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OPINION
All speech is free speech
COMMON SENSE | It’s important to listen to people you find morally reprehensible THURSDAY FEBRUARY 16, 2017 VOL. CXXXIII, NO. 21 133rd Year of Publication CARTER COUDRIET President DAN SPINELLI Executive Editor LUCIEN WANG Print Director ALEX GRAVES Digital Director ALESSANDRO VAN DEN BRINK Opinion Editor SYDNEY SCHAEDEL Senior News Editor WILL SNOW Senior Sports Editor CHRIS MURACCA Design Editor CAMILLE RAPAY Design Editor JULIA SCHORR Design Editor RONG XIANG Design Editor VIBHA KANNAN Enterprise Editor GENEVIEVE GLATSKY News Editor TOM NOWLAN News Editor
This week, the British government formally rejected an online petition started on its website to cancel U.S. President Donald Trump’s upcoming state visit on the grounds that it would “cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.” The petition amassed more than 1.8 million signatures, the second-most signed petition on the website. A rival petition called for President Trump to be extended an invitation, saying that the “U.K. is a country that supports free speech and does not believe that people that appose [sic] our point of view should be gagged.” Despite the dubious spelling, the petition amassed more than 310,000 signatures, also above the threshold that prompts a response from the government. The British government’s decision to support the leader of the free world should surprise nobody, but it sent a strong signal that they did not believe in objecting to his views by shutting him down. It was the right thing to do. Through the lens of a col-
lege student, the debacle appears like a higher-stakes version of the argument that played out violently in Berkeley, Calif. two weeks ago, when fiery Breitbart News editor and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos’ planned speech was met with protest and riot in the streets. In fact, so infuriated was President Trump with the treatment of Yiannopoulous that he tweeted, “If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS?” It’s a debate that we saw take place at Penn last year too, when former C.I.A. director John Brennan’s talk was cut short by protesters after just 15 minutes. A chorus of boos and heckles from a group that reportedly included at least one Penn student led to the conversation abruptly ending. The sad spectacle of mass movements attempting to silence the views of those they disagree with has become all too common. Of course, there is a big difference between silencing Milo
Yiannopoulous and silencing a sitting president of the United States — at the time when Britain undoubtedly needs America most — but the principle is the same: “This person says things that offend me, and so I don’t think they should be able to speak.” Many things that Yian-
message, allow their message to be heard and the opposition will grow. Shutting down a speech is a sign of weakness. Some might argue that offensive speech, or “hate speech,” is an exception to free speech. Even for those people who do not subscribe to free speech absolutism
If you believe in the repugnancy of somebody’s message, allow their message to be heard and the opposition will grow. Shutting down a speech is a sign of weakness.” nopoulous says are repugnant, but nobody is being forced to listen, and shutting the speech down entirely does nothing but propel him to mainstream headlines and Twitter trends. Shutting down a speech isn’t protest, it’s retreat. If you believe in the repugnancy of somebody’s
in the way I do, the importance of hearing extreme opinions in an academic setting should be obvious. How else, after all, can moderate people mitigate extreme views if they are never exposed to them? The widespread pandemic of crowd censoring is alarming because it implies that
there are vast quantities of generally young, studentage people who believe that shutting down speech is a valid form of political discourse. It’s not. Perhaps the most tragic part of the story is that age cohort. At a time when we college students should be exposing ourselves to more ideas — even those we may rightfully disagree with vehemently or find morally outrageous — many of us have an inclination to wall ourselves off from potentially offensive material. That is harmful to our education and a harmful way to see the world. Rather than engaging with an idea, some of our fellow students are disengaging from it. Students who disagree with a speaker on campus should bring in their own speaker, organize a peaceful protest while allowing the speaker to appear or even engage the speaker in a way that allows them to respond. The nation is polarized to an unhealthy degree, and there will be no improvement in that situation if our
REID JACKSON age group refuses to engage in real dialogue with political speakers, even those from the crazy fringes. Given that Republicans control all levers of government in Washington, it’s hard to see how many leftleaning students could benefit from shutting down these speeches rather than engaging with them. For conservative and libertarian students like me, a more open attitude toward campus speakers of all political stripes would be a welcome change. REID JACKSON is a College junior from New York, N.Y., and London, U.K., studying political science. His email address is reja@sas.upenn.edu. “Common Sense” usually appears every other Thursday.
