[Eugene Volokh] Student group at Cal State Northridge boasts of ‘shutting down’ speech by award-winning scholar

1. From the Armenian Youth Federation, with video (see Nov. 10 post):

Armenian students at California State University Northridge (CSUN) shut down a planned lecture about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, citing historical evidence Ataturk continued Turkey’s genocidal policies and the event’s purpose to distract from the crisis in Turkey today. The lecture is a part of a series of events around Southern California in celebration of “Ataturk Week” on November 9–13, 2016.

Our presence at these events will send a clear message to the Turkish community that college and university campuses are not incubators for denialists. Treating college campuses as breeding grounds for Turkish nationalist ideology is offensive for the number of Armenian students who attend these colleges.

The Cal State Northridge Sundial reports:

Scholar George Gawrych got through no more than five sentences during his presentation on his book about Turkish army officer Mustafa Kemal Atatürk before students raised their voices in protest Thursday at the Aronstam Library in Manzanita Hall.

Over 20 protesters stood up from their seats, turned their backs on Gawrych and repeatedly chanted “Turkey guilty of genocide” and “genocide denialist.”

Gawrych waited briefly as other attendees voiced their opinions to let him speak, until he began walking up and down the aisle trying to get the protestors to face him.

Two police officers who guarded the entrance escorted Gawrych, a Baylor University Boal Ewing chair of military history, out of the library to sounds of chanting protesters.

CSUN professor Owen Doonan had “invited Gawrych to speak for the Middle Eastern Islamic Studies program.” Prof. George Gawrych’s book, “The Young Ataturk: From Ottoman Soldier to Statesman of Turkey,” won one of the Society for Military History 2014 Distinguished Book Awards. And yet it turns out that even a faculty-invited scholar with impressive credentials isn’t allowed to speak at CSUN. Naturally, no speaker should be shouted down this way, whether he wrote an award-winning book or not — but the stature of Gawrych’s work is just a reminder of how deeply the movement to suppress speech has spread at American universities. (Something similar, by the way, seems to have happened the next day at Chapman University.)

Defenders of free speech often warn of the slippery slope: Once we allow suppression even of foolish, lightweight, uneducated speakers, this will lead to suppression of serious scholars as well. Such slippery slope concerns are often pooh-poohed as a paranoid “parade of horribles.” Well, here’s the latest float in that parade, come to a university near me. And you’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you.

2. The school’s response:

Last week, a talk by visiting Professor George Gawrych was cancelled in the interest of public safety when it was determined that the event could not go on due to the student protest you referenced. Specific information about the conduct giving rise to the need to cancel the event is being gathered, and the need for further action will be determined.

CSUN is proud of its strong ties with the Armenian community, which has provided the university with the opportunity and resources to offer a distinguished and respected Armenian Studies program and serve the largest number of Armenian students at any university outside of Armenia. At the same time, and as a higher education institution committed to the values of scholarship, knowledge and the exchange of ideas, it is important for our university to be open to a wide range of visiting speakers and scholars, even those whose ideas we may disagree with.

I asked whether any disciplinary measures were expected for students who shouted down the speaker, and caused the “public safety” danger; the response was, “At this time, information about student conduct is still being gathered.” If you look at the video, you’ll see that police officers were present. I would have expected that the university would have said at least something about how shouting down speakers is bad behavior — but nothing along those lines has come around yet.

3. Before the talk was scheduled, three groups, including the CSUN Armenian Students Association, wrote a letter to the dean of students protesting the talk; in an e-mail responding to my query, the president of ASA said that “members of ASA did join alongside AYF” in the “protest” of the talk that I discussed at the start of this post:

This letter is from the Presidents of the Armenian Stu