The victory of hubris

I had today’s piece all plotted in my head, but unfortunately, got overtaken by events.

It was going to be this glorious call to arms, a stinging essay against evil and an attack against the venerable institution that is NYU. As usual, I was going to be my inappropriate non-politically correct self, and mud-sling and rant and go berserk. But as luck would have it, good triumphed, the bit** from hell was vanquished, and all that is left for me to do is give a blow-by-blow account. 

See, there was this Singaporean law professor named Thio Li-Ann, and despite being a member of the academe, the good professor espouses seriously radical views fundamentally divergent from mine. (Translation: she’s homophobic.)

I don’t make this accusation on flimsy grounds. In 2007, Prof. Thio gave a speech to the Singapore parliament, where she pushed to retain the Singaporean criminal law making it illegal for two men to have sexual relations. Her argument? Something about gay rights being ‘empty rhetoric’ that generate ‘more heat than light,’ and the need for Singapore to ‘conserve the moral ecology.’ 

Prof. Thio also argued that “You cannot make a human wrong a human right,” “Diversity is not a license for perversity,” and that anal sex is like shoving a straw up your nose. (I won’t comment on the last one, since she seems to be the expert on the topic.)

Now the real shocker is this: despite this track record, for some reason, the NYU School of Law had asked her to come in this fall, and teach in that venerable institution. And guess what the course title was? ‘Human Rights in Asia’!

Bizarre. In my book of sins, it’s like washing your hair right after a perm. (Sorry, I just watched Legally Blond, the Musical.)

So, over the past week, there’s been a buzz, as the criticism against her and NYU mounted. A student activist group named OUT Law circulated an urgent email to all the students, providing the video link to her speech (yes, it’s somewhere in You Tube), urging them to consider her views before enrolling in her class. (The subtext being, ‘you’re making a serious mistake if you register for this subject, dude.’)

NYU felt obliged to issue a statement supporting gay rights, but at the same time stressing ‘academic freedom’ to the students, basically telling them that active civil debate was more important. The vocal Prof. Thio issued her own statement, trying to silence American liberals by accusing them of imperialism. Here’s what she said:

“Do some Americans by appropriating the rhetoric of human rights assume they can impose their views on another sovereign state?

… There are countervailing views… so do students who dislike this view refuse to engage with dissenting views? Or seek to censor views they disagree with? That's hubris. I think certain Americans have to realize the fact that there are a diversity of views on the subject and it is not a settled matter; there is no universal norm and it is nothing short of moral imperialism to suggest there is.”

Given the NYU statement on academic freedom, I thought Prof. Thio’s hiring was a done deal, and so my intended rant against it today.  I had this beautiful speech about the inherent conflict of a person given the responsibility to teach human rights, but who in her own private life, espoused the continued oppression of gay people and in fact, their state-sanctioned prosecution. 

Given that she’s a professor, how could a student try and speak up on gay rights, if she was going to shut him down with sound bites like ‘shove it up your nose’? What kind of academic freedom would that foster?

Anyway, lo and behold, in an announcement issued just a couple of days ago, NYU informed the student body that Dr. Thio was withdrawing her acceptance of the offer to teach. Dr. Thio attributed her withdrawal to the ‘pressure,’ from the students, although given her beliefs and her initially defiant statement, I don’t think she caved in to pressure. (My theory is that after that email, nobody would have wanted to enroll in her class, and she would end up humiliating herself by reporting to an empty classroom. So, to save face, she withdrew.)

Now, isn’t this a satisfying Sunday story..