Craig Hennigan
Jul 27, 2017 · 2 min read

:I Should Be Writing and I’m Awful for Engaging in This Right Now:

The assumption that GOP members will stop going after tenure and stop attacking public education if we only had some rules for invited campus presenters is a pretty big one. Before this issue of speech on campus ever came to the forefront there have been massive cuts in university funding. The answer to neoliberal austerity budgets does not lie in the goodwill of GOP politicians (or Democratic ones for that matter since they do their share of cutting higher ed funding as well).

Establishment of hard and fast rules for campus invitees is always going to be flawed. Based on my experience I fear that written rules incentivize people to find the loopholes in those rules. There has to be flexibility in the ability to say “No.” Rules also open up universities to liability when they attempt to say “No” to someone they don’t want. E.g. Your rules only say people who promote violence? Great, here’s a list of white supremacists who say they don’t promote violence, they only want to move others out of their white ethnostate.

You basically answer your own argument about this when you claim you want an articulated principle for who can/can’t speak, but above that you have this quote — “No matter what the defined standard is for who can speak on campus and who can get censored by whom, the very next statement will completely revise that standard.” That revision is *necessary and good.* If my stated principle allows Milo to speak on campus, then it’s time to revise the principle.

Lastly, this is a lamentation without a crisis. Condeleeza Rice has no problem finding places to speak, college campus or otherwise. This article pretends that universities (even public universities) that lean conservative don’t exist, and that just isn’t the case. Alabama, Mississippi, Clemson, are among pretty conservative public universities. Private ones, the list explodes with options.

You’re looking to change a perception because of a fear of more funding cuts and axes by neoliberal governance bent on austerity. The fact that there’s a good number of universities that are conservative *and yet still* are taking funding cuts indicates to me that we could be teaching Pinochet 101 and some GOP slappy will say we don’t teach enough vocational helicopter repair skills and cut funding. Disagree all you want, I stand by the Pinochet line as at least being a little funny.

    Craig Hennigan

    Written by

    PhD. Urban revitalization rhetoric, media studies, argumentation scholar. Looking for a new Tiger.

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