UC Berkeley\u2019s Philosophy Forum is facing pushback from campus students for hosting author and philosopher Peter Singer to speak Nov. 6 due to controversy from Singer\u2019s comments on people with disabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Singer is best known for his novel, \u201cAnimal Liberation,\u201d and his advocacy for people living in global poverty. However, he has also faced backlash for his support of euthanasia for infants with severe disabilities. Many in the disability community see his views as eugenics.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the Philosophy Forum event, Singer gave a presentation on effective altruism which was followed by a Q&A session. When asked about a hypothetical scenario regarding procreation, he shared that he believed people with disabilities should refrain from reproducing in some cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UC Berkeley\u2019s Disabled Students\u2019 Program, or DSP, sent out an email Sept. 24, approximately two weeks after the event was announced, that said it had been made \u201caware of a student organization\u2019s efforts to invite a speaker to UC Berkeley.\u201d However, the email did not explicitly mention Singer or the Philosophy Forum by name. The email affirmed a student group\u2019s free speech rights to have speakers on campus while also stating that \u201cconstitutionally protected speech can still be deeply hurtful and nothing will hinder our efforts to support impacted members of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore could not confirm that the email from DSP was a direct response to the Philosophy Forum or Singer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Disability Cultural Community, or DCC, Center planned a Disability Celebration Space event Nov. 12 in response to Singer speaking on campus, according to Emily Nusbaum, a professor of education and the director of the Disability Studies minor. Though the DCC Center intended to plan the event a day before Singer\u2019s forum, Nusbaum said there was not a clear way to find out the event\u2019s date without contributing to the GoFundMe. The event featured speakers and crafts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Indra Whetton, a campus student who uses a manual wheelchair, said they felt disheartened by seeing viewpoints such as Singer\u2019s being shared on campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI did some research, and I read about some of the really terrible things (Singer) said about disabled people \u2014 our value in life, our right to live,\u201d Whetton said. \u201cAnd I was pretty horrified that a (campus) club was trying to bring him to campus to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philosophy Forum organizer Matthew Henry said concerns about Singer were valid and important. He agreed that issues such as these need to be discussed, and argued philosophy is the best way to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason I am a big fan of Peter Singer is not because of his views on disability,\u201d Henry said. \u201cI am a big fan of Peter Singer because of his views on our obligations toward people in extreme poverty and our obligations toward animals. So, that is why I invited Peter Singer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henry noted that the club set and achieved the goal of fundraising $2000 for The Humane League, an organization that aims \u201cto end the abuse of animals raised for food,\u201d at Singer\u2019s request.<\/p>\n
Henry said it is important to invite philosophers to the forum even when their views are controversial in order to engage with their ideas in conversation. He also said the Philosophy Forum had facilitated discussions with a number of students who reached out with concerns about Singer\u2019s invitation to speak, and was informed of potential protests against Singer.<\/p>\n
Nusbaum said she found the situation \u201cnegligent,\u201d as the event\u2019s details were inaccessible without contribution to its GoFundMe and it didn\u2019t provide clear representation of the disability community.<\/p>\n
She said that if a speaker such as Singer were to speak on campus, it would have been better or more \u201cwell-rounded\u201d if the event invited other speakers who could be on a level playing field with him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is extraordinarily dangerous to bring someone like Peter Singer to campus at this time without it being a very thoughtfully planned discussion with purposefully selected individuals who can speak back to him, and with a facilitator or moderator that would be skilled and equipped to handle that,\u201d Nusbaum said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley\u2019s Philosophy Forum is facing pushback from campus students for hosting author and philosopher Peter Singer to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[30569,30570,10109,30575,30574,30571,16155,30572,143,145,144,30567,30568,30573,149],"class_list":["post-46549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-animal-liberation","tag-disabled-student-program","tag-cal","tag-disability-studies","tag-emily-nusbaum","tag-indra-whetton","tag-janet-gilmore","tag-matthew-henry","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-peter-singer","tag-philosophy-forum","tag-the-humane-league","tag-uc-berkeley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}