Posted on 02/13/2018 11:41:48 AM PST by Personal Responsibility
“Anthropology 212: Cultural Freedoms: Hate Speech, Blasphemy, and Pornography,” a course on freedom of expression at Princeton University has been “reluctantly” cancelled, Professor Lawrence Rosen informed his students in an email obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Rosen’s email, sent at 2:07 p.m. on February 12, went on to say “I think it only fair that you be free, before too much of the semester has passed, to move ahead in another course of your choosing.”
Last week Prof. Rosen received national attention for using the N-word in this class on freedom of expression. Some students walked out and protested the term’s use. One report, cited in Princeton’s main campus newspaper, says that Rosen asked, “What is worse, a white man punching a black man, or a white man calling a black man a n****r?” And when Rosen was met with disagreement of his use of the N-word, and on his continued use of the term in the academic setting, he said, he would use it, “if I think it’s necessary.”
Why was the course cancelled? Rosen’s email to students didn’t give specifics, other than that his decision had been “reluctant.” Calls and emails to Rosen went unreturned. Michael Hotchkiss of Princeton’s Office of Communications told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the course’s cancelling “was Professor Rosen’s decision, and there was no pressure from the University.”
One student in the class tells TWS that he believes the course’s cancelling may have had something to do with an interaction that happened “about halfway through the first seminar.” A male student of color stood up, inches from professor Rosen’s face and shouted “FUCK YOU,” this witness claimed. Just before that, a female student of color had shouted at Rosen, as the first was approaching, “do you feel safe right now.” “There was no physical contact,” this witness claims, though at the time the student feared there might be. During that class, “nobody except Rosen defended Rosen,” the student told me. Another student in the class confirmed this account to TWS.
The course’s objectives, as Carolyn Rouse, chair of Princeton’s Department of Anthropology explained in defense of Rosen, was to have students, “be able to argue why hate speech should or should not be protected using an argument other than ‘because it made me feel bad.’” Now that Anthropology 212 has been cancelled, Princeton students have learned a powerful lesson about free speech, though perhaps not the one Rosen intended.
We have raised a generation of Eloi
I teach ESL and when I want to show the difference between the pronunciation of “sheet” and “sh*t”, I have to say the word. The students are amused and get the point. Nobody says, “You’re an N-word.”
This had nothing to do with free speech, it had to do with control. The N-word has no hidden meaning, it's just that white people aren't allowed to use it. If Rosen had been black, this would have been a non-issue.
Someone should sneak into the college AV room and put Blazing Saddles on all the TVs, on repeat, lock the doors and bust the key off inside the lock.
I read that book a couple of times to my son before he could read - 4 to 6 years old I suppose? I used the word once and explained to him what it meant, and how times have changed and we don’t use that word anymore. So how about we just use his name - “Jim”.
At some point my son asked why he used a bad word in describing his friend Jim - and who he risked his own freedom to help escape? I tried to explain again that back then it wasn’t as bad of a word - or if it was, it was commonly used.
Fast-forward years later and my son is in grade-school, junior high or something. He said something like “It’s so stupid how they want to ban that book because of the ‘N-word’. Huck is friends with Jim, sees him for who he is as another boy, and helps him get free! The book is the exact opposite of being racist!”
Oh - I guess the prof got his answer to the question. It is worse to call a black man something than to hit him.
I am not sure how to react, but it seems for the death of a class on free speech to be shut down because of the fascist PC movement against free speech is not something to celebrate.
They’ll throw him and all other conservative authors in the trash bin of history or hidden deep within libraries where only serious researchers can see them; then only liberal PC books will be allowed/tolorated.
They’ll throw him and all other conservative authors in the trash bin of history or hidden deep within libraries where only serious researchers can see them; then only liberal PC books will be allowed/tolerated. (corrected spelling)
or ‘Bamboozled’
Remember when the first deep space probe went to Uranus and how the liberal PC NPR and PBS had this woman saying “You-rin-us” because they don’t know how to pronounce the planets name “You-rain-us. Of course the kids had fun with that name.
Will look that up.
An ‘N’ on your report card really screws up your GPA.
He shoulda just played any rap song saying it.
You was right.
When I taught at the university level, black students were calling each the n-word all day long........
Snap, my bad, only a bad word when used by anyone other than a black. =.=
It mentioned a student of color but it didn’t say which one.White? White is a color. Or green or purple or blue. At least it didn’t say “colored student”; student of color is OK.
He called someone a nominalist?
it also gives them a get out of jail free card for any acts of violence brought on by hearing the word spoken aloud...
i think i will call someone the n-word and see what it triggers...
you silly n-word, why do you act like that.
They control the country. It us not fun.
President Trump: Please tell the damn PC POLICE to go SIT on a Coke bottle and ROTATE!!
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