“Stanford Faculty Say Anonymous Student Bias Reports Threaten Free Speech,” writes Douglas Belkin in Friday’s Wall Street Journal.
The article is pegged to a January episode at Stanford University:
The backlash began last month, when a student reading “Mein Kampf,” the autobiographical manifesto of Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, was reported through the school’s “Protected Identity Harm” system.
The reporting system has been in place since the summer of 2021, but faculty say they were unaware of it until the student newspaper wrote about the incident and the system, spurring a contentious campus debate.
I don’t want to wade too deeply into the details because the particulars here aren’t the issue. (Although it’s hard to imagine something more ridiculous than a college student being “reported” for reading a book. “Gentlemen, you can’t read in here! This is a university!”)
The real issue is crystallized in a line tossed off by one Christian Sanchez, the Executive Vice President of Stanford’s student body government:
“People need to be aware of what they’re saying and who they’re saying it to,” Mr. Sanchez said. “There are a lot of instances of stereotyping, and people should have a resource to report it if they want to.”
Certainly, one ought to be aware of what one is saying. The alternative is absurd, as the American president often demonstrates.
One should also know to whom one is speaking. In day-to-day life that’s just common sense; on a more abstract level it’s Aristotle’s first rule of rhetoric.
And there are indeed “a lot of instances of stereotyping,” and thanks to the human mind’s built-in faculty for seeking patterns there probably always will be.
Mr. Sanchez is on safe ground to that point but with his last dozen words he leaps into the abyss:
People should have a resource to report it if they want to.
Why?
More to the point, to what end?
Let’s imagine for a moment that such a resource exists and that’s available always and everywhere to everyone. People can therefore report instances of having been stereotyped whenever they like. So they do.
Then what?
Presumably Mr. Sanchez isn’t just suggesting we all have access to a sympathetic resource who’ll listen patiently to our grievances. What does he want that resource to do?
The Stanford program was established in 2021, even if faculty didn’t realize it existed until last month: what does it do?
The system is designed to help students get along with one another, said Dee Mostofi, a Stanford spokeswoman.
Nothing encourages togetherness like allowing people to file anonymous reports on one another.
“The process aims to promote a climate of respect, helping build understanding that much speech is protected while also offering resources and support to students who believe they have experienced harm based on a protected identity,” she said.
Only “much” speech is protected on a university campus?
At Stanford, students can report a “Protected Identity Harm Incident,” which is defined as conduct targeting an individual or group on the basis of characteristics including race or sexual orientation. The system is meant to “build and maintain a better, safer, and more respectful campus community,” according to the school’s website.
The system defaults to anonymous reporting and most students file that way. They use an online form to describe how the bias was demonstrated, which triggers an inquiry within 48 hours. Both parties are contacted.
Participation in the inquiry is voluntary.
There’s been considerable pushback against the program, which is heartening. (The “contentious debate” Belkin describes in the first passage I cited includes a letter signed by 77 faculty members calling for a shutdown of the program.)
A program like this never should have appeared on a university campus in the first place. Anonymous reporting systems are easily abused, and history offers plenty of examples of such abuses producing horrific consequences—which someone at Stanford ought to have known.
If you think the idea of a college student being reported to an “Identify Harm Incident” program for reading a book is peak stupid, at least for this week, I’m sorry to have to disappoint you.
Berlingske Tidende reported (DK) on Wednesday:
A Norwegian children's film has caused a huge stir at the ongoing Berlinale film festival.
On Sunday, the festival received per mail a complaint from the anti-racist organization ARTEF, which believed that the film "Just Super" contained "stereotypical representations of people of color".
The email immediately caused the Berlinale to cancel the film's planned gala premiere. The festival then issued a warning to all those who had bought tickets for a later screening.
In the email, the festival writes that it has "become aware that the film can be interpreted differently than the director had intended, and the film's portrayal of people of color can be perceived as stereotypical."
They followed up today (DK) with an article entitled “Anti-racist organization explains accusation against Norwegian children’s film.”
