I saw the video, and the professor, and especially his wife, disgraced themselves completely. Yes, the student is a brainless, chirpy airhead. But a professor should know how to engage with pouty students. Under no circumstance should you raise your voice, lose your cool, or initiate physical contact with a student. Most importantly, you do not unleash an overly emotional spouse on them.
The student has an absolute right to express her beliefs – hideous as they might be – at a university function. And anybody else has the right to respond in a similarly calm and, ideally, more dignified manner. There’s a profound difference between having a party at your house as a private individual and hosting a professional event.
How can we ask students not to be enormous snowflakes who freak out when they hear something unpleasant when we act like exactly this kind of snowflake?
Clarissa's Blog 
I agree. The faculty members did not look good here…..especially since Fisk (the woman) grabbed the student. I was actually shocked at how badly the two handled the situation. And now the student has achieved some fame and she is using it to make melodramatic statements about racism against hijabis.
The absolute best thing would have been to ignore the student. Let her make her speech. These “activist” types crave attention. They crumble when ignored. Instead, the two of them gave the student protester exactly what she wanted: a ridiculous spectacle of faculty being overly aggressive with a student! How can two educated people be so short sighted?
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That’s exactly what I would do. I’d look at the student with benevolent tolerance afforded to fractious toddlers and then moved on.
I once had a student get up in the middle of a test, screaming that the course was a waste of time and he wanted his money back. A large dude, getting into my face while the test went on. I talked him down, he cried, apologized, and I calmed him sufficiently so that he sat down, finished the test, and actually passed.
Somebody needs to be the adult in the situation.
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Yes. Part of our job is knowing how to deal with young people effectively. In general, I think most student activism is silly and performative but (and this is the important part) it’s not surprising. It’s part of the experience of being young for many many students. Students have been protesting different things for ages. We shouldn’t be shocked or hysterical or violent when we see protests or “activist” behavior. It’s normal behavior for young people and something that we should know how to deal with.
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Exactly. I had my Russian Fulbrighter do a pro-Russian event, and there was no freakout on my part. I even provided her with a room to hold the activity. I completely disagree with everything she says but I support her right to say it.
I didn’t attend but the people who wanted to were free to do so.
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“I’d look at the student with benevolent tolerance”
I’d tell her how lovely it was that she could make it, and offer her a table and tell her I’ll schedule a time for her to “give your little speech” after dinner.
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That’s nice, but she would continue to to do what she was doing. You’d need to deal with her making it impossible for you to have any conversation with your guests. I’ve seen a short video with the professor trying to grab her phone out of her hands. How do we know she hasn’t tried everything suggested here before?
This specific student is a different person from the students you’ve dealt with. This is a different issue. Can you not conceive of a case with a belligerent student even such professionals as all of you could fail to stop nicely?
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Why is it necessary to stop her, though? If she gets no attention, she’ll eventually get bored and will pipe down.
The professor is male. It’s the wife who, incomprehensibly, was making herself a center of attention.
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Yes. They could have either a) listened and let her finish. I guarantee she would have run out steam if everyone just watched and nodded. 2) If it doesn’t seem like she’l had any plans to stop, move the students who don’t wish to hear her to another spot: inside their home, another part of the yard etc. It is bananas to get physical with a student– no matter how annoying. But truly, the likelihood that this would have lasted if they just sat quietly while she spoke is small indeed.
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The wife is also a professor.
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Oh God. It’s even worse than I thought, then.
I stand corrected.
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“You’d need to deal with her making it impossible for you to have any conversation with your guests”
Welcoming her and inviting her to give her ‘little speech’ is dealing with her.
There are two basic possibilities.
one – she’s a sincerely misguided person and dealing with her in a polite non-confrontational adult manner is much more likely to help her see how misguided her little mic stunt was. The more kindness extended to her the more immature and childish her ‘resistance’ will seem.
two (much more likely, I think) – she’s manipulative user whose primary goal in going was to get attention and to provoke an emotional reacion (probably doesn’t care much about the Palestinians). The effective way to deal with such people is to deny them the negative emotional reaction that they crave. A kind, unflappably unemotional response is what they hate the most. So then she’s forced into ever shriekier forms of ‘resistance’ which make her look bad or she leaves in disgust.
Both options take a little time but so would dealing with a bunch of hungry raccoons or a plague of mosquitoes.
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Exactly. You never demean yourself to the point of struggling with a student over her phone.
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“How can we ask students not to be enormous snowflakes who freak out when they hear something unpleasant when we act like exactly this kind of snowflake?”
I think it’s part of the culture at UC Berkeley, which sucks. My incredibly fancy/rich/successful PhD advisor spent inordinate amounts of time during the Obama administration pouting about the Republicans not taking climate change seriously. It left me with a feeling that academics are inconsequential, if the most successful and admired of them were so into pouting.
The fancy private university I attended for undergrad did not have this sort of pouting. People generally saw themselves as powerful and able to effect change, and were focused on how to best achieve that. There were plenty of other problems (or shall we say, “suboptimalities”) related to wokeness (this was 20 years ago) but there’s wasn’t institutional pressure to act like a victim from the highest levels.
When I’m feeling conspiratorial, sometimes I think it’s a tactic to keep successful immigrants marginalized.
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I’m totally with you on the point about immigrants. My Yoruba lecturer from Nigeria is like one of those 19-century literary characters who overcome the biggest odds through hard work and discipline. The fellow is congenitally incapable of feeling sorry for himself. It’s beautiful to watch.
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Yes, that’s what we need, everywhere: more adults in the room.
The situation is dire enough as it is, we really can’t afford more histrionics, hysterics, posturing, virtue signalling and all the rest.
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I love it when leftist scum fight amongst themselves. The Berkeley law prof and that commiehijabi are both my enemies and should fuck right off.
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