Ken's Comments

The Editors at Wellesley College in their response to the critics would have you believe all of them are sexist.  Not true. Here are some articles on the subject with very interesting views.  None of these are sexist (not a single one says the women of the Wellesley News Editorial Board have their pantyhose in a twist) and none of them were addressed in the Editorial response (with an exception on one point).  All of them say it better than I.  :-) This is the article that first caught my attention - it is the one exception mentioned above.  The Editors do claim their call for "hostility" was mistaken to mean a call for violence. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/20/wellesley-students-push-hostility-to-silence-conse/ Written even before the previous article, it severely criticizes the Editorial Board for "justifying violence against anyone who 'either continue to speak hate speech or refuse to adapt their beliefs' to accepted progressive no...

Needless to say the editorial in the Wellesley News created quite a reaction.  I'll provide examples of those in the next part but apparently the opposition was so intense it provoked a second editorial from the Editorial Board at the Wellesley News in response.  The Editors close the second editorial by saying: "Thus, we respect the right to use speech to challenge other views. We will listen to and dismantle arguments and opinions that threaten a person’s ability to speak freely." However, when you read the body of the Editorial you will find they do not respect the right of people other than themselves to use speech to challenge other views and they did not listen to, much less dismantle, the arguments and opinions published in opposition to their views. The Editors clearly did not "listen to and dismantle arguments and opinions" of those who cited the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who said: "If there is any principle of the Constituti...

The headline of the editorial in the Wellesley News said "Free speech is not violated at Wellesley." Then the body of the opinion piece goes on to advocate violation of Free Speech. There were two key passages from this Editorial that deserve further attention.  Let's consider the first: "Wellesley is certainly not a place for racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia or any other type of discriminatory speech. Shutting down rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others is not a violation of free speech; it is hate speech. The founding fathers put free speech in the Constitution as a way to protect the disenfranchised and to protect individual citizens from the power of the government. The spirit of free speech is to protect the suppressed, not to protect a free-for-all where anything is acceptable, no matter how hateful and damaging." Regarding the first sentence, who defines what is "discriminatory speech."  Co...