{"id":28534,"date":"2014-11-04T07:45:11","date_gmt":"2014-11-04T12:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=28534"},"modified":"2014-11-04T07:47:41","modified_gmt":"2014-11-04T12:47:41","slug":"alongside-nineteen-eighty-fours-freedom-is-slavery-we-can-now-addcensorship-is-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/11\/04\/alongside-nineteen-eighty-fours-freedom-is-slavery-we-can-now-addcensorship-is-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Alongside Nineteen Eighty-Four<\/em>‘s “Freedom is Slavery”, we can now add “Censorship is Free Speech”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sean Collins<\/a> on the spectacle of the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement demanding that speakers must not say “hurtful” things, lest students be upset:<\/p>\n

Students at the University of California, Berkeley, are demanding that the administration \u2018disinvite\u2019 comedian Bill Maher who had been asked to be the commencement ceremony speaker in December. An online petition from the Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian Coalition (MEMSA) declares<\/a> that Maher \u2018has made statements that are blatantly bigoted and racist\u2019, in particular about Islam. Examples of \u2018hate speech\u2019 cited by the petitioners include Maher\u2019s recent statement that \u2018Islam is the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will fucking kill you if you say the wrong thing\u2019.<\/p>\n

In response to the clamour for Maher\u2019s disinvitation, the undergraduate committee at UC Berkeley responsible for selecting speakers voted to rescind the invitation to Maher. But the university administration announced the invitation will stand.<\/p>\n

The controversy resonates historically at Berkeley. The university is currently celebrating<\/a> the fiftieth anniversary of the Free Speech Movement (FSM), a coalition of Berkeley staff and students who fought for free-speech rights for students on campus. \u2018I guess they don\u2019t teach irony in college any more\u2019, quipped<\/a> Maher, in response to his disinvitation.<\/p>\n

Maher does not have a \u2018right\u2019 to speak at Berkeley\u2019s ceremony; this is not a First Amendment issue. But the campaign to remove him as the speaker at the graduation event is thoroughly censorious and antithetical to the free exchange of ideas. Trying to silence certain views is especially problematic at universities, institutions in which students are expected to engage with a variety of ideas. The attempt to oust Maher is part of a regressive anti-intellectual trend<\/a>. In the past year alone, there has been a wave of speakers \u2013 including Condoleezza Rice, Christine Lagarde, Ayann Hirsi Ali and George Will \u2013 who have had invitations rescinded or who decided to decline following protests.<\/p>\n

The slogan<\/a> used by the UC Berkeley campaign against Maher is \u2018Free Speech, Not Hate Speech\u2019. This formulation is a contradiction in terms: if you seek to prevent certain speech \u2013 say on the grounds of being \u2018hateful\u2019 \u2013 then you do not support free speech. Alongside Nineteen Eighty-Four<\/em>\u2019s \u2018Freedom is Slavery\u2019, we can now add \u2018Censorship is Free Speech\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sean Collins on the spectacle of the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement demanding that speakers must not say “hurtful” things, lest students be upset: Students at the University of California, Berkeley, are demanding that the administration \u2018disinvite\u2019 comedian Bill Maher who had been asked to be the commencement ceremony speaker in December. An online […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,28,11,13],"tags":[35,459,186,47,764],"class_list":["post-28534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-media","category-religion","category-usa","tag-california","tag-censorship","tag-freedomofspeech","tag-islam","tag-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7qe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28534"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28536,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28534\/revisions\/28536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}