Underground at Brown University

By Published on November 30, 2015

In the current issue of National Review, I have a piece called “Underground at Brown.” What’s it about? I’ll tell you. In fact, I’ll blow that piece out — i.e., expand it — here in Impromptus.

At Brown University, in Providence, R.I., there is a secret forum in which students may discuss potentially controversial issues freely. Let me say that again: At Brown, there is a secret forum in which students may discuss potentially controversial issues — or anything they want — freely.

Yes, there is an underground group whose purpose is to allow kids to say what they ought to be free to say above ground.

As David Frum remarked on Twitter, when he read the magazine piece, What is this? Warsaw 1983 or America 2015?

The group came about in this way: Last year, Brown was to host a debate on the issue of campus rape. In one corner was Jessica Valenti, a radical feminist, and in the other was Wendy McElroy, a radical libertarian. It was suspected that McElroy would deny there was a “culture of rape.” And this was intolerable to some students, who protested mightily — in advance, mind you.

The debate came off, to Brown’s credit. Not so the speech attempted the year before by Ray Kelly, who was New York’s police commissioner. At Brown, he was to give a lecture called “Proactive Policing in America’s Biggest City.” The kids at Brown, or some of them, were not interested in what he had to say — so they forced him off the stage, denying everyone else the right to hear him.

Needless to say, the protesters and censors accused Kelly of racism. His policing practices were racist, they charged. Of course, those practices — especially “stop and frisk” — saved countless lives. And most of those lives were black or brown. But this sort of thing is trivial to the “social justice warrior.”

Anyway, Kelly was not permitted to speak, but this Valenti-McElroy debate came off. Brown had taken some mollifying steps, however.

The university’s president announced that she opposed McElroy’s view — and scheduled a lecture for the same time as the debate. The lecture, by a Brown psychiatry professor, was called “The Research on Rape Culture.” Evidently, it was not enough that the debate would be just that: a debate, a clash of views. There had to be a separate event, without a debate, without a clash, without a disagreement.

Also, students set up a safe space for those who might attend the debate and be shaken by something they heard. A “safe space”? Yes. This space, in the words of Judith Shulevitz, writing in the New York Times, was a room “equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.”

I am not springing a parody on you. This sort of room is set up at Brown and other colleges and universities around the country.

One student fed up with this atmosphere of illiberalism, fear, and nuttiness was Chris Robotham, a sophomore from Scituate, Mass., majoring in computer science and math. He created a Facebook group called “Reason@Brown.” You can set up three types of Facebook group: Public, Closed, or Secret. This one is secret. It provides a safe space (to coin a phrase) for the free exchange of ideas, online. A member can simply express his views without being condemned as a heretic or villain. Without being shouted off the stage. There is actual argument.

Read the article “Underground at Brown University” on nationalreview.com.

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