You might call it “The Tale of Two Chancellors.” One, Kumble Subbaswamy of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, received praise in a Gazette editorial (“Warning about hate on campuses,” Sept. 1) for his staunch rejection of “hatred in all its forms” on his campus. Perhaps Dr. Subbaswamy can specify which speech qualifies as “hatred,” who will get to decide, and how the First Amendment figures into the matter, since UMass is a public campus.
What I have seen in news reports over the past few years is that on many campuses, some perfectly defensible speech has been unfairly branded as “hatred,” and that those who would use violence to squelch it (such as antifa) have been granted a “heckler’s (or thug’s) veto” by academic administrators.
The other chancellor is Carol Christ, former Smith College president and current head of the University of California, Berkeley. In an email she sent in August to the campus community, she spelled out the details of her earlier declaration of 2017 as “Free Speech Year” on her campus, one rocked by a couple of deplorable incidents of political violence over the past year.
One passage in Chancellor Christ’s email struck me for its clarity: “The university has the responsibility to provide safety and security for its community and guests, and we will invest the necessary resources to achieve that goal. If you choose to protest, do so peacefully. That is your right, and we will defend it with vigor. We will not tolerate violence, and we will hold anyone accountable who engages in it.”
Dr. Subbaswamy, I urge you to read and heed Chancellor Christ’s stirring defense of free speech, and to join her in your own embrace of it, in word and deed.
John Montanari
Shutesbury