These people were dressed in black and wore masks
Allison Stanger, a political scientist at Middlebury, wrote:
I agreed to participate in the event with Charles Murray, because several of my students asked me to do so. They are smart and good people, all of them, and this was their big event of the year. I actually welcomed the opportunity to be involved, because while my students may know I am a Democrat, all of my courses are nonpartisan, and this was a chance to demonstrate publicly my commitment to a free and fair exchange of views in my classroom. As the campus uproar about his visit built, I was genuinely surprised and troubled to learn that some of my faculty colleagues had rendered judgement on Dr. Murray’s work and character, while openly admitting that they had not read anything he had written. With the best of intentions, they offered their leadership to enraged students, and we all now know what the results were.
Charles Murray co-wrote the highly controversial The Bell Curve, published in 1994.
I want you to know what it feels like to look out at a sea of students yelling obscenities at other members of my beloved community. There were students and faculty who wanted to hear the exchange, but were unable to do so, either because of the screaming and chanting and chair-pounding in the room, or because their seats were occupied by those who refused to listen, and they were stranded outside the doors. I saw some of my faculty colleagues who had publicly acknowledged that they had not read anything Dr. Murray had written join the effort to shut down the lecture. All of this was deeply unsettling to me. What alarmed me most, however, was what I saw in student eyes from up on that stage. Those who wanted the event to take place made eye contact with me. Those intent on disrupting it steadfastly refused to do so. It was clear to me that they had effectively dehumanized me. They couldn’t look me in the eye, because if they had, they would have seen another human being. There is a lot to be angry about in America today, but nothing good ever comes from demonizing our brothers and sisters.
Things deteriorated from there as we went to another location in an attempt to salvage the event via live-stream for those who were still interested in engaging. I want you to know how hard it was for us to continue with fire alarms going off and enraged students and outside agitators banging on the windows. I thought they were going to break through, and I then wondered what would happen next. It is hard to think and listen in such an environment. I am proud that we somehow continued the conversation. Listen to the video and judge for yourself whether this was an event that should take place on a college campus.
When the event ended, and it was time to leave the building, I breathed a sigh of relief. We had made it. I was ready for dinner and conversation with faculty and students in a tranquil setting. What transpired instead felt like a scene from Homeland rather than an evening at an institution of higher learning. We confronted an angry mob as we tried to exit the building. Most of the hatred was focused on Dr. Murray, but when I took his right arm both to shield him from attack and to make sure we stayed together so I could reach the car too, that’s when the hatred turned on me. One thug grabbed me by the hair and another shoved me in a different direction. I noticed signs with expletives and my name on them. There was also an angry human on crutches, and I remember thinking to myself, “What are you doing? That’s so dangerous!” For those of you who marched in Washington the day after the inauguration, imagine being in a crowd like that, only being surrounded by hatred rather than love. I feared for my life.
Once we got into the car, the intimidation escalated. That story has already been told well. What I want you to know is how it felt to land safely at Kirk Alumni Center after taking a decoy route. I was so happy to see my students there to greet me. I took off my coat and realized I was hungry. I told a colleague in my department that I felt proud of myself for not having slugged someone. Then Bill Burger charged back into the room (he is my hero) and told Dr. Murray and I to get our coats and leave—NOW. The protestors knew where the dinner was. We raced back to the car, driving over the curb and sidewalk to escape quickly. It was then we decided that it was probably best to leave town.
After the adrenaline and a martini (full disclosure; you would have needed a martini too) wore off, I realized that there was something wrong with my neck. My husband took me to the ER, and President Patton, God bless her, showed up there, despite my insistence that it was unnecessary. I have a soft brace that allowed me, after cancelling my Friday class, resting up all day, and taking painkillers, to attend our son’s district jazz festival. He’s a high school senior who plays tenor sax, and I cried when I realized that these events had not prevented me from hearing him play his last district concert.
To people who wish to spin this story as one about what’s wrong with elite colleges and universities, you are mistaken. Please instead consider this as a metaphor for what is wrong with our country, and on that, Charles Murray and I would agree. This was the saddest day of my life. We have got to do better by those who feel and are marginalized. Our 230-year constitutional democracy depends on it, especially when our current President is blind to the evils he has unleashed. We must all realize the precious inheritance we have as fellow Americans and defend the Constitution against all its enemies, both foreign and domestic. That is why I do not regret my involvement in the event with Dr. Murray. But as we find a way to move forward, we should also hold fast to the wisdom of James Baldwin, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
In a post a couple of days later she reported that she’d been diagnosed with a concussion.
Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed has more:
Middlebury officials now say that a small group of six to 12 people who appeared not to be students were involved in the attack on the car and Stanger. These people were dressed in black and wore masks. Earlier some of them tried to enter the lecture hall and were turned away. Those who shouted down Murray were students, but those who attacked the car (a group that included students) appeared to be led by the outside group (who Middlebury officials said appeared older than most of the college’s students). College officials called the town police when the car was attacked, but the attackers had run away by the time police officers arrived. No one was arrested. College officials said the size and intensity of the protest surprised them.
The reports about the nonstudents, dressed in black and with their faces covered, are similar to those from the University of California, Berkeley, and elsewhere about anarchist “black bloc” protests that have turned up on some campuses.
None of that is helpful.
Par the course for protests of this kind nowadays; people who should know and act better wanting nothing more than to tick off another box on their victimhood bingo card.
For some reason the old exchange between the cop and Brando springs to mind (paraphrased).
“Whaddya protesting against, kid?”
“Whaddya got?”
