[Previously, on this topic, at WEJB/NSU:
“The Campus Rape Myth”;
“According to the Obama Administration and Feminist Scholars, Coeds Get Sexually Assaulted on Campus Over 100 Times as Often as Women Not Attending College!”;
“Feminist/Eunuch U.: Wesleyan University Uses Campus Rape Hoax Hysteria to Impose Death Penalty on All Campus-Based Fraternities”;
“Read the Eye-Opening Article that Forbes’ Feminists and PC Eunuchs Sent Down the Memory Hole, and Whose Author They Immediately Fired”;
“Rape Culture: An Honest Definition”;
“Totalitarian Feminists Seek to Force Every Faculty Member in Every Class to Make a Loyalty Oath to the Over 20-Year-Old Campus Rape Hoax, and the Even Older Feminist Power Structure”;
“Obama: ‘It’s on Us’ to Spread the Lies of the Campus Rape Hoax!”;
“Meet Rose Douthat: ‘Conservative’ New York Times Columnist, Heretofore Known as Ross Douthat, Has Had a Sex-Change Operation, and Now Supports Feminist Campus Rape Hoax”; and
“George Will on the Campus Rape Crisis Hoax.”]
By Nicholas Stix
[I learned the phrase “pussywhipped” from a longtime, feminist girlfriend in a previous life. She later married a pussywhipped communist.
I posted the following essay, and two other statements as comments at Minding the Campus; they were all sent down the memory hole. If nothing else, MC has helped maintain my title as America’s most censored writer.]
Recent years have seen one “conservative” individual and organization after another surrender to the forces of racial socialism. Having read TFS’ official non-response (see below), and Ron Coleman’s spirited defense of cowardice (ditto), I have to conclude that The Federalist Society is yet another such organization.
Considering the gutting of the U.S. Constitution by socialists, communists, black supremacists, homosexualists and reconquistas on the Supreme Court and the federal bench over the past 60 years, and the demographic gutting and gleichschaltung of the American people, the document is hanging by a thread. Increasingly, rhetorical defenses of constitutionalism sound like articles of unconditional surrender.
Young and not-so-young patriots are now left with the alternative of Quislingism vs. white nationalism/white supremacism/neo-Nazism.
Thirty years ago in the Bavarian Alps, a German businesswoman of a certain age, who immediately made me for a Jew said, apropos of nothing, “Wir haben nichts gewußt” (“We didn’t know”). Other good Germans famously said after The War,
“Wir haben es nicht gewollt” (“We didn’t want it to happen”). Twenty or 30 years from now, how many TFS “conservatives” will be singing the same song?
What is the point of joining and even leading an organization dedicated to the defense of liberty, only to plead that defending liberty is too dangerous? At this point, liberty would be better off without such false friends. Better to shutter The Federalist Society.
I’m a natural-born coward, and I have no organization behind me pledged to the defense of liberty, but my Jewish forbears fled pogroms and hatred. They became fanatical patriots, and their children fought and killed and died for this country. They worshiped the religion of Americanism. I owe them, my wife and son, and the memory of George Washington, et al., better than, ‘Fighting to save liberty is too risky.’
N.S. to the Federalist Society’s response: I came to this response with an open mind. I carry no water for Cathy Young. In fact, I don’t even like her. But you have made her case for her.
Greg McNeal
October 20, 2014 at 6:40 pm
“I’m sure the Federalist Society will have a response. It’s sad that a credible organization like The Manhattan Institute would run a one-sided piece of commentary without first soliciting the other side. Hence my comment that this is “one half of the story.” I’m not about to abandon my support of an organization that has always supported conservative and libertarian principles and values on the say so of one commentator.
“I’ll reserve judgment until I hear both sides of the story.”
N.S.: Why did you post this statement? If you wanted to reserve judgment, you should have done so. Instead, you acted like the subliminal liar character from Saturday Night Live, and said one thing, and contradicted it. You didn’t reserve judgment at all. You attacked Young in a cowardly way, without any facts or argument, before saying you would make no statement, as if that would shield you from criticism.
If you have nothing to say, say nothing.
The Federalist Society Caves to “Rape Culture” Orthodoxy
By Cathy YoungOctober 19, 2014, 6:29 p.m.
