Sean Harper's Argumentative Essay

1223 Words3 Pages

This particular intelligence squared debate was a debate of four people in two teams of two that debated whether free speech was threatened on college campuses. Sean Harper, an executive director of the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania, argued on the side of free speech isn’t threatened on campus. His overall arguments, and points were the weakest out of all the debaters. Harper argues that in all his years of working at many universities, he has never seen a written institutional policy that restricts student’s freedom of speech. Contrary to his position in the debate, Harper claims student’s freedom of speech is suppressed by remarks of other professors, or staff at universities. What …show more content…

It wasn’t made clear what Harper meant by predominately white. For example, a university can have 51% white students and 49% percent students of color, and still be labeled as predominately white. In any classroom there surely won't be only one student of color in a classroom full of white students. Not every classroom in universities and junior colleges is a classroom of 200 students, some colleges don’t even have any classroom that can hold that many students. Maybe Damien would of spoke out to the professor if the comments were made in a smaller classroom setting, such as a classroom with 30 students because he didn’t want to make a big scene in front of a large crowd of students. Harper failed to use representatives examples in his arguments as well, he talks as if people of color are the only people whose free speech is being suppressed on campus. White students have surely experienced instances where they felt their free speech was suppressed, and Harper argues as if white students have never experienced their free speech being suppressed. So if Harper wants to talk that student’s free speech is being suppressed, he needs to include all students and not students of color. The mere fact that Harper talks as if white students don’t experience their free speech being suppressed undermines white students takes on how better improve campus social environments, which is the goal of all the

Open Document