Dr. Thio: Further Comments

J. Ryan Golden, who was instrumental in the protests against Dr. Thio Li-ann's visiting scholar appointment at NYU Law School, was kind enough to provide further background on those protests, and some comments on Wendy Kaminer's piece at The Atlantic, which appears upon investigation to be even more poorly researched and poorly thought out than I had at first realized. I may have some additional comments on Mr. Golden's letter, but I will save those for later.

From J. Ryan Golden:

This letter is intended as a response to criticism I have received for opposing the appointment of Thio Li-ann to teach “Human Rights Law in Asia” at NYU School of Law. As I have always considered myself a libertarian, and do not consider myself as part of either the left-wing or the right-wing, some of the criticism has been very disappointing. Heck, I even once attended the Log Cabin Republican National Convention with a friend of mine. How many liberal men do you think could stomach that!

My involvement in the controversy began after I proposed to NYU Law’s gay student organization, OUTLAW, that they should formally demand she be removed from teaching any course that focused on human rights. The OUTLAW Board ultimately voted in private, and although a majority of the Board voted for aggressive action, the voting rules left them with insufficient votes, and they issued a public statement delineating this course of action:

“Nonetheless, the Board thinks it best to fight Dr. Thio's offensive views not by silencing her but by engaging in a respectful and productive dialogue about the boundaries of human rights”

As a former Board member, I was quite upset with this result. I created a group on facebook entitled “NYU Students and Alumni opposed to Thio Li-ann teaching human rights.” I even purchased facebook ads to promote the group, and within a few days hundreds of students and alumni had joined. Shortly thereafter, other NYU Law students helped create a petition to formally oppose her teaching human rights. This petition did not directly call for her to be fired, but there was an optional checkbox that the vast majority of people checked-including myself-that stated: “Additionally, I call on the Administration to rescind Dr. Thio’s appointment.”

Five days later, I received a call from the New York Times for an upcoming story. That same day Thio Li-ann sent her letter of resignation to NYU Law, and Dean Revesz sent a public statement to the New York Times.

Now that you understand the background of the controversy, I would like to defend my course of action. Most critics of the petition are concerned about the infringement of academic freedom, and thus the concept of freedom of speech more generally. It is my belief that OUTLAW’s course of action was strongly guided by advice they received from an openly gay law professor, Kenji Yoshino. He has since stated publicly to the press in Singapore that he told OUTLAW “I made it clear to them that my view was that the answer to objectionable speech was 'more speech' rather than censorship.” Unlike Professor Yoshino, I am not a constitutional scholar. However, I believe his advice was based upon a peculiar view of censorship, and a cursory review of Thio Li-ann as a scholar.

As an individual student at a private university, I do not believe creating a petition to oppose the appointment of a professor can amount to censorship or an affront on academic freedom. In Sweezy v. New Hamsphire, Justice Frankfurter stated that academic freedom “means the exclusion of governmental intervention in the intellectual life of a university.” And while the meaning of censorship varies widely, it typically involves the action of a higher authority, such as the government. It is paradoxical to state that the expression of freedom of assembly rights by private individuals amounts to censorship against an elite figure. While it may be true that if NYU had ultimately gave in to our demands, they would have been censoring her views, Thio Li-Ann independently chose to resign after facing opposition.

Moreover, academic freedom does not and should never give a professor carte blanche to espouse hateful and demonstrably false viewpoints. Like many conservatives and libertarians, I am also disappointed in the small proportion of non-liberal viewpoints in higher education. But that problem does not mean we should allow a professor to teach concepts that go way beyond simple irresponsibility into their own flagrant prejudices. Obvious examples are holocaust deniers, segregationists , and in this case, a professor of human rights who believes roughly 5% of the population is committing a moral wrong and thus does not deserve any human rights. The consensus seems to be that the law school would have responded for differently if Thio Li-Ann had made similar statements about a religious or racial minority. Why then is discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation different? NYU’s own policy of nondiscrimination puts sexual orientation on equal footing with race, religion, and sex.

The most publicized critique of the petition came from Wendy Kaminer of The Atlantic. Earlier in her life, she was heavily involved in feminist movements to censor pornography. Apparently she had a change of heart, joined the board of the ACLU, and recently wrote an article entitled “Law Students Flunk Academic Freedom 101” where she stated in regards to those involved with the petition “I wouldn't want one of these future lawyers ever advocating for me.”

One would think before writing this article a former advocate of censorship would have actually researched my claim that Thio supported fining a television Singapore program for displaying a gay family in a positive light. Instead she mentioned it, and put in parentheses: “(If the latter claim is accurate, it surely undermines her credibility as victim of censorship.)” Well I happen to have the transcript of Thio Li-Ann’s speech in Parliament. Speaking in regards to a citizen complaint about the TV program she stated: “Could the Minister elaborate on how to prevent similar future breaches, and how to ensure industry players make greater use of consumer advice in airing sensitive content? “ And earlier in her speech, she even advocated censoring the Internet! She stated “If private parties misuse the Internet to destroy people whose views they dislike, this will kill free speech. Our shared commitment to democracy will be eroded if abusive online content goes unregulated… I hope the Minister will consider the need to deter such anti-social attacks to prevent harassing malicious public online speech from undermining the Internet as a free and fair communications medium.”

Thio Li-Ann seems to think it is okay for the government to officially censor views of individuals on the Internet, but not okay for individuals to protest a professor/politician who uses, in her own words, “harassing malicious public” speech to oppress a minority population. She clearly envisions her own utopian society where the elite members of the government can control the boundaries of free speech, but private citizens are at their own peril.

Ms. Kaminer also stated “The refusal of law students even to hear opposing views, reflecting opposing moral codes, is particularly worrisome.” Unlike Ms. Kaminer, I actually heavily researched Thio Li-Ann. I heard her opposing views in much greater detail, and concluded they were not worth hearing again, especially since her salary comes in part from my own tuition dollars. Why should I subsidize what is no more than flawed religious-based hate speech disguised as an opposing moral code? And for those readers who may be Christian or deeply religious, I urge you to read her recently published book Mind The Gap where she goes into great detail about her moral code. The book is an absurd distortion of biblical text aimed at oppressing the gay population and uprooting the secular government of Singapore. I would provide some quotations, and perhaps I will at a later date, but the book is far more offensive than her speech before Parliament, and suggests that unless society rejects homosexuality it will face Armageddon.

Now that I have rambled on about Wendy Kaminer’s misguided article, I would like to conclude on a more positive note. While many individuals-including Kenji Yoshino-have expressed that they are upset that they lost a chance to debate Professor Thio at NYU, I believe a much larger opportunity was gained as a result of her decision to run away with her tail between her legs. You see, the gay population in Singapore knows much more about Thio Li-ann than we do. They know her statement that she feared for her safety was most likely fabricated based on her past exaggerations of hate mail. They know her arguments just fell apart when they faced real criticism in a country where her opponents could not be silenced. And they now are empowered to put 377A back on the table, and in a government setting where Thio Li-Ann no longer has a seat in Parliament.

Let’s all hope now that Thio Li-ann’s distorted views have been publicized worldwide, The Parliament of Singapore will make the right choice, and repeal what remains of 377A, a historical remnant of their British colonial history. Singapore is a secular society that deeply values their own culture-let’s just hope they recognize this legal artifact never had a rightful place there.

(Edited for style.)