David Lat offers the basics regarding NYU Law either canceling (FIRE’s version) or, at a minimum, refusing to schedule for October 7th (NYU’s version) a Federalist Society talk by Ilya Shapiro, of the Manhattan Institute, formerly a reputable think tank that has since been irreparably damaged by donor pressure. (Shapiro is also the person who has made some of the most fervent arguments justifying deporting Canadian visa-holders as a threat to American values and policies, although he unfortunately doesn’t specify Canadians.) He draws substantially on reporting by Aaron Sibarium of the Washington Free Beacon, a good reporter who long ago should have been poached, for the good of readers and possibly for his own good, by a major mainstream paper. David offers his thoughts on why he thinks the event would have gone fine; I find them unduly optimistic.
The reporting suggests that NYU sought to move the date because of concerns about “an increased likelihood of demonstrations and protests connected to the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, incidents in Gaza.” Leaving aside the tendentious wording–a valid criticism, but that focus is also Twitter-level discourse and there’s no need to encourage it–suppose the concerns were justified. Suppose, moreover, that the Federalist Society and/or Shapiro chose that date precisely because it would draw attention and anger. A more charitable version of that supposition is that they chose that date because it mattered to them that the event–which was to focus on campus speech and anti-semitism–be held on the anniversary of the murders and kidnappings that occurred on that date. This seems more than plausible. After all, the reason that they might care about holding it on October 7th is the same reason that others might care about their not holding it on that date. But suppose they chose it precisely because they knew it was guaranteed to draw protests (and publicity, and the attendant opportunities for reputational or financial profit–and the chance to draw a regulatory target on NYU’s chest).
With all due respect to NYU’s desire not to incur possibly significant costs or stay out of the limelight, surely that is all the more reason to agree to host the event on that date. Whether one applauds or condemns holding the event on October 7th, and whether the hosts (or the anticipated protesters) were or would be acting out of the purest of motives or precisely because they saw any craziness that might ensue as a great opportunity, clearly the date has immense expressive significance, in the same way that a talk about voting rights or resistance to injustice–or celebrating the anticipated loss of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or talking about the illegitimacy of civil disobedience–has a different meaning if delivered on the third Monday of January or postponed until the following Wednesday. NYU’s bland statement that it would have been and still is happy to find an alternate date strikes me as inadequate and as missing the point.
One may well sympathize with the administrators. Things might go badly on the day despite their and most everyone’s best efforts; even if they did their best to act in a way consistent with free speech values, opportunists on any side might well make hay with events on the ground; and even if everything went well, the expense might be significant. But institutions right now are choking on “prudence.” Sometimes their duty is to bear the cost, damn the consequences, and hit the gas–just as it is sometimes their duty to then discipline, suspend, or expel those who violate basic campus rules in their choice of protest tactics.
As a semi-aside, I doubt that Shapiro will say anything especially interesting and thoughtful, not because of him specifically or personally but simply because I doubt that most invited speakers on American campuses say anything especially interesting and thoughtful. Universities are an academic enterprise, not mini-poleis or entertainment centers. Most speakers on campus, some of whom are paid absurd amounts, are banal, with the key difference being whether they are banal and controversial (say, Milo Yiannopoulos) or banal and uncontroversial (say, Chelsea Clinton). Student groups choose speakers for events in the same way that they choose which food to order–with an eye more to who will put asses in seats than to who will say something intellectually original and rewarding. Universities should not grant or withdraw permission according to the politics of a speaker or whether he or she will be “controversial.” But it’s not clear to me that they can’t or shouldn’t reconsider the whole college-speaker-industrial complex.