This article originally posted at Legal Insurrection.
By Laurel Conrad
When I wrote my previous LI piece about Christina Hoff Sommers’ lecture at Georgetown, I hoped that the “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” were the end to the attempted censorship of Dr. Sommers’ speech.
The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, for which I am the lecture director, sponsored the speech, and recorded it so that others could both hear Dr. Sommers and the people who questioned her.
Unfortunately, I was wrong about the controversy being over.
[Image Credit: Georgetown U. Republicans]
Now, Georgetown University itself is putting pressure on the Georgetown College Republicans to make CBLPI edit its video of the lecture.
In an email, the assistant director for Georgetown’s Center for Student Engagement told the lecture student organizers that if CBLPI is “unwilling or unresponsive to the request, Georgetown will need to step in.”
The University claims that we must edit the video because students who asked questions did not agree to have their faces shown/voices heard:
What was the response from Clare Boothe Luce about the video? I see that is still up online. Please let me know asap as an edited version needs to be released without students who did not give permission to be taped.
If they are unwilling or unresponsive to the request, Georgetown will need to step in. Let me know!
But it stretches credulity that Georgetown and its students would not understand that the lecture was a public event. The video camera was in plain view, and audience members themselves appear to be taking video and photos. It could not shock any student that he or she was on camera.
In addition, the mission of the protestors at the event was clearly to gain attention. Perhaps we are receiving this request because the students were too successful at gaining attention, and are now embarrassed at the reaction to signs like “Trigger Warning – antifeminist.”
I can certainly understand why Georgetown would want us to edit the video. Clearly, it is a public relations nightmare for the University.
The feminist students’ childish behavior toward Dr. Sommers is receiving deserved criticism beyond the Georgetown bubble.
The video in question has over 20,000 views on Youtube and was even showcased on Fox News’ The Kelly File. In addition, the lecture has received national attention, including coverage from the Daily Caller, National Review Online, and the IJ Review.
Georgetown doesn’t seem to understand that once a video is uploaded to YouTube, it can’t be edited retroactively. We would have no choice but to take down the video and upload an inaccurate and incomplete edited version of the event.
While many universities are accustomed to bullying students until they bend to a left wing point of view, a conservative women’s organization named after the courageous Clare Boothe Luce is not impressed or moved by such bullying.