BY HANK REICHMAN
The right-wing’s embrace of campus free speech has always seemed, well, more than a little hypocritical. The outrage machine kicks into high gear when invited speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, or Charles Murray are protested or disinvited. But what about when the speaker is someone these vocal free speech warriors don’t like? Most often that’s another matter.
Take the latest example of this brazen hypocrisy. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, on Sunday called on Kent State University to rescind its invitation to actress and activist Jane Fonda to speak during the school’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the May 4, 1970 shooting of protesting students by the National Guard, which led to the largest national student strike in U.S. history. Here is his tweet:
There’s still time to right this wrong @KentState — rescind your invitation to @Janefonda.
The anniversary of this tragedy is not the time to pay a speaker who betrayed our service-members.
Just my perspective as a veteran.
RETWEET if you agree.https://t.co/mGUPPBIzu5 pic.twitter.com/jhUwnQCTxF
— Frank LaRose (@FrankLaRose) February 17, 2020
Apparently, LaRose is unaware that the reason May 4, 1970, was “one of Ohio’s darkest days” is that students were killed exercising their free speech rights to protest a war that Fonda so prominently opposed. Free speech for me, but not for thee, as the saying goes.
After others on Twitter pointed out his hypocrisy, LaRose responded that Fonda “can come to campus and give a speech for free anytime” but shouldn’t be paid to do so. Somehow, though, I doubt LaRose would object if Kent State paid for a speech by someone more to his liking. And the university previously paid $100,000 each to commencement speakers in 2017 and 2018, so such payments are common practice there (and, to my knowledge, LaRose didn’t object). Moreover, right-wing speakers often come to campus for “free” only because conservative foundations pay those speakers generously. For example, the Young America’s Foundation reports that about half of its more than $20 million annual budget goes to organizing and promoting campus speaking tours and paying generous honoraria to more than ninety conservative celebrities.
Should Kent State accede to LaRose’s demand, I fully expect the Trump administration to act on its executive order and move to rescind all federal funding to the campus. Then again, probably not.
I have no problem with Jane Fonda coming and speaking but paying her $83,000 and paying others $100,000 for forgettable graduation speeches is completely unacceptable. There are plenty of speakers would come for free or a lot less. That money should go for scholarships. At a private high school where I worked the best graduation speeches were from alums — second best from parents of a grad.
I generally agree that exorbitant speaker fees are a waste of valuable university resources. That said, I also think it’s up to the institution and its faculty to decide. Moreover, it may depend on the source of the funds. In any event, using the expense as an excuse to object to a speaker for content-based considerations, which is what LaRose essentially did, is the problem here. Maybe Fonda will donate the fee to a veterans’ group or even turn it down. Not really holding my breath waiting for that either, tho.
I agree with you about the use of substantial university funds to pay for speakers — my university has an endowment supported by local business that pays such fees and expenses, and I wonder if Kent State has a similar arrangement?
Dear Mr. Reichman: Your argument would be more credible, or at least intellectually reasonable (although it does invoke a per se, fair-minded deontological consideration) if it were in a state of ideological equilibrium; that is, there is no point on the political spectrum enjoying a monopoly in hypocrisy: the Left is at least, and often more actively, partisan. As for the specific case you raise (and the other so-called speakers who are merely commercial opportunists), I’m not sure Ms. Fonda is of a cognitive fidelity sufficient to command respect from any social or political perspective. Her invitation and the attendant economics otherwise say more about the judgment of what institution or its agents, deemed her a relevant pedagogic voice, and it obviously carried with it a predictable contention. It is doubtful that was considered in a Socratic context. And such is thereby the invitation’s underscoring of the median cultural sophistication of the modern university and academy. With Regards.
” I’m not sure Ms. Fonda is of a cognitive fidelity sufficient to command respect from any social or political perspective”
You are using big words to make a very nasty, intellectually snobbish, and ageist comment — She may not enjoy your respect but she she certainly has a lot of credibility with many, many others — probably including the students.
James Reston spoke at my college graduation in 1968. He received an honorary degree. I don’t know what kind of honorarium he also received, but I’m sure he got one. It was a flat-out thrill for me to claim him (whose columns I had read with pleasure and conitinued to read until there were no more) henceforth as a fellow Dickinsonian, and I’ve certainly never questioned the honorarium. Guest speakers enrich a student’s experience and bring the world to life in interesting and sometimes vital ways. Seems to me Kent State’s choice as described here is brilliant. What a shame Frank LaRose can’t seem to understand its resonance.
As usual, Hank Reichman pushes back on the Republican who wants to limit Free Speech and ignores the more frequent instances of “cancel culture” on the part of pseudo-“SJWs” and the “P.C.” police. (I say that as a lifelong Marxist.)
As an ALMOST absolutist on First Amendment rights for ALL, I critique EVERYBODY who tries to censor or disinvite speakers because they do not like their views, even if those ideas are semi-abhorrent and/or insensitive to most people.
As Justice Brandeis famously said, “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is MORE speech, NOT enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression.”
You all know the quote attributed to Voltaire. Does Hank agree with either Brandeis or Voltaire? Inquiring minds want to know.
Incidentally, years later, “Hanoi Jane” apologized for her words and actions on that Vietcong anti-aircraft installation in Vietnam.
As I thought, no one was willing to address my pointed questions above!