I can speak as an expert on the subject
of campus protest because I, myself,
was the subject of one.
So I wrote this essay after
there was a ban at my campus on
consensual relations between faculty and
students.
And I guess I was a little
ironic about this.
And it's a subject you're not
supposed to be ironic about.
I pointed out all of the professors
married to former students
on campuses around the country.
I mean,
you can barely throw a stone on most
campuses without hitting
a few of these couples.
So as I said took a kind of ironic tone,
and that in
itself I guess became
a cause of controversy.
You're not suppose to
make jokes about this.
And there was also a case
on our own campus, and
I wrote a few paragraphs about this.
So I think the accusation against me was
that by taking this ironic tone,
I was supporting rape culture.
So I thought that that was actually
a misreading of the essay, but
everybody's entitled to their misreadings.
In any case the protests caused
more people to read the essay than
would have otherwise.
And so
I was not unhappy with the situation.
And one of the reasons that I can't
complain is that I'm somebody
who has tenure at a research university.
So I did not feel that
my job was in danger.
But that's not the situation for
a lot of other people who get caught up in
situations where students are protesting
about something that they've said,
for example, in a classroom.
And the reality on campuses now is that
more and more faculty are not tenured,
meaning they don't have job security,
meaning they don't have in
effect freedom of speech.
And that's a huge thing.
If people are worried about their jobs,
I mean, this is really changing
the whole nature of the university, and
it's shrinking the educational
experience for students.
So I was not against students
protesting the article that I wrote.
I mean, I think the right to protest
is as important a right as the right
to write a controversial article.
This is what universities are for.
They're for the exchange of ideas and
some oftentimes tough ideas.
And people have to figure out ways to talk
about things that they disagree about
without shutting down
the source of the disagreement.
And not all disagreements
are gonna be settled.
This is part of the thing that
I think everyone has to learn.
Sometimes there are disagreements.
There are different positions that
are not just going to be resolved, and
people have to live with that.
