QUORA: 'Should I report a right wing student in my class?'

QUORA *: Should I report a right wing student in my class? Our university has a “Prevent” policy, requiring that we report extremism. This student is vocal in class, speaking of white supremacist views and labeling others ‘communist’.

I submitted this answer:

It would be proper to report the student only if the student’s behavior is disrespectful and disruptive. But really, it is the professor’s job to control his classroom.

That aside, the university’s “Prevent” policy is certainly within the University administration’s right. But that doesn’t make it right. The vague term “extremism,” like the term “hate speech,” is a smear tactic useful only in intimidating and silencing an opposing voice. Racial supremacism may be “extreme”; but so is the view that “all men are created equal” and should be treated as such under the law, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

It is intellectual cowardice to report the student for his views, thus silencing him in the classroom. It is also impractical. First of all, you say actually learn something by listening, either by realizing that the “extremist” has a valid point or by using the ojectionable viewpoint as an opportunity to sharpen your own thinking and formulate a counterpoint. Second, disagreeable views cannot be defeated by silencing, in effect driving them underground where they metastasize. They can only be defeated by intellectually discrediting, and then by countering with a better viewpoint. Prohibition does not work. It didn’t work with alcohol. It doesn’t work with the “War on Drugs.” And it won’t work with ideas. Truth-seeking is about exposing and debating, not burying and retreating into an “echo chamber.”

The right move is just the opposite of reporting it. You should vigorously defend the “right wing student’s” right to express his views. Voltaire’s sentiment is applicable here, as it is to all individual rights: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You should welcome the challenge posed by the “right wing student,” and then stand up for your beliefs rather than run for cover behind some ridiculous “Prevent” policy. The best response to “hate speech” is counter-speech. The only proper response to bad ideas is better ideas.

It is shocking that, with the record of fascism and communism still fresh in our history, that the tactic so beloved of dictatorships, intellectual oppression, is rising again in the land of the First Amendment--and on the campuses of so-called “institutions of higher learning” no less.
Related Reading:

Free Speech, not Self-Censorship, is the Answer to 'Offensive' Free Speech [UPDATED]

Budding Grassroots Campaign Against ‘Hate Speech’ is shallow, childish . . . and Dangerous

How to Overcome Bigotry in a Free Society

John Farmer's Understanding of Free Speech Rights as Non-Absolute is Dangerous and Wrong

* [Quora is a social media website founded by two former Facebook employees. According to Wikipedia:

Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]

You can also reply to other users’ answers.]