Johns Hopkins University is under fire for yet another challenge to freedom of speech on campus.
As Red Alert Politics reported earlier this month, International Trade Professor and notably rare conservative Trent Bertrand was suspended and barred from his classroom by two security guards for violating his students’ “safe space.” As a former student of Bertrand’s, my immediate response to his suspension was a lack of surprise combined with the usual frustration.
I had seen this coming. Bertrand’s off-color comments did at times raise eyebrows, but I never felt, and neither did a self-avowedly liberal friend, that any of his comments deserved a suspension. I truly enjoyed his class and felt it was the only economics class I took at the university with any real world application. His anecdotes about counseling foreign governments to open their economies added invaluable color to his already interesting course load.
His suspension didn’t happen in a vacuum. After all, I had seen it years before as a member of Hopkins’ student government. I watched as the same students who voted down student recognition for a pro-life group to preserve a “safe space” on campus turn around and voted for a Leftist anti-Israel group known for sometimes violent protests on other campuses.
One of the main student government supporters of the anti-Israel group who voted against the pro-life group said there was no hypocrisy because the pro-life group said it would publicly demonstrate, unlike the anti-Israel group. He laughably implied the anti-Israel group’s demonstrations would be uncontroversial. Ironically, as the head of the campus’ mostly liberal political paper, The Politik, he would go on to call for more student activism and lament the days when students occupied administrative buildings to protest the draft. Not so accommodating for conservative causes it seemed.
It is likely no coincidence that as these incidences of censorship burst to the fore, Johns Hopkins University President Ron Daniels launched his 10 by 20 plan to get Hopkins into a coveted top ten spot in the rankings. A controversial professor could be a drag on the school’s upward trajectory. Already facing the Black Lives Matter protests that engulfed campuses across the nation, Daniels probably wanted to avoid more campus controversy.
And if that traditional Hopkins drive to avoid controversy came at the expense of genuine dialogue and exchange of ideas, so be it. Conservative ideas were unwelcome on campuses across the country. Why should Hopkins be any different?
The news at my alma matter is alarming. On its own, it is worrying enough. But it follows a growing trend both at Hopkins and universities across the country of targeting conservative ideas. If it was not obvious before, two security guards sent the message loud and clear.
