Last week, Toronto Public Library allowed a radical feminist author Megan Murphy to give a talk at the Palmerston Branch of TPL. This has sparked a debate about hate speech, safe spaces, freedom of speech, and the public library’s role in those debates. Murphy maintains controversial–if not offensive–views and opinions regarding trans individuals, such as that women’s rights are undermined by trans rights.
Prior to confirming the booking of the space, TPL reviewed Murphy’s work and determined that her booking should be approved since it did not violate the terms and conditions of TPL’s room booking policy which was scrupulously updated by third-party lawyers in 2017. Vickery Bowles, City Librarian of Toronto said that she would not reconsider the change.
Now, I’m a left-leaning conservative (leaning very left these days) but I don’t agree with Megan Murphy’s views. I think her views are outlandish, ill-thought, and seemingly unsupported by any science. That being said, I’m no expert on feminism or trans rights. If someone wants to push back at me, that’s cool, I’m happy to receive correction.
That being said, just because Megan Murphy is wrong, does not mean she isn’t allowed a voice. I am fearful of the concept of illegitimatizing speech and I believe that we often mistake “wrong speech”, “unpopular speech”, or “offensive speech” as hate speech.
Hate speech should be censored. Hate speech isn’t legitimate speech. However, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus or much legal precedent in Canada as to what constitutes hate speech. My understanding of hate speech is that it must explicitly incite violence toward a group or explicitly illegally discriminate against a group based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, etc. From what I’ve read of and about Murphy, she doesn’t use her voice for that purpose no matter how hurtful and misguided her words can be. Again, I don’t agree with her.
The problem with illegitimatizing speech that isn’t explicitly hate speech is that it removes our ability to talk about it and create a dialogue. This has been a problem on university campuses as they have wrestled with this issue, most notably at Wilfrid Laurier University in 2017 when Teaching Assistant Lindsay Shepherd showed a TVO video clip featuring controversial University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson (aka. The Stupid Man’s Smart Guy).
What I would rather do is allow people like Peterson and Murphy say what they want to say and let the academic process take its course. Let their peers and opponents shred them apart and put their ludicrous claims to rest. Heck, we gave Holocaust deniers a voice and we ripped them to shreds and hardly anyone takes them seriously. Now, there is a small segment of the world that still denies the Holocaust but the group is so small that it’s inconsequential. My fear is that if we silence people like Peterson and Murphy and deny them a platform, we risk galvanizing their cause and inadvertently drawing more attention to it. Like in Beauty and the Beast. Beast banned Belle from entering the west wing of the castle. What was the first thing she did? She went to the west wing of the castle. This keeps happening over and over again including attempts to ban books and films. It just makes people want to engage with them more.
Many people such as the trans community, authors, and Toronto mayor John Tory are disappointed that TPL allowed the Murphy event to go on. Many people in the community believe that Murphy’s talk compromises TPL’s ability to claim that they are a safe and inclusive space.
I don’t know that this is true. As long as TPL vets their speakers and ensures that hate speech isn’t perpetuated, I don’t see why TPL can’t be a safe and inclusive space.
It seems to me that libraries are at a crossroads and that their values are being tested by individuals whose views generally go against the values that the library promotes. However, if libraries want to continue to be radical and disruptive–as they often try to be–I think they need to follow the lead of Vickery Bowles and stand by their policies and allow all types of legitimate speech to book spaces to have a dialogue. What’s interesting is that there seems to have been a paradigm shift in what constitutes “disruptive” and “radical.” Since the Second World War, these labels seemed to be the left’s territory. It now seems that right-wing thought has taken these labels back. I don’t particularly like it, but this will be the true test: Can the library apply its values evenly and fairly to both left- and right-wing voices?
Writing History and other things 