Over the past decade, campus political activism in liberal-democratic nations has come under critical scrutiny for many perceived excesses: woke groupthink, illiberal de-platforming tactics, intimidation, violence and, more recently, anti-Semitism. But less sensational cases where the kids (or profs) get it right tend to fall out of the news cycle quickly.
A recent student against an invited speech by populist Sanseito party leader Sohei Kamiya at the University of Tokyo is one instance of them getting it mostly right, even if the speech was canceled by an anonymous bomb threat. That threat attracted more mainstream media attention than the protests did.
A few student and began organizing protests against Kamiya¡¯s planned speech at the school¡¯s May Festival after it was announced by his , a conservative University of Tokyo student club titled ¡°Japan Association for Strategy and Technology.¡± An set up by two anonymous University of Tokyo students, ¡°For a May Festival without Disinformation and Discrimination¡± deserves praise for its reasonable dissent against Kamiya¡¯s invitation. But I also want to air my disagreements with their strategy.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.