Should Princeton Exist?
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
>In some ways, I feel like Robby is an easy case. However profoundly I may disagree with him, he’s really good about being respectful to other people in arguments and welcoming these engagements. I could imagine somebody who was much more of a polemicist, and I would still defend the value of having them on a campus. Robby is scrupulously fair, not only to students but to arguments.
Wrapping an ideology of bigotry in polite trappings doesn't make it any less bigoted.
>Robert George is an example of someone you’ve praised publicly, who has deeply held, well-considered viewpoints that I think would be hard for some students to countenance—his stance on LGBTQ and transgender identity chief among them. I wonder why you think it’s worth it to have a professor like him on campus.
He is the leader of an organization against same-sex marriage and has a history of making very offensive comments about LGBTQ.
>"The vote in New York to redefine marriage advances the cause of loosening norms of sexual ethics, and promoting as innocent — and even 'liberating' — forms of sexual conduct that were traditionally regarded in the West and many other places as beneath the dignity of human beings as free and rational creatures." - Robert George
In your view, can someone have a rational position that same-sex marriage is not the same thing as what marriage has meant for millennia, without being a bigot? Or does that position inherently make them bigoted?
Can someone oppose people being shot for their skin color, while still not being on board with Black Lives Matter as an organization? Or does that not-on-board-ness make them bigoted?
If one does not believe White Fragility when it says that all whites have inherited guilt because of slavery, does that make one bigoted?
From the other side: If you believe that religious people should not be allowed to teach their beliefs to their children, does that make you bigoted? How about if you think there should be no religious schools? How about if you think religious schools are OK, but they shouldn't receive public funding?
My point is not that religious schools should receive public funding. My point is that, if you listen to a movement - any movement - that says "you have to agree with us this far, or it's bigotry against us", you are very prone to having them move the goalposts of your definition of bigotry.
So: What is your definition of bigotry? And why should we take your definition over that of the president of Princeton?
Saying that same sex marriage is "beneath the dignity of human beings as free and rational creatures" is a bigoted opinion.
That doesn't say what you claim it says.
And you seem to be arguing from silence. You're right that the president of Princeton doesn't say that he isn't a bigot. He also doesn't claim that he is. The second sentence of your first paragraph is putting words in the president's mouth that he didn't say.
(For comparison, tuition/fees were $33.6K in 2001, about $53K in 2021 dollars.)