This is a continuation of a post I made back in the spring about free speech and not an altogether different incident.
TCNJ’s Campus Union Board (CUB) has been trying to bring Tucker Max to campus. I’m not going to link to him; I’m sure you can find him if you’re interested. Many people are offended by him, many people find him hilarious; essentially Tucker Max is a polarizing figure and it’s completely understandable that students would be interested in hearing him speak.
As with the event that I spoke of in the spring, members of staff and what I would call administration, became upset at the event and were outraged that CUB would be “allowed” to bring such a polarizing figure on campus. They expressed “disappointment” that our students would choose such a speaker. Some even tried to railroad the students into not bringing Tucker to campus through intimidation and suggesting that they re-poll the student body to make sure that this was who they wanted.
From afar, I was disgusted at staff’s actions, so whenever the Vice President chose to share his thoughts on the matter, I was pleased. For an hour, he spoke about how he wishes staff would have handled the issue. I think his comments were instructive and I wanted to share them with all
- It is completely inappropriate for staff to tell students who to bring to campus with THEIR student fee money.
- It is even more inappropriate to try back door manipulation to make events happen the way we want.
- Student’s rights to free speech and assembly are not suspended once on campus
- More than that, student affairs staff is charged with defending student’s rights to free speech and assembly
- Student rights were established back in the 60s, so there is no excuse for us to not know and defend them
- It is not our job to convert students to our view but help them to find their own view
- We need to trust our students to be able to make their own judgments
After his speech, I was inspired and encouraged; I hope you are too.
WOW! That is awesome. Our VC said similiar things such as it is our responsibility to make learning experiences and often that comes in the form of controversy. We shouldn’t shy away from it and if we do, then we are not doing our job.
I think your VP sounds amazing!
Thanks for posting this!
I have found this same type of dynamic come up with the discussion of recognition of student organizations. It’s so sad that we’re all for “student’s rights to organize” when we want to boost our numbers of student groups, but when a controversial group comes forward it is a whole other story.
Your VP did a great service to student activities by taking a leadership role on asserting this. So good to see!
Timely comment Cindy
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/01/20/oregon
Some people were meant to be SSAOs…some were not. Ours once famously said “I don’t want to be behind the bus, and I don’t want to be in front of it either”. He routinely takes his “marching orders” and once even tried to prevent student government representatives from attending a Board of Trustees meeting (which are open and contain a section in the agenda for comments from attendees). I understand that we all are paid by our institutions and have a fiduciary responsibility to them, but the SSAO has to balance that with being an advocate for students and the staff who support them.
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