Silence U was originally a single short film about the shutting down of free speech at Brown University, but after the new release of Silence U, Part 2, it’s starting to look like a potential series. No doubt US campuses have plenty of material for more of these entertaining and hard-hitting short documentaries, produced by We The Internet TV.
In Silence U Part 2: What Has Yale Become?, filmmaker Rob Montz looks at Yale student hysteria over Halloween costumes that might offend the culturally sensitive.
Per the film’s YouTube post: “The story began in October 2015, when Yale’s Intercultural Affairs Committee sent an email broadly outlining the kinds of Halloween costumes that were and weren’t appropriate. In response, Professor Erika Christakis – the wife of Nicholas Christakis, head of Yale’s Silliman college – penned [an email] citing complaints from the students in the residential college that the list was arbitrary and restrictive. Pointing to other examples of adults long fostering overblown fears about Halloween, she suggested that open dialogue about costumes was a better way for students to learn than through restrictions imposed from administrators.”
That gentle email resulted in waves of angry student protests, hate messages scrawled all over the ground where Christakis lived, and ultimately the resignation of Christakis.
The cost of attending Yale university is $66,445 per year — $265, 780 for a four-year degree.
The original Silence U: Is the University Killing Free Speech and Open Debate?, released last year, focused on the unhappy demise of free speech at Brown University.
The cost of attending Brown University is $71,050 per year — $284,200 for a four-year degree.
The death of free speech on US campuses was likewise the inspiration for the excellent 2007 documentary Indoctrinate U, listed as one of the Top 25 Libertarian Documentaries.