OU President Redefines Free Speech
Joseph Harroz claims to support Free Speech on campus while actively instituting DEI policies that are diametrically opposed to Freedom of Speech.
OU President Joseph Harroz sent out a letter on October 18, 2021, to kick off OU’s Free Speech Week. But it doesn’t take much effort at discernment to understand that both his letter and Free Speech Week itself, are nothing more than an attempt to virtue signal his way out of taking responsibility for the discrimination inherent in the ideology he is cramming down the throats of OU students, teachers, and families.
Harroz begins his letter by hitting all the free speech buzz words. But at the same time, he expands the purpose of a university to include teaching graduates to "live together in harmony." As we will see later in the letter, this new mission will implicitly exclude those who dissent to CRT/DEI ideology.
In fact, in the very next sentence, he immediately draws a bright line distinction between what speech will be tolerated at OU and what speech will be excluded through the practice of "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion."
The OU President’s mandate is clear: ‘either you accept the views and practices of CRT/DEI/Antiracism as gospel, you are not being Inclusive - and if you are not being Inclusive, you will be Excluded.’
Next, Harroz proves he is an adept practitioner of DEI coercion, through the manipulation of language. He employ’s a law professor’s like cunning to redefine words like “critical,” or terms like “free speech,” by shifting the true contextual foundation of each, to fit into DEI’s practice of CRT ideology.
And for the remainder of the letter, President Harroz is “Doing the Work” of DEI manipulation on the minds of OU.
For example, he knows that his DEI Officers have changed the definition of "critical thinking.” He also knows that the word "critical" is now defined only to mean the critiquing of social systems of POWER by weaponizing historical OPPRESSION, against now living.
“To be “critical” in the Social Justice sense is to be aware of and resist (systemic) power and disrupt established systems and ways of thinking (see also, critical consciousness). This is understood as a form of activism to end systemic oppression by criticizing all systems and undermining them (see also, subvert, deconstruct, disrupt, dismantle, and revolution). It is not the same “critical” as we encounter in “critical thinking” and, in fact, means something more specific (see above).” - Dr. James Lindsay, Newdiscourses.com
Make no mistake, when he says "civil discourse is both the path to truth and compassionate understanding," he is defining civil discourse (speech) in terms of CRT/DEI/AR ideology and practice.
Therefore, only those who practice "civil speech” as defined by DEI, will have Free Speech at OU.
Next, Harroz goes off the rails and contradicts the unsupported justification for DEI as an institution at OU, by way of his own "lived experience."
Harroz came to OU in 1985 and graduated. Then he went to law school and became a lawyer; the Dean of OU Law, and OU President, all without DEI as much as one DEI Office in the mix. But then insists that today's OU students will not be able to achieve his level of success unless OU fully succumbs to the edits of his Division of Ideological Enforcement.
Doubling down on this contradiction, Harroz takes it to the next level, when he implies that "democracy" itself cannot exist without DEI. But again, he knows something you don’t - that yet again Joe is fooling you with covert language manipulation. CRT redefinition of democracy to include explicitly non-democratic, Marxist global constructs.
He then touts the institutionalization and enforcement of DEI ideology and praxis in OU's early college curriculum - which before HB 1775 was mandatory - for OU's youngest and most impressionable students. This curriculum is designed to train students who are at the very beginning of their journey into higher education, to think “critically” about everything.
He goes on to place DEI at the "very heart of our democracy"and then ties "democracy" to DEI’s notion of "civil discourse," which is a drastically limited version of constitutional freedom of speech. Referring to OU using the royal OUR, he introduces DEI's place in this process: Accountability. Who will his Division of Ideological Enforcement hold accountable? He waits until the end to tell us. Anyone who "espouses hate" as defined by CRT/DEI/AntiRacism.
“Theorists of Critical Social Justice are likewise abundantly clear that systemic “hate” is intrinsically a part of the status quo, which therefore must be dismantled and replaced by a critical consciousness (see also, woke and revolution). Under such a society, it is believed, there would be no hate speech (thus attendant harms of hate speech) because those with critical consciousness know better and everyone else can be duly punished. Thus, the call to ban, criminalize, or socially punish “hate speech,” as Critical Social Justice and other critical theories define it, is part of a larger project to remake society on its terms, which—pace Marcuse—looks an awful lot like a dictatorship and an elite.” Dr. James Lindsay, Newdiscourses.com
Harroz does go on to correctly identify the greatest threat to unity in the United States, but leaves out the part about him requiring that OU implement CRT derived ideologies like Intersectionality and micro-aggression, that are designed to amplify differences, hate, and mistrust.
How do I know that Harroz will limit Freedom of Speech at OU to CRT/DEI's ideological notion of civil discourse?
He has done it himself before as DeanOU College of Law. So much for freedom of religion or speech, as he mentioned in his dishonest letter.
J. Mark Ousley, UnWokable
