A Free Speech Win at George Washington University

Over the weekend, the Foundation of Individual Rights in Education jumped on a story out of George Washington University. Someone had posted on campus an Olympic themed poster highlighting the Chinese government's human rights abuses. Some students denounced the poster as offensive and beyond the bounds of tolerable free speech. A Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement administrator jumped into action. The president of the university pledged to find the perpetrators of this "terrible event." FIRE quite correctly called this out.

Today cooler heads prevailed. I have noted before that I believe in positive reinforcement even when university leaders have behaved illiberally in the past. President Mark Wrighton issued a new statement admitting error and reaffirming GWU's commitment to free speech on campus.

It is an impressive statement. It is never easy to admit mistakes, and university leaders are rarely so clear in reversing course as Wright is here. He deserved a lot of blame over the weekend, but he deserves praise now.

The full statement below:

Dear Members of the George Washington University Community,

Last week, the university learned of posters on campus depicting images that alarmed some members of our community, and we began to receive a number of concerns through official university reporting channels that cited bias and racism against the Chinese community. I also received an email directly from a student who expressed concerns.

At that time, and without more context on the origin or intent of the posters, I responded hastily to the student, writing that I, too, was concerned. University staff also responded to ensure the posters were removed. These responses were mistakes. Every member of the GW community should feel welcome and supported, but I should have taken more time to understand the entire situation before commenting.

I have since learned from our university's scholars that the posters were designed by a Chinese-Australian artist, Badiucao, and they are a critique of China's policies. Upon full understanding, I do not view these posters as racist; they are political statements. There is no university investigation underway, and the university will not take any action against the students who displayed the posters.

I want to be very clear: I support freedom of speech—even when it offends people—and creative art is a valued way to communicate on important societal issues. I also support the many students and faculty at our university who are engaged in researching, and actively advocating against, all forms of discrimination, marginalization, and oppression.

Our university's scholarship, research, and support for those among us who need it most are the reasons that this great institution has fulfilled its mission for more than 200 years. As we embark on our third century, I am committed to upholding our mission and ensuring our community has the support to continue this critical work.

Sincerely yours,

Mark S. Wrighton
President

Comments

[DWB]

Sounds like he cruises for elementary kids ... though college kids do act like they are six sometimes so I understand the confusion.

[DWB]

Ugh .. wrong story

[DaivdBehar]

That President is an agent of the Chinese Commie Party. He needs to be cancelled.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

Mark Wrighton? Wrong! He is as capitalist as capitalist can be.

[DaivdBehar]

Wrighton is then too much into customer service. He caved to left wing, diverse thugs. They should have been sprayed, hosed, then beaten with truncheons.

[DaivdBehar]

No win for free speech until its enemies are cancelled.

[DWB]

Anyone who sees a criticism of the Chinese communist and immediately thinks "race," is a racist.

[Queen Amalthea]

Replace China with Israel and the usual conservative suspects would be calling for investigations under Trumps EO.

[DWB]

So Queen's an anti-Semite too -- figures

[DaivdBehar]

Queenie is a serial denier. It is woke. It is against all our values, democracy, freedom.

[billatcrea]

So, if a student or student group put up a poster criticizing Israel's policies regarding treatment of Palestinians or its West Bank settlement policies, would that be considered legitimate political discourse? Or is any criticism of Israel or its policies ipso facto racism?

[DWB]

Here's a clue: If those who would criticize that alsocriticizes bombing Jews in pizzarias and discotheques and those who would call Zionism racism, then yes, I suggest those people are arguing in good faith.

How many are really arguing in good faith though????

PS: I think Israel suppresses Christianity and I wish they wouldn't do that.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

By that standard, clingers who criticize China for reprehensible human rights abuses, but don't also criticize Israel for disgusting human rights abuses, are just bigots arguing in bad faith?

