A response to the Princeton Open Campus Coalition

Yesterday, The Princeton Open Campus Coalition exclusively released an open letter to the Class of 2020 on The Tab, decrying safe spaces and “shutdown culture” on campuses.

Today Princeton sophomore Asad Zafar Haider responds.

Dear Open Campus Coalition,

I admire your commitment to freedom of speech. I admire it so much in fact that I want to do everything I can to help further it. In that vein, let me make a few criticisms that will help you improve your propaganda advice to freshmen this year.

Firstly: Make your intentions clear. Ambiguity, as I’m sure you’ve learned in writing sem, is the death of an argument. In your letter, it is unclear what you think of many things. I shall use an example to clarify. You say that you want “Join [you] in the fight for Open Campuses across the country.” And yet, you don’t say how they can do this. Instead, you do speak in detail of the atrocities committed by the Black Justice League. It would be very helpful if you would simply point out that the purpose of your letter was to make the evils of the BJL known, instead of leaving it to readers to make that link. You should attack them clearly, lest someone think you’re smearing in the eyes of the new Frosh to avoid actually engaging with them.

Secondly: Do not bite of more than you can, or want to, chew. It is tempting to make arguments about freedom in the absolute; we do after all live in the land of the free. When you wish to convince others, be moderate, so as to convince the most number of people. For one, don’t use examples like that of Ben Shapiro. Such examples can simply be disowned by your critics should they make the disingenuous, if simple, move of disowning violence against those with different opinions (rare as it is for liberals to do that). Nor should you use examples like Condoleezza Rice, where liberals can exploit the history of the speaker (In Rice’s case, conspiracy theories about her involvement and misconduct in the Iraq War) to argue against listening to said speaker on the only convocation day they will ever graduate from college.

Don’t say things like “And never be afraid to speak truth to power”. When someone might point out that telling a bunch of Black student protestors that they are insults to the First Amendment may not constitute overcoming “[fear of] speak[ing] truth to power”, but may in fact constitute using power to make others fear speaking the truth. It would put you in a tight spot were someone to point out that by claiming to speak the truth to power, you were creating a kind of equivalence between yourselves and say, Victor Jara, Aung San Suu Kyi or the Kent State protestors, especially when you bemoan today’s “Social Justice Warriors” creating similar equivalences between themselves and real activists like Thurgood Marshall. That anyone who says such things is a brainwashed liberal goes without saying. But as responsible citizens, you must cater to even the least reasonable audience.

Thirdly: give both sides of the picture. While it is tempting to only show the worst of your opponents, it is often unwise. That way, they can claim to be victimized – those left-liberal nutjobs always do that – and detract from the focus of your argument. Instead, you should include their side of the argument and then systematically attack it. For example, when you talk about the BJL, don’t just mention their deplorable protests and asinine demands, also talk about why they were protesting. Talk about feelings of discrimination on campus (non-existent though they are). Talk about underrepresentation of some minorities in the faculty. Talk about the purported fact that it might possibly be just slightly difficult for certain minorities to express certain opinions even though they wish to. Talk about the fact that while the demands for “safe spaces” may be wrong, in many cases the reasons prompting them are legitimate ones. That they are not only legitimate reasons, but that some people cannot see that they are, because of their privilege. And then take these ideas down, like the nonsense that they are.

Fourthly: have a thesis that is consistent with itself. In other words, do not contradict yourself. I refer here to your notion of “equality of ideas”. Again, you never refer to this, but you oppose an inequality of ideas that is brought about in safe spaces. However, you don’t seem to believe this completely. You also want ideas to be discussed and judged against each other, which obviously leads to some ideas being rejected while others are not. Critics could accuse you of the fact campuses are in fact a “anti-jihad” or “anti-Holocaust denial” safe space, and it is a good thing. So why is a campus where denying the magnitude of campus rape, or police shootings is banned also a bad thing? Such questions, while illegitimate, cannot be answered to the satisfaction of unthinking liberals. So it is best to avoid them altogether by being consistent and realizing that all ideas are not created equal. And if you must persist with the equality of ideas tack, then find at least one scholar, or barring that, a Fox News commentator, to support your view.

Lastly, I’d like to suggest that you add the following to your letter: “You didn’t get into college with your hand held, and you don’t need your hand held now, least of all by us. The best advice we can give you is not to tell you what to do. It is to tell you that whatever it is you do; you have already the tools to do it. So when you speak, speak with the strength of your mind, but temper your words with the kindness in your heart. When you listen, analyze with the skepticism afforded by your intelligence, but hear with the compassion in your heart. And when you choose what to believe, be mindful of the biases in your thinking, but be confident in the purity of your intentions. If you do just that, you’ll be fine.”

With great admiration,

An offensively loud Tiger.