4A — Friday, October 21, 2016
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
LAURA SCHINAGLE
Managing Editor
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
SHOHAM GEVA
Editor in Chief
CLAIRE BRYAN
and REGAN DETWILER
Editorial Page Editors
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
Carolyn Ayaub
Claire Bryan
Regan Detwiler
Caitlin Heenan
Jeremy Kaplan
Ben Keller
Minsoo Kim
Payton Luokkala
Kit Maher
Madeline Nowicki
Anna Polumbo-Levy
Jason Rowland
Lauren Schandevel
Kevin Sweitzer
Rebecca Tarnopol
Ashley Tjhung
Stephanie Trierweiler
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
F
ree speech debates tend
to be dominated by two
positions, both of which
mask their radical and insidious
natures
by
appealing
to
seemingly innocuous principles.
Adherents
of
both
camps
would do well to be more self-
critical, to recognize that the
motivations of their opponents
are not so corrupt as they
may seem and to understand
that pureness of heart is not a
sufficient justification for the
policies they prescribe.
On
one
hand,
many
conservatives
hold
that
the
innate right to free expression
entails that any speech is to
be tolerated, since regulation
would in principle curtail our
fundamental right to freedom.
On the other, some believe
that hate speech ought to be
banned because it offends the
sensibilities of others. Whether
or not the adherents of these
positions will admit it, these are
the basic principles operative in
campus free speech debates.
Both views are mistaken,
and each implies unacceptable
consequences.
However,
moderation for its own sake
is no virtue — though some
compromise may be hammered
out
between
the
relevant
interests
involved,
it’s
not
enough
that
we
leave
this
matter to arbitrary case-by-case
judgment. Instead, we must
offer an alternative principle of
speech right that overcomes the
difficulties of each view. This
principle will follow from the
very idea of right itself.
To navigate any controversy
of
justice,
we
must
first
recognize a fundamental fact:
Questions of justice arise only
when individuals are considered
together. Alone, an individual
may act well or poorly, but it’s
only among others that they
may act justly. In any exercise
of free choice, an individual
limits the freedom of another;
in making something mine, I
make it not thine. In claiming
a right, a person places others
under an obligation to respect
his freedom, so to be a free agent
is to stand in a relation that
implies a reciprocal limitation
on the freedom of others. Justice
concerns those conditions under
which my rightful freedoms are
made compatible with those of
others through the imposition of
a general rule of conduct.
What becomes apparent is
that any determination of rights
implies the limitation of the
freedom of some for the sake
of others. However, if (as I will
only grant here, but not attempt
to justify) people are by nature
morally equal, we encounter
a problem. Because we are all
rational beings capable of making
judgments, it would violate the
general principle of equality if
some individuals were privileged
in imposing their merely private
judgments on others. Even if I
have reasons for restricting your
freedom, my reasons are my own,
so they could never justify this
restriction. This is the origin of
justice as public reason — that
is, the settlement of rights must
rest on a principle that regards
each individual as rightfully
equal and which determines the
limits of rights only by reference
to reasons equally valid for all.
To live in a rightful condition
is to have claims on others only
insofar as you are also bound by
those same claims of others on
you (and vice versa).
It
should
be
clear
why
straightforward
justifications
of speech restrictions (which
typically appeal to the subjective
sentiments of individuals —
feelings of offense — or to an
ideological goal) fail. There are
roughly two reasons for this.
The first, weaker reason is that
they require that an authority
(i.e., the University of Michigan)
has a substantive conception
of an extrinsic good to be
promoted by speech (e.g., social
justice, climate awareness, etc.).
But this isn’t a valid reason for
all individuals whose freedoms
are to be restricted, because
some individuals don’t judge
that to be a necessary good.
The second reason is that the
basic principle for determining
rights cannot rest on the private
judgment of any individual
(i.e., feelings of offense). If it
did, then we would, in effect,
have no rights at all, because
whatever provisional exercise
of freedom we undertook would
depend on the actual assent of
other individuals. We would
need to beg the permission of
every Christian to criticize the
Defense of Marriage Act, of
every ROTC officer to criticize
the military and so on.
This isn’t to say the cultural
libertarian
approach
is
correct, however. To avoid that
conclusion,
we
must
justify
speech restrictions on some
other ground that appeals to
public reason. We must situate
our system of right within some
principle that holds value as a
reason for every individual who
is bound by this code of conduct.
It must proceed from the very
idea of students as rights-bearers
(that is, as individuals deserving
of respect).
Insofar as the University is
bound to secure a condition of
equal rights for its students,
speech that renders the freedom
and dignity of students insecure
cannot be justified, since it would
allow some students to place
others in a position of moral
inequality. Threats, harassment
and speech that impugn the
honor
of
students
(either
individually or collectively, as
in posters disparaging Black
students as innately criminal)
make it impossible for students
to live in a rightful condition.
“Hate speech,” which aims to
undermine the condition of
moral equality, must be stopped
and punished for the same
reason that seditious speech,
which aims to undermine the
lawful condition of the state
itself, must be punished: It’s
incompatible
with
the
very
conception of right itself.
