Liberal comedian Bill Maher’s controversial speech at the University of California Berkeley December commencement may have come and gone, but the debate over its implications for free speech still rages on.
Maher had been invited to speak at the school, but after the comedian made controversial statements on Islam students petitioned against his speech. The students ultimately voted to rescind Maher’s invitation.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks explained to The Huffington Post at the World Economic Forum Wednesday why he “disallowed” this from happening.
“I didn’t like actually what he said about Islam, but on a free speech campus, you don’t disinvite somebody to come and speak. So we used it as a kind of teaching moment,” Dirks said.
He said that if you start making exceptions to that policy, you would start to find yourself censoring certain groups or certain ways of thinking.
“Where do you draw the line? Pretty soon you’re going to be involved in some kind of grey zone, which is going to in pretty fundamental ways infringe on free speech,” Dirks said.
“Education is not about making people feel comfortable. It’s often, in fact, about confronting people about things they don’t like, but teaching them as well how to engage, how to make arguments that ultimately will prevail in the court of public opinion.”
He said he was proud of how Berkeley ended up handling the Maher situation.
“I think at the end of the day the campus did the right thing.”
Watch the interview below:
