Thank you for the link, Ms. Smith. (For others: the link goes to a Slate report that downplays the student disruption, casts the associate dean's remarks differently, and emphasizes how the point of Duncan's visit was clearly precisely this outcome.)
The essential change in the account is that the students who created a disruption did not actually "drown out" Duncan's ongoing speech, but that their shouting began before his speech, the adminstrator "calmed" the students, but Duncan chose to skip the speech and go straight to the combative questions. He came ready with a cell phone to record all this and got what he came for. Slate foregrounds Duncan saying, "You're appalling" twice to a student; the video shows her shouting twice first, "You're disgusting." Slate knows its audience is progressive and will join in focusing on the judge's misjudgment. Someone on the Right looks at that exchange and is struck by the student's disrespectful and emotional provocation, not the judge's relatively calm response. The affect is entirely to Duncan's benefit--he obviously knows the way political theater plays to an audience and the protester (and perhaps Slate, which shouldn't have posted the clip) doesn't.
So what do we learn from this modified account? That this whole thing was a set-up; a trap the students and administrator walked into, just as others like them have walked into the trap hundreds of times before. Duncan and the Federalists got this story out to news venues and the Stanford administration asap, framed as they planned, and scored another PR victory. Call Duncan and his ilk any names you want, the fact is they know how to manipulate liberals to get the outcome they need and liberals don't have a clue how to avoid it.
The way to avoid it is this: avoid it. Don't engage. Restrain yourselves. Don't show up. Don't be led by your righteous indignation. Don't let your group-reinforced theatrical anger make you puppets of your adversaries. Don't let your felt need to be heard damage your cause. **Do not feed the trolls.** As I wrote earlier: the trolls have read Saul Alinsky and you apparently have not.
https://apple.news/A9IeBaylMQouXd9sjmUWiIw
Thank you for the link, Ms. Smith. (For others: the link goes to a Slate report that downplays the student disruption, casts the associate dean's remarks differently, and emphasizes how the point of Duncan's visit was clearly precisely this outcome.)
The essential change in the account is that the students who created a disruption did not actually "drown out" Duncan's ongoing speech, but that their shouting began before his speech, the adminstrator "calmed" the students, but Duncan chose to skip the speech and go straight to the combative questions. He came ready with a cell phone to record all this and got what he came for. Slate foregrounds Duncan saying, "You're appalling" twice to a student; the video shows her shouting twice first, "You're disgusting." Slate knows its audience is progressive and will join in focusing on the judge's misjudgment. Someone on the Right looks at that exchange and is struck by the student's disrespectful and emotional provocation, not the judge's relatively calm response. The affect is entirely to Duncan's benefit--he obviously knows the way political theater plays to an audience and the protester (and perhaps Slate, which shouldn't have posted the clip) doesn't.
So what do we learn from this modified account? That this whole thing was a set-up; a trap the students and administrator walked into, just as others like them have walked into the trap hundreds of times before. Duncan and the Federalists got this story out to news venues and the Stanford administration asap, framed as they planned, and scored another PR victory. Call Duncan and his ilk any names you want, the fact is they know how to manipulate liberals to get the outcome they need and liberals don't have a clue how to avoid it.
The way to avoid it is this: avoid it. Don't engage. Restrain yourselves. Don't show up. Don't be led by your righteous indignation. Don't let your group-reinforced theatrical anger make you puppets of your adversaries. Don't let your felt need to be heard damage your cause. **Do not feed the trolls.** As I wrote earlier: the trolls have read Saul Alinsky and you apparently have not.