Such an account is important
because it makes no reference
either to particular goals to
be pursued through speech
(i.e., social justice) or to effects
caused by speech (i.e., offense-
taking,
even
“insecurity”).
It’s ideologically neutral and
respects the rights of each,
including
dissenting
voices
(there would be no cause,
for instance, to ban speakers
for
campus
on
ideological
grounds). It’s the only regulatory
framework compatible with the
very idea of dignity itself — both
the freedom to be controversial
and the right of moral equality.
Andrew Beddow is an
LSA junior.
ANDREW BEDDOW | OP-ED
A philosophy of free speech
The realities of womanhood
S
ometimes, I think that
when I become a mother,
I don’t want to have a girl.
You see, my own
mother is a worrier.
For as long as I
can remember, she
sheltered my sister
and me from the
world, warning us
of potential dangers
that lurked in the
least
expected
places. I was taught
to never open the
front door unless I
was absolutely certain who was
standing on the other side. The
darkness held an indeterminable
number of dangers, no safe place
for a young girl. Sleepovers at
my friends’ houses were iffy if
they had brothers or fathers. In
her eyes, anyone could be a “bad
guy,” and I learned to approach
the world with wariness.
My friends would laugh at this
seemingly unnecessary caution
— and sometimes I would, too.
As 17 years passed by without
much incidence, I attributed
my mom’s seemingly endless
worries to mere paranoia. It
wasn’t until I came to Ann Arbor
that I realized that my mother’s
concerns were not, in fact,
baseless. Rather, my friends and
I were just privileged enough to
consider them so.
Ann Arbor is far from being
considered a “dangerous” city,
but compared to my hometown of
Troy, Mich., it might as well be.
Troy’s claim to fame is being the
safest city in Michigan and one of
the safest cities in the country.
We grew up in the lap of privilege,
but perhaps it disadvantaged us in
a way as well, for our upbringing
blinded us to the fact that most
of the rest of the world is not so
kind — especially for us girls.
Coming to a politically charged
campus unafraid to have open
conversations
about
subjects
that could be considered taboo, I
realized how naive I’d
been to think that the
world would protect
me. Because as long as
celebrities like Donald
Trump excuse sexual
assault
as
“locker-
room talk” and songs
insinuating
rape
like
“Blurred
Lines”
skyrocket to popularity,
rape culture grows and
women are not safe.
It terrifies me, as a woman, that
a man who speaks so callously
of attempted rape is a legitimate
candidate
for
president.
We
already live in a world where
known rapists walk free after
serving a mere three months of a
six-month sentence. Will we have
any justice at all if a man accused
multiple times of sexual assault
assumes the highest office in the
nation? Will we ever be safe?
Trump seems to believe that
equating his boastings of his
unwanted advances on women
to “locker-room banter” makes it
acceptable — a loosely disguised
version of “boys will be boys” — but
that only further perpetuates rape
culture, letting boys believe that
it’s OK to objectify and degrade
women in the safety of the men’s
locker room. It’s ignorant to think
that what’s said in the locker room
stays there — and when it leaves,
that’s when it becomes dangerous.
One late bus ride, I was witness
to some “harmless locker-room
talk,” and it made my skin crawl.
As a raucous group of boys
stumbled onto the bus behind
me, their chatter melted into the
background until one voice cut
through the rest: “Dude, I’ve
got to fuck Abby. She is beyond
hot.” Their conversation quickly
changed topic, but that comment
lingered with me, leaving me sick
to the stomach. Sure, it was just
“locker-room banter,” but it had
darker insinuations: that a woman
is only good for her looks and
sex, that sex is for a man’s taking.
The fact that this conversation
is commonplace is very telling
of a culture slowly becoming
desensitized to subtle misogyny.
As much as I’d love to take a
scenic stroll through the Arb, the
recent DPSS crime alert about a
sexual assault in the Arb chills
me. My mother frantically called
me when she heard of the assault,
and I knew then why she’d trained
my sister and me to be always
cautious,
never
too
trusting.
“What the heck? Who does that?
Who just punches a random girl
in the face?” I asked my friend,
horrified that it’d happened so
close to home, horrified that
my mother’s fears were not
unfounded.
Troy
may
have
shielded me from “the real world,”
but this incident opened my eyes to
the very real dangers around me —
the most prevalent of all being the
normalization of sexual violence.
Who just punches a random girl in
the face? Well, in this day and age,
it could be anyone: a boy on the
bus, a star collegiate swimmer, the
potential future president of the
United States.
These days, I try not to roll
my eyes when my mom calls me
nightly, panicking whenever I
reveal I’m still in the library past
dark. She doesn’t rest until she
knows I’m safe in my dorm. I
assure her that I’m fine, that I have
a male friend to walk back with —
and when I do, I think about his
mother: how lucky she is that she
has two boys.
ASHLEY
ZHANG
Ashley Zhang can be reached at
ashleyh@umich.edu
ASHLEY ZHANG | COLUMN
The truth on guns is bipartisan
V
ery rarely do we have
a
civilized
discussion
about gun control in our
nation, and perhaps rightfully so.
