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Daft feminist defends shouting down pro-life speaker
by Scott Gilbreath ~ March 4th, 2009
Mark Mercer has alerted me to “an ugly article/interview” in the new issue of The Journal, student newspaper at Saint Mary’s University. Holly Taylor offers a breathless defence of the small group of anti-free speech hooligans who shouted down pro-life speaker Jojo Ruba last month.
Ms Taylor’s “defence” is full of faulty assumptions, erroneous arguments, and dumb mistakes. The unnamed SMU Journal reporter who conducted the interview is complicit for failing to challenge her foolishness.
Taylor cites as precedent SMU’s cowardly decision to cancel a debate between former philosophy professor Peter March and alleged racist Jared Taylor in March 2007, but she gets crucial facts wrong. According to her, the university cancelled the debate “in an effort to protect students from the pain and suffering that is inflicted by the promotion of hate speech”; but that’s not what SMU said about it. The SMU press release she herself quotes refers only to “high security risks and potential threat to both our campus community and to visitors”.
The press release also says this:
The University remains committed to academic freedom, diversity of opinion, and supports open debate in a forum that does not put the personal safety of our community at risk.
Taylor does not allege that Mr Ruba’s presentation endangered anyone’s “personal safety”, so the press release that she relies on as justification does not actually support last month’s display of anti-free speech fascism.
The Journal: Let us know, in more detail, the reason for you believing the talk was discriminatory.
Holly: As per the Canadian Human Rights Act, we are guaranteed the right to be free from discrimination, which is defined within the act as follows:
Prohibition of discrimination
“For the purpose of this Act, a person discriminates where the person makes a distinction, whether intentional or not, based on a characteristic, or perceived characteristic, referred to in clauses (h) to (v) of subsection (1) of Section 5 that has the effect of imposing burdens, obligations or disadvantages on an individual or a class of individuals not imposed upon others or which withholds or limits access to opportunities, benefits and advantages available to other individuals or classes of individuals in society”
5 (1) No person shall in respect of [emphasis hers]
(f) a publication, broadcast or advertisement; discriminate against an individual or class of individuals on account of
(m) sex; http://www.gov.ns.ca/legislature/legc/statutes/humanrt.htm
Hello! She refers to the Canadian Human Rights Act, but quotes from and links to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act. Does she know what she’s talking about?
In any case, taking the law into one’s own hands by presumptively shouting down a speaker is not one of the legal remedies set forth in the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act. One must lodge a complaint with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, which will decide if the complaint is worthy of further action.
She calls Ruba a racist because he cites Martin Luther King, Jr, in support of anti-abortion views in what she thinks is a misleading and manipulative fashion. A racist is someone who thinks that some races are inherently inferior to others. Quoting a black man with approval is prima facie evidence that Ruba thinks blacks are equal. Taylor may disagree with Ruba’s interpretation of King’s words but, obviously, that doesn’t make Ruba a racist.
Besides, in view of Taylor’s self-serving misuse of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act, it’s a little rich for her to complain that someone else is being “misleading and manipulative”.
The interviewer points out that some pro-choice people, unlike the anti-free speech protestors, followed Ruba off campus, heard his presentation, and then engaged him in debate afterwards. Why didn’t Taylor do that?
We chose not to engage in debate with him as a symbolic action, in an effort to send a strong, clear message that we would not accept the delivery of hate speech in our university. We chose to defend our human rights by refusing the delivery of his verbal and pictorial assaults. Having done extensive research about the group, the presenter and their harassment tactics, we were not willing to be abused by such accusations. He is challenging women’s right to control their own bodies by likening them to Nazis, and that issue is not up for debate when it is being promoted as an educational seminar.
Is it possible to proclaim more plainly one’s contempt for freedom of speech? Taylor has appointed herself Kommissar of SMU. If she doesn’t agree with you, she and her stormtroopers reserve the right to prevent you from speaking.
She is daft, and her anti-free speech stance is contrary to everything a decent university stands for.
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March 4th, 2009 at 08:36 PM
Good post Scott. Interesting that Holly Taylor objects to quoting Martin Luther King Jr. in support of the unborn, when Dr. Alveda King, who has had several abortions herself, quotes her uncle in exactly the same way with the same purpose.
Sooner (hopefully) or later, Ms. Taylor will learn to do her homework. (Would that not be requisite for obtaining a degree?)
March 5th, 2009 at 09:46 AM
These feminists who shout down people whom they don’t wish to hear, are simply afraid of hearing real facts that might just show them to be in the wrong. Her refusal to engage Mr. Ruba in discussion is evidence of her unwillingness to listen to anyone’s point of view but her own. Everything is a foregone conclusion for such people. Hopefully, she will be stopped in her tracks before she decides to run for politics or some such thing as that.
March 6th, 2009 at 05:51 PM
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