Lately there has been an attention-grabbing commotion coming from the Amphitheater. Students should be respectful to others and ignore the proselytizing man who has descended on Grounds.
As scholars, we in the University community easily see the errors in the way this man presents his views — methods that are both rude and offensive. Rather than having useful intellectual debate, he prefers shouting insults at a crowd. Any attempt to engage him in debate has little chance of changing his mind. In other words, yelling back will do no good.
Large crowds gathering around this man just make the minor annoyance he causes worse. Crowds yelling back and forth with him reflect poorly on what should be a University environment characterized by reasoned debate.
What’s worse, the noise generated by a larger crowd is distracting to students in classrooms near the Amphitheater. Maury Hall, Minor Hall, Bryan Hall and Cocke Hall — whose library faces the Amphitheater — are all places where serious scholarly work is being done, and it is a shame for it to be disrupted by ignorance and shouting.
Large crowds encourage people like him to stay on Grounds. For them, being yelled at by college students is a sign they must be doing something right. As long as they have an audience, no matter whether that audience is considering their ideas or ridiculing them, they usually will not leave.
The best thing for everyone would be for students to simply go about their business as if there were no one yelling at them in the Amphitheater. Of course everyone has a right to exercise freedom of speech, but that right is wasted on superficial arguing. If meaningless shouting is ignored, reasoned debate can triumph — and at this University, that should be the goal.