UC-Berkeley Chancellor Says Free Speech is Bad for the Community
We wouldn’t want people to disagree about things, now would we? That would make them feel so very unsafe, and Berkeley is a safe space, as everyone knows.
Greg Piper at the College Fix has the story:
Free Speech Can ‘Undermine A Community’s Foundation,’ UC-Berkeley Chancellor Says
Sounding more like a kindergarten teacher than the chancellor of the university that birthed the Free Speech Movement 50 years ago this fall, the University of California-Berkeley’s Nicholas Dirks sent a jaw-droppingly ignorant email to students, faculty and staff Friday that essentially turns free speech into an endless relativist exercise.
Popehat has a very good point-by-point analysis that serves as the main course, but here’s an appetizer from Dirks’ email:
As a consequence, when issues are inherently divisive, controversial and capable of arousing strong feelings, the commitment to free speech and expression can lead to division and divisiveness that undermine a community’s foundation. [emphasis added]
Popehat says:
In today’s competitive publishing environment it is astonishingly difficult to distinguish yourself as an academic by being wrong about free speech, but Chancellor Dirks is equal to the challenge. His email is so very bad on every level — legally, logically, rhetorically, and philosophically — that it deserves scrutiny.
Read the full Popehat analysis here.
Free Speech Can ‘Undermine A Community’s Foundation,’ UC-Berkeley Chancellor Says (The College Fix)
Comments
The “Free Speech” movement wasn’t a free speech movement : it was “let us espouse our socialist and radical ideas” movement.
As is typical of statists (leftists) once they were in control and in the majority, they now want control.
Ken White’s analysis of the email is extremely well done. I would be ashamed if I had graduated from Berkeley. The chancellor sounds more like an Iranian, than a leader in American academics. But then, chancellors raise money — that does not take real intelligence. It takes flat knees.
I know a couple UCB graduates – they top the list for most hypocritical, least tolerant people I know.
The crème de la crème of this group is, additionally, a Columbia Law grad with a penchant for shrill, profanity-laced diatribes against anyone who does not subscribe to the demented, morally relativistic worldview he was infected with at Berzerkeley.
I was going to recount a more recent incident with him and a mutual friend having political differences, but just the thought of it makes my pulse rise… suffice it to say, it is indeed rare to find such a truly disgusting human being.
I grew up with this guy in NYC, before he attended UCB; I visited him a few times while I was at UCSB…
I fully believe his outlook is 100% the product of his attendance at UCB.