I kinda responded to this concept elsewhere as well, but I view it more as respect for the form of interaction. As a university student, they have access to events like this, where a speaker will come in and often times have a Q&A. They can register their protest in any number of ways that don't destroy the event. They can even use being…
I kinda responded to this concept elsewhere as well, but I view it more as respect for the form of interaction. As a university student, they have access to events like this, where a speaker will come in and often times have a Q&A. They can register their protest in any number of ways that don't destroy the event. They can even use being called on to just issue a damning statement to the individual and then sit down and let the next person talk.
My mind goes to court, where respect for the institution (of course, backed up by force) means that we let people speak in their turn. If we don't like the prosecutor, we don't scream at her in court, we vote against the DA in the next election. Certainly not a perfect analogy, but for the students, if they don't like the actions of a student group, take it up with the university that approved them.
Ultimately if we excuse shouting and screaming when it feels right to us, we will lose the benefit of having engaging, controversial, entertaining, etc. speakers on campus because that shouting and screaming are going to feel right to some for just about any speaker.
In follow ups, I've been trying to be clear that I'm not a fan of the students heckling/shouting down the speaker. My original comment specifically noted that I wasn't going to focus on that - my main issue was with the framing of the narrative.
If we're going to use court as an example, yeah we don't scream at the DA (or prosecutor). But if the DA is spouting nonsense, or bringing up irrelevant arguments, or even going down a line of questioning that's trolling, I'd be a bad attorney if I didn't register "objection, relevance." Just because the court has rules and procedures and we (within reason) listen to what people have to say, doesn't mean judges won't routinely cut people off if they're not focused on the case at hand. I've seen judges cut people off after they're meandering/not addressing the questions with just a (paraphrased) "I want you to answer the question. Nothing more and if you have anything else to say I don't want to hear it right now."
To fuse metaphor and point, yeah, let people speak. But when they're trolling, or bringing up bullshit arguments, I don't feel the need to afford them automatic respect by dint of their status as Speaker. I'm well within my rights (and I'd argue, many people should exercise this right) to just reply "Objection, relevance." Again, when we lump in engaging, controversial, entertaining" speakers in the same group as "trolls and demagogues" without distinguishing, we privilege trolling and demagoguery over an actual exchange of ideas.
For the court thing though, is the the other attorney or the judge who gets to say that, not a random spectator. So within the rules of the occasion.
As for the troll thing it could depend a lot on just how trolling the person is and or how much time the people in question allow him or her to do so. This guy may well be a known troll as a speaker, but then again, is he? Having despicable views doesn't make one a troll as a speaker, per se.
I mean, I leave it up to you whether you categorize the 5th Circuit and its judges as "troll" vs "has despicable opinions" but the legal community writ large has had a problem with the 5th circuit for a long long time.
But like, how else am I supposed to categorize a circuit that has decided that it is unbound by Supreme Court precedent as long as it lets the 5th circuit rule in favor of the Republican litigants and against Democratic litigants (even if the opinion makes no sense at all).
This is the circuit that ruled in favor of Ken Paxton in NetChoice v. Paxton, ruling that Texas could make it illegal for private social media companies to do any sort of moderation because the First Amendment was chiefly "a prohibition on prior restraint and, second, a privilege of speaking in good faith on matters of public concern" contrary to ages and ages of First Amendment jurisprudence. Lawfare in general is very good and I recommend this link explaining this specific case: https://www.lawfareblog.com/fifth-circuits-social-media-decision-dangerous-example-first-amendment-absolutism
I guess on the specifics I'd get to the distinction on whether the man in question is trolling on the Stanford stage vs. making trolling legal arguments in his decisions.
Does he defend the decisions with attempts at logic and reason, or does he stand up there and say, "nah, nah, nah, I can do what I want and you libtards have to suck it!" Now maybe the guy has a track record of that in his university speaking engagements, I wouldn't know. But if not, I'd still default to the University being the responsible party to decide that the guy's legal opinions are so out there (like a earnest flat earther) that they aren't worth tarnishing the schools name by having him. As such, they'd be the ones to protest for allowing the FedSoc to invite a crank.
