The following was sent to Cal Catholic by one of its readers this afternoon.
The email comes a little over a week after a UCSB faculty member assaulted the Survivors, a pro-life group.
The From: campus wide mail [mailto:DLIST-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.
On Behalf Of Lynn Mclaughlin-Hill
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2014 1:38 PM
Subject: [DLIST-L]
On Behalf of Vice Chancellor Michael Young: Students and Free Speech at UCSB Deans, Department Heads, Management Services Officers, Administrative Assistants: The memo below is being sent to the dlist-l listserv. Thank you for serving as one of the representatives for your department to receive this memo.
Please distribute this message to the colleagues in your department. Thank you.
***PLEASE GIVE WIDEST DISTRIBUTION***
March 21, 2014
To: Campus Community
Fr: Michael D. Young Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Re: Students and Free Speech at UCSB
Below you will find an email communication that I sent out earlier this week to all UCSB students expressing my views on free speech. Sincerely, Michael D. Young Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
------------------------------
March 19, 2014
Dear Students:
Over the past several weeks, our campus has been visited by a number of outside groups and individuals coming here to promote an ideology, to promulgate particular beliefs (at times extreme beliefs), or simply to create discord that furthers a certain personal agenda. Some passionately believe in their causes, while others peddle hate and intolerance with less-than-noble aims.
Whatever the motives and goals, the presence of such people and groups on campus can be disruptive and has the potential to draw us into the kind of conflict that puts at risk the quality of exchange of ideas that is fundamental to the mission of our university.
What is happening now is not new: evangelical types have been visiting UCSB and university campuses since time immemorial. What we see at UCSB today is simply the most recent generation of true believers, self-proclaimed prophets, and provocateurs.
During the past few weeks, UCSB has been visited by various anti-abortion crusaders. Some have been considerate and thoughtful in promoting their message; others have openly displayed images that many in our community find distressing and offensive.
We have also seen earnest and thoughtful religious missionaries, and we have seen proselytizers hawking intolerance in the name of religious belief. As a consequence of interactions with the more extreme of our visitors, students have expressed outrage, pain, embarrassment, fear, hurt, and feelings of harassment. Moreover, I have received requests that the campus prohibit the peddling of "fear," "hate," "intolerance," and "discord" here at UCSB.
Those of you who know me are aware that I have strong views on the matter of intolerance. You also know that I hold equally strong views on the sanctity of free speech. If you have heard me speak at Convocation or at anti-hate events, or if you have seen me officiating at the Queer Wedding, you know that my message on both counts is clear. Recent events lead me to believe that this message bears repeating.
First, the principle of freedom of expression resides at the very foundation of our society and, most certainly, at the foundation of a world-class university such as UC Santa Barbara. Freedom and rights are not situational: we either have freedom of speech or we do not. We cannot pick and choose which views are allowed to be aired and who is allowed to speak. If that were the case, then only those in charge-those holding power-would determine who gets to speak and whose views are heard.
Second, freedom is not free. The price of freedom for all to speak is that, at times, everyone will be subjected to speech and expression that we, ourselves, find offensive, hateful, vile, hurtful, provocative, and perhaps even evil. So be it! Law and policy ban only an extremely narrow band of speech and expression-"yelling 'fire!' in a crowded theatre," for example, and child pornography. The price we pay to speak our own minds is allowing others to speak theirs, regardless of how oppositional their views are to our own. Our Founding Fathers-all white men of privilege, some even slave owners-got it right when designing the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Having firmly stated my support for freedom of expression, I hasten to follow with a lesson my mother taught me when I was a small child, a lesson that has remained with me the rest of my life and that I relay to our entering students every fall at Convocation. My mother taught me that just because you can say or do something doesn't mean that you should. Civility plays an important role in how we choose to exercise our right to expression. We all have the right to say odious things, to display offensive slogans and placards, and to hurt and disrespect groups and individuals that disagree with us. The question is: should we? Should we engage in these behaviors just because we can or because they serve our political, religious, or personal agendas?
At UCSB, our students have proven that we are better than this. While it has not always been easy, time and again UCSB students have demonstrated that they can disagree about the critical issues of our time-fundamentally and passionately but within a framework of humanity and civility, respecting the dignity of those whose views they oppose. Time and time again, UCSB students have demonstrated that they understand their role in defining the character and quality of this campus community-revealing their unwillingness to lower themselves to the tactics of those whose agenda comes wrapped in intolerance and extremism.
