Intimidation Is the New Normal on Campus

Apr 27, 2017 by

by Jonathan Haidt, Chronicle of Higher Education:

From now on, any speaker who arouses a protest is at risk of a beating.

I mages of fires, fireworks, and metal barricades crashing through windows made for great television, but the rioters who shut down Milo Yiannopoulos’s talk at the University of California at Berkeley didn’t just attack property. Fewer cellphone cameras captured the moments when they punched and pepper-sprayed members of the crowd, particularly those who seemed like they might be supporters of Yiannopoulos or Donald Trump.

Although the violence on February 1 was clearly instigated by outside agitators — “black bloc” anarchists who show up at events with their faces masked — at least some of the people behind the masks were Berkeley students who thought it was morally permissible to use violence to stop a lecture from taking place. As one student wrote afterward, “Violence helped ensure the safety of students.” Another asked, “When the nonviolent tactics [for stopping the talk] have been exhausted — what is left?”

Read here

 

Related Posts

Tags

Share This