My poli sci prof said shouting down a speaker is a form of speech too, then campus security showed up

Last semester at UT Austin, I had this professor who always said silencing opposing views is just another kind of debate tactic. So during a protest where some guy from Turning Point USA was speaking, I stood in front of the podium and just stared at him for 2 minutes straight. Campus police grabbed me and I got a warning, but my prof actually laughed and said 'told you so.' Has anyone else gotten away with something weird on campus because a professor backed your play?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_fiona3d ago

I had a similar thing happen at my community college. There was this student who always brought his dog to class, which was against the rules, but our poli sci teacher said it was "civil disobedience against bad policy" so he let the guy keep doing it. It's weird how once you start looking for it, you see little rebellions everywhere, like people ignoring stop signs when no cars are coming or just deciding which rules to follow based on who's watching.

amy_west2d ago

Gotta push back a little on this one. Stopping at a stop sign even when no cars are coming isn't just some pointless rule, it's literally what keeps pedestrians and cyclists from getting killed. I get that dog in class thing was probably harmless, but lumping that in with ignoring traffic laws feels like skipping the part where consequences actually matter.

amy_west2d ago

Metro areas with the worst pedestrian fatalities, like Albuquerque and Phoenix, have some of the lowest stop sign compliance rates in the country, so that connection isn't that clear. Rolling stops at empty intersections rarely cause crashes, while the real problem is drivers on phones blowing through lights with people around. Most of us are just making quick judgment calls that don't match up with what the law says, which is a different thing from being reckless.