And now we are tested once again, outsiders coming into our midst to provoke us, to taunt us and attempt to turn us against one another as they promote personal causes and agendas. If we take the bait, if we adopt negative tactics and engage in name calling, confrontation, provocation, and offensive behavior, then they win and our community loses. While urging you to engage with differing ideas and opinions in a civil manner, I also want to remind you that you have the option not to engage at all. You do not have to listen to, look at, or even acknowledge speech or expression that you find provocative or offensive. The Arbor Mall is a free speech area, as is the area in front of the University Center. If you do not want to be confronted by certain materials or expressions, you should avoid the free-speech areas when you expect that you might encounter them, or simply ignore them. I promise you the visitors will hate that.
And, finally, if you think demonstrators, activists, or proselytizers are violating the law, report them to the UC Police Department. If you think they are violating campus policies, report them to the Office of Student Life (OSL). Similarly, if you feel harassed or think you are being subjected to offensive speech or material as an involuntary audience, please contact the Office of Student Life immediately. Katya Armistead, Associate Dean of Student Life and Activities, can be reached at 805-893-8912. If you do not reach her, someone at the general OSL number (805-893-4550) will be able to relay your message to her. The campus regulations address UCSB's free speech policies further: https://www.sa.ucsb.edu/
What I am suggesting may not be easy, and it may feel more satisfying (at least for the moment) to lash out. (My mom often reminded me that doing the right thing is difficult.) If you feel that you must respond, hold a peaceful, thoughtful, civil, and dignified counter-demonstration, and show how students engage intellectually and politically at UCSB.
Sincerely, Michael D. Young Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Michael D. Young, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at The University of California, Santa Barbara is a taxpayer funded anti-Christian bigot. Why are we being forced by the State of California to put up with his blatant hate?
All these pro-abortion supporters were born.
If they don’t hate us, we aren’t doing it right!
I don’t get what’s so offensive about this. He’s not fond of the anti-abortion protestors, but who cares. Does anyone expect he would be?
The only thing that matters here is that UCSB is not reacting in a way that would limit free speech. The Vice Chancellor is underscoring the university’s commitment to providing a space for it, and encouraging students to be civil, tolerant and respectful.
Meanwhile, it’s not like the professor is getting a free pass:
https://www.independent.com/news/2014/mar/21/ucsb-professor-charged-theft-and-battery-after-con/
Qué lío! Pope Francis will be proud that these two young sisters had such a beneficial effect promoting life.
The Lesbian tenured women studies Professor specializing on pornography studies should not have stolen their poster.
The incident of course is that of the UC professor who attacked two young pro life girls in the Free Speech area and then stole their property all the while mocking them. That professor should be fired.Not going to happen at UC Santa Barbara. The Dean’s memo is thoughtful, good advice. I hope the faculty reads it.
The headline is misleading.The Chancellor defended free speech in his statement, although he did call those with the pro-life displays “provocateurs.”
The free speech zone continues to be a free speech zone.
How can there be any peaceful, thoughtful, civil and dignified counter demonstration when students have been brainwashed from an early age that anyone who loves life or marriage between a man and a woman and expresses this Truth publicly and peacefully is considered a promoter of hate speech? Shades of Nazi Germany and every other country that denies objective reality and Truth.
His mom must have been a friend of my mom. :)
What an onerous form of double speak completing mischaracterizing free speech activities and how ironic that this would be coming from a UCSB official after its long history of student participation in protests and public expression concerned about public policy. This is an outright thinly veiled assault on the entire idea of a university and the tradition over the last 60 years of open political speech at UCSB. No amount of phony mislabelling and twisting of words can hide that. Vice Chancellor Young’s resignation should be demanded.
Unbelievable. Shows how sick and intolerant the universities have become. This man should be ashamed of himself and I hope he’s in for lots of ridicule.
This is a very slick argument for thought control, censorship, and the promotion of propaganda. But it’s still an argument for thought control, censorship,
and propaganda. No, Mr. Young, I still would not send my kids to your University.
Michael Young’s feminine and smarmy language notwithstanding, he correctly stated First Amendment concerns and protections that define the specialness of America (constitutional promises of which most of the UCSB students are likely unfamiliar). Yet, do they still teach rhetoric and debate at college? Why does the Left not demand a time and place to set forth their positions in a format that guarantees that both sides can be heard? Answer: because the Left does not debate, focusing instead on anti-intellectual emotionalism seeking to actually embarrass and silence their opposition. And, why does the Left do this? Because, unlike debates in the past, say, about civil rights, the majority of issues now deal with the deep stuff: sexual license and destruction of societal limitations to these (things like man-woman marriage, freedom of religion and individual religious expression). The arguments against such sexual license are compelling: as with abortion, where each pregnant woman should know the actual results of what she is doing by ripping out the pre-born child from her body. Surely these pictures are disturbing, and are intended to be. Against this, the Left can only say – – – what? Chirp, chirp, chirp . . . Their only response is violence: Stop these young girls from stating the truth.