Acolyte of Sagan @1,
I think that particular talking point is overrated. You don’t need to have read someone’s book to have a good idea of their views and the intellectual and moral value of them. I’ve never read Mein Kampf, but I feel comfortable calling Hitler an asshole. I haven’t read The Bell Curve, but I have read summaries of it and critiques of its methodology and conclusions (and the unconvincing responses to those criticisms), and I feel comfortable calling it junk science. I haven’t read any of Ken Ham’s books, or Michael Behe’s, or any of the other creationist/ID crowd, only excerpts of their arguments and (in the case of Behe) trial testimony, but I would protest any science department giving them a speaking gig. (If a campus Christian or conservative group or whatever wants to invite them, that’s a different story.)
I am reading “Galileo’s Middle Finger” by Alice Dreger. This is exactly the kind of thing she is writing about: activists attacking scientists. But Dreger’s research revealed more underhanded, institutional level tactics – the mob violence described here seems to be a worrying (well, extremely frightening) new development.
Screechy Monkey, I would agree. I have read some of Murray’s work, and would not hesitate to class it as junk science. Still, I don’t think we get anywhere by this sort of action; we lose the moral high ground for one thing. For another thing, not letting someone speak can be interpreted (by those who wish to interpret it in such a way) as an admission of being unable to defeat the arguments through logic and argumentation.
I think people like Murray should be invited to speak at colleges, preferably a debate, where students can hear conversation about ideas that are poorly developed, and learn how to challenge it. This should be handled carefully, of course, so the school doesn’t appear to be endorsing ideas that are, well, rather odious and harmful to large portions of their student body. But allowing him to speak, and inviting someone competent to discuss the other side, can enter a conversation that can lead somewhere. Those who will not listen to that certainly will not listen to a shouting match like the one described.
That being said, I think there are ideas that are way too dangerous to be presented freely. I would be willing to consider people like David Irving and Charles Murray, who are presenting poorly developed ideas in a scholarly way, and are not calling names or inciting riots. I would consider people like Milo Y in a different category. He has not even the pretense of being a scholar, his only purpose is to provoke, and his followers have been known to hurt people.
I’m not condoning using violence or threats of it to shut down someone’s speech.
I think there’s an interesting discussion to be had about when it’s appropriate to demand (again, in a peaceful protesting sense) that an invitation to speak be withdrawn, and when the right response is to stick to providing a contrary message. In general, I’d say that line depends on whether the speaker is getting to speak to a captive audience and/or if the speaking role is an honor or carries the implication of representing or being endorsed by people who don’t consent to that. Which is why there’s so much controversy over commencement speakers, I would say justifiably: it’s considered an honor to get to speak at a commencement, and universities shouldn’t be honoring, and forcing graduates and their guests to sit through speeches by, people with repugnant ideas.
Screechy Monkey (great ‘nym, by the way), these are faculty members we’re talking about. Yes, Murray may have odious views but how does a teacher justify protesting a person when that teacher only has hearsay to fall back on? “Yeah, well, everybody says he’s a bad guy”? That’s Trumpian level of thinking.
If one is to protest, at least have the decency to know exactly what it is that one is protesting.
Or to put it another way, how many of the people protesting and no-platforming Maryam actually read anything she’s written? How many Islamists were baying for Rushdie’s blood without ever seeing a copy of The Satanic verses? How many of those who were hounding Ophelia for her ‘terf’ beliefs actually bothered to read what she’d written before joining the mob?
These things work both ways.
You know, Vermont is the Whitest place in America. Most of the electricity consumed in this pristine northern wilderness is supplied by a nuclear power plant owned by an outfit called “Vermont Yankee”. Last time I checked, the state’s unemployment rate was almost 3%…
Now for what it’s worth, Middlebury College was granting diplomas, hard earned diplomas, to African Americans a couple of decades ( 1830s) before the civil war even started. It also produced the first female African American valedictorian at a time (1880s) when many or most U.S. colleges refused to admit ANY women at all.
So what better venue, then, in which to debate “The Bell Curve”.
Unfortunately, Vermont’s Little Oktobrists ( with the notable exception of Jewish lumberjack Bernie Sanders) are always irony tone-deaf.
I would have protested; I would have called for Murray to be dis-invited–for much the same reason that I would oppose having a Creationist get an invite into a scientific symposium. His science is trash, and it’s used to advocate for bigotry. But I would hope I would’ve had the decency, at that age, to switch sides once it went from ‘protest’ to ‘threat’. You cross that line and you become, at best, as bad as those you oppose, and in most cases, much worse.
Acolyte,
I think there’s a huge middle ground between “I have no knowledge of this person’s views and am relying strictly on how their enemies have characterized them” and “I have read their book cover to cover.”
I think if you’ve read one or more well-written, reasonably argued critiques of (e.g.) The Bell Curve, that quote relevant excerpts and discuss the findings and methodologies, you can have a reasonable basis for protesting Murray.
To give another example: there’s been discussion lately (including here, I think) about the novel The Camp of the Saints that Steve Bannon is very fond of. I haven’t read it. But I feel fairly comfortable based on the descriptions I’ve seen, and based on what even its proponents like about it, that it’s a racist piece of shit. Like anything in life, that’s a provisional conclusion. It’s possible that I’m wrong about it and that everyone is mischaracterizing it and that reading it would give me a different opinion about it, but I think there are better uses of my time than checking that out.
How much refutation does Murray really deserve? It isn’t really ‘courageous free speech’ to give a free platform to pernicious and false notions.
BUT. The frantic, masked-moron, style of protest is every bit as pointless as the freezepeach aggravations.