4 years, 3 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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I’m a big fan of the Marginal Revolution economics blog, so one would hope not to see things like this:
If there was “one toothpaste for all†the price would be lower and I would be better off. But one peanut butter for all would stick in my craw. I am willing to pay more for products I don’t care about to have options among products that I do care about.
Fewer choices clearly does not mean lower prices. Hopefully Alex meant that if his wife couldn’t choose Burt’s Bees toothpaste (which he says she prefers), then the one true choice would cost less than the $4.50 Burt’s costs, so he personally would save money, but it’s this sort of sloppy phrasing that encourages the anti-free-market types. Repeat the mantra: more choices means more competition which means lower prices.
Oh, and Alex, I recommend the Whole Foods grind-your-own.
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4 years, 3 months ago,,
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Reason’s Hit & Run weblog had, as usual, some good commentary on the National Trust’s designation of all of Vermont as threatened by hordes of big box stores. That post led me to a Nick Gillespie article from 1995 that I vaguely remembered (and from which I probably subconsciously lifted the Bill Buckley reference). Read the whole thing, which shows how little the National Trust and anti-Wal-Marters have changed in 10 years. Nicks article also contained this nugget of a quote:
“We started seeing the demise of downtowns in the 1920s and ’30s, when cars started to become more popular. Basically, it began when people gained mobility,” says Kenneth Stone, an Iowa State University economics professor who has studied the impact of Wal-Mart on towns in the United States and Canada. “Especially after World War II, you started seeing people migrating out of cities and then shopping closer to where they lived. The advent of shopping malls in the ’50s and ’60s really took people out of the downtowns,” says Stone.
Recall that Wal-Mart, Kmart and Target all started in 1962, and didn’t enjoy real wide-spread success until well into the 1970s. Wal-Mart didn’t open its first store outside Arkansas until 1968, and entered its 10th state (Illinois) in 1978. This means that the demise of the old-fashioned downtown that the National Trust decries was well underway before the first “category-killer” stores opened in Rogers, Arkansas, Garden City, Michigan and Roseville, Minnesota. Big-box stores didn’t kill downtowns, although they gave consumers yet another option with which to hasten their demise.
The Reason article also demonstrated that small retailers are not doomed once a big-box competitor comes to town:
John L. Gann Jr., head of an Illinois-based consulting firm that assists older businesses, agrees with Stone. He says the anti-superstore activists are essentially local protectionists who would rather compete in a political forum than in a commercial one.
Gann, who has worked with downtown areas in seven states in the industrial midwest and northeast, says that Wal-Mart and similar big retailers might put inefficient shopkeepers out of business, but the real problem is that many traditional, independent merchants aren’t providing the service, the hours, the parking, or the merchandise people want. “A lot of shoppers today prefer a large selection and chain stores with names and reputations they know,” says Gann.
And, despite claims that mega-stores are unstoppable “retail juggernauts,” Gann notes, “When Wal-Mart or whoever opens a store, they make an investment in their store, their merchandise, their personnel, and what have you. They don’t have one customer. Every customer they get, they have to win. And then they have to persuade people to keep coming back.”
So what’s an independent shopkeeper to do? Compete, of course:
I am skeptical of my experience so far, if only because it all too perfectly confirms the pro-superstore theory. A real estate agent, superstore workers, and customers–this is a self-selecting sample. Of course these people would like superstores. So after Home Depot, I drive down the road a mile to Curry Hardware, a small store squeezed into a corner lot so cramped that it’s tough getting in and out of the parking area. These people, I figure, should have a different take.
But the three salesmen I talk with inside are having none of it. “You know, when Home Depot opened up, we were really worried,” says one. “They made us change our attitude. Now, we work to serve the customers better.”
I mention a banner hanging at Home Depot, one boasting “Nobody Beats Our Service.” “Yeah, right,” the salesman laughs. “They can’t compete with us on service.” Besides training the help to be more responsive to customer needs, he says, the owner opened up on Sundays for the first time and varied the store’s product line to stay competitive. “We get some customers who see us on the way to Home Depot, and we get some who get tired of Home Depot.” Overall, he says, sales are up, and his boss has even added employees.
