President Christina Paxson,
I am sending this email to you because your voice mailbox is full, no doubt from listeners (such as myself) of popular conservative commentator Matt Walsh who gave us your (publicly listed) number and email address and encouraged us to reach out to you. Lest you think that this email constitutes harassment, I am a father of two young children who is actively researching our long-term education options and considering whether or not to encourage them to attend a university such as your own. I myself attended the Williston Northampton School in Easthampton, MA, and many of my high school classmates went on to attend Brown.
It has come to my attention that a PhD student and member of your university community named Sarah Celeste Griffith has, for several months, been calling for the vigilante execution of Matt Walsh at his home. This is an explicit call for violence that, to my knowledge, is not protected by even the most liberal (in the non-political sense) interpretation of the first amendment, and yet your university has not taken any action to censure or discipline this student.
Based on the fact that this has been happening for several months, I can only conclude that your administration tacitly supports explicit and illegal calls for violence against Matt Walsh and his family. Is this correct, or is there more to this story (such as the incompetence of your own administration and staff) of which we are unaware? Now that Brown’s support of this student’s illegal and lawbreaking behavior has been made public, will you take actions to discipline or expel this student? Or is such violence and political intolerance exemplary of the values of a Brown University education—values that I, as a parent of young and intelligent children, can expect Brown University to instill in them, should I send them to Brown?
Thank you for your time,
Joe Vasicek
Wow, just wow. Does nobody think before they speak these days?
Apparently not.
Thank you Joe for the willingness to speak out on these issues. I find it hilarious how some people call themselves and others “brave” for speaking the way you are pointing out here. In a normal world, yes it would be brave as you would be risking jail time, but not these days. These people are allowed to threaten, even a sitting president with death on public television with no repercussions. Nothing brave about that when they know they will get away with it because of their political leaning
You sir, are brave. Speaking of these things today is the definition of brave. Knowing that psychotic people out there would use this as a reason to add you or your family to their target list at the extreme end or just trying to cancel you as an author on the other.
And your articulate message asks does not come off as as more than questions and a desire to understand. Unlike those your message is aimed at who’s message is violent and quite honestly in most cases lies. Real lies. Unlike those that call everything they disagree with lies, one is only telling a lie when one KNOWS what one is saying it incorrect. These people do love changing definitions to fit their current agenda.
Thanks for the kind words, C Hammond, but I don’t think it’s a question of being particularly brave so much as it is of fearing the right things. That’s Jordan Peterson’s position, and I think he’s right about this: that choosing to self-censor over issues like this is actually much worse, because it changes the way you think until gradually you come to be sucked into the woke mind virus yourself. For similar reasons, I deleted all of my social media almost a decade ago, and I know there are stories that I wouldn’t have been capable of writing had I been captured by the groupthink that dominates those platforms.