'I agree that Penn has been too harsh on student protesters, which could hurt free speech on campus,' writes Penn professor Jonathan Zimmerman. 'But it's because I believe in free speech that I won't sign any petitions supporting the students.'
Quick question: How many people at Penn who have rallied for the free speech of student protesters also signed the manyFalse equivalence alert: A student demanding divestment from fossil fuels isn’t the same as a professor making racist statements. But they have — or should have — the same right to say what they think.
And if you think otherwise, please tell me who should determine the statements that are too heinous for us to hear. The petitions supporting the student protesters say that Penn administrators have used excessive tactics to threaten the students, and I agree. But if that’s how you feel, why would you also want to empower the very same administrators to censor what we can say?According to a petition signed by 73 faculty members, disciplining the protesters will. I didn’t sign this one either because, like the other petitions, it also endorsed the students’ political demands.
And if you don’t think that’s a problem, you don’t really believe in free speech. You just want your own speech to be free. Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Whose America?: Culture Wars in the Public Schools,” which was published in a revised 20th-anniversary edition this fall by the University of Chicago Press.
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