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THIS ISSUE
BEN CLAAR is a College sophomore from Scarsdale, N.Y. His email is bclaar@sas.upenn.edu.
ANDREW ZHENG Sports Associate BREVIN FLEISCHER Sports Associate
Burning neither bridges nor money
STEPHEN DAMIANOS Copy Associate ZOE BRACCIA Copy Associate
CHANCES ARE | We need to change our attitude towards economic disparity
SANJANA ADURTY Copy Associate WEIWEI MENG Photo Associate ANGEL FAN Photo Associate SAM HOLLAND Photo Associate CARSON KAHOE Photo Associate PRANAY VEMULAMADA Photo Associate ERICKA LU Design Associate CHRISTINE LAM Design Associate JULIA MCGURK Design Associate ROSHAN BENEFO Design Associate
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CAMBRIDGE, U.K. — Last Thursday, a Pembroke College student burned a £20 note in front of a homeless man on Bridge Street. I’m not certain how many people in the United States, let alone Penn’s campus, heard of it, but it was a huge deal over here in Cambridge. The negative social media reaction was so overwhelming that the Pembroke Facebook page had to disable its comments for a while. Besides being an absolutely ludicrous story to pass around the dining hall table, the event served a more important purpose by betraying something deeper about Cambridge’s socioeconomic difference: that there is little to none. While this student’s actions were an anomaly, and while almost all of his peers outwardly condemned them, it is difficult to deny the lack of economic diversity at Cambridge. Most of the students here have lived around the same upper-class areas, gone to the same or similar feeder schools and
can afford the same type of comfortable lifestyles where they pay upward of £100 for club memberships. If all this sounds familiar, then it should. Because the first thing I thought of when reflecting on Cambridge’s economically homogeneous environment was my home campus, Penn. Last week, two posts in The Daily Pennsylvanian’s opinion section coincided with the note-burning incident to impress upon me the importance of addressing problems of economic diversity. The first was the Group Think discussion on whether Penn has a lack of economic diversity and what the administration should do about it. The answer to the first part of the question seemed evident to me; of course Penn lacks economic diversity. The second part had me stumped. At the time, I had proposed that Penn should go out and actively search for people of different economic backgrounds, that it
should be more direct and recruit them. The answer appeared incredibly wanting, mainly because it was so vague. How would the logistics work out? Would Penn representatives actually go to these schools and hand
do, I realized that I had the ability to raise the issue so that people more educated in this matter would find the solution to it. They would understand that this is an important problem on campus, that it is not going away and that it must be solved.
We should promote an environment that is hospitable to economic diversity so that, when we do finally achieve it, we won’t regret having it.” them applications? Would they look at these students’ FAFSA and SAT scores and choose the best combination? It was an almost childish solution. And to tell the truth, I still don’t know how to answer the original question. But then, in considering further what I had in my power to
Moreover, I realized that while I might not be able to resolve the issue itself, I can change the culture and mentality surrounding Penn’s economic homogeneity. This leads to the second thing I read last week, James Fisher’s article about being at an economic disadvantage.
While at first I found the main takeaway — that Penn students should be more sensitive to economic disparity — insufficient, the more I thought about it, the more crucial I found it to be. One of the largest problems on Penn’s campus is not merely the lack of economic diversity, but the complacent, almost satisfied attitude towards it. We walk proudly in our Canada Goose jackets and we chatter loudly about our weekend trips to Cabo. As James rightly points out, much of Penn’s social scene, including both individual events like dinners and formal groups like fraternities and sororities, revolves around money. I know that it is nearly impossible to ask that we change the way we enjoy ourselves so as not to center on money. But at the very least, I think it’s important that we are sensitive about the way we deal with those who have less money. We shouldn’t disdain those who ask us for money
AMY CHAN by looking at them with disgust and mocking them. If we have a friend who can’t afford to go on that Center City trip, we should plan something a little closer to home. For some of us, we should actually make friends with people outside of our socioeconomic status. We should promote an environment that is hospitable to economic diversity so that, when we do finally achieve it, we won’t regret having it. AMY CHAN is a College junior from Augusta, Ga., studying Classics and English. Her email address is chanamy@ sas.upenn.edu. “Chances Are” usually appears every other Thursday.