| Time | Text |
|---|---|
|
Campus Cowardice And Free Speech
00:04:22
|
|
| American higher education really is a hive of hypocrisy and cowardice. | |
| I've been invited by a student group to give a talk at Colorado Mesa University. | |
| This has caused a big fuss on campus and a performance by the university president, John Marshall, that is as comical as it is contemptible. | |
| He started out with an 800-word message to the entire campus in which he said, my views are... | |
| And that my speaking engagement could be the most difficult and important test Colorado Mesa University has faced when it comes to free speech. | |
| However, his campus is a place where all ideas can be expressed. | |
| Bad ideas can be peacefully challenged and, in the end, defeated. | |
| Our task is to empower you to pursue truth, he added. | |
| And the way to do that is to allow space for all opinions across the political and ideological spectrum. | |
| Sounds like a fine sentiment. | |
| President Marshall even called free speech sacred. | |
| He told students it's the opportunity of your life to carefully deconstruct his, meaning my, dehumanizing ideas. | |
| Too bad he's already decided they're dehumanizing, but I could forgive him for that if he really wants students to pursue truth by coming to my talk and grappling with unfamiliar ideas. | |
| He said he would show up to peacefully and respectfully demonstrate. | |
| I was glad to know he wouldn't be rioting. | |
| But he said he wouldn't attend my talk. | |
| That's odd. | |
| He says it's a once-in-a-lifetime chance for students to challenge and defeat bad ideas, but all he's going to do is stand outside. | |
| I wrote to suggest that he do the challenging and defeating. | |
| I invite you to take the stage after my talk and explain why I am wrong. | |
| I perhaps tactlessly reminded him that one of the defining values he claims for his campus is courage. | |
| This university president wasn't man enough to reply. | |
| Instead, I heard back from the student president who began her letter with Dear Jared. | |
| She explained that President Marshall wouldn't answer me because he has already accepted a better invitation to attend a better event focused on love, dignity, and true courage. | |
| She has scheduled this love fest for the same time as my talk, so no one can attend both. | |
| And that's how the university will defeat my ignorant, hateful ideas. | |
| She ended with love and peace. | |
| If this event were right after my speech, students could listen to me first, but it's time to make sure students won't hear what I say. | |
| I guess President Marshall doesn't want students to pursue truth by challenging and defeating bad ideas after all. | |
| He'll be the star of a self-styled counter-narrative deliberately set up to keep students even from hearing those ideas, to keep them ignorant. | |
| His board of trustees should think seriously about his fitness for the job. | |
| Just yesterday, the student president sent out a campus-wide message. | |
| Jared Taylor runs and founded the American Renaissance Conference alongside neo-Nazis, racists, and Klansmen. | |
| My presence makes many of us, if not all of us, feel unsafe, unheard, and unwelcome. | |
| Golly, the whole campus is cowering. | |
| She invites students to attend the multiple events that will apparently be required to counteract my terrifying presence. | |
| Will there be milk and cookies? | |
| Stuffed animals to comfort traumatized students? | |
| I'm sure all the campus toadies will have a wonderful time raging against ideas of which they are deliberately ignorant and congratulating each other on their true courage. | |
|
New Maverick Mascot
00:00:40
|
|
| Nothing could be more conformist and submissive. | |
| The Colorado Mesa University mascot is the Maverick. | |
| What's a maverick? | |
| An unorthodox or independent-minded person. | |
| Synonyms are non-conformist, rebel, dissenter, and a maverick is the opposite of a conformist. | |
| I don't know what the campus was like before President Marshall, but I propose a new mascot. | |