What about the people who have been affected by a toxic environment? What about those whose identities are denied by Transphobia? These are good questions. Surely, someone reading my blog might say that I have spilt a great deal of text laying out procedures to defend someone who I am assuming is guilty. I've explained why and why the rule of law, as it were, is so important to democracy, transparency, and, I'd argue, post-secondary education, among other things. Procedures are not add-ons. They are not things we should discover after the fact as a way of addressing issues that arise from situations such as what happened at WLU. If we only use these procedures after the fact to ensure that the alt.right were given their day in court but that was all ... then that would be a pretty poor use of procedures, even if it would, I am saying, still be a necessary one.
Those who ask: what about the other side? What about the LGBTQ community? Why are you not saying anything that protects them, affirms their identity, provides a positive learning environment for them? I think these are necessary questions and I think addressing these issues is necessary as well. If we simply stopped with procedures that protected those who discriminated but not those who suffered from discrimination (in my example, I assume the guilt of the individual involved), members of marginalized communities would have a very similar complaint and concern to the one I outlined in my last blog.
I want to belabour this point because I think that the response to this question has, in fact, been pretty poor. It amounts to various elements of one of the following:
- That's life, grow up. People these days are just too sensitive. Back in my day, no one took offense.
- That is too bad but it is the price we pay for living in a free society. I don't agree with discourse that marginalizes someone but the fact is that we have to accept it or we don't have free speech.
- Good education will be disturbing because thinking is disturbing, challenging, it takes us to new places and by challenging our preconceptions necessarily makes us uncomfortable.
None of these standard responses -- which, I freely concede could be said in a way that sounded more sophisticated -- really, in my view, is an effective response to why historically marginalized communities must accept continued marginalization so that I -- as mainstream a Canadian as you are going to get -- can enjoy free speech. Said differently, if we are going to protect speech, we also need to be well aware of the power relations and inequalities that can infuse that protection. To do otherwise would be naive and academic. If we pretend that conflicts over speech occur only in idealized situations where there are no victims, there is no marginalization, there is no violence against marginalized communities ... then, we are not really discussing a real issue, are we? We are making up a hypothetical situation and applying it to the real world *as if* that hypothetical situation were the real world and it just is not. I will, in fact, go so far as to argue that a failure to address real world issues is disingenuous and irresponsible. I think each of these positions are flawed and I'd like to take this blog to address them.
The first point is simply empirically wrong. Back in the day, people did take offense to being called names, to being denied equality, to being subjected to marginalizing behaviour, to having the legitimacy of their identities denied. The difference was that they lacked the power to do anything about it. Thus, LGBTQ people did not walk about happy about the denial of their equality, the rejection of their voice, the contention that their identities were illegitimate. In often small but profound ways, in fact, they attempted to assert themselves into politics but it was dangerous. Violence was a normal part of their lives. They could not turn to authorities for help. And, they might even have been rejected by parents and loved ones if the truth about who they were came to be publicly known. The silence of the past is not indicative of acceptance. It is indicative of power inequalities that denied voice to the LGBTQ community.
Regarding the second point, a fairer question to ask is this: who pays the price? If I (Andrew Nurse) pay the price for my (Andrew Nurse) own free speech that is one thing because that is fair. If I ask someone else to pay the price for my rights and benefits ... well ... that can be fair in some instances but it is not inherently fair. Imagine if I want to buy a car. I do and so I get to drive it. If, however, you (reader) are forced to buy a car with your money that I get to drive ... is that fair? One of the concerns I have about the whole "free speech" debate is that Canadian society seems to be asking marginalized groups (LGBTQ, Black Canadians, First Peoples) to pay the price for White Settler Canadians free speech. Put in this way, you can see the issue that I am having and why I think this idea is problematic. It is made even more problematic because historically marginalized groups are being asked to pay the price for the free speech of historically non-marginalized groups. This is odd. We are asking someone else to have *their* identity denied or to be insulted with racialized epitaphs so that *I* can enjoy free speech.
Let me spin this point out one step further: you can actually see how upsetting this issue is when we see right-wing intellectuals complaining about what the so-called "radical left" teaches and researches and complains against tenure and research grants. Many of my friends who are moderates or center-right in their politics complain vociferously when someone says Canada is illegitimate or that Canadians should be asking First Peoples for permission to live on Indigenous land. Why? Interestingly for reasons similar to the concerns expressed by LGBTQ activists regarding the incident at Wilfrid Laurier: it denies the legitimacy of their identity. Said in other words, many of those arguing that it is a drag but marginalized minorities just have to pay the price for the free speech others enjoy, actually become quite upset when they are asked to pay the price. At the most extreme, they then start to argue against tenure and that research grants be canceled. In the US, I gather, some political right-wingers have gone even further and setup web sites where one can report supposedly unfair treatment by leftists and radicals.
As to the third point: maybe. I will confess that I don't really understand this point. There are many things in the world I find disturbing: homelessness, global warming, violence against women are three. But, exactly why learning, say, that there is a solution to homelessness is disturbing is not at all clear to me. Moreover, as a faculty member of long-standing, I work to develop a positive educational environment as does just about every other instructor I know. So, exactly why we have to upset people to educate them is not clear. Yes, history is upsetting when we teach the holocaust or the genocide in Rwanda or Jim Crow. Hence, when I teach similar things -- say, about residential schools -- I work doubly hard to promote a positive environment: to telegraph my intentions, let students know in advance about the disturbing character of the lesson that is coming, to find good news stories to integrate into the lesson (say, stories of healing and recovery), to use appropriate artistic representations (say, from artists who were in the schools and which they have made available in the public sphere), to be available to talk to students after class (say, having a discussion sessions), to provide resources for those who might need them, and the like.
I will likely now jinx myself, but in the twenty years I have been teaching about residential schools, I have not had a single complaint. I am sure students were upset. I was. Who could not be? But, no one has been upset to the point of complaining about me. No one said that I created a toxic environment. And, I think that says something ... not about me but about students. It says students are willing to accept upsetting learning if there is a point to that learning and that point is clear. In other words: if the instructor has done their job. And, this seems to me to be something different from saying "let's debate the legitimacy of someone else's identity" or "let's get a bunch of straight people together to determine whether gay people are equal."
The difference might be subtle but it is important. One can create an education that challenges students and one should, but that is different from upholding marginalization or legitimizing violence. It is one thing to teach a difficult subject matter (wars, violence, etc.) but another thing to teach in a disturbing way, particularly as there are steps one can take (other than not teaching material) to address the matters one might want to address.
Finally, in this regard, one might ask a foundational question: what is the aim of teaching and how is it best accomplished. If one's aim is encourage, say, "critical thought," (which is a pretty standard aim), then the question one has to answer is: how is this best accomplished. Is it best accomplished in a positive and supportive learning environment or in one strewn with controversy, with upset, and disturbed students? I don't know about you folks, but I am actually at my lowest in terms of learning potential when I am frustrated and angry or when I feel marginalized.
To conclude: more needs to be said. What I have tried to do here is to contest three standard arguments used for upsetting/disturbing students that are often connected to pro-free speech arguments. I find they have few merits and many problems. They ask others, as it were, to pay our bills; they don't provide an environment conducive to critical thought, and they tend to replicate problems rather than providing solutions.
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