Of course, in the case of conservatives, that just another item on the shelf, alongside the race-targeting voter suppression, the superstition-laced gay-bashing, the Republican xenophobia, the old-timey misogyny, and the backwater Muslim-hating.

Carry on, clingers . . . so far as intolerance could carry anyone in modern America, that is.

[DWB]

But we already knew the "rev" was an anti-Semite -- no surprise there.

Perhaps in the next life he and Adolph will share a room, wailing and gnashing about Jews and other "clingers!"

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That is a pathetic lie, you bigoted, worthless, right-wing loser.

That you conservative culture war casualties expect to gain anything from this ‘liberals are the real racists’ line is inexplicable — anyone dumb enough to fall for it is already a Republican. Then again, you didn’t become disaffected right-wingers with adequate education, sound judgment, strong character, and good conduct.

[David Nieporent]

That is a pathetic lie,

Takes one to know one.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Are you still claiming that the censorship Prof. Volokh has publicly acknowledged -- and said he would impose again -- never occurred, Mr. Nieporent?

Squandering your credibility just to try to "own the libs," because you resent the way better Americans have won the culture war and relegated clingers to the dwindling, increasingly irrelevant fringe?

Pathetic.

[David Nieporent]

Are you still claiming not to be an anti-semite?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I am declaring I am not an anti-semite.

Are you still a bigoted, obsolete, disaffected right-wing culture war loser, seething because you must spend the remainder of your life complying with the preferences of the liberal-libertarian mainstream?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You didn't answer the question about whether you are still lying about the censorship Prof. Volokh has imposed.

I think I know why.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Lol. You're such a lying sack of shit, Kirkland.

Nieporent never claimed what you say he did, and Volokh never acknowledged your claim.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Mr. Nieporent has asserted that I never have been censored by the Volokh Conspiracy and that I am an anti-semite.

Both assertions are lies.

Prof. Volokh acknowledged that I was censored several times, in writing, at least once publicly at this blog (when he indicated he not only had censored me but also that he would do it again if I offended what he described as a civility standard).

Dozens or hundreds of comments -- involving threats, vulgarity, profanity, vile racial slurs, and other unpleasantries -- have demonstrated that there either (1) no such civility standard exists or (2) any civility standard is imposed in a selective, partisan, viewpoint-driven manner.'

You are outmatched in this context, Twelve, in several ways. Why not quit while you are behind?

[DaivdBehar]

The Rev is a woke denier. He is a lawyer dumbass, and a big government, tyrannical, rent seeking scumbag. What he fails to say is the Palestinian school curriculum revolves around the killing of Jews. When that indoctrination stops, criticism of Israeli self defense will get some credibility.

[Noscitur a sociis]

It's certainly possible to deliver racist criticism of the Chinese government, just as it's possible to deliver non-racist criticism of the Israeli government.

It's my experience that critiques of Israel are much, much more likely to be racist than critiques of other governments, and certainly much more likely than criticism of communist China. I would imagine that's due to a combination of the fact that antisemitism is much more common the sinophobia (so a given person is much more likely to harbor racist feelings), and that the Chinese government is by any reasonable measure much worse than Israel (so there are a lot more legitimate criticisms to be had).

[Don Nico]

" certainly much more likely than criticism of communist China"
Really?
Many of us have friends in Hong Kong or among religious communities in China and feel strongly that the Xi regime should be criticized at every turn.
If anything too many people in the US, right and left are silent.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Perhaps I expressed myself poorly.

My intended pint was that criticism of Israel is more likely to be racist than is criticism of China.

I fully concur that the government of communist China should be criticized more.

[DaivdBehar]

It is not the Chinese race that is the problem. It is the Commie scumbag, subhuman, enemy of mankind that is the problem. I am including the Jewish tech billionaires as collaborators and kowtowers to China in this criticism. I would just kill their oligarchs, our oligarchs, their families. To deter.

[Krayt]

Boycotting small states or cities in the US, or small Israel, where the financial stakes are small, is fashionable. I'm sure it has a ribbon color.

