Brooklyn College history professor and well known critic of the erosion of due process for students accused of crimes (his Durham in Wonderland blog about the Duke lacrosse case was just stupendous) was recently invited to Ohio University to give a talk about accusations of sexual assault and due process. In this Minding the Campus essay, he writes about his not-so-happy experience.
He had to deal with a group of students who tried their best to interrupt the event. Obviously, they had made up their minds that anyone who dares to say anything contrary to their beliefs about the campus the “rape culture” must be treated as an enemy. Not willing to listen to Johnson, they had to be admonished by the moderator to allow others to do so. This is more evidence about the decline of both civility (oh wait, that’s a “racist” concept, Steven Salaita tells us) and and intellectual discourse on campuses.
Especially revealing, I think, is his recounting of how one student protester demanded to know how he could stand up for the “oppressors.” What Johnson stands up for is fairness in legal procedures for everyone, but that was a foreign concept for her. Where do you suppose the idea of dividing the world into “oppressor” and “oppressed” groups comes from? Mostly from professors who blather away on such foolishness in their classes, I’d say. Not a good advertisement for Ohio University’s ability to teach students how to think. Instead, it shows that some students are led into primitive, tribal modes of looking at the world — a childish good groups versus bad groups mentality.
Ohio’s reputation also suffers when we read about Professor Thomas Costello whose academic specialty is “intercultural communication” and has completely absorbed the propaganda about the “rape culture.” Johnson writes, “It appears as if Costello, much like Kirsten Gillibrand, believes that the mere allegation of sexual assault transforms an accuser into a ‘victim.’”
At least Johnson didn’t get disinvited before speaking, though.