Christina Hoff Sommers (Photo via Steven Crowder / Wikimedia Commons)
The ascension of Jeff Sessions to the lofty perch of the Department of Justice served as the culmination of a carefully crafted assault on speech rights years in the making. From pseudo-scientists like Charles Murray to washed out lawyers like Ann Coulter, right-leaning bobbleheads seized sought out campuses across the nation to deliver intellectually empty remarks to College Republicans and Federalist Society Clubs for the sole purpose of provoking a response from protestors that they could film, edit, and play ad nauseam on Tucker Carlson to mock students as disrespectful troublemakers.
From the outset, the goal was to hack the very concept of free speech. They’d tried their hands at seeking more restrictions on free speech in the 1960s, but too many Americans balked at the idea of fiddling with constitutional freedoms just to “solve” the problem of civil rights protesting and anti-war students. But what if they could turn the very ideal on its head? What if the protestors played the role of the tyrannical government enforcers (somehow?) and it was instead the mild-mannered conservatives who were the true free speech heroes?
Fast forward several years and generally liberal law school deans are parroting right-wing talking points about how a “respectable” student is a quiet student. Respectable free speech belongs to the paid speaker with a lectern, not the student with a hand-made sign. The most efficient tyranny is one that the best and brightest will swear is free.
And now the Attorney General is placing an “emphasis” on protecting free speech on campus and his underlings are openly admitting that the Department’s goal is stifling protest. Congratulations, y’all. You did it.
So another vapid provocateur showed up on a law school campus yesterday to pull the same old stunt. Christina Hoff Sommers, a paint-by-numbers anti-feminist who thinks that boys are the real victims and has some scary thoughts about rape, appeared at Lewis & Clark Law School — a program with an environmental law focus in one of the most rabidly liberal states in the country — and was shocked and dismayedTM to be protested.
And here we go again! Campuses are out of control, the lefties are disrespecting this poor woman, and we need a crackdown on these wacky students… for the sake of freedom! Given this obvious ploy, it’s easy to blame the protestors themselves. “Stay quiet!” “Don’t play into their hands!” It’s a tempting argument. If everyone just ignores people like Sommers, she can’t complain that students exercising their free speech rights are violating the real free speech. Frankly, it’s my personal worldview.
But I understand I’m privileged enough to listen to these people and argue with them later. I understand I’m likely to get invited to my own podium someday. Not everyone has that luxury and the only hope they have to make their voices heard is by pushing notions of “respectability.” Not that we should abandon opportunities for honest discourse where available, but when the power dynamics are one-sided, waiting patiently isn’t an option. It was “impolitic” to sit at lunch counters too.
So I’m not endorsing every tactic employed in every protest around the country. But I’m also not here to police how other people want to exercise their rights.
That’s how that “make no law” thing actually works.
Earlier: Law School Snowflakes Demand Safe Space Over Jeff Sessions Talk
‘Free Speech’ Means Stifling Protestors: DOJ Leadership Reveals True Colors
Yale Students Demolish Dean’s Dumb Argument
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