Overboard?
Reader comment on item: My Disrupted Talk at UCLA

Submitted by Abraham Corrigan (United States), Jun 6, 2007 at 12:02

It seems questionable as to whether or not any good can come from furthering your correspondence with the UCLA administration. While I realize you may have felt slighted by the students, the best way to respond to this type of criticism is not to attempt to have them punished. That type of action would quickly make these students into near martyrs and allow them to further publicize their actions to the public while allowing them to make you out as stuffy and out of touch with the youth. Perhaps a better strategy would be to attempt to engage in a dialog with the students themselves. This would hold the possibility for greater satisfaction reached through academic debate and likely save the UCLA administration a lot of head aches over your previous emails. Just a thought.

Abe

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Daniel Pipes replies:

I see, wanting disrupters (some of whom appear older than me, by the way) to be punished makes me stuffy and out of touch with youth. Well, then mark me as stuffy and out of touch with youth.

And, also by the way, I had the same views as I do now when I was in college.