Inside Higher Ed | Mill, Mao and Socrates Inside Higher Ed The alt-right is characterized as a movement of white resentment. It is usually seen by liberals as drawing from the ranks of the white working class, left behind by an increasingly globalized economy. And yet within the highest echelons of academe ... |
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Mill, Mao and Socrates - Inside Higher Ed
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau broke a major election campaign promise out of fear of the alt-right.In the 2015 federal election campaign, Trudeau pledged it would be the last time the country used the traditional first-past-the-post, winner take all electoral system. Trudeau promised electoral reform, with some variant of proportional representation where parties are represented by the exact percentage of the vote they receive.
As CBC reports, according to comments Friday from an unnamed senior cabinet minister close to the prime minister, Trudeau increasingly came to believe that proportional representation would allow for the emergence of right-wing extremists and white supremacists.
The government announced the end of electoral reform on Wednesday but not with a news release or statement. It rewrote the mandate for the minister of democratic institutions with a line indicating that changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate.
The veiled revelation as soon as reporters discovered it sent shock waves through the Parliamentary press gallery as Trudeau had regularly reiterated his commitment to change the electoral system in his first 15 months as prime minister.
The anonymous source claims that Trudeau reversed his position at a recent cabinet retreat in Calgary because the more he thought about proportional representation, the more he thought it was exactly the wrong system for a big, regionally and culturally diverse country.
The official opposition Conservatives, never huge advocates of Trudeaus electoral reform, were only critical of Trudeaus flip-flop on the issue. Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose told reporters that Canadians should think twice about believing what Justin Trudeau says.
In the House,Trudeausaid reform might produce an augmentation of extremist voices in the House. Critics of proportional representation often cite the pre-Nazi Weimar Republic as an example of how the system bolsters party extremism.
Most of the Liberal cabinet was opposed to changing the way Canadians elect their Members of Parliament, with many critics wondering why they apparently did not bother to voice their dissent until now.
Although any changes would have been subject to a national referendum on the issue, Trudeau is said to have rejected that course as well because it could divide the country.
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Trudeau Fears 'Alt-Right' Will Benefit From Electoral Reform - Daily Caller
White nationalist political views are harder to find on Reddit this week, after the site that bills itself as the "front page of the Internet" banned two subforums for violating terms of service.
The banned forums, called subreddits, are r/altright and r/alternativeright. They went dark on Wednesday morning and now redirect to a landing page that reads: "This subreddit was banned due to a violation of our content policy, specifically, the proliferation of personal and confidential information."
That explanation likely refers to the practice of "doxing:" publishing details like home phone numbers and addresses of people whom the online community wants to shame. The doxing episode that may have precipitated the ban was the release of personal information identifying the protester who punched a white supremacist during a demonstration at President Trump's inauguration last month, The Verge reports.
Reddit did not offer more details on the specific reasons that led it to ban the subreddits, but a spokesperson explained in a statement that "we are very clear in our site terms of service that posting of personal information can get users banned from Reddit.
"We have banned r/altright due to repeated violations of the terms of our content policy," it concluded.
The site has struggled in recent months to deal with what it refers to as its "most toxic" members. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman generated controversy in November when he admitted to secretly editing posts that criticized him for banning a subreddit devoted to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Huffman apologized, and also said that Reddit would step up efforts to ban individual users who violated its policies.
This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.
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Reddit bans 'alt-right' discussion forums - Fox News
Meanwhile, UW continues to grapple with questions of what free speech really means.
Two weeks after Milo Yiannopoulos appearance at University of Washingtonoutside of whicha 32-year-old man was shot by a fan of the the Breitbart News editorUW Police Department is still investigating what happened that evening at Red Square.
On Thursday, UWPD reported that its investigation led to search warrants to identify and preserve evidence for the case. As the shootera former UW studentwas let go without being charged, the department reported that detectives are in touch with attorneys representing people who identified themselves as involved in the incident.
Due to its sensitive nature, the Court sealed the search warrants to preserve the integrity of the investigation. At this time, detectives are still identifying witnesses that may have information that is pertinent to the investigation, a statement from the department says.
But the shooting is not the only thing that seems unclear these days, as members of the UW community have been debating a hot issue following the Milo event.
Where is the line dividing free speech from hate speech?
Shon Meckfessel maintains the speech should never have taken place. Thats a stance many on campus are taking.
Milos speech is threatening and excites violence without a question, said Meckfessel, who wrote a PhD dissertation about rhetorics at UW and is now an English faculty member at Highline College. When you have acts of violence before his campus talks or as a result of his presentations, its unambiguous that his words are threatening and incite violence. That, by legal definition is the end of free speech. Theres no longer protected speech when that happens.
The debate over Yiannopoulos long preceded his arrival on campus.