It is easy to see why this debate
sparks such impassioned pleas
from both ends of the
political
spectrum,
as
both
parties
believe
that
the
other is attempting
to infringe on the
fundamental rights
of American citizens.
Opponents of gun
control
measures
believe
that
their
Second Amendment
rights are effectively
being abolished through such
restrictive
measures,
while
proponents feel that thousands
of Americans are losing their
right to life due to senseless gun
violence every year.
It is difficult to approach a topic
of this magnitude with a level
head, as our judgment is often
clouded by our own preconceived
notions. So maybe it’s time that
we take a different approach.
One of the first things taught in
any introductory science class
is to never take things at face
value; rather, we must block out
all the outlandish claims that we
hear on a daily basis and focus
on the data. If we take the time
to fact-check and replicate every
step and finding of a scientific
study, why would we approach
an issue with the society-altering
consequences of gun control
with any less caution? They say
numbers never lie, so perhaps it’s
time that we listen to them.
Yet sadly, the numbers will be
nearly impossible to hear, because,
well, they barely exist. Though
the question of gun control has
been at the forefront of American
society for decades now, virtually
no government-funded data exists
on the effect that guns have on
violence in our country, as the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has essentially been
banned from studying the impact
of gun violence since the passage
of the Dickey Amendment in
1996. The amendment, which
was added into an omnibus
spending bill in 1996 after heavy
NRA lobbying, states that “none
of the funds made available for
injury prevention and control at
the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention may be used
to advocate or promote gun
control.” Though this clause does
not explicitly state that studying
gun
violence
is
illegal, the underlying
message
was
made
clear to researchers
when the budget of the
CDC was cut by the
exact amount of money
that it had spent on gun
violence studies in the
previous year.
Some
will
claim
that this makes perfect
sense:
Why
should
the Centers for Disease Control
study guns? They certainly aren’t
a disease. Yet the jurisdiction of
the CDC doesn’t stop at diseases;
it extends to all major health
risks facing the American public,
including automobile safety and
other health risks as well. Putting
individual opinions on gun control
aside, it is certainly clear that gun
violence is a public health risk to
the American people. Between
2009 and 2013, more than 44,000
gun-related
murders
were
committed in the United States, a
number that ignores other forms
of gun-related deaths. This issue
seems to be a distinctly American
one, as a recent study has shown
that the United States has a gun
homicide rate more than 25 times
higher than other high-income
countries. With such an alarmingly
high rates of gun violence in our
country, it seems that we should
investigate all possible causes and
remedies for this epidemic.
Even Jay Dickey, the former
Republican congressman who
first introduced this ban and a
lifelong member of the NRA, has
seen his opinion shift in recent
years, stating the reasons for
his evolution on gun violence
research in an op-ed for The
Washington Post:
U.S. scientists cannot answer
the most basic question: What
works to prevent firearm injuries?
We don’t know whether having
more citizens carry guns would
decrease
or
increase
firearm
deaths.... What we do know is that
firearm injuries will continue to
claim far too many lives at home,
at school, at work and at the
movies until we start asking and
answering the hard questions.
As Mr. Dickey demonstrated,
uncovering the truth should not
be a partisan issue. Regardless of
how you or I may feel on the issue
of gun control, we all have a vested
interest in knowing the reality of
what we’re facing when it concerns
the safety of the American people.
If the CDC is able to conduct a
study that demonstrates that the
presence of guns in a country
does not lead to more violence,
gun enthusiasts may rejoice and
claim that they’ve been correct all
along. If the opposite is found, then
proponents of gun control may do
the same. The point is: If the NRA
and those who oppose tighter gun
restrictions truly believe their
positions are justified, then these
parties would have nothing to
lose if data on the impact of guns
was made available. While data
from the federal government may
reveal that gun advocates must
swallow their pride and admit
their position is unjustified, this
would certainly be a small price
to pay for uncovering data that
could potentially save thousands
of American lives every single year.
The only way that we as a
nation can even begin to tackle the
complex issue that is gun violence
in our country is to understand its
roots — a task that is impossible
without comprehensive data and
scientific studies. Without this
data we are fighting a losing battle,
lives will continue to be lost and
we as a nation will be no closer
to having any real solutions, or
even a meaningful discussion for
that matter. While we continue to
squabble and bicker over who is to
blame, innocent people are dying,
and I can guarantee you that
each and every life lost is much
more than a mere statistic to the
loved ones of the deceased. We
owe it to these victims and their
families to do everything in our
power to figure out why this type
of bloodshed continues to occur. I
strongly urge you to contact your
state representatives and let them
know that you support repealing
the Dickey Amendment. Trying
to save lives should be bipartisan.
JEFF
BROOKS
Jeff Brooks can be reached at
brooksjs@umich.edu
JEFF BROOKS | COLUMN
FRANNIE MILLER | CONTACT FRANNIE AT FRMILLER@UMICH.EDU