Monthly Archives: July 2017

Earlier this month, Americans came together to celebrate the founding of this nation with fireworks and sparklers.

Though the United States is still a relatively young country, it has undergone dramatic changes from what it once was in 1776. Not only have we drastically industrialized and expanded our landscape beyond the original 13 colonies, but our political culture and climate has also undergone its own transformations. Our Founding Fathers wisely prepared us for tackling tyrannical leaders, preventing government overreach, and protecting our personal liberty.

Yet, they failed to avoid the development of political echo chambers.

This is not to say these men had not anticipated the possibility of our country developing a divisive political culture. In fact, John Adams communicated his fears of our democracy splitting into a two-party system, "concerting measures in opposition of each other." He even went as far as to call this the "greatest political evil under our constitution."

It's not hard to see why Adams held such passionate distaste for political parties. Lately, our democracy has amounted to pointing fingers and name calling from the echo chambers we've created. But the effects of these biased bubbles pour into other aspects of life. According to a Rasmussen survey, 40 percent of voters claimed the 2016 election negatively affected a personal relationship with a friend or family member. We've even seen students escalate to violent protests on college campuses against classmates they disagree with.

With the power of technology, we can retreat into our echo chambers on social media platforms. We can delete, block, and report dissent away. It becomes easier and easier to control what messages and ideas we hear behind our screens. This encourages the idea that tolerance is optional. That you can cut off relationships because you disagree with the other person; furthermore, you can segregate people in groups based on said opinions.

Intolerance of differing ideas is not the way to achieve positive social change. Intolerance only begets negative outcomes.

At Young Americans for Liberty, we strive to foster a culture of tolerance and respect. Disagreement is inevitable; how one addresses disagreement and differing perspectives is the key to success. I discourage everyone to stray away from trying to belittle our philosophical opponents on social media, that ultimately create opposing echo chambers and do not yield a positive result.

The message of liberty is a positive one. We are driven to action grounded in the principles of free markets, individual liberty, and limited government.

Every July we host our national convention that draws hundreds of students from multiple political, economic, and social backgrounds to engage in these ideas. Given their varying backgrounds, these students are bound to disagree with one another on the nuances of liberty. We even stage debates between people of different beliefs who nonetheless believe in the same overarching principles. I assure you, the overall theme is siding with more freedom, and less government intervention.

So what's our plan to combat big-government ideology among youths? I can tell you this: When a socialist comes to campus to speak, you won't see YAL members burning the campus to the ground or throwing rocks through windows. Through robust, campus activism and outreach efforts, YAL members are working hard to present the ideas of liberty in a powerful, peaceful manner to win the hearts and minds of the next generation.

Cliff Maloney Jr. is president of Young Americans for Liberty, a non-profit, youth organization based in Arlington, Va., that boasts more than 900 college chapters across the country.

If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.

See the article here:
On intolerance for free speech, it's time for millennials to lead - Washington Examiner

Imagine if radical campus activists had to face the consequences of their actions. Imagine if they could no longer suppress and shut down speakers with impunity. Imagine if a college administrator grew a backbone and defended his institution from the barbarians at the gates.

Were not there yet. But Claremont McKenna College, a prominent liberal-arts school in Southern California, is at least taking action. The school has suspended five students who led attempts to shut down a college-sponsored lecture by Heather Mac Donald, the pro-police conservative commentator, in April. Three will be suspended for a full year, while two will be suspended for a semester. Two more will be placed on conduct probation.

The students, along with many others from the Claremont colleges and outside the university, blockaded the lecture hall where Mac Donald was set to speak, forcing the event to be moved and livestreamed from a secret location. In a statement, Claremont McKenna explained that the blockade breached institutional values of freedom of expression and assembly and deprived many of the opportunity to gather, hear the speaker, and engage with questions and comments.

Claremont McKenna should be applauded, first for inviting Mac Donald to speak, and second for taking a stand in defense of the idea of the university. It could have taken the easy way out, slapping all the protest leaders on the wrists with a mandatory course or probation to put an end to the story. Thats what Middlebury College did when its students shut down an event featuring Charles Murray, the libertarian social scientist, and in the process assaulted Professor Allison Stranger, who ended up with a concussion.

In fact, nobody ever seems to get punished for preventing the free exchange of ideas on a college campus. Unwilling to anger student radicals and their defenders in the media, college administrators routinely back down. They appease the crocodile, hoping that he will be grateful for the schools leniency and perhaps eat it last.

But appeasement has not worked. All across the country, student activists have become emboldened, trusting that they can do whatever they want, so long as they claim the moral high ground. After all, they only have to label a conservative as a white supremacist and they are free to take over campus and suppress her views. Their schools are too weak and fearful to stop them.

This is a sick state of affairs that should not continue. Claremont McKenna has shown that it is possible to take a stand. There is no reason why schools cannot suspend students who shut down campus speeches. Repeat offenders should be expelled. Anyone who participates in a violent protest should also be expelled. All schools should join Claremont McKenna in endorsing the University of Chicagos Principles of Free Expression, which declare that the University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.

If, after that, a few radicals still seek to break the rules, let them suffer the consequences of satisfying their confused consciences. The rest of the student body the ones who dont want to spend the year back home with their parents will get the message: You can speak and protest all you want, but you cannot prevent someone else from speaking.

If conservative protesters force a Marxist student organization to cancel its speaker event, they should also be suspended. This is about more than protecting conservative speakers or viewpoint diversity. It is not even best framed as a matter of free speech. It is, quite simply, about repelling a growing assault on the idea of the university. In silencing lecturers and suppressing ideas, the students behind this assault place free inquiry within ever-more-circumscribed boundaries, necessarily perverting the pursuit of the truth that has always been academias sacred mission. If criticism of Black Lives Matter is out of bounds, for example, then what will separate the academy from the public square? Only the lack of personal responsibility.

Allan Bloom, that great defender of the university, explained its mission far better than I can:

The question that every young person asks, Who am I?, the powerful urge to follow the Delphic command, Know thyself, which is born in each of us, means in the first place What is man? And in our chronic lack of certainty, this comes down to knowing the alternative answers and thinking about them. Liberal education provides access to these alternatives, many of which go against the grain of our nature or our times. The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration.

Bloom wrote thatliberal education puts everything at risk and requires students who are able to risk everything. But as he surely knew, it also requires courage on the part of teachers and administrators. Teachers must create a classroom that can bring students into contact with the alternative answers, and administrators must set and enforce rules that sustain teachers and students in their proper purpose.

In suspending students who deliberately shut down a campus speech, Claremont McKenna has stood up in defense of free speech and of itself. Let others follow.

READ MORE: BDS, Hypocrisy, and our Barren Public Sphere Be Very Worried about the Future of Free Expression Anti-Free-Speech Radicals Never Give Up

Elliot Kaufman is an editorial intern at National Review.

See the original post:
Claremont McKenna Defends Free Speech Other Universities ... - National Review