Boycotting, hell, publically disagreeing with China, when they hold billions of dollars in sales and profits of your manufacturing, or movie tickets, or sports league viewership and potential expansion?

Not so much.

Again, I call for Congress to require disclaimers on movies and shows that have been altered to be acceptable to this dictatorship, passed by them for an acceptability review.

Our film makers have freedom of speech, but foreign powers do not, and it is acceptable to require notification of the American people when distributing that tainted speech, for the same reason foreign powers and their lobbiests are required to register.

[Roman Moroni]

I'm not totally sure about this in all cases, but I think they do a specific edit to be approved for viewing in China. So the American version wouldn't need a disclaimer.

[Absaroka]

I don't really follow film stuff, but FWIW recall a little controversy about changing Tom Cruise's jacket in the new Top Gunk.

[Don Nico]

Thank you N_a_s

[AtR]

Really QA? You seem awfully fond of deflecting any argument toward jews.

[David Welker]

Nice whataboutism that you got going on there.

You can find plenty of instances where people on the right also engage in unwise censorship. For example, attempting to ban the teaching of critical race theory at the university level.

I don't think whataboutism is a very helpful when it is the ONLY thing you have to say about something.

[Larvell Blanks]

If only he had not stated that the posters “alarmed some members of our community.” Nobody was “alarmed” by the posters, they just sensed an opportunity to gain another scalp. It’s all a game.

[David Nieporent]

Actually, this is almost certainly the work not of woke people finding racism, but Chinese government loyalists using the weapons of the woke to suppress criticisms of their government.

[Kevin Smith]

Gotta earn that social credit score

[AmosArch]

Actually its both. Not all woke people are the string pullers. Some are just the rank and file ripe to be manipulated both willingly or unconsciously by their masters be they the usual American powerbrokers or the CCP ones.

[Krayt]

Iirc someone traced a bunch of twitterati woke cancellation vectors to a small group of posters.

Of course it is a political game of astroturfing.

[David Welker]

That such a scheme by "offended" Chinese government loyalists could work, in the United States of America, of all places, is rather pathetic testament to the state of our current culture.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I don't know, Israeli government loyalists have been pulling this shit for 50 years. Even right here on this very blog.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

Mark Wrighton! That takes me back. He was a physical chemist at MIT, back in the day. His field was microfabrication of electronic devices - as small as possible. This was back in the 1980s before the term "nanotech" had been coined (well, at least, before it had been popularized). For a while he was the highest-paid scientist in USA. His office suite was like a suite in a top-of-the-line luxury hotel.

[Cal Cetín]

How did he end up as a university President? Did he lose a bet or something?

[Union of Concerned Socks]

Conditions of his parole.

[kevrob]

Robert Stadler?

[Archibald Tuttle]

Only offensive speech needs the protection of the 1st amendment. There will be no victory until someone establishes a test case based on the most outrageous racist sexist speech.

Even racists must have a voice in a diverse democracy.

[Krayt]

No. The benefit of the First Amendment is not that there's high value in every last dribble goobered out of the mouth of some slob.

The value is in denying dictators and potential dictators their best club in their golf bag of tricks of tyrants.

We saw a concerted effort this past year to talk of the marketplace of ideas in a context of terrible ideas, hey don't fear the censor everybody!

No, freedom of speech will not fall this generation, either, as the powerful seek to use it against their enemies. Same as all the rest of history.

You dear readers who want a little censorship, which is ok because you wield it and feel good about it, are the historical evil.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" You dear readers who want a little censorship, which is ok because you wield it and feel good about it, are the historical evil. "

At this blog, it is the proprietor who imposes a little censorship.

Or maybe more than a little.

[David Welker]

"some slob"

Notice how demeaning the speaker goes hand-in-hand with censorship. That is because censorship is an act of domination. If some people really are "lesser" then why not censor them?