The “anti-racist organization” was ARTEF, the Anti-Racism Taskforce for European Film.
Only now is ARTEF explaining what occurred to them.
In an email sent to Berlingske, the organization writes that—as early as Saturday 18 February—they received "several inquiries" from colleagues who were concerned about the film's use of so-called blackface and the animalistic way in which the film portrays dark people. The information was based on the film's trailer.
The biggest problem with the Norwegian animated film is that white heroes transform into lions, which "unlike real lions" have dark brown hands, very dark faces and bodies that "are produced in line with the colonial perception and representation of blacks as non-human and animal," writes ARTEF.
The many concerned inquiries led the organization to contact the Berlinale and the film's director, Rasmus Sivertsen via Instagram the same day. According to ARTEF, they received no response.
"For a festival that prides itself on promoting inclusion and diversity, we would like to question a film like "Just Super". For the same reason, we asked the festival to react immediately, so that we avoided further violations of the festival's BIPOC audience,' writes ARTEF.
The emphasis within that citation is my own: I want it understood that the “concerned inquiries” passed along to ARTEF came from people who had only seen the movie’s trailer.
Here’s a link to the trailer in English and another in Norwegian. I strongly recommend you watch one of them in order to understand the magnitude of the malevolence at work here.
But in case you’d rather not, here’s a screen grab of the young heroine in her racially offensive costume:
Notice that her face is not dark: her headpiece includes a mask, something we find on many superheroes. (Also a mane, because it’s a lion costume.)
Notice that her hands and feet are not dark: she is wearing brown gloves and boots.
The context of the trailer makes it clear these are costumes, as there’s a segment in which we can see one of the characters putting one on. The visible skin of the characters is still peach-colored, even when they wear their costumes.
As for the idea that the characters look “non-human and animal” in their costumes: they wouldn’t be very good costumes if they looked very human and non-animal, would they? And really: have another look at little Hedvig in her costume: what kind of brain injury would it take to make you see it as a “colonial representation of blacks as non-human animals?”
Before you finalize your judgement of ARTEF’s complaint, or the Berlinale festival’s reaction, consider ARTEF’s defense of their own reasonableness:
"We proposed several solutions. Although we did not find it ideal, we mentioned that you could start the film with a disclaimer. We also suggested a conversation with the filmmakers and someone with in-depth knowledge of the offending representations, so that we did not let the filmmakers continue with a one-sided representation.”
According to ARTEF, their proposal was not received positively and on 23 February the Norwegian Film Institute chose to end its cooperation with the organisation.
Good for the Norwegian Film Institute for terminating its relationship with the racialists of ARTEF, but why did the German film festival prevent a screening of the movie based on complaints that were laughable from the start?
As Berlingske’s article from today notes in its opening lines:
Stereotyped portrayals of colored people. With that explanation the German film festival Berlinale chose to drop the planned gala screening of the Norwegian animated feature “Just Super.”
Had the person or people who made the decision to cancel the screening not seen the trailer? That might explain their willingness to succumb to such a baseless complaint so readily, but would be even more damning of the Berlinale as an arts organization. (“We support free expression right up until someone complains.”)
But enough about that: now it’s time to tie it all together, as we must, because these two stories are not unrelated.
If grown men and women can get one of the world’s largest film festivals to cancel a screening over such palpably absurd accusations, what sort of accusations do you think young men and women might be willing to make against one another anonymously?
And how much damage might they do to the falsely or inappropriately accused?
The Stanford faculty stood up to the campus Stasi. The Norwegian Film Institute stood up to the racial hysterics of ARTEF. Those are positive developments. But the Stanford battle is not yet over and the producers of “Just Super” have already lost.
We’ve got a long way to go.
As for the rest, my eyes are rolling so hard, it sounds like I'm in a crowded Yahtzee tournament. You will find what you're looking for; try looking for the benefit of the doubt.
Instead of Protected Identity Harm Incident, Stanford should have named it Protected Identity Triggering Incident. Then the victims could form a support group and host PITI parties.