28 thoughts on “Free Speech On Campus”

  1. Apart from the Afro- and African-American Studies Department having Khadija Lynch resign her position as an undergraduate representative, is there a free speech issue here?
    It all sounds like a lot of complaining about Lynch being offensive, and on this blog (“This Is A Liberal Campus”) being offensive has been established as not offensiveness worth whining about.

    1. Andrew, you must not have read the interview.

      The student journalist “whistle blower” has had death threats because he wrote that her tweets were not appropriate. Is that not offensive enough to “whine” about for you?

      Is it not enough to “whine” about all the staff and students who are too afraid to publicly support the journalist but will send anonymous emails in support?

      1. “Death threats” is mentioned just once, and those claimed threats were against a female student who accused the “student journalist whistle blower” of “supporting” the threats.

      2. “Death threats” is mentioned just once, and those claimed threats were against a female student who accused the “student journalist whistle blower” of “supporting” the threats.

        Maybe it’s you who has not read the piece so carefully.

        2. So, you think that Brandeis is a perfectly wonderful place to be a student who favors free speech? That he or she will suffer no serious retribution for it?

          1. Obviously not, as the article says “the Afro- and African-American Studies Department had Khadija Lynch resign her position as an undergraduate representative”, because she exercised her right to free speech.

          3. I missed the part where I defended that. Can you point it out, please?

            Thanks, in advance.

            I missed the part where I accused you of defending that.

          5. Maybe you’ve got a lot more knowledge about the shortcomings of Brandeis than I have, or maybe you’ve got some prejudices about the place.
            All know about Brandeis is what’s in the article, and the article is an interview of one student, a student who claims to fear a great deal, but hasn’t really given too many facts about what his feelings of fear are based on.
            And what about the half of the story that the Examiner didn’t cover, the other side?

            Mael may be an angel, or someone who paints over his own less than saintly actions.

            I can’t pass a judgment on Brandeis considering how little solid information I’ve got.

        3. “the fact that black people have not burned this country down is beyond me” – November 25, 2014

          “i have no sympathy for the nypd officers who were murdered today” – December 20, 2014

          “lmao, all i just really dont have sympathy for the cops who were shot. i hate this racist f***ing country” – December 21, 2014

          Maybe the group thought that as their representative that she wasn’t representative of the organization. She was asked to step down as the official face of the department not to shut up. Perhaps they didn’t want an anti-semite who likes dead cops interacting with the public and university stakeholders as their official representative.

          I think speech like hers, while in a position of university governance, should be exposed and her defenders are rather misguided in attacking the whistleblower.

          No one is upset this lady exercised her right to free speech or think that she shouldn’t be allowed to say the things she did. They are upset by what she said. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism.

          IMO, when you take a position of leadership representing an organization, you sacrifice a little bit of your personal freedom to the organization that you represent. If the head of PETA came out in support of dog fighting and cock fights, no one would be surprised if they were asked to step down. This is pretty similar.

          1. Good valid point regarding her role as a representative, I was sort of expecting someone to mention it.

          2. I was sort of expecting someone to mention it.

            Andrew, under the circumstances you claim, I would have expected you to mention it. I guess I just see this as a bit of rhetorical runaround that we really didn’t need to do in the first place.

            Moving on, here’s my opinion on the events. It appears that Daniel Mael has received a fair amount of harassment (including a petition to expel him from the university) as a result of his reporting of the tweets. A particular example in conjunction with Khadija Lynch’s resignation, is that Mael explicitly gets named as the cause of Lynch’s resignation:

            Twitter comments by Brandeis undergraduate Khadijah Lynch (‘16) regarding the recent shooting of two New York Police Department officers have received widespread media attention. Many of the responses to her comments, beginning with an article written by a fellow Brandeis student Daniel Mael (‘15) for the blog Truth Revolt, have noted that Ms. Lynch is a “student leader” who serves as an Undergraduate Department Representative (UDR) for the African and Afro-American Studies (AAAS) Department.

            That seems peculiar to do so. One could have excised the bolded phrase without actually measurably changing the content of the first paragraph. And frankly it’s the norm not to single out accusers in such a situation. So was there an ulterior motive behind the mention, either to help or hinder Mael by this mention? I bet on hindering myself.

            Moving on, we have yet another interesting statement:

            However, with the click of a button, social media also can give comments expressed in the heat of the moment a potentially regrettable permanency. The comments expressed by Ms. Lynch in no way excuse those made in response to her tweets, many of which have been horrifically racist, sexist, Islamophobic and threatening physical violence. These appalling comments should be resoundingly condemned with even greater passion.

            Even greater passion than Lynch’s original horrifically racist, anti-Semitic, theatening physical violence speech (though no evidence of sexist speech at least in the stuff I read)? When someone writes something like

            amerikkka needs an intifada. enough is enough.

            Do we expect Islamophobes to just not respond to that deliberate provocation?

            ya’ll out here waiting for a white messiah, im waiting for Malcolm X to return.

            or

            the fact that black people have not burned this country down is beyond me

            Do we expect “horribly racist” racists to just not respond in kind?