Minding the Campus
55 Comments
George Will’s scheduled October 22 appearance at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio has drawn protests from those angered by his June column questioning the campus culture of victimhood and the anti-rape crusade. Anita Manur, director of the school’s Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies program, argued that Will’s commentary could “re-victimize and re-traumatize some of our students.” Likewise, when Scripps College decided to cancel a talk by Will, its president Lori Bettison-Varga noted that “sexual assault is … too important to be trivialized in a political debate.” In other words, debating the definition of sexual assault or the statistics on its prevalence is beyond the pale of acceptable speech.
Thanks to the efforts of the academic left, this view is increasingly prevalent on college campuses. However, some right-of-center organizations now seem terrified of challenging rape-culture orthodoxy. My personal encounter with this development involves the Federalist Society, the venerable national association of conservative and libertarian lawyers, law professors and students.
I first joined the Federalist Society’s speakers’ bureau in 1999. Over the years, I spoke at the student chapters of numerous schools including UCLA, Stanford, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, and Georgetown, on topics ranging from various gender issues— feminism and the law, the politics of rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment—to religious liberty and international relations.
Not surprisingly, sometimes there was controversy, especially around topics related to sexual violence. Once, flyers advertising my talk at UCLA Law School were torn down and I ended up with an audience of four or five people. In 2009, a couple of weeks before my event at American University Law School titled, “Presumed Guilty? Rape, Feminism, and False Accusations,” the organizer warned me that the Women’s Law Association was planning a protest (their email summed up my talk as “Slut Blaming and Shaming”). It turned out to be an entirely civil affair; the protesters handed out brochures and asked pointed and occasionally hostile questions, but all within the bounds of reasonable debate. Afterwards, ironically, a female faculty member who had attended as a protestor told me that she completely agreed about the danger of undermining the presumption of innocence for sex crimes.
Four years later, in March 2013, a talk on a similar topic at St. Louis University School of Law turned out to be more contentious. It took place days after the verdict in the emotionally charged Steubenville rape trial; the promotional poster for the event, which stated that 41 percent of rape accusations are false (a figure from one study which I have never used as definitive) probably added fuel to the fire. When I arrived at the school, the student organizing the event told me the chapter’s faculty advisor had demanded to join in as my opponent—which was fine with me, though I found his tone during the debate confrontational to the point of discourtesy (at point he described my argument as “puerile”).
A few days later, Federalist Society president Eugene Meyer called to discuss the negative reactions to my talk and bluntly told me he was very anxious to avoid anything that might tar the organization with the “Republican war on women” brush. (He was taken aback when I informed him that the event also featured another viewpoint; the people who complained had neglected to mention that.) I told Meyer that I thought this was partly a matter of overly provocative advertising and partly of timing, and assured him that I always discussed this issue with the sensitivity it warrants. I believe he suggested avoiding the topic for the rest of the spring semester; I agreed.
In September and October, I gave several talks at law schools in Kentucky and in Minnesota, some of them dealing with sexual assault. These events went quite well; I even got thank-you notes from officers of two of three Minnesota chapters that had hosted me, saying they would recommend me to their successors for next year’s program.
Imagine my shock when, on November 11, Meyer called out of the clear blue to inform me that the Federalist Society had to drop me from the list of approved speakers due to extremely negative feedback from people who had attended the latest events and found them offensive. I was unable to find out any specifics—how many people complained, or what had offended them—except for one detail which turned out to be a blatant falsehood: supposedly, at one of the Minnesota events, my remarks had prompted a mass walkout. It occurred to me that this was probably someone’s creative spin on the mundane fact that a number of students had to leave during the question-and-answer period to go to class. Meyer said I was probably right and promised to take another look at the issue. For the time being, however, I was told not only to refuse any future invitations but to cancel several already scheduled events for that semester and the spring of 2014.
Meyer told me that he agreed I was raising important issues but perhaps there was something about my presentation that “triggered negative reactions.” I don’t claim to be a stellar speaker, but I’m fairly sure I’m not a particularly inflammatory one. Indeed, I always made sure to preface my critiques of “rape-crisis feminism” by noting that feminist anti-rape activism arose in the 1970s in response to real injustices, from rape convictions being overturned because the victim didn’t fight back enough to the use of “unchaste character” to impeach a woman’s credibility. Since one of my planned events was in Washington, D.C., where the Federalist Society’s national office is based, I suggested that Meyer or another official could attend and see for themselves. That suggestion was turned down. All in all, I got a clear message that the topics themselves were unwelcome; at one point, Meyer said that the phrase “false accusations of rape” should never have appeared in the title of an event.
