FREE SPEECH AT MICHIGAN: Catharine MacKinnon recently lectured on free speech and academic freedom. At least one student is rather unhappy.

UPDATE: I wonder what MacKinnon would say about this?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Alex Bensky writes:

Professor MacKinnon does serve one, albeit, minor constructive purpose. Some years ago, in a week moment, the University of Michigan law school gave me a degree. Every so often they ask me for money and if I’m ever tempted to give them any I remember that MacKinnon is on the faculty.

This is nothing new. The day of the faculty-sponsored picnic for graduating students in 1973 a number of female medical students showed their displeasure with a supposedly offensive textbook by burning a number of copies. I was upset about this and was stunned that evening when almost everyone else seemed to see this as not noteworthy.

A professor went to China one summer and then lectured to an avid and approving audience about how the Chinese system was based on real justice, aimed at rehabilitation only, was gentle and considerate of the human rights of all. This was during the cultural revolution. I recall disapproving looks from everyone when during question time I suggested that perhaps this wasn’t all there was to the justice system in the Some People’s Republic.

And so on. In the spring of 1972 I could only rarely walk down the street, minding my own business and wearing a “Humphrey for President” button, without drawing catcalls and insults.

A frequent theme in the law school’s fundraising letters is the need to maintain the high prestige that the law school enjoys. I am sorry to say that I have never been able to take quite the pride in my Michigan J.D. I wish I could.

Well, a university is a big place, and it’s not fair to judge it by the actions of a few. But it’s certainly true that Professor MacKinnon adds no lustre to Michigan’s stature in the free-speech department. Meanwhile Halley’s Comment offers a perspective on 21st-century feminism that MacKinnon is unlikely to favor.