If there ever needed to be confirmation that Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro’s characterization of Leftist students at American universities as “snowflakes” hits the bulls-eye, the campus-wide announcement issued by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Paul Alivisatos of the University of California, Berkeley, regarding Shapiro’s September 14 speech at the university offered just that.
Why?
Because within the announcement was this gem:
Support and counseling services for students, staff and faculty
We are deeply concerned about the impact some speakers may have on individuals’ sense of safety and belonging. No one should be made to feel threatened or harassed simply because of who they are or for what they believe. For that reason, the following support services are being offered and encouraged:
Student support services
Employee (faculty and staff) support services
Yup, those dainty, fragile students who cannot countenance views that differ from their own are being offered counseling because of the possible psychological damage incurred by Shapiro’s rhetoric.
Not Antifa’s violence. Shapiro’s rhetoric.
Testifying before Congress in late July about the problems conservatives face regarding free speech on college campuses, Shapiro outlined a three-step argument made by the advocates and justifiers of violence on campus. He stated:
The first step is they say that the validity or invalidity of an argument can be judged solely by the ethnic, sexual, racial, or cultural identity of the person making the argument. The second step is that they claim those who say otherwise are engaging in what they call verbal violence. The final step is they conclude that physical violence is sometimes justified in order to stop such verbal violence.
After detailing each step in turn, Shapiro concluded:
All of this destroys free speech. But just as importantly, it turns students into snowflakes, craven and pathetic, looking for an excuse to be offended so they can earn points in the intersectionality Olympics and then use those points as a club with which to beat opponents. A healthy nation requires an emotionally and intellectually vigorous population ready to engage in open debate at all times. Shielding college students from opposing viewpoints makes them simultaneously weaker and more dangerous.
We must fight that process at every step. That begins by acknowledging that whatever we think about America and where we stand, we must agree on this fundamental principle: all of our views should be judged on their merits, not on the color or sex or sexual orientation of the speaker, and those views should never be banned on the grounds that they offend someone.
(First reported by the Daily Wire) http://www.dailywire.com/news/20818/do-snowflakes-exist-yes-they-do-uc-berkeley-offers-daily-wire (September 8, 2017)
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