All speakers

TRNN reported about student protests at University of Baltimore against Betsy DeVos as commencement speaker. My comment:

1) Betsy DeVos is a horrible choice for commencement speaker for a publicly funded educational institution because she doesn't believe in the mission of public education thus would not celebrate the accomplishments of its graduates.

2) Betsy DeVos and other guests should be invited and warmly welcomed to speak at any and all universities under equal conditions of academic scholarship. This means all invited speakers will be allotted the opportunity to speak after which they must answer uncensored and not pre-selected audience questions for some minimum period of time. The overarching purpose of all institutions of higher learning is to train students to think critically; this involves identifying the logical and evidentiary strengths/weaknesses of any position/argument. Critical thinking is not restricted to any field or subject but applies across the board to all specialities. The best way to develop and strengthen an argument is to address its weak points - for example, false assumptions, circular logic. In the end, a university presentation is an opportunity for invited speakers to test the strength of their arguments and for students to test the power of their analysis; positive for both.

I suspect that under the conditions of (2), Betsy DeVos would not accept an invitation to speak. Many of her positions are ideological and have little evidentiary support by scholarly research.

Real scholarship needs challenge. Real scholars welcome challenge. Universities should normalize scholarly challenge.

Related comment at PZ Myers' blog: 

Universities are places of scholarship so all speakers should be challenged on scholarly grounds. Invited speakers are free to speak but not free of challenge. Every point made by every speaker is fair grounds for scholarly challenge. Where’s the beef [evidence]!