A few days later I wrote to Peter Redpath, head of the society’s student division, to see if there was any chance of reversing the decision—at the very least, of letting me complete my already scheduled engagements. Redpath replied that Meyer’s decision was final and that part of the problem was that they had been consistently receiving “below average to lukewarm” reviews on my events for a while. His email concluded with the words, “And with this particular topic, there really can be no room for error due to the sensitivity of the issue. I hope you understand the position we’re in.”
Obviously, I have no idea what kind of reviews I had been getting—though a number of chapters that hosted me went on to invite me back. I can also say with certainty that the subject of poor feedback had never come up in my previous conversations with Meyer or other Federalist Society officers. During a conversation in the fall of 2012, there had been a passing mention of concern about low attendance at some of my events; however, that had not been a problem recently.
As a postscript, several months later a law student at a West Coast school who was very interested in having me speak at his chapter contacted the national office to ask if they might approve the event. They did not. After a fourteen-year relationship, I was blacklisted so thoroughly that you’d think I had showed up for a talk visibly drunk, or had used racial or sexual slurs.
I know that this isn’t a free speech issue. The Federalist Society, like any other organization, is within its rights to decide what speakers to sponsor. There was no breach of contract, only of basic courtesy. Yet, given that the society’s mission statement says it is “dedicated to fostering balanced and open debate about the fundamental principles of freedom, federalism, and the role of the judiciary,” its willingness to cave to those who would stifle debate is distressing—all the more so when the subject of that debate is an assault on the fundamental principles of freedom and justice.
Comments by Ron Coleman, and responses to him:
Ron Coleman
October 21, 2014 at 1:04 p.m.
This reminds of me of all the armchair quarterbacks who insist that Israel should “stop pussyfooting around” and “take care of the problem” and “wipe out” its enemies. It’s so easy to be aggressive and bold when you’re playing with someone else’s money.
I’m also a former Federalist Society chapter president. The Society, like any other organization, is entitled to rank its preservation and the benefits of its members high up in its lit of priorities. Now, when universities and other wealthy, powerful institutions cave in to bullying and intimidation, that’s one thing. They can’t credibly claim to face an existential threat from the sort of juvenile antics employed by those who wish to shut down debate. The only threat they face is the constriction of their political and social comfort.
But the Society is not that. The student members who organize and host speakers are just law students, a notably endangered species in terms of employment prospects. When the speaker leaves, the students who have hosted the event remain, and to the extent a given campus or law school environment makes it possible for a Society chapter or its leadership or members to be personally subjected to intimidation, that isn’t the speaker’s problem any more. But it is the problem for the students, and if you think this doesn’t bubble up into the employment calculus, you’re kidding yourself. I myself nearly lost a job offer because of my Society leadership — and things were not nearly so rabid as the “rape culture” people have made campuses today.
The Society itself won’t be harmed by such nasty games. It has long suffered abuse from ideologues who would never dream of allowing even a small slice of the broad range of opinion the Society invites and promotes in law schools and elsewhere in public debate. But it does owe its student members and volunteers an obligation not to have their efforts on the Society’s behalf blow up in their faces and to risk their remaining time in law school, much less their professional futures.
I don’t know that these concerns were what motivated Gene Meyer to make these decisions, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were. It’s a shame that despite the past opportunities afforded to her by the Federalist Society, Cathy Young considered the loss of future public platforms, honoraria and travel stipends to be worth “calling out” the Society’s leadership and taking the position that this private organization — which owes her nothing in terms of explanations or justification — is part of a conspiracy, acting dishonestly or is otherwise not worthy of simple gratitude for the past and the benefit of the doubt about a complex future — and not only hers.
Brian Knight
October 21, 2014 at 2:25 p.m.
This whole analysis seems problematic. If Ms. Young’s content was substandard, or needlessly inflammatory, or otherwise deficient the Fed Soc. should remove her as a speaker for those reasons. If however removing her is being driven by law students being extorted and coerced by the school/their fellow students/possible employers the answer to that is not to give in, or provide a (for now) “acceptable” alternative, it is to expose and fight that coercion.
Ron Coleman
October 21, 2014 at 4:10 p.m.