Curry Hardware seems to be doing just fine - get your home improvement questions answered by the experts at Curry through the 1300 AM/Curry Hardware College of Home Improvement Knowledge. So it’s been clear for some time that independent retailers can coexist along Wal-Mart and Home Depot, been clear that consumers like the range of choices these retailers offer, and clear that the national Trust and its ilk are on the wrong side of history, so why do they persist in scare tactics and zero-sum economics?
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4 years, 3 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Unfortunately, it appears both Kentucky and Indiana have joined the efforts at the U.S. Supreme Court to defend laws banning interstate shipments of wine directly to consumers:
“We are supporting Kentucky’s existing law here and similar laws of most states generally because if you allow direct shipments to consumers in your state, you run into a situation where it’s almost impossible to regulate alcohol sales,” said Rob Jones, acting director of the civil and environmental law division of the Kentucky attorney general’s office.
Jones said that keeping alcohol from minors is a primary reason for the law. “I could speculate that there are others, like to assure shipments aren’t made for resale under the radar of regulators, which would essentially be bootlegging.”
These laws are often defended as protection against sales to minors. Thus you have Dan Gahafer, deputy commissioner of Kentucky’s Office of Alcoholic Beverage Control, arguing that “Kentucky’s always had this sort of law, and the main reason has always been to assure that people under 21 aren’t doing the buying.” The real reason, of course is completely different. These laws amount to, in the words of Ken Starr, representing the wineries at the Court, economic protectionism. The laws protect in-state wineries against out-of-state competition (New York’s law allows New York wineries to ship directly to customers, but require out-of-state wineries to sell through licensed wholesalers and retailers). They protect state “sin tax” revenue, both by ensuring that taxes are collected (the Maryland law imposes a tax on wholesalers of 40 cents per gallon), and by ensuring that prices remain high through mandatory minimum pricing schemes. And they protect the monopoly wholesalers and licensed retailers from competition. Absurdly, the District of Columbia argues that restricting the number of sources of wine helps alcohol retailers:
Wine must be shipped to licensed wholesalers, who then provide it to licensed retailers, who make the sale to consumers. “This results in a thriving retail industry in the District, which would be undercut by permitting direct sales to consumers from out-of-state wineries in any appreciable quantity,” said Tarifah Coaxum, spokeswoman for the D.C. Corporation Counsel.
Of course, freeing retailers from the bottleneck of licensed wholesalers would also help retailers compete, both against each other and against direct sales, but government regulators are apparently blind to that fact.
Are these laws necessary to protect state tax revenue and to protect against sales to minors (protection of wither wholesalers or retailers from competition is simply not a proper justification for any law in a free-market economy)? Simply put, no. State tax revenue from exorbitant taxes on alcohol might decline, but the idea that non-drinkers and non-smokers should get a free ride in welfare state benefits on the backs of users of legal products is a weak defense of regulations that impede competition. Even if the laws are more difficult to enforce, they are thus no different from laws imposes tax on out-of-state sales of other products.
As for sales to the under-21 set, one should always be highly suspicious of any law justified as necessary to “protect the children.” This is almost always cover for otherwise weak justification. In this case, the system itself will weed out most underage purchases. To buy wine direct from the vinter, a minor would have to (1) have access to a credit card, (2) buy generally expensive wines not available through retailers, (3) by the case, and (4) sign for the deliveries. In addition, because wineries would likely face prosecution for sales to minors if caught, one would expect wineries to implement some sort of age verification system (say, requiring the purchaser to fax a notarized copy of a driver’s license before setting up an account, as many internet registrars do if the registrant no longer has the required password or access to the email account on file). Minors clearly could evade this requirement with enough effort, but inasmuch as most lower-cost wineries are unlikely to see this as a significant market opportunity, this is not going to be the way teenagers stock the bar for their parents-out-of-town bash or fraternity party. Need proof that your 16-year old won’t be buying cheap wine online?
Lee Tatum, assistant to the president of Brown-Forman Wines, said the Louisville-based company believes the best way to sell its Fetzer, Bolla and Korbel wines is through its network of retailers.
“We want our brands in the broadest distribution possible,” he said.
