People have no understanding of the concept of free speech. Here is an example.
When my colleagues discovered that Alberto Gonzalez and David Perlmutter were being invited to our campus to speak, some of them objected because they find these individuals repugnant.
Other colleagues started vociferating, “Have respect for the freedom of speech!” They don’t seem to understand that the right to freedom of speech doesn’t mean that anybody has to provide opportunities for anybody to speak. I ban losers from my blog all the time, and they often whine that I’m denying their right to freedom of speech. Which is obviously ridiculous.
A discussion of who we, as a group, want to offer opportunities to speak is a legitimate one and in no way infringes on anybody’s constitutional freedoms.
Clarissa's Blog 
Urgh, yeah. I get tremendously pissed off whenever people complain about not having their views aired by specific platforms (or even better, about being criticized) by shouting “Freedom of speech”. I think freedom of speech is one of the more important and beneficial norms ever created, and it hurts to see it misunderstood to that degree.
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Nevertheless, it is important from an educational perspective that students have exposure to outrageous and horrifying speakers from time to time. Universities should not, for the most part, be censors. George Lincoln Rockwell was invited to speak at Michigan State University while I was a grad student there. It is hard to imagine anyone more offensive than he was.
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Our university never has a dime to bring in scholars or writers or anybody who is not an ultra-conservative fanatic. But when scholars can’t come, that’s called “a budget crisis.” Somehow, the budget crisis never applies to war criminals, as long as they stood next to Bush at some point in time.
This is not a situation of everybody getting a chance to speak at our university. The reality is that nobody gets invited but this kind of freakazoids.
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That is too bad. I wonder who makes these decisions. Here we have a joint faculty-student committee which chooses whom to invite, or at least we used to. I do not think that has changed.
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Universities don’t, however, have endless halls, so some “censoring” will be necessary if we are to conform to the limitations of time and space. I agree that students should be exposed to outrageous and horrifying speakers, I just don’t agree said speakers are often what’s best needed at a certain moment.
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I’m really glad my university’s student society has our own Speaker’s Series, so we get to vote on who we bring in for our own speakers, separate from whom the university administration decides to bring to speak.
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Why is your university wasting money to bring these two to campus?
With Alberto Gonzales, there’s no chance of asking provoking questions if the student body has any inkling of who he is.
With Dr. Perlmutter, he’d just be shilling his latest book about how gluten is murdering us one delicious mouthful at a time. (Really, I had no idea who he was until I googled him. I envisioned some absent-minded Perl whisperer who enjoyed peas and Unix. Alas.)
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At first I was confused reading that David Perlmutter was “repugnant”
“What’s so repugnant about relational grammar? I know Clarissas doesn’t like linguist(ic)s but still….”
Then I decided to wiki him, and realized it’s a different David Perlmutter.
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Yeah, I googled him too because his last name sounded german. All I read was the short description of his website on google and I had a good idea whats wrong with him:
“Dr. Perlmutter is a renowned neurologist whose expertise includes gluten issues, brain health & nutrition, and preventing neurodegenerative disorders.”
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It’s the Perlmutter who wrote this: http://articles.latimes.com/2002/apr/07/opinion/op-perlmutter
In my opinion, this was not written by an emotionally stable individual. We now face our classes being constantly monitored (which will rob us of all last vestiges of academic freedom) to keep us safe from disturbed individuals. At the same time, we are paying to bring such an individual to campus.
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“It’s the Perlmutter who wrote this”
Yet another David Perlmutter, what are the odds…. and are we sure they’re not either the same person or an army of clones sent from the future to disrupt us?
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One would think this were an unusual last name, but it turns out not to be the case.
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I wonder if it means mother-of-pearl in German too … I mean without translating it mot a mot.
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Is there an opportunity to provide these people with questions in advance?
I’d think this would be a hilarious opportunity to inflict Modest Proposals on them by turning their ill-logic around on them.
Maybe you could invite the Yes Men, who would be considerably more amusing in their role as the Shadow Opposition to the WTO …
Just don’t get them to feed your students McDonald’s hamburgers — that does not work out the way you would expect. 🙂
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