“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids
the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges ...” -- Anatole
France.
Of course, we all
know that the rich do not sleep under bridges, and so the law, which in this
case enforces the same rules of behavior for rich and poor, is not at all
majestic, or merciful, or just. Justice, Aristotle says, treats equal things
equally and unequal things unequally.
Let’s begin with an
obvious observation: a university talk by Ben Shapiro and Anita Hill are in no
sense equal. And we know from bitter experience that opposition to such talks
are radically (pun intended) unequal. President of UConn Susan Herbst would be
hard pressed to cite a case in which a political sermonette by a noted liberal
was cut short by audience thugs. But in the case of conservatives invited to
speak at colleges, address-interruptus, sometimes violent, always ill mannered,
is as common as applause. It would appear then that conservative speakers are
in no sense equal to liberal/progressive/socialist/communist speakers; their
messages are different, and reception to their messages is different.
Anita Hill was
permitted to speak at UConn without enduring the kind of interruptions that have
become common when conservatives exercise their First Amendment rights at public
universities such as Berkley, where protesters set fires, broke windows,
taunted cops and speakers, and engaged in mob behavior reminiscent of Hitler’s Sturmabteilung. In California, a
progressive poverty catch-basin that has more homeless people on its streets
than Alabama, Antifa, aligned with other groups that would not protest a
college address given by Hill, was successful in closing down an address given by Milo Yiannopoulos, a former senior editor of Breitbart News, a
“cultural libertarian,” a gay provocateur in full scale rebellion against the
baneful excesses of third wave feminism, radical Islam, political correctness, academic
intolerance and weepy students searching for safe places in edenic universities.
Some weeks ago,
audience thugs at UConn successfully shut down an address given by Lucian Wintrich , the White House correspondent for the Gateway Pundit, provocatively titled “It’s OK To Be
White.” Arrested by UConn police, perhaps in order to protect him from the
lynch mob in the audience determined to shut him down, charges against Wintrich
were quickly dropped. A prosecutor soon brought charges against one of his
tormentors, student adviser at Quinebaug Valley Community College
Catherine Gregory, who had created a ruckus by stealing notes from the
speaker’s speech. Her charges were later
reduced.
That incident produced an administrative policy at the
university that, in its majestic equality, forbids both conservative and progressives
to attend college addresses at UConn, unless the attendees are UConn students. The
university’s precautions censor the audience rather than the text, which is
just as objectionable as pre-censoring printed material. Both are forms of
prior restraint.
Obvious observation
number two: Ben Shapiro is not Yiannapolis – not that there’s anything wrong
with being Milo. Neither is he Wintrich or Anita Hill, best remembered in
connection with her opposition to the nomination to the Supreme Court of Justice
Clarence Thomas, an African American Associate Justice married to a white woman
who presumably is non-racist. Nor is Shapiro an alt-righter, as he has been
labeled in recent news reports issuing from Connecticut’s inattentive media. In
fact, Shapiro is an adamant non-alt-righter.
Listening to Shapiro
is a bit like listening to a Gatling gun that speaks English in full sentences.
And the dialogues he conducts at the end of his addresses with articulate students
who think they disagree with his message, remarkably free of overt and intended
provocations, is Socratic in structure and mildly subversive, because Shapiro
is entertaining, rational and persuasive, not only to the
conservative/libertarian choir that comes to hear him sing, but also to
students making an honest and arduous journey between progressivism and
conservatism in an age in which conservatives are treated in academia much
the way witches were in Cotton Mather’s Boston.
In remarks preceding
his address, “White Privilege Microaggressions and Other Leftist Myths,”
Shapiro lamented that the beefed-up security was necessary, remarked “that the
left is so afraid of open conversation that they scheduled an event at the
exact same time,” and regretted that more left-leaning students were not in
attendance. He “prefers speaking to people with whom I disagree,” Shapiro said,
“ because discussions are useful.” A month prior to his appearance, college administrators circulated
a notice to the insulted and injured at UConn that Shapiro would be making an
appearance at the university; but not to worry, because empaths at UConn would
provide counseling for aggrieved students – signs of the times that show just
how far universities have come since Cardinal Newman published his “The Idea Of
A University,” which should be required reading for all administrators at
UConn.
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