Thursday, May 5, 2016

Jason Riley Is the Latest Conservative to Be Disinvited from a College Campus





Why? Mr. Riley, who is black, has attracted some negative attention since his publication in 2014 of Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed. Professor Singal feared that whatever controversy Riley had attracted so far would be amplified once he set foot on Virginia Tech’s campus....

Disinvitations from college officials are becoming distressingly common and not quite as shocking as they were a few years ago. The William F. Buckley Jr. Society at Yale last week held its Second Annual Disinvitation Dinner. Last year it honored George Will, disinvited from Scripps College for expressing doubts about “rape culture” on campus. This year, it honored former New York Police commissioner Ray Kelly, who was disinvited from Brown University right at the podium where he was scheduled to speak. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education keeps a summary list of disinvitations, but even FIRE can hardly keep up with the disgraceful trend. It has yet to note, for instance, Suzanne Venker’s disinvitation by “Uncomfortable Learning,” the student group at Williams College that had invited Venker, a critic of feminism. Uncomfortable Learning exists to bring controversial speakers to campus but was overwhelmed by the backlash to Venker’s scheduled appearance....

For the past six months, cry-bully activists on campuses from Mizzou to Princeton to Dartmouth have bowled over craven administrators who have deferred to their demands and declined to exercise jurisdiction. The Riley disinvitation shows just how low campus authorities are willing to bow to the fancies of their students. Higher education can offer intellectual freedom little more than lip service when it authorizes the heckler’s veto.