What else should we expect from those who murder children and will work to support others who choose to murder their own children . . . in the womb, than to attempt to smear those who are against killing babies in the womb? What other leg do they have to stand on than to cast aspersions on those who are willing to stand and deliver in support of God’s plan of who shall be conceived by His will?
I am so glad that we are not reading about those of us who support allowing babies to remain alive in their mothers’ wombs smearing the types of human beings who murder children before they are even allowed to breathe God’s pure air. Our side is the honorable side.
The pro-death advocates accuse our folks of daring to show photographs that they find offensive. I accuse the supporters of murdering children of being in denial; in other words, it is fine to murder children, but it is offensive to show photographs of the murdered babies, i.e., the dead victims. Huh?
If you don’t want to see dead babies, or even pictures of dead babies, I have a plan for you: don’t murder ’em, folks. God bless you anyway, may He have pity on your sorrowing soul, may you come to repent of endorsing murder, may you see the light someday soon, and may your tribe increase. Somehow.
This email from the Dean of Student Affairs disagrees with the protestors politics but is spot on when it comes to motive: confrontation.
When I was at Cal Staet back in the `70s on Easter break, sometime took down my “trash bag of aborted babies” poster on my dorm door, set it on fire and pushed it under the door into my room. Lots of ashes but no other damage.
Confrontation tactics do NOT work. It didn’t work then and it’s not working now. Just look at the mess at UCSB. All the activists that are speaking out against abriion at UCSB want is confrontation, negative publicity, intimidation, harassment. Just look at the last story on this site: most of it talks about the physical assault that the abortion opponsnt received at the hands of a proflifer that followed the woman into an elevator to retrieve a poster that was stolen.
If those same prolife activits would just work positively in the community on our issue, like helping women in problem pregnancies, or founding and staffing birth shelters for women to have their babies that may or may not go to adoption, we would actually make some progress. Lives are saved, mothers receive supp0ort., and the public good is advanced.
The criticism of these committed prolifers being “true believers” is not just a snide charge. No one is being helped here, or saved, with this kind of combativeness. I propose a different solution: let’s go save some lives of the unborn with women currently in a problem pregnancy. Radical idea, huh?
Confrontation is needed, otherwise you give in the battlefield. Hagan lío.
WRONG!
The comment was directed at Good Cause.
I guess the opposition succeeded in turning you away from your good cause the day they tore down and burned up your poster. Apparently you failed to understand that the “louder” the opposition to your “tactic” was the overwhelming likelihood it became that your poster WAS HAVING a huge effect! You let evil win that day. :(
What makes you think those who protest don’t also protect and provide?
What did Young’s mom teach him about burning banks.
Did she teach him the pompous self-righteous arrogance he is so proud of?
Another example of Government Schools using taxpayer money to brain wash students !!!
I am, for the greatest part, thankful for the Vice Chancellor’s thoughtful comments. That said, I am concerned that he left room for CSUB faculty to pin the label of religious zealotry on any who disagree with its notions so as to stifle their voices. I am certain that the Vice Chancellor is aware that the United States Supreme Court has afforded freedom of expression to the truly vile demonstrators who appear at the funerals of military personnel who died serving their country. I fear that his writing leaves room for the professor in question
to hold herself and her supporters as victims of irrational religious zealots as well. This is not supported by the facts.
The protestors’ position on abortion has firm grounding on medicine’s conclusion that the zygote contains all the genetic information to unmistakably characterize it as a member of the human species, and no other. That being the case, how does espousing that concept in a peaceful manner with placards be an intrusion on the rights of CSUB students? Presumably, they are at UCSB to hear all defensible sides of an argument, weigh them, and come to their own conclusions. Is there any evidence that the protestors short-circuited the process which the Vice Chancellor rightly puts forth as proper? Nothing I have read would remotely suggest that the “protestors” whom the offended professor assaulted (and she did assault them, in the strict legal sense of the word, by forcibly yanking the placards from their hands) failed to follow the Vice Chancellor’s protocol.
Young’s comments were “calculated”, not “thoughtful.” He would have written nothing if it weren’t for the arrest. His whole statement is legal posturing. His hatred for the pro-life position oozes out of every other line. Naivete about the essence and faces of evil is our greatest weakness. The only thing that (barely) holds Young and his ilk in check is the dwindling remnant of moral authority in the courts. When the last vestige of that evaporates, even the naive will see what the controllers really think about the ‘defensible side of an argument.’ We’re on borrowed time and Young should be accorded no deference whatsoever, as the lambs will soon be led to slaughter.
I’ll bet if the “meat haters” and the “fur haters” were holding a protest he wouldn’t have have lifted a finger to his key board. I hope someone keeps me updated on where all of these FREE SPEECH ZONES are because I wouldn’t want to offend those who always have their antennae up listening for something offensive.
See the fantastic Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust this week.
Ramona High School. March 27th 1:45 PM. In front of the High School.
Come out and support them. They also want to get as many young people to their training as possible in June. The more youth that we train, the more the truth will get out=stop abortions.
“Civility plays an important role in how we choose to exercise our right to expression.”
Show the photos! Educate the students!
IS THIS CIVILITY?
Aborted babies incinerated to heat UK hospitals
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10717566/Aborted-babies-incinerated-to-heat-UK-hospitals.html
When man abandons the supernatural it is only a short time before his actions become unnatural. – G.K. Chesterton
John 11:35 “And Jesus wept.” – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible
I would like to know if anyone on this board has a connection to those representing the Pro-Life teenagers attacked by this radical misandrist ‘professor’?
Knowing how compromised the County District Attorney would be in such matters, particularly given that the University is a big employer in the County of Santa Barbara, and has many friends in high places, it seems as if a Civil Suit against the school is also warranted.
In either case, I would be able to supply considerable background information about past practices and policies of the University in such matters, showing if nothing else a pattern of abuse based on Viewpoint Discrimination.
I have not only my own information but Sworn Testimony (both recordings and transcribed) by representatives of the University regarding their treatment of those who dare to dissent from their political agendas, all of which I would make available for free to help these brave young persons of conscience obtain at least some form of ‘Justice’.
If anyone does have a connection, and the Adult guardians of these Minors attacked by the radical professor consent – they can email me at merit4all@aol.com.
I can provide background and countering strategies on the types of tactics used to smear the Politically Un-Good, which are clearly present in the letter for “Widest Distribution” by Michael D. Young Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
The UC campuses are liberal think tanks where there is no other opinion than the ones they expound daily for the past 40 years. Progressive leftist liberal ideology are what they are known for. The Vice Chancellor is selling something but it smells fishy. Anyone with half a brain would rethink wasting time and good money going into a vacuous non-thinking, leftist agenda pushing campus unless you want to be a community activist, global warming scientist?, lawyer for some protected specie, you know the type? Those who demand tolerance but have little for anyone else, the type that push their form of equality down your throat with little other choice but to adhere. The ones that want equality but rather demand a protected status…
Very few people are hireable coming out of that institution and it is a joke to think anyone thinks it is a “top pick” campus. It is usually last resort. I wouldn’t really get involved but maybe late term abortion idiots who decide at 5 months that they want to dispose of the viable child because they can should rethink their selfish ways. They should have to watch them injecting saline into the womb and then pulling the live child out in a most primitive and painful way. I am not against abortion if you make a speedy decision and don’t sit on the pot for 6 months like the selfish dolts that decide later when the child is adoptable to pull the plug. How selfish. I am for abortions as long as they start with the Progressives and leftists first. Isn’t that what they want? Not to be born because they deprived MOM of some right to decide what is best for her “body”? They need to abort them.
I agree – it is like making water on somebody’s shoes and apologizing for the rainy day, only less sincere:
“Calif. school ‘apologizes’ for feminism prof’s alleged attack on teenage pro-lifer
The California school that employs a professor accused of attacking a teen-aged pro-life demonstrator has issued an apology…sort of.
In a long-winded 1,000-word letter that reads more like a diatribe than a mea culpa, University of California at Santa Barbara Vice Chancellor Michael Young eventually conceded that women’s studies professor Mireille Miller-Young should not have snatched a pro-life sign from 16-year-old Thrin Short, giving backhanded praise to the framers of the Constitution.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/03/27/calif-school-apologizes-for-feminism-profs-alleged-attack-on-teenage-pro-lifer/?intcmp=obnetwork
Vice Chancellor Young’s wordy overly-long letter is a whiney embarrassment. It reveals just how lost UCSB is in its understanding of the word “university” and the burden imposed on authorities to insure there be a free exchange of ideas and opinions no matter who’s feelings are hurt by words or pictures.