I recently had the pleasure of reading Zach Ingber’s ’15 opinion piece in which he suggested that the bias against minority groups at Brown — particularly against political conservatives — threatens the spirit of free inquiry embedded in the University’s mission (“Free speech at Brown?” Oct. 20). While Ingber makes a good point that students at Brown might not be as accepting of controversial opinions as they could be, he shrouds it in a sensationalist assertion that free inquiry, which is at the very foundation of Brown’s culture, is under threat.
I’ll start with the good stuff. Ingber makes the case that Brown students don’t accept or respect conservative opinions, and I tend to agree. It’s a problem, and it’s been documented extensively in other Herald columns where an insert-minority-opinion-holder-here calls for more discourse and open-mindedness around said minority opinion. Smart people should listen to smart ideas no matter where they come from. But I think smart people already know that, so I don’t think I need to make the case again here.
Where I think Ingber’s thesis is flawed is in his naive definitions of free speech and censorship. Freedom of speech provides the author of an unpopular opinion safety and security. It doesn’t mean anyone has to agree or even listen. Censorship is an authoritarian tactic to control flows of information. It’s a word to describe things like the shutdown of the Syrian internet and not one to be thrown around lightly to describe a panel selection that was perceived to be unfair.
Is our freedom of speech really under attack? Do conservatives feel unsafe at Brown because they are conservative? Or are they just upset that some people won’t take their ideas seriously? This is no small distinction.
This distinction is important because when it is not made, we get articles like Ingber’s, which escalate the rhetoric unnecessarily by claiming our freedom of speech is being threatened. But freedom of speech at Brown is perfectly alive. I’ll give you some examples. Members of Brown Divest Coal bombarded the official University Facebook page with messages urging divestment, and Brown didn’t take them down. President Christina Paxson holds woefully underutilized office hours every month where students can voice any opinions on their minds, and I know from experience that she actually listens. Students who feel their freedom of speech is being threatened can publish columns in The Herald, and other students will read and respond to those views.
It’s too bad that conservatives at Brown feel lonely or underappreciated, but that is the nature of attending an overwhelmingly liberal university. If it’s a problem for you that your friends won’t respect your ideology, maybe you should find new friends or a new ideology. But claiming that Brown’s conservatives are being censored and aren’t being granted freedom of speech is either a Limbaugh-esque tactic to stir up a controversy or a poor interpretation of our fundamental freedoms. In any case, it only serves to embarrass the otherwise respectable aspects of conservative politics.
Matt Breuer ’14 thinks there is a fire in your movie theater and can be reached at matthew_breuer@brown.edu.
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