Et Capital Culture

These are the words of well-reputed Professor Allison Stanger recounting the harrowing tale of March 2, 2017 at Middlebury College in Vermont. The Professor could never imagine an evening so shocking and stressful as this one. After 26 years of teaching, the liberal Professor's hair was pulled, body slammed, neck jerked and mind scrambled concussed. 

Professor Stanger is a strong supporter of liberal education and the “free marketplace of ideas." As a self-described “equal opportunity interlocutor,” she sought to ask sociologist Dr. Charles A. Murray (PhD. MIT, 1974), “hard questions” pertaining to his latest book.[1] She believed that Dr. Murray and that 2012 book Coming Apart were worthy of discussion.[2] She also believed that the student body of Middlebury College would politely participate. Her faith was misplaced. 

Once Dr. Murray began to speak, the whole of the auditorium turned their backs on him and shouted accusatory slurs: ‘Charles Murray, go away, racist, sexist, anti-gay.’[3] Professor Stanger later rebutted the name-calling, “I would not use any of those terms to describe the man that I met and know.”[4]  As the students protested, she attempted to reason with the students to stop and listen. The students would not listen. They were determined to shut down the event. 

Professor Stanger and Dr. Murray “retreated” to an undisclosed location to discuss the book. But no sooner did they begin to discuss the book than students began to “scream obscenities through the window[s],” “bang on the windows and set off fire alarms.” She later recounted that “it was absolutely terrifying to try to continue.”[5] When Dr. Murray and she left the refuge, a “mob” attacked. There, she felt her life in serious danger. 

What caused this protest to turn violent?

Professor Stanger observed that the majority of the faculty and students never read Dr. Murray's work themselves. Instead, they believed in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) biography of Dr. Murray to be sufficient.[6] As an educator, she was greatly disturbed by the blind faith that students and faculty put into the SPLC's biography. She later remarked in an op-ed that blind faith in questionable sources is more than just a problem isolated to the students she confronted this night. [7] 

Professor Stanger took a few months to collect her thoughts.  She also went on an abnormally long two year sabbatical. Reflecting on the event, she concluded: 

We have real problems in this country that need to be addressed. So, they're [the protesters] legitimate in being concerned. The tragedy to me is that the strategy they pursued actually brought about the very opposite of what they had hoped to accomplish.

The students protests did not accomplish their goals.  Quite the opposite. Rather than be deplatformed, Dr. Murray received more publicity. Rather than appear as heroes, the students are just faceless evidence of worsening liberal intolerance. 

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Protests express discontent and show dormant power without exercising it. However, “deplatforming”-de facto (social) censorship- exercises power. As a form of protest, deplatforming is not wrong-spirited. As a form of censorship, deplatforming must be precise and nonviolent. But when power is exercised there is always a potential for abuse. In this case, the abuse is as clear as the incivility of the students. Flatly, they failed to deplatform Dr. Murray. 

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Like as Professor Stanger explains, “when you shut down speech, you're basically inviting violence.”[8]

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