Podcast: Fresno State Prof & Free Speech
We shift gears a little with this one. No porn, but some free speech talk. Recently a Fresno State literature professor set off a firestorm with some controversial remarks about the death of former First Lady Barbara Bush. Or did she? Was this just the latest incident that the outrage industry has blown out of proportion to get us all arguing about something that ultimately means very little. This short podcast takes a look at that idea and covers the general idea of free speech in the face of offensive ideas.
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Podcast: Fresno State Prof & Free Speech
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I agree with you Roger, the university shouldn’t fire her though I think she is mistaken as to whether she could be fired, the University’s President making that crystal clear when he explained that tenure was not what she believed it to be while denouncing her comments in pretty harsh words of his own. Like you, I thought she was just trolling, much like she has done in the past, probably in order to get some attention. We all know the type, any attention is “good” attention to them, regardless if she just made it that much easier for some to hate people from Iraq, fat people, or those with tattoos (going by the comments I’d seen on social media). The university is now scrambling to keep donors and I’m sure there will be all sorts of little paybacks to anything or anyone tied to her but really, there shouldn’t be.
After all, haven’t we come far enough to leave the weight comments out of this? Or her looks? Or any of a dozen other things that had nothing to do with her remarks? But her providing the phone number to a suicide hotline as her contact is an act that may well bring her legal trouble in the future and could have been the basis for discipline had the university wanted to pursue it (I don’t believe ASU was interested in pressing charges but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t, it’s still a dickhead move no matter what your thoughts on the professor’s comments about the deceased).
And to those social justice warriors that might be pleased with this whole thing, I wonder just how supportive you’d be if an English professor demanded students write stories supporting Christianity, denouncing some cause you believe in, or ranted about something you found totally offensive? It’s a pretty regular occurrence on both sides of the political spectrum and the courts routinely side with the school so you pretty much have to choose free speech for all or for none, much like adult entertainment. If you don’t like the speech in question, find something else to listen to, to watch, or to work on without trying to sshut down those you don’t care for. That’s what freedom is all about.