Tatum said that online sales have been “a blip” for the company and that the opportunity online is greater for smaller, boutique wines that have difficulty getting shelf space at liquor stores.
It’s not at all clear that this sort of enforcement mechanism would “protect the children” any more than our current system, where despite the layers of state regulation, monopoly wholesalers and licensed retailers, the entire protection against sale of alcohol to a minor is the efforts of a clerk at Rite Aid or Kroger. State enforcement is largely through “secret shopper” stings, and there is no reason the state liquor enforcers couldn’t use teenagers to order wine mail order to test wine sellers’ systems.
Virginia also used to have a law forbidding sales directly to customers (I was aware when I lived there of several individuals who had wines delivered from the West Coast to addresses where direct sales were permitted, in an effort to evade the law). According to the Washington Times article linked above,
The new law allows wineries and retailers in any state to obtain a Virginia shipper’s permit for $50 per year and allows adult consumers to order and receive up to two cases of wine per month from anyone who has a license.
The Virginia General Assembly changed the law because federal courts looked as if they were about to change it if state lawmakers did not, said Tim Murtaugh, spokesman for Virginia Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore.
There is no evidence that this new law has led to a rash of sales to minors, so there doesn’t seem to be much justification for continuing the system of economic protectionism.
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4 years, 3 months ago,,
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In a hissy fit more appropriate for my four year old, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has again placed the entire state of Vermont on its list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Places. Other entries on the list appear to be genuinely historic structures facing imminent threat. For example, heres how the Trust describes the threat to Elkmont, “the last remaining collection of early 20th-century Tennessee mountain resort buildings”:
Since the National Park Service (NPS) assumed control of Elkmont in the early 1990s, inadequate maintenance – coupled with a debate over whether the area should be allowed to return to its “natural†state – has resulted in serious deterioration of the vacant wooden structures that comprise the 60-acre National Register-listed historic district; already, the rambling Wonderland Hotel is in such bad condition that it must be razed. This de facto demolition by neglect is an imminent threat to all of the remaining structures in Elkmont if action is not taken. Viable uses for the buildings exist – but unless the ongoing neglect is halted soon, Elkmont will crumble.
So what’s the imminent threat facing all of Vermont? Why, Wal-Mart, of course:
During the 1990s Wal-Mart located three of its four Vermont stores in existing buildings and kept them relatively modest in size. Now, however, the world’s largest company is planning to saturate the state – which has only 600,000 residents – with seven new mammoth mega-stores, each with a minimum of 150,000 square feet. Theses potential new stores may be located in St. Albans, Morrisville, Newport/Derby, St. Johnsbury, Bennington, Rutland, and Middlebury. Wal-Mart’s plans are sure to attract an influx of other big-box retailers. The likely result: degradation of the Green Mountain State’s unique sense of place, economic disinvestment in historic downtowns, loss of locally-owned businesses, and an erosion of the sense of community that seems an inevitable by-product of big-box sprawl. With deep regret, the National Trust takes the rare step of re-listing Vermont as one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
First off, it’s not at all clear that 11 Wal-Mart stores in a state with 600,000 people is “saturated.” That’s a ratio of about 55,000 residents per Wal-Mart. According to that ratio, there should be 74 Wal-Marts in Kentucky, a state with a population of 4,041,769 in 2000. Wal-Mart’s store finder does not permit a search by state, but a search on superpages.com finds 291 listings for Wal-Mart in Kentucky - Even assuming 3 listings per store (very conservative), that’s at least 97 Wal-Marts, and Kentucky doesn’t seem particularly “saturated.”
I used to have great respect for the National Trust, and believe the the best way to protect “historic” structures is for those who are interested in protecting such structures to get together and raise funds to protect them, such as Mount Vernon, which is owned and operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, a private, non-profit organization founded in 1853 by Ann Pamela Cunningham. In fact, it was the Trust’s work preserving Montpelier that got my attention in the first place. Somewhere along the way, however, the National Trust lost its way, and including Vermont on a list of endangered places just proves the Trust has fully joined the list of chattering classes and professional nags that lives to scold the public for making choices of which they do not approve. To belabor an already-belabored cliche, the professional scolding class are now the ones standing athwart at history, yelling Stop! (with all necessary apologies to William F. Buckley).
The National Trust just can’t accept that people are willing to accept the demise of some traditional ways for economic gain, and envisages Wal-Mart as the Godzilla of retail, stomping into small towns in Vermont and discarding quaint downtowns like so much detritus in its wake. Godzilla at least you can explain via H-bombs. What created Wal-Mart? Wal-Mart hasn’t destroyed communities; it was the slow but steady decline of community in its 1950s sense that allowed Wal-Mart to succeed in the first place. If Vermonters really preferred their sense of community to the impersonal corporate face of Wal-Mart, then the four stores that have opened there since 1993 would have failed, and Wal-Mart wouldn’t be planning seven new ones. Like everything else, the choice of what to buy, where to buy it, and what to pay for it is an individual choice that requires the balancing of various interests. Some people prefer to trade some measure of service for lower prices, some don’t. That the National Trust would prefer that consumers make different choices doesn’t mean that the evil corporation from Bentonville has overwhelmed naive Vermonters, it just means the market values these factors differently than the Trust does. Wal-mart exists solely because consumers want it to, and the public doesn’t need the Natinal Trust to protect it from itself any more than it needs Michael Jacobson to do the same.
In this sense, I’m reminded of the efforts to blame “wrong” consumer choices on factors like “network effects,” such as the choice of PCs over Macs or VHS over Beta. In those cases, consumers valued lower prices and increased choices over what they perceived to be marginally better quality and usability. This doesn’t make the consumers wrong, it means they valued things differently than those who made other choices. The market works when left alone, and market failures are most often the product of bad regulation. That’s just the way it is, and hopefully Vermonters will ignore the National Trust’s efforts to make them feel guilty for exercising their rights to participate in a free market economy.
As always, more in-depth analysis at Always Low Prices.
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4 years, 3 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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The Courier-Journal’s Bob Hill thinks its OK to steal, at least from evil big box stores:
I WOULD not take advantage of someone in a smaller, user-friendly, product-knowledgeable store, but I rarely correct money-takers in a box store now if it’s to my advantage. I don’t consider it my fault — although minor sin might be another matter. It’s my only means of getting back at store indifference, especially with 10 impatient people in line behind me. Knowledge and service should matter more than a slightly lower price.
My other rationalization comes from the times I’ve gotten home and learned I’d overpaid for things, or an item was missing. It all comes out in the wash.
Be honest: Do you find yourself more and more doing the same thing — especially in today’s impersonal checkout line? Please e-mail your deepest societal worries and moral concerns to bhill@courier-journal.com. Slug it “Bananas.” Some answers will be used in subsequent column.
Of course, Bob Hill, and anyone similarly aggrieved, has an option other than theft - address “store indifference” by taking your business to a “smaller, user-friendly, product-knowledgeable store.” Certainly Home Depot isn’t the only source of peat moss in greater Louisville. If you really believe that “knowledge and service should matter more than a slightly lower price,” then by all means take your business to stores that offer better service for more money. That’s the whole point of a competitive market - the customer gets to balance service, quality, convenience and price however he sees fit. Don’t take advantage of the low prices at Home Depot and Wal-Mart and complain about not getting the service you didn’t pay for. Certainly don’t intentionally rip Home Depot off and then justify ripping them off on the grounds that you didn’t get the service you didn’t pay for.
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4 years, 3 months ago,,
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Prof. Erin O’Connor, who is an invaluable read for anyone interested in academic freedom issues, posted a nice summary of the UofL/KKK issue on the Critical Mass weblog. She makes a few good points, better than my attempts to say the same (which is why she is an English professor and I am not):
Last winter, the Klan started posting flyers all over the U of L campus (I have not seen these flyers myself–if anyone has a copy and can send along a scanned image, I’ll post it). Flyers were found stuck on an outdoor campus map, on trashcans, on bike racks, on the ground, and even tucked under the windshield wipers of cars. Complaints came in. People were offended and frightened and disturbed. Emotions aside, there was a legitimate issue with the manner in which the KKK had disseminated its message: the university doesn’t allow anyone to post flyers in these places. It maintained concrete kiosks for flyer-posting purposes. And so university administrators notified the KKK of its error. But the way it did so may result in a lawsuit.
This is the crux of the issue. The university clearly has the right to enforce content-neutral restrictions on the time, place and manner of posting material - neither the KKK nor anybody else should be pasting material on campus maps or on trashcans. When the UofL removed the outdoor kiosks, its actions were a heavy-handed attempt to mute the KKK, but at least all outside speakers were affected similarly, and now no outside group can dissiminate information outside the odious “free speech zones.” Here, however, the school did two things wrong. First, it applied a neutral rule in a non-content-neutral way. Are all individuals caught posting material outside the kiosks/free speech zones banned for life from the campus (unless, of course, they’re paying cash money, such as buying tickets to athletic events, where even the KKK is welcome)? It’s extremely unlikely the UofL imposes the same sanction on groups that don’t offend.
Second, the university imposed the ban for distributing offensive and insensitive material. Furious backpedaling when the news hit the media doesn’t change that fact. Blaming police reports for the language doesn’t change it either. If the Klansmen were banned for posting flyers in inappropriate places, that’s what the letter would have said, and it’s clear UofL was just responding to student demands that free speech on campus be restricted.
Prof. O’Connor also points out something I missed:
U of L professor Ede Warner, unsatisfied with the administration’s ban of the men who posted the flyers, wants to banish the KKK itself from the campus. Currently, if KKK members who have not personally been banished for their poor understanding of campus posting rules wish, they can stand inside one of the school’s free speech zones and distribute their flyers there. That’s not acceptable to Warner, who argues that the KKK should be barred from campus because it is a terrorist organization (this argument, experts note, is not likely to fly in court).
This argument is nothing new. In February, Bethany Wright, chair of the campus chapter of the NAACP, argued that “We do not feel that we are bound to respect their First Amendment rights. We feel they have forfeited them, being terrorist organizations, and we do not want them on campus at all.” In March, graduate student Curtis Nelson claimed that “We just want the university to do the right thing. This is a terrorist organization organized for that specific purpose. They don’t do anything else.” Prof. Warner has been making this argument since March, as well: “There was a missed opportunity, and the opportunity is whether the Klan should be defined as a hate group like al-Qaida (terrorists), because for black people the Klan is al-Qaida.”
Putting aside whether the KKK is a terrorist organization - and the toothless dog that is the Klan (in the words of Ricky Jones, a UofL professor of pan-African studies) doesn’t look much like al-Qaida these days - there is a long history of allowing non-violent speakers from organizations that also advocate violence to speak publicly, so long as the speech itself is legal. Gerry Adams has long been a frequent visitor to the US, even as Sinn Fein’s military wing was engaged in violence that may or may not have been terrorism, depending on your perspective. The same is true of the PLO, of Hamas, of other organizations that condone or engage in violence. The Nazis marching in Skokie were certainly heirs to a history as violent as the Klan’s. I’d go so far as to argue that if al-Qaida had a political wing equivalent to Sinn Fein, its speakers should be free to make speeches or distribute materials, so long as the materials did not incite violence (I realize that the Patriot Act may well change this dynamic, but that doesn’t mean it should).
As Professor O’Connor notes in closing:
Rabidly racist speech is clearly the extreme test case for a university’s commitment to free speech. The University of Louisville is now being tested. In its official statements, it passes the present test with flying colors: see this FAQ on the U of L website. But in practice, things seem to be playing out a bit differently.
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4 years, 3 months ago,,
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We took a trip to Lake Cumberland State Resort Park over the weekend. I didn’t take the camera, so no pictures, but anyone in the area (Jamestown, Russell County, KY, about 30 miles north of the Tennessee border) should definitely visit. For someone who lived in Virginia for several years, the concept of the State Resort Park is a relatively new one. Ohio and Kentucky both have a number of parks that feature a hotel-like lodge with maid service, a restaurant, pool and so forth. Rates are relatively good, with easy access to park amenities. Lake Cumberland has a 120 mile long, 60,000 acre lake with marina, golf course, outdoor and indoor pools, hiking trails, etc. We rented a pontoon boat for a 3-hour trip around the lake, which the sometimes aquaphobic kids really loved, even though each took a headlong dunk in the lake when exporing the shoreline. We saw a lot of wildlife, including a couple of water snakes in the lake itself, which was exciting for the kids, if not always for the parents. We’ve already started planning a return visit, if not to Lake Cumberland, then to one of the many other KY resort parks that have a marina. My only complaint about the amenities (and I had the same problem with Salt Fork in Ohio) is that the dining option tends to be a buffet-style meal with questionable choices. Saturday’s dinner selections included Fried Catfish, Chicken and Dumplings, Seafood Pasta and Pork Spareribs. None of these seemed particularly appetizing for the entire clan, so we ended up at a Pizza Hut in Russell Springs.
Dining options in the surrounding area were also limited, and we finally figured out why - Russell County is a dry county, and the Pizza Hut waitress informed us that the nearest “wet” town was an hour and a half away (she did indicate that moonshine was available). Recent efforts to bring liquor by the drink to Louisville-area Oldham County were sold as a way to bring more restaurants to Oldham. Clearly, margins on alcohol are far higher than on food - the Courier-Journal recently has had several articles on efforts to ban liquor sales on Baxter Avenue, and featured quotes from the owner of Lynn’s Paradise Cafe stating that if such a restriction passed, Lynn’s would have to close, even though it primarily features breakfast (margins on Bloody Marys dwarf margins on eggs, and liquor sales are what keep food prices reasonable). Being in dry Russell County reminded me that there is a whole lot more to Kentucky than Louisville and Lexington. An upcoming trip to the Kentucky Railway Museum in New Haven, Kentucky for the Day Out with Thomas should reinforce that fact. Somewhat ironic, of course, that the return trip from Jamestown took us near both the Jim Beam’s American Outpost in Clermont, KY and the Makers Mark distillery in Loretto, Kentucky.
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4 years, 3 months ago,,
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Over the past couple of days, Julia has begun to refer to herself as “Bubba.” Putting aside the fact that we live in Western Kentucky, where there are likely to be fewer Bubbas, this led to the obvious question: how many Bubbas are listed in the Wikipedia, and how many are women? Answer: there are 12 Bubbas listed, but none of them appear to be women. Bubbas I found include Disney character Bubba the Caveduck, NFL Hall of Famer Bubba Smith, Gus “Bubba†Gravel, shot in 1976 along with Priscilla Davis as part of the T. Cullen Davis hitman saga, trotter Bubba Dunn, rapper Bubba Sparxxx, Amiga video game Bubba’n'Stix, former radio host Bubba the Love Sponge, President William Jefferson “Bubba†Clinton, pro wrestler Bubba Ray Dudley, boxer James “Bubba†Busceme, Bruce Campbell/Ossie Davis film Bubba Ho-Tep, and chewing gum Hubba Bubba. IMDB has listings for more than 10,000 Bubbas, including Jimmy Buffett.
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4 years, 3 months ago,,
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Friends and family will probably be surprised that I need to regeekify, given that I never really ungeekified, but I find myself strangely drawn to geeky things lately. I picked up several graphic novels (collections, really) after having stopped reading comics in the mid-90s. The last series I read regularly were probably Sandman, although I picked up a couple of Preacher graphic novels a few years ago. Sandman writer Neil Gaiman and Transmetropolitan/Planetary writer Warren Ellis both have blogs, which is kind of cool.
I like Transmetropolitan, although I had heard rather mixed reviews of it. I haven’t read either of the Planetary books I picked up, so we’ll see. This regeekification project also involved a vist to a comics shop for the first time in a while, which was a trip. This shop is a combination comics/computer game lounge/food shop, so needless to say, the crowd was considerably geekier than I was even at my geekiest. The Big Lots next door provides a convenient source of pudding.
This blog is, of course, further proof of geekification. At least I haven’t started reading Slashdot again.
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4 years, 3 months ago,,
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Apropos of our recent discussion of the banning for life of two Klansmen from UofL for offensive speech are two March 2004 posts from Penn professor Erin O’Connor discussing Emory’s attempts to prevent a return visit from David Horowitz.
Following a controversial speech from Horowitz at Emory, the College Republicans tried to sponsor a return visit. In a rather hamfisted move, two Emory administrators came to the College Council meeting where funding for the visit was to be discussed, and pressured, none too subtly, students to deny funding. Following the meeting, CR member Ezra Greenberg wrote an editorial in the campus paper criticizing the speech of Emory Assistant Dean of Campus Life Vera Rorie. An unidentified (presumably non-Emory-related) individual subsequently sent Rorie an email criticizing her attempts to suppress free speech. Dean Rorie responded with a note to Greenberg and CR President Ed Thayer cancelling a planned meeting. In Professor O’Connor’s words:
Notice the logic of suppression that animates this note (because she is offended, she closes off all communication; refusal to engage in discussion is meted out here as a punishment). Notice, too, the hostility to transparency (”outsiders” should never have learned what she said to fellow “insiders”), the peculiarly censorious concept of causality (Greenberg is responsible for what Siles [the emailer] wrote because Greenberg, in accurately quoting Rorie, made it possible for Siles to write what he wrote; Thayer is responsible because, presumably, none of this would have happened if his group had not wanted Horowitz to come speak), and the predictable equation of words with weapons (not only Siles, but also Greenberg and Thayer, are accused here of perpetrating a linguistically-based “personal assault”). You can read Greenberg’s and Thayer’s responses, as well as the letters the CRs’ faculty sponsor, Harvey Klehr, addressed to Rorie, by scrolling down here.
Following the negative publicity, the CRs and other private groups raised money to bring Horowitz to campus, and Emory President James Wagner apologized to the CRs. Quoting a comment from the Volokh Conspiracy’s David Bernstein, Prof. O’Connor notes that
I do agree that the real apology should come from Rorie, and that Rorie’s behavior, both at the College Council meeting, where she openly tried to pressure students into following her ideological lead, and after, when she lashed out at the College Republicans for something they did not even do, ought to give the Emory administration serious pause. If this is not behavior they condone, then Rorie’s record should show that.
This is similar to the UofL situation in many ways - an administrator makes an official statement against free speech and open communication, which a higher-level administrator is forced to furiously backpedal away from, lest the university be seen as opposing free speech. The university can’t get off that easily - it is the job of all administrators to protect an environment that permits open communication of all ideas, even ones that the administrator opposes personally. Ultimately, university presidents are responsible for the actions taken on the university’s behalf. A Courier-Journal editorial today makes the same point:
Maintaining campus safety and keeping campus property free from defacement and clutter are legitimate goals. Anyone who frustrates the university’s pursuit of them should be dealt with. But not in the clumsy, self-defeating and possibly unconstitutional way that Dr. Ramsey has sanctioned Dave King and another member of the execrable KKK.
We cite Dr. Ramsey because he’s in charge and responsible for the letter that banned the men from campus for “posting insensitive and offensive material.” And because he’s running Belknap Campus, not Cold-War Bulgaria.
There’s a First Amendment bar against this sort of content-based censorship. In America, government authorities may not single out certain people for exclusion from a public university’s buildings, grounds, facilities and school-sponsored events, for life, or from taking classes, simply because somebody else finds their leaflets, cards, fliers or other materials “insensitive and offensive.”
Are there others who have tacked something up in violation of U of L’s rules or who have hung around without having any particular business to conduct? Were they declared persona non grata for life? You can bet the Klansmen will run, letter in hand, to the nearest federal court to find out.
Klan members may not break campus rules, or falsely yell “fire” in a crowded classroom, or rally students to take the provost hostage.
But they may share ideas — even ideas that most Americans find disgusting. Campuses must protect debate and dialogue over ideas, including ugly, mean-spirited ideas like the KKK’s, as long as everyone obeys the same rules for expressing their ideas.
If Dr. Ramsey didn’t see the banishment letter, he should explain what sort of management system would allow an obviously incendiary and flawed approach like that to be taken without his approval.
If he did know, he should explain how he failed to see the legal issue he was handing to the KKK — or the blow he was landing on free speech.
The C-J, David Bernstein and Erin O’Connor all get it right - universities shouldn’t be trampling on the First Amendment so blatantly, and they shouldn’t let administrators who do so off the hook.
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