Last fall at CCSU a student was asked to come to the police station for questioning about firearms possession after he had given an oral presentation in a communication class in which he argued that students and faculty should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus. The CCSU police were alerted by the professor of the communication course, who apparently was concerned that this student might present a danger to the campus community. The student in question cooperated with the police and no action was taken. Following the incident, though, the student gave interviews to the CCSU Recorder and a reporter from FoxNews.com in which he complained about the professor’s action. He believed that he should not have been brought to the attention of the campus police. The student’s comments conveyed the impression that he was being punished for expressing an unpopular opinion.
Despite the lack of information about what actually triggered the professor’s action, to say nothing of the CCSU police’s actions, many in the media and the blogosphere chose to adopt the student’s characterization. Lou Dobbs, legal talking head Jonathan Turley, and CCSUs own Professor Jay Bergman, commented on the incident as if it were a clear example of speech suppression. The conservative blogosphere embraced the Dobbs, Turley, Bergman view and ran with it. Gun rights bloggers called for everything from firing the offending professor to lynching her.
The silence of the student, professor, and university, posed no obstacle to the formation of definitive conclusions and condemnations of the university’s “speech police.” Facts and evidence (or the lack thereof) would not stop the crusaders from going after a favorite target. Passionate advocates for gun rights may be forgiven for pouncing on an opportunity to advance their policy perspective, but what about the journalists/ pundits and the professors? Shouldn’t these folks employ higher standards of inquiry? When a nationally recognized legal scholar and media analyst like Jonathan Turley blatantly assumes facts not in evidence something is not right.
I believe that we should seize the learning opportunity presented by this incident at CCSU. All those who have postured on this matter should come to campus (sans the righteous indignation) and participate in an open and open-minded discussion of the issues at stake in cases like this one. Where do we draw the line between fostering free and open dialogue and protecting public safety? How do we protect student and faculty expression and avoid even the perception of intolerance of ideas on campus? How do we channel students’ free expressions into responsible critical perspectives, without discouraging them from exploring unconventional or controversial ideas? If you have definitive (one size fits all) answers to these questions, then you are part of the problem.
Let’s drop the marshal metaphors and leave the special interest politics to others. We are a university and every potential angle on cases like the one should be fully articulated and subjected to critical scrutiny. Simply allowing interested parties to feel aggrieved and even more comfortable with knee-jerk/arm chair analysis would be wrong. Academics should more assertively model reason-based analysis and deliberation for the “real world” where it seems that combat too often trumps contemplation.
Cases like these should not be seen merely as opportunities to make (or score) a point, but rather as opportunities to initiate thoughtful discussions about salient and important matters.