A Change.org petition to ban renown bigot and misogynist Yiannopoulos appearance at UW received 4,640 signatures while 733 people backed a counter-petition asking UW president Ana Mari Cauce to allow the event in the name of free speech.
Cauce opposed Yiannopoulos rhetoric and said that his discourse stood against the universitys values and social commitment in a statement updated Jan. 6.
He generates heat, not light, and his manner of engagement is anything but civil, respectful or conducive to true dialogue across differences, of which we need more, not less Please be assured, the fact that he is speaking at our University does not mean that he in any way represents our University or our values, the statement says.
Earlier this week, she maintained that stance when confronted by a group of protesters.
I take responsibility. Theres no question, Cauce told the crowd, before saying that Yiannopoulos should have been allowed to protest. As Cauce wrote in her statement:
The right to free speech and expression is broad and allows for speech that is offensive and that most of us would consider disrespectful, and even sexist or racist. As a public university committed to the free exchange of ideas and free expression, we are obligated to uphold this right.
Kai Frenay, secretary of the UW College Republicansthe group that issued the official invitation to the controversial Breitbart mansaw bringing Yiannopoulos to UW campus as an opportunity to challenge students beliefs and learn from different perspectives.
When the campus tries to silence or shame you for those perspectives, it sort of negates the whole point, Frenay told UW Daily Nov. 3. There are a lot of things Milo says that I dont agree with. To block him though means blocking freedom of speech.
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Cops Still Mum On Shooting Outside Alt-Right Speech - Seattle Weekly
UPDATE: 1:43 PM, The article has been updated to include a statement from an NYU spokesperson
Almost a dozen people were arrested and scuffles took place at New York University on Thursday night, as a large crowd of anti-fascist protesters confronted police and white supremacists outside a short-lived event featuring a prominent member of the neo-fascist alt-right movement.
The event, hosted by NYUs College Republicans, played host to Gavin McInnis, an ousted co-founder of Vice Media and leader of the Proud Boys, a misogynist clique of internet trolls aligned with the racist identity movement known as the alt-right. The speech was cut short amid continued interruptions from protesters, who snuck into the event while dozens more confronted police and McInnis supporters outside.
McInnis is known for racist and misogynist rhetoric calling for the targeted harassment of marginalized groups. Among other things, he has compared black actress Jada Pinkett Smith to a monkey, suggested that Jewish people were ostracized for a good reason, and wrote an article titled Transphobia Is Perfectly Natural, which attempts to rationalize a false stereotype that transgender people suffer from untreated mental disorders.
McInnis was pepper-sprayed by one of the protesters while entering NYUs Kimmel Center, as the group outside blocked the sidewalk chanting Fuck White Supremacy and FTP, Fuck The Police. Shortly after, masked protesters set fire to a Make America Great Again hat that was snatched from one of McInnis supporters during a brief scuffle. Police rushed into the crowd to extinguish the flames, then unexpectedly charged into the group, grabbing and pinning protesters to the ground as the rest dispersed around the building toward a side entrance.
McInnis speech lasted less than 15 minutes before he began lashing out at NYU administrators amid constant interruptions from protesters, several people who were present told Vocativ. A student reporter for NYU Local said that McInnis called an NYU spokesperson a dumb, liberal asshole and left after the staff refused to eject the protesters.
He held the floor for some 20 mins, although he was interrupted repeatedly, said NYU spokesman John Beckman, in a statement emailed to Vocativ. The decision to end the event when he did was his own.
Beckman noted that there was no violence or arrests inside the Kimmel Center, where only students with IDs were admitted. He also claimed that the crowds of protesters outside were largely composed of non-NYU protesters.
In a tense stand-off, a small group of McInnis supporters stood near the side entrance arguing with and taunting protesters while under the protection of a large contingent of police. One of the Proud Boys, later identified as Salvador Cipolla, crossed the street and attacked a reporter from DNAinfo, aggressively posturing and yanking at the reporters press badge before being arrested by the NYPD. Another Proud Boy wearing a MAGA hat was splashed in the face with water while giving an interview to an NYU student reporter.
Many of the protesters were aligned with the anti-fascist resistance movement, or Antifa, which seeks to combat rising fascism and bigotry by directly (and sometimes violently) confronting its adherents. The movement has seen a major resurgence of activity following the rise of racist far-right groups newly emboldened by the election of Donald Trump, who has embraced racist and anti-immigrant policies during his campaign and in his two weeks as president.
The protest against McInnis comes just one day after another protest at the University of California Berkeley shut down a speech from former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos, another prominent alt-right leader. Yiannopoulos has been banned from Twitter and recently encouraged the harassment of a transgender student during a speech at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
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Anti-Fascist Protesters Shut Down 'Alt-Right' Speaker At NYU - Vocativ