GINSBERG: President DeGioia and Protests

As the United States descends further into an age of mob politics, Georgetown University President John DeGioia finds himself in a position in which he is forced to make hard choices. Unfortunately, if the past two weeks serve as any indication, President DeGioia is already making the wrong ones. In the face of protest activity during a guest speech, and even in his very own office, the Georgetown President’s actions suggest that he is all too willing to kowtow to loud groups of angry student activists. President DeGioia must demonstrate his commitment to education and intellectual discourse by refusing to give in to the demands of the “Georgetown Doesn’t Care” and Eric Trump speech protestors. 

Liberal education, and liberal societies writ large, are premised on the principles of the free exchange of ideas, respect for opposing views, and a willingness to concede in the face of a losing argument. As a general rule, mobs are not concerned with any of these. The organizing principle of the mob is that the loudest voice wins. If the election of Donald Trump and the rise of Bernie Sanders to the height of American politics prove anything, it is that the number of voices in support of a given idea does not matter, only that the volume of those voices does. The mob is unthinking and unresponsive to reason, even if its members individually are thoughtful and reasonable people. As the alien monitor and unexpected philosopher Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) explained in Men in Black, “People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals.” Hence, the Georgetown community awoke Monday morning to a durag atop the John Carroll statue.

The idea that Georgetown does not care about minority students is facially ridiculous. One need only look to columns written by administrators for The Hoya for Black History Month and administrators’ constant plugging of campus climate surveys to see the absurdity of that claim. Furthermore, the idea that students falsely claiming Georgetown’s apathy towards the concerns of minority students should be rewarded for skipping class is even more risible. However, when a group of students proclaimed to all creation (and social media) their displeasure with the University’s handling of sexual assault allegations and their intention to camp out in President DeGioia’s office until they got what they wanted, University administrators were unwilling to stand up to a group of 18-22 year-olds. Rather, Georgetown Vice Presidents Rosemary Kikenny and Todd Olsen sent an email explaining that Georgetown is doing all that it can to placate the angry mob on the second floor of Healy Hall, including acquiescing to demands that most likely violate national anti-discrimination laws. 

Not even 48 hours into the “Georgetown Doesn’t Care” protests, another group struck. The decision of the Georgetown University College Republicans to invite baseball cap salesman and son of the President of the United States Eric Trump to speak on campus was regrettable, to say the least. However, the student group Hoyas for Immigrant Rights ensured that not all who wanted to see Trump and his interlocutor, Charlie Kirk, were able to do so. Admittedly, silently walking out of the speech a few minutes in was not the most disruptive action the group could take. Nevertheless, this protest still deprived students who wanted to attend the speech from doing so, since the protesters took up 40 seats in a limited event. In choosing this course of action, Hoyas for Immigrant Rights demonstrated that it cares more about depriving other students with dissenting viewpoints from attending events than it does in fostering genuine discourse.

Of course, demonstrations of brute strength are characteristic of mob action. Mobs say, “We are louder than you, and we will bend you to our will.” The number of people participating in mob protests may very well be much smaller than the number of people who oppose the mob. However, the correct response in the face of the mob, courage, is always in short supply. Individuals acting within a large group need very little courage. If history is any indicator, those standing up to a loud, angry mob may lack it in sufficient levels to confront the group. Without courageous dissenters, however, mobs steamroll over weak opposition. Unfortunately, as we have seen in the past week or so at Georgetown, courageous opposition to the mob is in as short of supply as ever. Without this opposition, Georgetown University will see more complaints divorced from reality, more ideological homogeneity, and more rumblings from a small cadre of students determined to remake the school’s image in a more progressive one.

Michael Ginsberg (COL ’20) is a Contributor majoring in Medieval Studies and minoring in Government.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official or personal position of the Editorial Board, Contributors, or Business Staff of The Georgetown Review.