Olivia Nuzzi is personally offended that college students and faculty at Smith University and Rutgers University have successfully nixed the scheduled commencement speakers at their respective graduation ceremonies. At Smith, the scheduled speaker was Christine Lagarde, who heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). At Rutgers, the scheduled speaker was former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Here’s the crux of Ms. Nuzzi’s beef:
The entire point of college is to be exposed to different things: Different types of people, different ideas—and maybe some of those people will hail from organizations that negatively impacted poor countries, or maybe they were partly responsible for a war that ate up the country’s resources and resulted in human rights abuses and lots of needless death. But if, at the end of your time as an undergrad, you haven’t learned that oftentimes you find great wisdom in shitty people, or just that there might be some value in hearing what someone you don’t like or respect might have to say, what on earth have you learned?
Nuzzi’s basic take on this is that young people are insulating themselves from news and views with which they disagree and that a college campus is supposed to be a place for open debate.
Millennials have grown up in a world where you are never forced to see, hear or read anything that you haven’t personally selected. 7,000 TV channels, a DVR to skip commercials, millions of websites—we have been able to curate our own little worlds using technology, wherein nothing unpleasant or offensive can creep in.
My take on this is a little different. It would indeed be a shame if students and faculty began using ever-more restrictive litmus tests for what kind of views can be expressed on campus. At the same time, I think there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed. Smith College President Kathleen McCartney said that an invitation to give a commencement address is not an endorsement of the invitee’s views. That’s basically true, but what if the invitee is David Duke or Ted Nugent or Donald Trump? If the speaker is spewing hate and lies, inviting them to speak is in some sense an endorsement of that hate and those lies.
I admit that this is an invisible line that can lead to a slippery slope. After all, Duke served in the Louisiana legislature for three years, Nugent has had a successful career in music and as a hunting advocate on television, and Trump is one of country’s most famous businessmen. It’s not like they have no wisdom to offer college graduates. It’s just that their views on race are so odious and that a polite society should shun them rather than give them fat checks and honorary degrees.
There’s a lot of angst in this country right now about this line between free speech and open debate, on the one hand, and shunning on the other. Shunning is a political tool that is used to define certain beliefs as unacceptable. Right now, we’re seeing this with gay marriage and we’re also seeing it with race (e.g., Donald Sterling, Paula Deen). What the students and faculty at Rutgers are trying to do is to define the decision to invade Iraq as a criminal act rather than just some issue that is up for debate. What the students and faculty at Smith are trying to do is to raise awareness about the fact that there is widespread opposition to the way the International Monetary Fund operates.
Ms. Nuzzi doubts that this “will have some kind of measurable effect on how people think about the IMF,” but here she is writing about it for The Daily Beast. In truth, anyone who reads about this story will want to know what exactly the IMF has done to arouse such passionate protest. And then they will learn something that they would otherwise not know.
Personally, I would sign a petition to keep Condi Rice from speaking at a commencement but I would not sign a petition to do the same for Christine Lagarde. That’s because I regard one as a war criminal and the other as the head of an organization that I have some concerns about. I’d like to hear a debate about the role the International Monetary Fund plays in the world. I’d like to see a trial at The Hague for Condi Rice. There’s a difference.
But I understand that making the IMF into something controversial is key for those who want it to be reformed. As a political act, opposing Lagarde’s speech was smart. That doesn’t mean that Smith’s administration should have caved, though. I think they were cowards.
Condi Rice, however, should be held to account for her crimes. Until that happens, giving her money and honorary degrees and acting like she can be an edifying example to college graduates is sending the message that what we did in Iraq was okay. It wasn’t even close to okay.
As a nation, we just want to move on. I am proud that there are people at Rutgers with the conscience to say, “We’re not moving on.”