Cal Poly has learned its lesson when it comes to free speech

Milo Yiannopoulos isn’t exactly my cup of tea.

He’s a big Donald Trump fan. I am not.

He’s oftentimes needlessly vulgar. I’m so mild-mannered that letter writers question the status of my immortal soul simply because I take a little delight in the overwrought wailing of wannabe fascists whose preferred candidate lost the November election.

Though, if Yiannopoulos does have one thing going for him, it’s that he makes all the right people lose their minds.

The same “progressives” who 40 or 50 years ago would’ve been bravely standing up and proclaiming something along the lines of “I disagree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” have come up with a shorter riposte: “Shut up!”

Yes, you have the right to free speech, just not anywhere that someone might hear it.

Letter writers have encouraged Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong to ban Yiannopoulos from campus for “hate speech.”

Why stop there? If Yiannopoulos is sufficiently evil that he needs to be banned from a public university, then why don’t we just toss the guy in jail? (I know, don’t give them any ideas.)

You’d think that it would be the “homophobic,” closed-minded political right that would want to silence the speech of a flamboyantly gay man. Instead, it’s Cal Poly’s Queer Student Union that wants to silence one of its own for failure to adhere to the prescribed groupthink.

And the Queer Student Union has taken its totalitarian impulse one step further. The union targeted Brian Kennelly, Cal Poly College Republicans faculty adviser, with an email campaign that seems to be little more than a call to harass someone who fulfills little more than a bureaucratic role in the club’s activities.

The goal there is clear: Make it hard for the Cal Poly GOP to operate in the future because no one will want to be the group’s faculty sponsor.

The school administration’s response to the controversy has been exactly right and would apply equally to a similarly controversial speaker from the political left.

“As a public campus, Cal Poly has a responsibility to uphold free speech and provide an open forum for a variety of opinions, thoughts and ideas,” spokesman Matt Lazier told The Tribune last week.

We should be thankful that Cal Poly appears to have learned its lesson from the last time a similarly controversial speaker came to campus.

In 2002, Steve Hinkle, a member of the Cal Poly College Republicans, had the audacity to post a flier in the school’s multicultural center for someone else who doesn’t think like the political left would expect him to think, this time because of his skin color — black conservative Clarence Mason Weaver.

In that case, the school came down on Hinkle like a ton of bricks, threatening to kick him out of the school for hurting a few students’ feelings for posting the flier and disrupting their meeting, which was not actually a meeting. After a seven-hour-long star chamber hearing where he was denied his request to have a lawyer present, Hinkle was adjudged “guilty,” ordered to see a psychologist and write letters of apology.

After an 18-month legal battle, Cal Poly lived up to its Learn By Doing motto to the tune of $40,000 in legal fees to Hinkle’s lawyers and expunging the incident from Hinkle’s academic record. (People interested in Hinkle’s case can find video of a documentary that includes interviews with Hinkle and his lawyers by searching YouTube for “Indoctrinate U.”)

Taxpayers should appreciate the fact that it appears as though this is a lesson the university doesn’t have to learn twice.

When Yiannopoulos shows up to the Cal Poly campus Jan. 31 to speak at the invitation of the Cal Poly Republicans club, I fully expect to see the aggrieved and angry campus left in their full fury outside Spanos Theatre.

It would probably benefit many of them to make their way inside to listen to Yiannopoulos speak — not to disrupt his speech — at some point as well. We can all benefit from respectfully listening to those with whom we disagree, even if no one changes their mind.

This story was originally published December 17, 2016 at 7:38 PM with the headline "Cal Poly has learned its lesson when it comes to free speech."