When former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions went to speak at Amherst College on Wednesday, student protesters made a stink — literally.
Sessions was just beginning to speak when a protester set off a stink bomb to disperse the audience, according to the college’s student newspaper. Shortly after, student protesters filed out of the campus chapel where the event was held in an organized protest, leaving the venue half empty.
The students who organized the protest condemned Amherst College Republicans for inviting Sessions to speak, saying they were promoting a “global system of white supremacy.”
Protester sets off a stink bomb at Sessions speech
In a speech lasting less than an hour, the former Alabama senator and Trump attorney general touched on Robert Mueller’s investigation and the challenges to free speech that conservatives face on campus. The former attorney general said that he was “concerned” that free speech is being “eroded.”
“I am concerned about the American values of free speech being eroded, particularly on college campuses,” he said. “My impression is college Republicans nationwide are having a harder time today,” he said, to jeers from student protesters.
Student protesters ended up proving his point. Shortly after Sessions began speaking, an unknown person set off a stink bomb. Then, five minutes into the talk, about 70 students walked out in coordinated fashion, leaving the chapel half empty.
As the students filed out into the first-year quad, one student waved a rainbow flag. The students then joined other student activists in the first-year quad for a social justice pow-wow, where about 100 students chanted slogans like “no justice, no peace” and “no racist beliefs.”
A student from a Native Americans’ rights group made a symbolic “land acknowledgment” before the students read aloud a statement riddled with academic jargon about “marginalized bodies” and other post-modern gobbledygook, condemning the conservative groups that invited Sessions. The students called the Sessions speech an “action of power, not of free speech”:
When Amherst College Republicans and the Young America’s Foundation, went out of their way to invite Sessions to this campus, they knew very well that the action was one of power, not of free speech. We suspect that they intended to provoke students of color to react in such a way that would paint student-organizers of color as aggressive, fitting neatly into the narrative that has vilified racialized bodies in this country for centuries. We oppose not only Jeff Sessions, not only the Amherst College Republicans and not only the Young America’s Foundation, but the global system of white supremacy which created them, which funds them, which feeds them. We stand firmly against global hierarchies that attempt to maintain themselves through the veneer of ‘free speech’ rhetoric. We stand for the power, the sanctity and the love of every human being. And we decry the cowardice, on this campus and off, which allowed for Sessions — and those like him — to continue waging a war on marginalized people.
Amherst elites suppress free speech
The college’s students and administration had been bracing for the impact of Sessions’ speech as if it were a Cold War-era nuclear drill since they first learned of it in early April from Young America’s Foundation (YAF), who supported Sessions’ talk. Some students boycotted the event by reserving tickets and not using them.
Amherst faculty responded in predictable fashion, promoting an event at the Keefe Campus Center “hosting food trucks, a bonfire with s’mores, a self-care corner, wellness activities, and an outdoor jazz concert” as an alternative to Sessions’ talk. The event was reportedly not coordinated with Sessions’ talk, but it sounds like the college pushed it as a therapeutic event where students could be “safe” from Sessions’ “hateful” words.
Sessions’ visit came after another recent controversy over free speech involving the Republican group. The student government called for the club’s leadership to step down over private chats in which members mocked a “Common Language Document” published by the university’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
With this controversy in recent memory, Amherst College Republicans President Robert Barasch said the group invited Sessions to recognize “diverse perspectives.” But some students who spoke with the Amherst student said that Sessions should not have come to campus, with one saying the students’ protest was their “contribution to the conversation.” “If the ACR and Sessions want a ‘better’ contribution, they can start by entering the conversation honestly and earnestly, something Jeff Sessions made clear from the moment he stepped on stage that he was not interested in,” student Andrew Rosevear told the paper.
Who’s privileged?
As is often the case, the students’ petulant, censorious attitudes were shared by faculty members. Ahead of the talk, the college’s president described Sessions’ talk as a “cynical [effort] to put us in a defensive posture” and that conservatives are “using” freedom of speech “in a concerted and cynical way to attack higher education institutions as intolerant.”
Conservatives are “using” free speech to make academia look intolerant? Conservatives don’t need any help cultivating that impression. Martin responded to an invitation from Barasch to attend the talk with front row seats, stating simply, “Why would you think I would come?”
Students were not the only ones set off by Sessions’ talk. Professor of Political Science Thomas Dumm had e-mailed Martin shortly after Sessions’ talk was announced, saying he should not be allowed to speak. Before his speech Wednesday night, economics professor Jessica Reyes, who held a sign that read “Jeff Sessions is a crime against humanity,” echoed that sentiment to the Daily Hampshire Gazette. “Amherst College has standards for behavior and those standards don’t protect hate speech or violent actions,” Reyes said. “By a reasonable assessment of our standards, he should not be welcome to our community. He’s not welcome to our community.”
The great irony of all this privilege talk? The average cost of a year at Amherst is $80,000.
Is this what higher education has come to? A place for spoiled rich kids to set off stink bombs and attack everybody else for privileges they don’t actually have?
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