Ultimately, freedom of speech grows logically out of political equality.

[John Rohan]

Still two problems I see with this.

1. So he noted the posters were designed by someone of Chinese origin. Should that matter? I get the feeling that his decision would be different if a non-Chinese person had designed them.

2. The posters were taken down. Are they being put back up? Is anyone being reimbursed? Because in these events, it looks like the knee jerk reaction is to take everything down, cancel speakers, ban people, remove their access, etc, then later cooler heads prevail only after the damage was done. The knee jerk reaction should be to do NOTHING until the incident has been proven to violate some law or specific policy.

[Social Justice is neither]

But this way he gets to kowtow to the grievance mongers, express his commitment to free speech (after stifling it without a thought) and play the victim of you don't accept his heartfelt apology each and every time this plays out over the school year. Sorry, you don't get to fuck up continuously in exactly the same way and have me believe you're sorry for anything beyond being called out.

[Krayt]

I noted he felt it ok due to being criticism of China, by a Chinese person.

How this nonsentient, programmed microcontroller got into a position of power I don't know.

It seems to be running a simple rule-based knowledge engine that wouldn't strain a calculator watch from 1980.

"If against China, attack to appear to protect Chinese, remain in job and the finery it entails."

"If attacker is Chinese, racistly "permit" them because you cannot attack them, lest you lose the finery."

File: PanderingMotions.rule

[Gasman]

Wrighton was a fawning sycophant of the woke left at Washington University. Every little thing that a student could get upset about (scoring points with his fellow woke friends) would generate a campus wide email from Wrighton bleeding his heart out.

[AmosArch]

Are so many people so dumb they can't tell the difference between criticism of Asians and criticism of the CCP?

[Bored Lawyer]

It's not stupidity. It's cynical exploitation of wokeness.

[Sarcastr0]

Not so many, just loud and enough of them.

[Roman Moroni]

I think that's exactly right.

I find it especially difficult to believe many Chinese Americans take offense at criticism of the Chinese government. They're here for a reason.

[A. Friend]

The only reason he found it non-racist against Chinese is that it was created by someone who was Chinese. Otherwise he would still be calling for blood against the artist.

[Michael P]

The cynic in me suspects that the person who hung the posters is also of Chinese descent.

[Seamus]

And yet when Jews (see, e.g., Noam Chomsky) are critical of Israel, they're accused of being "self-hating" (or even "self-gassing").

[apedad]

See RINO too....

[VinniUSMC]

Funny that you don't mention uncle Tom. You're complaining about random internet commenters while the sitting President thinks that only black people who vote right (the way they are told) are actually black.

But sure, carry on with your weak ass whataboutism.

[Seamus]

We were talking about people of a particular ethnicity being accused of racism against that ethnicity if they criticize the governments of countries populated and governed by their co-ethnics. Referring to conservative blacks as Uncle Toms (or moderate Republicans as RINOs) is not an appropriate analogy. An appropriate analogy would be the accusation of African Americans of being racists for denouncing the human rights record of the Democratic Republic of the Congo--something which to the best of my knowledge just doesn't happen.

[ravenshrike]

Chomsky is a fucking commie, which means at the end of the day he hates all individual freedoms. Such people are by definition self-hating regardless of their personal affiliations.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Time to defund higher education. No more government subsidies. They get to either sink or swim on their own. But who knows maybe there are enough SJW snowflakes out there seeking to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for the "services" these intellectual reform gulags provide....

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The last thing right-wing hayseeds could tolerate is a ‘sink or swim’ policy in America. Where would rural Republican communities be without handouts from their betters?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Just fine....

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Where destitute, uneducated, bigoted, addicted, backward, and superstitious = “just fine”

Why do the knuckle-dragging states and yokel communities take and claim they need so much money from their betters?