            From my first link about the expulsion petition, it’s interesting how the letter writer grossly downplays Lynch’s words:

            Whether one agrees or not with the very blunt comments Khadijah made on her Twitter account, the audience of these postings was originally those who frequented her Twitter. We do not propose to offer any opinion on the posts themselves, but it is important to note the sequence of events and intended audiences. After having posted the aforementioned article, Mael has exposed Khadijah to the largely white supremacist following of the website on which he posts, which has led to harassment, death threats, rape threats, and excessive hate speech directed to her personal Twitter (now private), Facebook (now deactivated), and Linkedin. People who frequent TruthRevolt have also gained access to Khadijah’s personal email address and her Brandeis mailbox number, and have threatened to contact her persistently. We have taken screenshots of some of these threatening comments and have attached them to this email, although more will likely be posted after this has been sent.

            So it appears that we have some pretty nasty things said about Mael which may or may not be true, I haven’t cared so far. But I find it interesting that in light of Lynch’s vile words, the letter writer just refers to the comments as “very blunt” while waxing poetic about the negative attributes and actions of the supposed readership of Mael’s blog post, for example, as “largely white supremacist” while a paragraph earlier they referred to the website as “popular conservative-oriented political website”.

            Anyway, this is I think the nature of the true harm inflicted on Mael: harassment. It doesn’t have the high drama of vandalism or death threats, but it does serve to stifle free speech. Lynch’s problems do as well, but I can’t muster much sympathy for someone who chose to say what she said even if they didn’t expect their public words to cause such a reaction. Hopefully, she’ll become wiser some day.

          3. Lynch said things on her twitter account not expecting them to go further than a few net acquaintances, Mael then used her twitter comments to write an article on a major conservative blog this resulted in Lynch receiving hate mail, death threats and rape threats. Now someone associated with the Brandeis student conduct board member has sent an email requesting that “action be taken to hold [Mael] accountable for his actions”.
            With any luck we’ll have someone else assault Lynch and ramp the tension up a bit more, then in retaliation we’ll see a murder on campus, followed by a pitch battle between student groups.

            So all the haters will all have more reasons to hate.

          4. Lynch said things

            Yes, she sure did. But we can get more descriptive here. She said “very blunt” things. She also said those things very publicly and from a positive of modest authority.

            So all the haters will all have more reasons to hate.

            There’s just not enough pouting and trembling of the lower lip here. Sure, I care a little, but I guess I’m more concerned about the one-sided casting of Mael as a menace to safety than whether we’re meeting quota on providing things to hate.

          5. If Lynch got what she deserved, so certainly did Mael.

            The trembling lip is all in your imagination, think tired resignation.

          7. What was Mael’s motive in publicizing a social forum rant by a young under graduate student in such a widely read magazine as Truth Revolt? Publicity? Well, his wishes were answered.

          8. Presumably his motive was to point out that there was at least one hateful Islamist running a student organization on the (Jewish) Brandeis campus. I’m pretty sure it was not his goal to receive death threats.

          9. Oh, and, from what I’ve seen Mael hasn’t suffered any illegal or official adverse consequences anyway, only talk.
            All he’s suffering is fear from some imagined retribution from undefined people not liking the coverage his article gained.

          10. “I’m pretty sure it was not his goal to receive death threats.”

            I haven’t seen any reference to him receiving death threats.

    2. “is there a free speech issue here?”

      The issue is that defenders of the person in power sought to shut down any criticism of the school’s administration and prevent students from having access to the words spoken by their administration. Not only did the whistle blower have the right to do what he did but the public has the right to know what a school’s administration says in public.

      I can’t believe it but the leftists have become the conformist squares that try and shut down any criticism or shining any sunlight on the school administration.

      1. You must be reading a different article to me.

        Examiner: Has the school had any kind of formal or informal response?

        Mael: No, they haven’t taken action against me or, as far as I know, against Khadija Lynch.

        It’s a scrap between student groups, no “person in power” has been silly enough to get involved.

        I can’t believe it but the leftists have become the conformist squares that try and shut down any criticism or shining any sunlight on the school administration.

        Another bit I just don’t get.

        1. “It’s a scrap between student groups, no “person in power” has been silly enough to get involved.”

          That’s a good point. The student hasn’t been shut down by the school. There is one person with power involved though, the lady who’s tweets prompted the criticism.

          I think if this lady was a teach and said the things she did, people would have still criticized her but she wouldn’t have lost her job. I don’t think that someone who said something that went against progressive ideology and was offensive would necessarily have that same outcome.

          1. As I read it Khadija Lynch, the lady who tweets, is an undergraduate student, the job she lost was simply as a student rep to the Afro- and African-American Studies Department. What power?

          2. There is one person with power involved though, the lady who’s tweets prompted the criticism.

            I wouldn’t necessarily call a student who happens to belong to a club or organization a “person with power”.

            Frankly, the thing that offended me the most of anything else was the cognitive disconnect between a person who posts something to Twitter, which is wide open to the public, complaining that those same posts are her “private thoughts.” I thought kids were supposed to be MORE tech-savvy than adults in this day and age?

            If you want to keep your own thoughts and feelings private, write them in a diary. If you post them on the internet, you should be prepare to respond to questions about them.

            Working in the public sector or on publically-funded projects in the private sector, the mantra was always, “never put anything in an e-mail or document that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the paper.” It’s not a far stretch to extend that to one’s own private life, especially in e-mails to people you don’t know or might not be able to trust. To go as far as posting those things publicly under your own name, and then claim those are “private thoughts” is to completely misunderstand how the internet works.

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