The University at Buffalo has been navigating controversy surrounding Michael Knowles’ visit to campus last week, and rightly so. Free speech has been at the center of discourse, but that is not what this moment requires.
Free speech should not be controversial. No one should think they have the dictatorial power, alone or in a mob, to violate someone else’s free speech rights.
Days before visiting Buffalo, Knowles said on a national platform that, “For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely – the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.” The presence of a pundit who suggested such hateful and destructive ideas sent shockwaves through the UB and Buffalo community. In the days leading up to the event, campus offices received hundreds of visits, calls and messages of outrage and concern. Queer, trans and gender-nonconforming people and allies raised real questions about safety. After all, Buffalo is tragically familiar with acts of violence inspired by hate speech.
Our community responded. We organized. UB’s LGBTQ Faculty and Staff Association wrote in an open message, “Simply put, Knowles’ eliminationist rhetoric is disturbing and the reckless implication of eradication is dangerous. The comments incite distress and directly conflict with our institutional mission, vision and aspirations. The call for removing ‘transgenderism’ from public life is a dog whistle for harm and must be denounced.” Academic deans of different schools within the university echoed similar statements. Teachers organized a petition to cancel the event. Community groups rallied and those who showed up, including students, noticeably outnumbered attendees.
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Of course, a free exchange of thoughts and ideas is the backbone of higher education. It is how all of us, especially in a collegial community, learn and grow in our beliefs and values. But a dissertation around UB’s responsibility to uphold the First Amendment doesn’t help those who are directly impacted by hate speech. Constitutionality can be debated in the courts and the academy. It is UB’s institutional pursuit of a university-wide culture of equity and inclusion and commitment to enriching regional cultural vitality currently being challenged in the arena.
Transgender people are integral members of society and have a lived experience that is not always easy. Social systems that are gender-constructed dominate daily life for everyone, but can burden those who identify outside of the gender binary. Gender-affirming health care can be costly or unavailable. Trans people experience depression and thoughts of suicide more than cisgender peers. Suicide rates for trans youth living or studying in a non-supportive home or school are dangerously high. Disturbingly, transgender people, especially trans people of color, experience violence in alarming and sad ways. And, as evidenced by Knowles’ disgusting comments, transgender people are targeted politically today with rhetoric and legislation that challenges their rights to exist as equal citizens.
These harsh realities were at the forefront of students, faculty, staff, alumni and engaged the hearts and minds of Western New Yorkers who expected more from the University at Buffalo. Reasonable doubt pervaded campus because when one loud voice espoused ideology that so glaringly conflicted with our values, it was hard to hear anything else. As a result, UB’s relationship with the LGBTQ+ community was fractured.
So what to do?
Institutions of higher education are ever-evolving as far as delivering curriculum and services to students. At UB, we strive to provide transformative and innovative education through competitive programs, state-of-the-art facilities and career-oriented opportunities. The opportunity for UB today is to elevate support and care services for marginalized student populations, LGBTQ+ students in particular, to be commensurate with the university’s premiere academic programs. In 2020, a task force of faculty, staff and students delivered a report to the Office of Inclusive Excellence that recommended the creation of a LGBTQ+ resource center with, at minimum, one full-time employee.
Such a model exists on many similar campuses, including UB’s flagship peer, Stony Brook University. Offerings within such a center could range from facilitating the integration of trans and gender-diverse people into curriculum, assisting with identity-based data requests like name change, developing essential training for faculty and staff, providing space to build community on campus and within Buffalo, and institutionalizing a commitment between LGBTQ+ students, employees and the university.
Action, not a lesson. That’s what our queer community members, feeling frustration and loss, need. Upholding free speech includes taking responsibility for the platform. UB can start to heal when the university’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion is anchored with investment in LGBTQ+ people.
Ben Fabian is the president of UB’s LGBTQ Faculty and Staff Association.
