Had a professor tell me my 'hot take' on campus speech was actually just punching down

After I posted about a student group getting de-funded for their event, someone pointed out I was ignoring the power difference between the provost and a freshman organizer, so now I try to check who's got the bigger platform before I rush to defend 'free speech' in these cases, anyone else ever get called out for missing that angle?

3 comments

3 Comments

blairc901mo ago

Fair point, but sometimes the loudest voices on campus are the ones with the least to lose. The kid with the controversial sign might be punching up against a system that already limits what he can say.

cooper.drew1mo ago

and yeah @blairc90 you hit it exactly, that's the part i missed too. i had this whole thing where i was defending some dude's right to post something dumb on a campus message board, and my friend was like "bro do you know who his audience is vs who the admin's audience is?" and i felt so stupid lol. it's not just about whether someone gets to say something, it's about who gets drowned out when they do. like the provost can literally change policy with a memo, but that freshman with the sign has to hope his post goes viral to get any traction. once you start paying attention to who's got the institutional power vs who's just yelling into the void, it changes how you look at these free speech debates completely.

felix4141mo ago

Oh great, so now I gotta pull out a flowchart every time I wanna defend someone's right to say something dumb. "Let me check who's got more Twitter followers and a corner office before I decide if this is a noble free speech fight or just me being a useful idiot.