Bruce Benidt
Jon Austin
tcarideo
Ellen Mrja
Mike Keliher[UPDATE: As of 4 p.m. on April 15, St. Thomas has decided to allow Star Parker to speak. More details on that here. Good for it.]
The Star Tribune’s trusty ruckus-raiser Katherine Kersten brings us a Monday column that asks whether the University of St. Thomas is rejecting “a group, a speaker — or a range of ideas.”
She’s missing the point.
If you’re too lazy to read the column, A) shame on you but B) here’s an overview: Bestselling author (is it just me or is that phrase utterly meaningless?) Star Parker had what sounds like a rough life — not to mention four abortions — but has found Jesus and is now an opponent of killing unborn babies.
She’d been scheduled to speak on campus at St. Thomas, my alma mater, with part of her fee (can’t do it “for the cause” or out of the kindness of her Christian heart or anything like that) paid for by the conservative Young America’s Foundation, a group that apparently upsets some people, including St. Thomas. The YAF helped bring Ann Coulter to St. Thomas, which we know turned into a shit show.
St. Thomas pulled the plug, and Kersten dug up this gem from VP for Student Affairs Jane Canney: “As long as I’m a vice president at St. Thomas, we will not deal with Young America’s Foundation.”
A university statement said the school “was not comfortable in allowing the Young America’s Foundation to be involved with the Parker event.”
The university spokesdude elaborates: “We’re not comfortable. It’s that simple.”
Kersten seems quite pleased to hang out in her convenient but useless “us vs. them” world, pitching this story as another damn dirty liberal university keeping the conservative-minded man down.
But there’s a bigger point here. A college campus is no place for this kind of comfort. (And if my freshman dorm room is any indication, it’s no place for any other sort comfort, either.)
If a university — with its supposed emphasis on developing intelligent, well-rounded, thoughtful adults — isn’t the place to hear a controversial speaker, where the hell do you suggest the event take place? Does St. Thomas strive for a sterile, challenge-free environment?
What are we afraid of? Sure, maybe a speaker would say something someone might find offensive. I’d argue — and I mean this from the depths of my heart — that if she doesn’t, she’s probably not worth the paper her fliers are printed on. If I’m paying $900 per credit (and a course is usually four credits), you’d better throw some challenging, thought-provoking, get-me-off-my-Thursday-drunk-ass-and-make-me-make-a-difference kind of people at me.
If you’re shielding your students from people who make you uncomfortable, you’re a damned failure.
Filed under: Free speech | Tagged: Katherine Kersten, St. Thomas, Star Parker
I feel for my old friend Doug Hennes, St. Thomas spokesearthling (he edited the first county board story I ever wrote, at the Owatonna People’s Press, back during the U.S. Grant administration). Doug was a solid and fine journalist. He’s been a spear catcher at St. Thomas on the whole speaker thing since Ann Coulter and Desmond Tutu. Tough stuff.
I agree with you, Mike. Speakers should wake people up, challenge them, piss some of us off. Once you start trying to keep the flak down, it’s like weeds — more comes up. Better to have some minimum standards — you can’t urinate on stage, and you can’t use hate speech — and then let ‘er rip. The real hurdle a speaker should have to clear to get on stage is — will she or he help us think and learn? Ranting seldom advances learning. Provocative challenge does — even if said with fire and spit.
Turn someone away because he or she isn’t a deep thinker or doesn’t seem interested in others’ points of view. But not because some of us will get offended.
I still think Hennes has a tough job.
St Paul already has one Macalester. We don’t need a second liberal monolith.
If you don’t want to hear what she has to say, then don’t go hear her speak. Why do people always dismiss their free will? Jesus…
Liberals at their absolute worst.
Kenny: I assume you’re chalking St. Thomas up in the liberal category because they’ve been bothered by a couple of these conservative speakers.
Take my word for it: If St. Thomas is a “liberal monolith,” Hillary Clinton is an astute campaigner.
My point was that St Thomas aspires to be something other than it has been. It aspires to Macalester 2.0
Mike, nice zinger about Hillary. Loving it.
As for St. Thomas, this educational institution is in the awkward transitional period of trying to open up to more diversity. But they can’t keep turning down every confrontational point of view. If anything, most of the tunnel-visioned students who study there could use the wake-up call from the real world (I know plenty of students who have recently studied there, so I can say these overly-privileged kids could use another viewpoint).
I always say sometimes you need to take a walk on the wild side just to see how life is elsewhere or in someone else’s point of view. Sadly, only public universities are willing to provide that walk to students because they know it is in the best interest of young people.
As one of those “overly privileged kids,” I can assure you, many Tommies could indeed use a walk on the wild side.
But let’s not paint with too broad a brush. Many are also among the smartest, finest people I know.
Go Johnnies! Ha, ha, ha, ha…
“As for St. Thomas, this educational institution is in the awkward transitional period of trying to open up to more diversity”
“Open up to more diversity” by shutting out a controversial speaker? Did I miss something here?
Sorry, I guess this is old news now. But it strikes me the consensus of the Crowd was that St. Thomas originally rejected this speaker over the potentially controversial nature of her position (therefore anathema to the principle of a liberal arts education). Did you conclude Dr. Dienhart’s explanation that the issue wasn’t because of the “message” but the exclusion of the university in scheduling the speaker was disengenuous?
It seems to have actually been pegged to the involvement of the YAF, the group that previous brought Ann Coulter to campus. Once they were out of it — St. Thomas providing funding rather than that seen-as-troublesome group — she was suddenly deemed acceptable.