The social justice crowd’s fight with the first amendment has worked its way into an upcoming Princeton Festival.

Spencer Parts reports for the New York Times:

Invitation of Big Sean to Princeton Festival Brings Debate on Free Speech

Selecting performers for a college music festival can be a thankless job. Musical tastes vary, and students crave a big name.

Last spring, Princeton University’s student government, which organizes the college’s Lawnparties festivals, was seen on campus as having come up short on star power. So this year, it hired the rapper Big Sean, whose most recent album topped the Billboard charts.

But now it faces criticism of a different sort, from students who say the rapper’s lyrics are misogynistic and not the ideal choice while Princeton and other colleges have been trying to combat sexual misconduct. “For so many reasons, we should not be inviting him at this time,” said Rebecca Basaldua, 21, a senior from Edinburg, Tex., who started a petition calling for the rapper’s invitation to be rescinded.

In recent years, commencement speakers around the country have canceled their appearances after a college group found them objectionable. But Big Sean has not backed out of his May 3 performance, and the student government has not asked him to.

Instead, what might have been a controversy that quickly burned itself out has become a running argument about free speech, about whether any offensiveness is tolerable and about the standards a college campus holds pop culture to, especially regarding race and sex.


 
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