Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
Via Campus Reform:
A University of Southern California professor recently argued that punishing protesters who disrupt conservative speakers can reinforce “white supremacy.”
Charles H.F. Davis, a professor of education at USC, argued in an essay for Inside Higher Ed that punishing protesters contributes to white supremacy because it can unfairly “suppress and criminalize” students, especially in light of protesters’ valiant goals.
or example, Davis argues against punishing students who shouted down a recent Ben Shapiro talk at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, since students were fighting against “racist rhetoric advanced by Shapiro.”
In an interview with Campus Reform, Davis explained that “punishing protesters unfairly criminalizes students,” and that colleges who do so “run the risk of creating an unsafe and threatening environment.”
Davis defines protesters as those who “use disruptive tactics to shut down hate speech as well as those holding signs, protesting outside of speaker venues, and engaged in other forms of resistance against white supremacy.”
Students who protest “are disproportionately students of color and students representing other marginalized groups,” Davis noted. “Issuing a punishment, especially in these cases, is a clear form of criminalization by deeming protest unacceptable,” he added.
Further, while hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, Davis warns that colleges should “resist the constant conflation of hate speech and free speech,” adding that this is justified because hate speech is “violent and invites violence, which should not be allowed on-campus.”