Again, that’s great rhetoric. It might even be a good idea for the Society in the abstract. But reading between the lines, I perceive that student leaders — not the professionals — are being hurt, and don’t have the capital or the appetite to “expose and fight” it while also trying to get their degrees and get a job.
Brian Knight
October 21, 2014 at 6:02 p.m.
Isn’t that one of the major points of an organization like the Fed Soc? I understand Joe and Jane 2L don’t want to rock the boat but the Fed Soc as a whole sure could. It can fight that fight without revealing the specific student and drawing on considerable national resources. That is if it has the will and a belief it should support its members and its own future.
If the problem isn’t Young being wrong or incompetent and instead that students must cower in fear less their affiliation with Fed Soc and its beliefs cause them to get fired/not hired/harassed lets just shut the whole thing down and spend the money that would go to dues and donations somewhere where they might do students and the country some good. Heck, lets burn the money so that it at least produces heat.
Frederick Whatley
October 21, 2014 at 2:42 p.m.
” I myself nearly lost a job offer because of my Society leadership — and things were not nearly so rabid as the ‘rape culture’ people have made campuses today.”
Well, you certainly do give a wonderful rationale for knuckling under. Free speech advocates everywhere are very proud.
Ron Coleman
October 21, 2014 at 4:12 p.m.
You’re a big sport, Fred! At the end of the day, in fact, I would not have done anything differently. But not everyone is as idealistic as you and I are. These kids are already taking that risk, and I applaud them for it. That doesn’t mean there are no limits, however.
(Of course you are aware that this is not a “free speech” issue.)
Bob
October 21, 2014 at 2:58 p.m.
Your comment makes me incredibly sad. Why does the organization exist if not to take bold stands?
Ron Coleman
October 21, 2014 at 4:30 p.m.
Please don’t be sad. That will only make the rest of us sad, too!
You can read about why the Federalist Society exists here:
http://www.fed-soc.org/aboutus/ “Taking bold stands” is not, per se, part of the mission, yet it has surely done so for decades.
Taking the specific “bold stand” you or Cathy Young want it to take, the way you want it to take it, and regardless of the effect doing so might have on others, however, is something else. And it could be — remember, I’m only speculating; I don’t know a thing — but it could be that this something else is not a good choice based on what the organization’s goals, per that link, are. Those may require decisions that are actually more complex or nuanced [!] than the tough-guy postures usually favored by anonymous blog commenters or even bloggers themselves.
WesternJoe
October 21, 2014 at 9:04 p.m.
What is the point of standing for something if you aren’t willing to defend it. You and The Federalist Society sound like homas Paine’s “summer soldiers” who are willing to fight only when it’s convenient or victory is certain. Once The Federalist Society put popular approval and political expediency above their beliefs, they betrayed those beliefs and showed that they have no integrity.
You say that The Federalist Society won’t be harmed; yet it has been. I will join others who now see the society as phonies and will no longer trust anything they say or publish. Without immediate change in national leadership, any student chapter with any integrity will cut their ties with the national organization as will any speakers or politicians.
The Federalist Society Responds to Cathy Young
The Federalist SocietyOctober 21, 2014
49 Comments
The Federalist Society aims to host programs on law school campuses and elsewhere on important and controversial legal topics by offering top libertarian and conservative thinkers a small speaking fee and defraying their travel expenses.
Cathy Young recently posted a piece [see above] objecting to our decision no longer to include her on the list of speakers we [permit] encourage our student chapters to invite in this manner. We had included her initially because we appreciate her columns and her willingness to tackle important and controversial topics, often from a perspective that is insufficiently heard.
As anyone familiar with the Federalist Society knows, we don’t shy away from controversy, and we continue to host events with speakers on the range of topics that Ms. Young claims we are unwilling to address, including “Civil Rights on Campus,” a featured topic at our largest event of the year, the upcoming Lawyers Convention, an event last month with Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute and others in Los Angeles on “The Campus Sexual Assault Epidemic” and one featuring an extended discussion of this question by Civil Rights Commissioner and Professor Gail Heriot at our panel on “Passion and Prudence in The Political Process: The debate Over Civil Rights Policy.” (Commissioner Heriot’s remarks begin at the 9:08 mark).
We appreciate Ms. Young’s contributions to the public debate on these questions. But based on feedback from Federalist Society student chapter members who had invited her because they were eager to hear her point of view, at the present time we are opting to recommend other individuals (who share Young’s basic perspective) to debate and speak about these issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment