Thursday, April 14, 2016

Safe Spaces Rhetoric Turned Against Protesters

Bizarre news from Ohio State, where the university cleared student protesters from a building using unusual rhetoric. In a video shot by one of the protesters, the university's spokesman can be seen saying:
Our goal, because I want you to understand why we would do something like this—I didn’t think we were going to—but the consensus of university leaders is that the people who work in this building should be protected also.

They come to work around 7 o’clock. Do you remember when you all made the rush down there and chanted to the folks outside the doors a minute ago?

That scared people.
Conor Friedersdorf:
That elicited disbelief from protesters. Who was scared, they scoffed, the police officers with guns? Said the university messenger, “If you refuse to understand what I’m trying to tell you—I’m not going to answer that question,” meaning he refused to say who it scared. Soon after, his sidekick steps in, saying, “It would scare employees who are wanting to do their work in this building.” Added the first messenger, “The employees who work past five o’clock left early this evening. Do you know why? Because they were scared you were going to do something.”

Said messenger two, “That’s the truth you guys. I talked to several of them when they walked out of here.” Their consensus position: “The people in this building have a right to a safe environment, and to an environment where their jobs won’t be interrupted.”
So there you have it. As we have seen with campus speech codes and other devices first advocated by radical students, every limitation on freedom accepted by radicals will eventually be used by the system against them.

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