The New BMOC — Banning Mindsets on Campus

Former Vice President Mike Pence talked about free speech, politics, history, public service and other topics in remarks at Old Cabell Hall on Tuesday. (Photos by Dan Addison, University Communications)

​By all accounts, Mike Pence gave a spirited talk this week at the University of Virginia. He elicited cheers and a little protest. In these days of polarization, the peaceful appearance of a national, partisan figure on a college campus counts as a “win” for free speech.
 
At another university, this high-profile event might not have happened. When news broke that Pence had been invited to speak to a conservative student group, student Elisabeth Bass of The Cavalier demanded the former vice president be banned from campus as a threat to LGBTQ students. An editorial board piece for that student newspaper likened Pence’s promise to “take a stand for America’s founding” to the white supremacists who rioted in Charlottesville in 2017.
 
The university administration held firm and rightly allowed the event to go forward. Not incidentally, their decision protected the rights of students to dissent and protest Pence as well. It is UVA’s principled stand for free speech that prompted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) to give the university a “green light” rating. FIRE’s rating puts the university near the top of schools that notably respect free speech.
 
Not every university is as firm as UVA. Administrators at other institutions often waver, allowing the silencing of speakers left, right and center. 
 

• The University of Dayton recently disinvited South African medical doctor and United Nations Special Rapporteur Tlanleng Mofokeng to a public health conference after it was learned she had performed abortions in her home country. The school argued her background was counter to the school’s Catholic mission and that her appearance would prompt “negative reactions.” The conference title? Social Practice of Human Rights. (Hat tip to Eugene Volokh and The Volokh Conspiracy)

 

• At Vassar College, Jeh Johnson, a former secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama Administration and a man whose father taught at Vassar for nearly four decades, recently withdrew as commencement speaker after aggressive student dissent. According to Insider, students threatened protests and through some curious stretch of logic labeled Johnson a “war criminal,” claiming his participation in the school ceremony would be particularly offensive to people of color. Johnson, an African American who grew up around the Vassar campus community, didn’t wish for his speech to be a distraction and so pulled out.  

 
Despite Pence’s successful appearance, institutions founded on a love of discovery and discourse are still in danger of becoming silos of censorship and shaming. What’s lost is the opportunity for all sides to learn from each other. Let’s hope more students and faculty realize the surefire way to lose a debate is to ban one.