Opinion THE AMHERST STUDENT

bring in speakers who do not share progressive viewpoints. The question that arises here, however, is how we as a student body should engage with those speakers, and where and how we should draw the line between violent and merely oppositional speech.

Stanford Law School made headlines nationwide last week after students protested and shouted down a conservative judge brought onto campus by a student group. A school official criticized the student body and apologized to the speaker for the students’ betrayal of his right to free speech, while many students argued that they had a right to protect their campus from the presence of a judge whose past court decisions have limited the rights of women, immigrants, and LGBTQ individuals.

Before we invite any speaker to campus, controversial or not, there are several questions we should ask of the process. What constitutes hate speech from a speaker? How much should a speaker’s past history factor into their present role as speaker? Should students be allowed to protest speakers or even shut down events that they believe will have a harmful impact on our community? What is the goal of our bringing a speaker in the first place — to endorse their beliefs or generate dialogue?

These are not questions the Editorial Board can or should answer alone. Instead, we call for the student body to reflect on our values as a campus community, and consider how we can implement more diverse voices while preventing real harm to members of our community. Certain formats that are not widely used, currently, may be more conducive to productive engagement with ideologically-challenging speakers: organizing for a debate between a conservative and liberal speaker, for instance, is better than letting the former take the podium unquestioned. Or, we as a student body need to commit ourselves to challenging speakers — something that is currently disappointingly far from the norm. After all, when we bring a speaker onto this campus, we don’t just give them a platform to speak: we bring them into our universe of discourse.

Unsigned editorials represent the views of the majority of the Editorial Board — (assenting: 11; dissenting: 0; abstaining: 1).

Executive Board

Editors-in-Chief

Liam Archacki

Sam Spratford

Senior Managing

Dustin Copeland

Kei Lim

Managing News

Ethan Foster

Leo Kamin

Michael Mason

Managing Features

Sonia Chajet Wides

Caelen McQuilkin

Eleanor Walsh

Managing Opinion

Tara Alahakoon

Yasmin Hamilton

Tapti Sen

Assistant Opinion

Stacey Zhang

Managing Arts & Living

Alexander Brandfonbrener

Cassidy Duncan

Brianne LaBare

Madeline Lawson

Noor Rahman

Managing Sports

Hedi Skali

Slate Taylor

Managing Puzzles

John Joire

Managing Podcast

Andrew Rosin

Assistant Podcast

Karina Maciel

Managing Design

Andrew Kim

Brianne LaBare

Managing Photo

Claire Beougher

Slate Taylor

Managing Graphics

Nina Aagaard

DEI Editor

Erin Williams

STAFF

Publisher

Robert Bischof

Digital Director

Sawyer Pollard

Social Media Manager

Emi Eliason

Letters Policy

The opinion pages of The Student are intended as an open forum for the Amherst community. We welcome responses 50-800 words in length to any of our recent articles and aim to publish a diversity of views and voices. If you would like to submit a response for consideration, it must be exclusive to The Student and cannot have been published elsewhere. The Student will print letters if they are submitted to the paper’s email account (astudent@ amherst.edu) or the article response form that can be found on The Student’s website, by 8 p.m. on Saturday, after which they will not be accepted for the week’s issue. Letters must bear the names of all contributors and an email address where the author or authors may be reached. Letters may be edited for clarity and Student style. The editors reserve the right to withhold any letter because of considerations of space or content.

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