. They just happen to be wrong :P
As for the Cathar heresy and binarism, only the Sith deal in absolutes.