[Currentsitguy]

1st NO ONE is my better, or my subordinate for that matter, and anyone who would claim otherwise is nothing more than a bigoted pseudo-intellectual snob who operates on a 3rd grade level unworthy of consideration in any serious circles.

2nd, we out here have no need whatsoever for any of the filth and racist stupidity you and your ilk peddle. Don't need your money, don't need your aid, don't need you meddling, don't need you.

It's going to get awful hungry and cold next month in your urban hellholes when the trucks show up to blockade you in and no one shows up to bail you out.

Run along now. It's almost noon. Time for lunch and your meds. I hear they have finger painting scheduled this afternoon.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Are you sure educated Americans won't be able to devise a truck that doesn't need a driver?

Those truck drivers -- former truck drivers, in the relevant context --will be lined up for handouts (from those with marketable skills, educations, and other valuable attributes) soon enough.

Would it be inappropriate for the responses to those requests for subsidy to be 'go horn your horn' or 'eat your goofy red hats?'

Clingers' delusions of adequacy in modern America are quaint. The good news is that the culture war's victors don't want or need much from you, other than compliance. And you will continue to comply with the preferences of the liberal-libertarian mainstream, Currentsitguy. although you are welcome to continue to whimper about it as much as you like.

[Bored Lawyer]

Still have not tried therapy, I see. Poor, deluded soul.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I live in a town in which self-driving vehicles are constantly observed in traffic. I work in an industry that is already testing automated trucks.

(I also worked in buildings with elevator operators, remember when the milkman brought twice-weekly deliveries, and understand how change can eliminate jobs and even industries. What, in your estimation, are the employment prospects of current long-haul truck drivers?)

[Krayt]

Many jobs are going the way of the dodo. You're just ahead of the curve in abandoning them politically.

The politician asks, what have they done for me lately, securing elections so we can be currupt-wise?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Time to defund higher education.

Because they don't censor criticism of columnist China aggressively enough?

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Is this retraction merely due to the ethnicity of the artists? I wonder if some well intentioned poli-sci students of a different background would have been given this (eventual and correct) contemplation.

[rsteinmetz]

They censored the posters then apologized.
Did they put the back up?

[Sarcastr0]

I don't see anything saying they took down the posters.

I went to GWU some 7 years ago, and it's a pretty open city campus; they don't take down posted stuff that I saw.

[Union of Concerned Socks]

I don't see anything saying they took down the posters.

Then you missed this part

University staff also responded to ensure the posters were removed.

[Sarcastr0]

Ayep.

No doubt some grumbling about new job duties GW staff remove it from the Whole Foods bulletin board.

[CFred]

“designed by a Chinese-Australian artist, Badiucao,”
What an odd thing to put into the statement. Would he have had the posters removed if they had been “designed by an Irish-American artist, O'Brien”?

[Union of Concerned Socks]

Yeah, the direction of action is *somewhat* praiseworthy, but all the reasons given sound tone deaf.

I want to be very clear: I support freedom of speech—even when it offends people

Dude, if you want to be even more clear, stop saying "I" and start saying "the university, as a matter of long-standing policy".

[Ridgeway]

To be fair, it is hard to know exactly who did the posters. It is not like the artist put his name on them, or a link to his website.

[Absaroka]

Here is the artist's website. I got a coffee cup for my 'Free Speech' collection from previous VC postings ('The South Butt', 'Are You Ready for Oligarchy', 'The Only Part of the Government That Listens', ...).

[ReaderY]

That’s a very distinct implication of what he was saying.

[ReaderY]

And it’s mot in the least bit ofd. It’s quite consistent with the whole approach.

[Malvolio]

I have since learned from our university's scholars that the posters were designed by a Chinese-Australian artist

Would it have been different if the designer were Vietnamese-Australian? What about white-Australian?

[Bored Lawyer]

To these guys, identity politics is all that matters. The logic and correctness of your argument mean nothing.

