The University of Wisconsin System recently passed a free speech policy that campus chancellors are supposed to enforce but yet, they are still blocking people to speak up. To be more specific, a selective number of people are not able to perform free speech, specifically an adult film star.
Joe Gow, chancellor, and professor at the La Crosse campus got in trouble by Ray Cross, university system president, for inviting actress Nina Hartley for giving a talk called, “Fantasy Versus Reality: Viewing Adult Media With a Critical Eye” at the campus. Despite the event being a success, someone was definitely not happy with it.
Cross did appreciate what Gow’s doing but he believes that he needed “to exercise better judgment when dealing with matters such as these.” So, what does this mean? Is he basically implying that people can have free speech except for adult film stars? He doesn’t like seeing women being successful in typical non-white collar jobs? Let’s break it down.
Cross was not happy that Gow went public with the event especially towards the press where people will know about the talk and also made a big deal about how Gow used money from the school for “a one-sided lecture by an ‘[adult entertainment] performer, educator, and activist’” that apparently, puts all their funding “at risk.”
Let’s remind ourselves that this all happened during “free speech week.” How ironic.
Why do institutions constantly say they’re all about free speech when they stopped a feminist that advocates for sex education and free expression, about the relationship between pornography and human trafficking, to give an educational talk? She has written a book and has been doing talks at other campuses as well. Clearly, she’s just doing her job, but yet people are still against it.
This is clearly demeaning to someone like Hartley. She is just doing her job but yet she gets treated like crap because her career isn’t exactly PG13. It’s a university for god sake. College students are not children.
In this era we’re all living in, giving people the space to talk about sex, porn and anything that’s deemed R-rated are topics to be talked about and it’s expected to be supported considering people are either misinformed or people only know misconceptions about topics like safe sex, consent, and many more. Talks like these are to be encouraged, instead of being silenced considering sexual violence are prevalent in most university campuses. According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), sexual violence is more prevalent at college compared to other crimes like robbery. People like Hartley is what college campuses need today.
Sexual freedom is a human right. As Hartley said, “This harms students by stunting their critical engagement on an important topic for which a college education is supposed to prepare them.” Cross, out of all people should know better. Instead of worrying about the campus’ image, worry about the well-being of your college campus community.
This editorial piece is written for AJRL475Z Opinion/Column Writing class of Spring 2020.
Comments