{"id":2676,"date":"2008-01-24T06:52:52","date_gmt":"2008-01-24T11:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/24\/depaul%e2%80%99s-1984-moment\/"},"modified":"2008-01-24T12:38:14","modified_gmt":"2008-01-24T17:38:14","slug":"depaul%e2%80%99s-1984-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/depaul%e2%80%99s-1984-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"DePaul\u2019s “1984” Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

FrontPage Mag<\/a> | Nicholas G. Hahn III | Jan. 24, 2008<\/p>\n

If you were to tour DePaul University\u2019s campus asking students about free speech, you would notice the hesitation in their answers. For the past couple of years, the DePaul administration has earned a reputation as a foe of controversial ideas, especially those that offend or challenge the status quo. This has tarnished DePaul\u2019s academic standing as a quality institution. To remedy this problem, President Rev. Dennis Holtschneider created a Free Speech and Expression Task Force and charged it with creating a policy for free speech that would hopefully rebuff any claims that DePaul isn\u2019t a friend of the free marketplace of ideas. <\/p>\n

I was appointed to this Task Force as the only conservative, in part because my student organization, the DePaul Conservative Alliance, tested the limits of free speech on this sensitive, politically correct campus, a number of times. Many of the Alliance\u2019s events, such as an Affirmative Action bake sale which was shut down by the administration, provoked questions as to whether the University sufficiently allowed all ideas to be heard. <\/p>\n

When the Task Force met, we thankfully opted not to create speech codes. Instead we drafted a document called Guiding Principles of Free Speech and Expression. The language of the draft document seemed to open the doors of the University to all ideas\u2013\u2013as it should have. It respected \u201copen discourse and robust debate\u201d and at the same time remained \u201copen to a broad range of ideas and opinions\u201d as a way to \u201ccreate the best conditions for discovering the truth.\u201d Most importantly, it was not patronizing and it respected the \u201cright of listeners to respond with their own expression, or choose to turn away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before releasing the document to the University community, however, the Task Force wanted to hear preliminary feedback on its work. The President\u2019s Diversity Council\u2013\u2013a bureaucracy that oversees racial correctness on campus\u2013\u2013jumped at the opportunity to tell us our Principles were worthless because no \u201cperson of color\u201d was involved in drafting the document. The bullying worked. We decided to add members to our Task Force who were \u201cof color\u201d so we could head-off any future run-ins with the Diversity Council.<\/p>\n

Our new members promptly argued for a serious departure from the model of free speech the Task Force had previously drafted, and just as quickly succeeded in their efforts. I was witness to the undoing of our Principles and the idea of a university itself. I was told that skin color mattered more than ideas in a discussion concerning free speech, and that ideas which offended persons of color \u201csilenced\u201d them and thus curtailed their free speech. I was told that the word \u201ctruth\u201d is \u201coffensive\u201d and would \u201calienate\u201d members of the DePaul community. The idea that human dignity is \u201cGod-given\u201d was too \u201cexcluding.\u201d Those who are excluded or \u201cmarginalized\u201d should be given a \u201cthird option\u201d to express their feelings because they may feel uncomfortable \u201cspeaking in a public forum or not satisfied with walking away.\u201d<\/p>\n

A university, in other words, should make everyone feel as comfortable as possible, perhaps a return to the Haight-Ashbury experience these professors miss dearly\u2013\u2013no disagreement, no argument, no reasoning, no thinking, no responsibility. Their concept of \u201cfree speech\u201d is meant to \u201cprotect those without power.\u201d This model of free speech, of course, is not free at all. It is an ideological weapon which is regularly used to further the diversity agenda. A model of \u201cfree speech\u201d which involves controlling speech in order to correct perceived injustices of the past is Orwellian to say the least.<\/p>\n

. . . more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FrontPage Mag | Nicholas G. Hahn III | Jan. 24, 2008 If you were to tour DePaul University\u2019s campus asking students about free speech, you would notice the hesitation in their answers. For the past couple of years, the DePaul administration has earned a reputation as a foe of controversial ideas, especially those that offend … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[66,72,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-leftism","category-political-correctness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}