[Publius_2020]

>> "... designed by a Chinese-Australian artist"

One of the problems with this half mea culpa is that it appears to rest substantially on the discovery of the race of the artist. "Now that I've determined where the speaker falls on my preferred hierarchy of racial virtues, I can calmly conclude that he should be allowed to speak." Not that just anyone should be allowed to speak on political issues.

[WarrenPeese]

Now if GWU will do the same for Ilya Shapiro.

[benji]

One problem is that Georgetown is not GWU.

[ReaderY]

It’s a win.

But it’s low-hanging fruit. Hanging so low that the fact it had to be fought itself indicates a problem.

[WillDD]

In fairness to the school President and the Administration, the law often is critical of (future) defendants who fail to respond to complaint promptly. And the courts are often worse; they interpret the law as if the (future) defendant should employ people to simply sit by the phone (or computer) for the purposes of the statute before them. (Sometimes, there may be cause for that; e.g., OSHA.) Of course, the media, too, puts pressure on the (future) defendant to respond before all the facts can be determined. (The media, of course, believes it already has uncovered all the facts.) All of this combines to make it difficult for the (future) defendant to take the time necessary to discern what, in fact, happened.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

None of which required that he engage in the gratuitous virtue-signaling that he did in his initial response, and which could be more than satisfied by announcing an immediate investigation into the matter with any corrective action to be taken if/when it was determined to be necessary.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It is an impressive statement.

Only if your standards are ridiculously low.

It is never easy to admit mistakes, and university leaders are rarely so clear in reversing course as Wright is here.

What's clear is that he did not reverse course at all. His course was one of childish virtue-signaling actions driven by ignorance-based assumptions for which there was absolutely no basis. He only decided his approach was not the correct one upon learning that the ethnicity of the posters' author, not any sudden epiphany about his knee-jerk desire to stifle the wrong kinds of speech by certain types of people. Equally clear is the disingenuousness of his "I want to be very clear: I support freedom of speech—even when it offends people" claim.

He deserved a lot of blame over the weekend

And still does.

but he deserves praise now.

For what? Back-peddling after he discovered that the individual whose speech he was suppressing wasn't a white kid?

[David Welker]

That the first instinct of GWU's President here was censorship and to open an investigation in order "to determine who is responsible" shows just how intolerable the political correctness of the left has become and how arrogant, disrespectful, and domineering they have become regarding the free speech of others.

The left claims, over and over, that the January 6th protests represented a threat to democracy. And yet, it is the left that is the one who is regularly trying to suppress the free speech upon which democracy depends.

I have yet to understand how occupying a mere building would destroy democracy. When the British burned the White House in 1814, that did not destroy democracy. The only thing that will destroy democracy is when the American People cease to support democracy, or the free speech upon which it depends. Not some disorganized and confused mob occupying a single building of symbolic importance.

On the other hand, censorship is a form of domination. And ultimately, censorship is the foundation of totalitarian government.

It is further ironic that the Chinese Communist Party is manipulating people on the left to be agents of censorship here. The Chinese Communist Party would like to engage in genocide against the Uighurs and continue to oppress the people of Tibet and Hong Kong without any criticism whatsoever. Be that as it may, last time I checked, I didn't know it was the role of University Presidents residing in the United States to facilitate that.

In my view, the GWU's President should be required to resign. Accidental suppression of free speech by an authority figure should not be considered a forgivable offense. If we are going to cancel people, it should be for restricting the liberty of others, not merely expressing an opinion that offends some people. (Or, just as often, "offends" some people. Quite often, those who say they are offended are being performative. Their goal is pretending to be offended is to infringe upon the liberty of others via censorship and other forms of punishment.)

[Gasman]

Resign at GWU? hell no. We don't want him back at WU.

Really, how the heck did he go directly from Washington University (in St. Louis), to George Washington University. Whenever I'm googling something for WU, google as often as not offers information about GWU or UW (university of washington).
Must have been how the search committee at GWU stumbled upon him.