N othing ruins a spring day quite like an anti-abortion display, complete with photos of aborted fetuses and Holocaust victims. The display was graphic, tasteless and logically absurd, but what was most offensive about the scenario was the piece of paper taped to the ground asking, “Should this be allowed?” I hope that was a rhetorical question, because the answer should be unequivocally, “yes.”
UNC has an unfortunately tenuous relationship with controversial speech. The administration gets a “yellow” rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, as they find that the University’s speech code is ambiguous and “encourages abuse and arbitrary application .” During the anti-abortion display though, the administration acted with commendable restraint, warning students of the graphic images and posting police officers to monitor the situation.
Surprisingly and dishearteningly, students are the main offenders. The very nature of the question posed on the ground — whether the anti-abortion display should be permitted at all — attached a normative judgment where none belonged. While the student body was understandably united in its revulsion, the anti-abortion display was perfectly appropriate.
The sentiment that material like the anti-abortion display shouldn’t be allowed on campus speaks to the progressive impulse to silence opposition rather than engage it. This makes sense in a perverse way: Even the term “progressivism” implies that everything else is just backward. Let’s not forget that when former congressman Tom Tancredo came to speak about illegal immigration here in 2009, progressive protesters ran him off of campus after five minutes .
Similarly this time, campus progressive groups couldn’t leave the ridiculous display alone, only adding to the absurdity with drums and interpretive dance.
Ideally, the counter-protests would have led to a dialogue that very clearly explained that the word “genocide” refers to the targeted killing of an entire people, not just individual fetuses. The anti-abortion group would benefit by no longer looking foolish, and the progressives could feel good about positively interfering in peoples’ lives for once.
But back to the question on the ground. Nearly all respondents said, “no,” the display shouldn’t be allowed on campus . Combined with anecdotal data from social media, the prevailing opinion was firmly against allowing such controversial demonstrations. At its core, this sentiment is childish — as opposed to engaging the blatant illogic of the display, many chose to look to the parental figure that is the administration to remove the offending images. And that’s just sad.
For a school that prides itself as a Public Ivy, the idea to ban controversial displays is embarrassingly contrary to intellectual ideals. The good news is that, with the weather warming up and various activists coming out of hibernation, we’ll have plenty of chances to redeem ourselves.
