This Letter to the Editor was submitted by Tom Vosganian, political director of BC Democrats.
A lot goes on during October at Boston College. After an embarrassing—and admittedly predictable—loss to UConn, students entered the heart of midterm season with fleeting free time. With what little time they had, music and dance clubs prepared for performances, students threw together Halloween costumes, and a myriad of October plot twists likely passed by with no time to reflect. On Monday, October 20th, members of Boston College Republicans cut into their free time by gathering for one of their weekly meetings. I’ve never had the pleasure of attending a Boston College Republicans meeting, and apparently I missed out on a good one. As everyone knows by now, the club hosted Nick Solheim of American Moment to give a talk in which he made a series of ridiculous claims such as “[t]here are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in this country who would kill you…” to enact an agenda of “…open borders, sex changes for minors, so-called gay marriages, health care for illegal immigrants, and so on.”
Maybe I’m more desensitized than most of my liberal-to-left-leaning friends, but I wasn’t particularly shocked when I read about this; I was honestly more surprised at how shocked everyone else was—reposting the Heights article to Instagram stories, starting arguments on Fizz, and talking about the event outside of class. BC Democrats was quick to respond, posting a condemnation nearing one thousand likes on Instagram. I run in mostly left-wing circles, but here at BC and back home, I’ve got quite a few friends who would nod in total agreement with Solheim’s remarks—presumably between twitches of his eye and assurances of his mental stability. Regardless, I hope that if anything, the last week has taught the BC student body a crucial political lesson: for the last few decades, the Republican Party has been a completely unsalvageable coalition of economic oligarchs, “patriotic” imperialists, and reactionary doomsday preppers funded by an industry driving ecological destruction. And I hope the Boston College administration allows them to remind us of that in the future.
As I said, I’ve got a lot of right-wing friends. We agree on next to nothing. Despite this, we recognize that if we want to voice our opinions around each other, we’d better be more than able to justify them. Boston College’s response to Solheim’s talk and the university’s general speech codes do not allow such natural dialogue. Three days after Solheim spoke, the Heights wrote that an investigation was underway with the potential to revoke certain privileges from BC Republicans. I haven’t been following it, and although I don’t expect it to go anywhere, I’m opposed to it. The administration and student body shouldn’t care if BCR violated a code of conduct aimed at enforcing a centrist fantasy of civil discourse on campus; they should be aware of BCR’s political positions and how they propagate them. For years, BC has used these bureaucratic procedures to justify the official existence of a group that supports the party of mass deportation, military aggression in Latin America & the Middle East, and exploitation of the working class, while denying the official existence of groups for justice in Palestine. Before October 20th, BC and its community accepted the myth that there was anything legitimate or respectable about the Republican Party. Of course, none of this should be interpreted as a rallying cry for the Democrats and their party apparatus—I look forward to Representative Seth Moulton’s attempts to stand up to the scrutiny of BC Progressives at a future College Democrats meeting—but rather as a reminder of how free speech should work at a university.
The same night as Solheim spoke, another political event occurred on campus. In the Fulton Honors Library, an organization called Braver Angels hosted a dialogue on how college campuses can best practice free speech. Such conversations are important, but I quickly realized why BC actually allowed the event to happen. The moderator enforced parliamentary procedure for speakers and questioners, while those who spoke tended to dance around issues of actual substance; only two mentioned Palestine, a specific area of improvement for BC’s free speech environment. Events like these help attending students show professors and peers how articulate they are outside of class, rather than promote interesting and subversive speech. A consistent theme was the issue of self-censorship, which I suppose may increase after the backlash to BCR’s meeting. It’s worth remembering—and I’m sure many in BCR would agree—that free speech comes at a price; as much as one has the right to speak, one has the responsibility to justify their views to public scrutiny.
Public scrutiny does not engage in parliamentary procedure; that would make it too easy for ridiculous views to defend themselves. True or false, eloquent or vulgar, all claims should expect questions, comments, and rebuttals to come as a volley of arrows, and be ready to logically defend themselves. This can be overwhelming and complicated, but it’s incumbent upon the first speaker to sort through opposing arguments and formulate a response. In the case of BC Republicans, they promoted a false and vulgar message. They received public scrutiny. Unfortunately, during the time in which they should have been defending themselves, they disavowed their own speaker as the university launched its investigation. Some might see this as BCR getting what they deserve, but the administration has set a new price for free speech—a price that absolves BCR of the responsibility to defend themselves.
As the university has intervened, they’ve effectively established two principles going forward: first, that political clubs that facilitate any remotely inflammatory speech will be disciplined, and second, that fellow students won’t need to respond because the university will simply do it for them. Of course, there are a myriad of reasons why BC would stifle certain speech—donors, bad publicity, and more—and they’re more than able to do so as a private institution; but a university environment in which the strongest responses to speech come from the administration does a disservice to students whom they purportedly prepare for the real world. The next time BCR invites a far-right political operative to deliver his misinformed ravings, BC Democrats won’t have to initiate serious dialogue or actively promote their party brand; the administration will release their own, more authoritative condemnation. Again, I’m not intimately familiar with the inner-workings of BCR, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were already adding the past week’s events to the canon of the conservative victim complex; if university policy continues, they’ll have ample opportunity to do so in the future.
Broadly speaking, BC needs to improve its culture surrounding free speech; there are plenty of articles in this publication that propose how to do so. Specific to BC Republicans however, there are two straightforward solutions: the university needs to accept the cost of permitting a college chapter of a right-wing party on campus, and left-of-center students need to voice their opposition to right-wing politics. As someone on the left, I take it for granted that the Republican Party has long been a war-mongering legion of plutocrats that traffics in open bigotry; I prefer to spend my time criticizing Democrats for being too similar. Nevertheless, not everyone tortures themselves with politics as much as I do, which is why they need the opportunity to see political parties expose themselves for what they are. I look forward to BCR’s next speaker, whether it be renowned opponent of the age of consent Matt Walsh, self-titled “Nihilist Prince” Curtis Yarvin, or whoever attempts to replace the late Charlie Kirk. I’ll be happy to hear what they say and explain why it’s all nonsense. But more importantly, when the next speaker comes, I hope BCR only has to deal with backlash from the student body, and not the administration.
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