Oops, we changed our minds
A student newspaper published by the School of Humanities of the Catholic St. Edward’s University proudly reports that St. Edward’s joined the list of right-on silencers who invite Julie Bindel to talk and then later call her back and say no we changed our minds. Who knew that Catholic universities were that “intersectional”?
Universities across the country have been facing backlash over their decisions to host or cancel speakers. Last week, St. Edward’s University joined the national conversation by cancelling a talk by British feminist and political activist, Julie Bindel, based on views she had expressed about the transgender community.
Jesus – it sounds as if they’re excited about being invited to join the cool kids’ table. “Hey everybody’s talking about all this no-platforming and now we’re one of the no-platformers!”
Bindel was scheduled by the Social Justice LLC to speak about her book, “The Pimping of Prostitution: Abolishing the Sex Worker Myth” on Nov. 8. Bindel, a self-described radical feminist, is co-founder of the law reform group, Justice for Women. The group opposes violence against women and helps women who have been prosecuted for killing violent male partners.
So you can see why the Vatican wouldn’t like her…but it wasn’t the Vatican who called her up to say we don’t want you after all. It was people who fancy themselves lefty and social justicey and right on.
Early on the scheduled day of her talk, Bindel said she received a call rescinding the invitation. Kris Sloan, associate professor of education and director of the Social Justice LLC, confirmed that it was ultimately his decision to cancel Bindel’s appearance. She spoke at the University of Texas-Austin on Nov. 9.
On the day of her talk. That is so fucking rude and mean. And it’s nothing to do with social justice.
“This was my decision, I made this call,” Sloan said. “Was it right? I hope so. At the heart of my decision was the link to the living and learning, not just to the 96 students in that room, but the larger community and wanting to be good allies to the trans community and the gender non-conforming community on this campus.”
Oh shut the fuck up. Julie was there to talk about pimping, and she was invited, and she was no threat to “the trans community and the gender non-conforming community.” There was no shadow of a need to tell her hours before her talk “we don’t want you after all so nyah.” It’s display and nothing else, and what it displays is stupid and narrow and of no use to anyone.
Doing US book tour. Invited to a college by dept. head to talk about harms of sex trade. Queer ISIS trans cabal and allies bullied college into cancelling. This is not about *MY* free speech, just McCarthyite silencing of feminists who expose male violence and abuse.
— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) November 8, 2017
It’s disgusting.
Concern from transgender student Marcus Kearns sparked the conversation about whether to host Bindel. Kearns Googled Bindel after Professor Laurie Heffron, who teaches the class Kearns is taking in the LLC, announced the upcoming lecture. He discovered articles Bindel had published that he considered to be transphobic, including a 2004 article in The Guardian entitled, “Gender benders, beware.”
Thirteen years ago. She’s apologized for the way she worded that article. She doesn’t word things that way now. She does outstanding important work. This whole thing is revolting and outrageous.
Bindel told Hilltop Views that the decision to cancel her talk was made by “cowards” whom she called “morally bankrupt.”
“Everybody knows that I am no threat to trans people,” Bindel said. “There is absolutely no way that this group of people, the bullies, have read anything that I’ve written or said that has warranted this response. This is merely a tactic to shut down the voice of feminists that protest against male violence.”
Kearns was glad that the event was cancelled.
“Am I happy it did get cancelled?” Kearns said of the talk. “Yes, but it wasn’t my intention going in.”
“That can have really bad effects on people when you trust a school to bring in voices that are going to help you grow but they instead bring someone who tears you down,” he added. “If you’re going to have controversy, it has to be grounded in mutual respect.”
But she was going there to talk about her book, which is about pimping.
After considering feedback from the class, Pride, linked faculty, and a number of transgender individuals, Sloan made the final decision to cancel the event early Wednesday morning.
Citing Bindel’s confrontational tendencies and the risk to the community as major reasons, Sloan said that there was “no real value” to come of hosting her and that it wouldn’t “be a productive use of our time.”
But she had already been invited. They told her they’d changed her minds the day of her talk. It’s way too late to decide oh well there’s no real value to this and it wouldn’t be a productive use of our time so we’re going to call her up hours before her talk when she’s thousands of miles from home to tell her we’ve changed our tiny flea-bitten little minds.
And what a backwards way of phrasing it. They “joined the conversation” by cancelling a speaking engagement? No.
Reminds me of that fracas over at The Orbit, when they rejected the offer of a promotional partnership with …Amy something… for having an insufficiently grovelling apology for a post that included the words ‘stupid’ and ‘idiot’ quoted from someone else.
What a load of shit. I remember back when I was at university studying biology, there was a talk given by a young earth creationist who spent an hour positively sneering at science as it applied to evolution. He had zero respect for the institutions he was talking about, but not only was he permitted to speak there, we students were encouraged to listen if we had the time. This Kearns isn’t bothered by Julie Bindel having insufficient respect for his position on trans politics and activism; rather, he is the one with no respect for her positions.
And she wasn’t even talking about trans issues at that engagement!
Kearns, Sloane et cabal might have given a moment’s thought to the implications: They found some ancient (questionable) dirt on a person and jumped to exclude her (extremely rudely). What if 13 years from now, the enormity of what they just did surfaces in a context where they stand to lose something? That aspect never occured to them. Eh?
@Holms
Ah yes, I remember that. Surly Amy is very, very definitely a good person who has done more than most to help women in the skeptical and atheism movements. And she’s been consistently treated badly by people both inside and outside those movements, including the pearl-clutching idiots at the orbit.
I’ve met her. She’s lovely. She’s sincere. She’s talented. She’s hard-working. She’s relentless. I own several things she’s made and wear them with pride. I’ve often promoted her work and do so again without caveat.
It’s so sleazy, isn’t it? This pretense that someone like Bindel is somehow equivalent to someone like Yiannopoulos.
One has a serious body of work going back decades saying various interesting and coherent things. The other says whatever provokes the most likes at the time.
These two people are not equally worth listening to. But should we condemn Yiannopoulos hypothetically being disinvited at the last minute? Personally, I wouldn’t lose any sleep. It’s rude but the guy is awful and has nothing to say. I don’t have the slightest problem being rude to him.
We treat people with respect when they are worthy of it.
And this is why we have Jordan Peterson.
I’ve supported Julie Bindel on her right to free speech and other matters including the current gender debates in the UK.
Could you do us the courtesy of removing the snarky references to “The Vatican”?
I’m a cradle Catholic and learned my pro-woman politics at my mother’s knee – and from the nuns who taught us.
Thank you
Mrs Meadowsweet:
Now that’s satire, thanks for reminding us.
@ 6 – No, I couldn’t. I’m glad you learned pro-woman politics from your mother and the nuns at your school, but I still consider the Vatican a pernicious, reactionary, totalitarian organization. Not all Catholics are reactionary, but that’s not because the Vatican is not reactionary.
Yes it’s terrible when the defense against people we don’t like spreading their vile propaganda turns out to work just as well at censoring people we do like from sharing their views.
#9 james howde: Check you projector, I think there is something unaligned in it.