I kinda responded to this concept elsewhere as well, but I view it more as respect for the form of interaction. As a university student, they have access to events like this, where a speaker will come in and often times have a Q&A. They can register their protest in any number of ways that don't destroy the event. They can even use being called on to just issue a damning statement to the individual and then sit down and let the next person talk.
My mind goes to court, where respect for the institution (of course, backed up by force) means that we let people speak in their turn. If we don't like the prosecutor, we don't scream at her in court, we vote against the DA in the next election. Certainly not a perfect analogy, but for the students, if they don't like the actions of a student group, take it up with the university that approved them.
Ultimately if we excuse shouting and screaming when it feels right to us, we will lose the benefit of having engaging, controversial, entertaining, etc. speakers on campus because that shouting and screaming are going to feel right to some for just about any speaker.
In follow ups, I've been trying to be clear that I'm not a fan of the students heckling/shouting down the speaker. My original comment specifically noted that I wasn't going to focus on that - my main issue was with the framing of the narrative.
If we're going to use court as an example, yeah we don't scream at the DA (or prosecutor). But if the DA is spouting nonsense, or bringing up irrelevant arguments, or even going down a line of questioning that's trolling, I'd be a bad attorney if I didn't register "objection, relevance." Just because the court has rules and procedures and we (within reason) listen to what people have to say, doesn't mean judges won't routinely cut people off if they're not focused on the case at hand. I've seen judges cut people off after they're meandering/not addressing the questions with just a (paraphrased) "I want you to answer the question. Nothing more and if you have anything else to say I don't want to hear it right now."
To fuse metaphor and point, yeah, let people speak. But when they're trolling, or bringing up bullshit arguments, I don't feel the need to afford them automatic respect by dint of their status as Speaker. I'm well within my rights (and I'd argue, many people should exercise this right) to just reply "Objection, relevance." Again, when we lump in engaging, controversial, entertaining" speakers in the same group as "trolls and demagogues" without distinguishing, we privilege trolling and demagoguery over an actual exchange of ideas.
Good points and good discussion.
For the court thing though, is the the other attorney or the judge who gets to say that, not a random spectator. So within the rules of the occasion.
As for the troll thing it could depend a lot on just how trolling the person is and or how much time the people in question allow him or her to do so. This guy may well be a known troll as a speaker, but then again, is he? Having despicable views doesn't make one a troll as a speaker, per se.
I mean, I leave it up to you whether you categorize the 5th Circuit and its judges as "troll" vs "has despicable opinions" but the legal community writ large has had a problem with the 5th circuit for a long long time.
But like, how else am I supposed to categorize a circuit that has decided that it is unbound by Supreme Court precedent as long as it lets the 5th circuit rule in favor of the Republican litigants and against Democratic litigants (even if the opinion makes no sense at all).
This is the circuit that ruled in favor of Ken Paxton in NetChoice v. Paxton, ruling that Texas could make it illegal for private social media companies to do any sort of moderation because the First Amendment was chiefly "a prohibition on prior restraint and, second, a privilege of speaking in good faith on matters of public concern" contrary to ages and ages of First Amendment jurisprudence. Lawfare in general is very good and I recommend this link explaining this specific case: https://www.lawfareblog.com/fifth-circuits-social-media-decision-dangerous-example-first-amendment-absolutism
I guess on the specifics I'd get to the distinction on whether the man in question is trolling on the Stanford stage vs. making trolling legal arguments in his decisions.
Does he defend the decisions with attempts at logic and reason, or does he stand up there and say, "nah, nah, nah, I can do what I want and you libtards have to suck it!" Now maybe the guy has a track record of that in his university speaking engagements, I wouldn't know. But if not, I'd still default to the University being the responsible party to decide that the guy's legal opinions are so out there (like a earnest flat earther) that they aren't worth tarnishing the schools name by having him. As such, they'd be the ones to protest for allowing the FedSoc to invite a crank.