This Tuesday, Hunter Biden stood in the Exam Hall to accept the gold medal for outstanding contribution to public discourse from the College Historical Society (Hist). With his family incidentally in attendance, notably including the former US President Joe Biden, he went on to give a speech. Through stifled bursts of emotion, he relayed messages that he had learned in church basements while sitting on metal folding chairs. In other words, he told a story about addiction and sobriety, and the message was that humility counted for more than humiliation, and accountability is the only path towards growth.
As the younger Biden went on to converse with the Hist’s auditor, Jane Freyer, a muffled crowd began to gain momentum outside. At the Postgraduate Reading Room, a spontaneous group of protesters gathered to oppose Joe Biden’s presence due to his support for Israel while in office. Inside, Hunter Biden went on to say that his father was the best parent he could be, and that he wanted to be remembered as a man who loved his family. As chants permeated through the walls while the conversation remained lukewarm and polite inside, it became increasingly clear that the opposition to the event would soon dominate the narrative. And as outrage towards the Hist gains momentum on campus, so does a dangerous precedent: blatant hostility to discourse at Trinity.
First, it is important to note the deceitfulness in how the opposition has framed the events on Tuesday. Amongst protesters, there seemed to be a consensus that Joe Biden was an invited guest. It’s a claim parroted or implied by the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU/AMLCT) and other leftist student organisations on campus, but this is simply not the case. This fact was first made clear in the Exam Hall itself.
As the event transitioned towards an audience Q&A, a student in the crowd stood up to confront Hunter Biden about his father’s foreign policy in Gaza. Two security guards rushed towards the dissenter, but as they got ready to escort him out of the building, Hunter Biden stopped them and let him speak. In response to this questioning on Gaza, Hunter Biden stated that this event was not about his father, and that history will be what determines the former president’s legacy. But as Tuesday’s events show, this retrospective has already begun.
The truth is that the Biden family’s worst moments are for the public record. Like Hunter Biden recounted in his speech at the Hist, the depths of his addiction were plastered across right-wing media channels and congressional hearings. Joe Biden’s blunders are even more embarrassing and obvious. Unconditionally bankrolling Israel after October 7th was clearly a deplorable decision. And as Trump carries out his second term in office — going wherever Netanyahu’s fanaticism takes him, even if that means straight towards a disastrous war in Iran — the entire world is forced to reckon with what could have been had Biden put his own interests aside and stepped down in time for a primary in the 2024 presidential election. But Hunter Biden is not his father, and this intentional conflation between the two Bidens is, rather ironically, a classic MAGA move.
In a statement from the Hist posted on Wednesday, the society confirmed that “Former President Joe Biden attended the event as a guest accompanying his son. He was neither an invited speaker nor a recipient of an award from the Society. The Society was informed of his attendance at relatively short notice.” The vitriolic backlash directed towards the society, then, is misleading and frankly unfair. But despite this shred of clarity from both the Hist and Hunter Biden himself, this conflation persists, and it shows no signs of stopping soon. In a statement later that day, Trinity BDS condemned “the decision by… the Hist to host Joe Biden”, and they regarded his presence as a “profound moral failure”. Their solution — to the surprise of no one — was to boycott the Hist. But browbeating a debate society does not give Trinity BDS the moral high ground, especially given that they failed to outline any resolution.
It is also true that even if the Hist did host Joe Biden as a speaker, the society wouldn’t have been wrong in doing so. On a campus with a leftist consensus, it’s natural that visitors whom students view as antithetical to their political persuasions would be met with scrutiny. But when this criticism dominates the narrative, it sends the message that discourse is not only unwelcome, but inherently immoral. If one of our most prominent debate societies cannot meaningfully conduct itself as a leader of discourse without censorious vitriol from students, how is discourse meant to thrive in any meaningful way on campus? Preferring campus-wide consensus is intellectually incurious. Ideological hegemony precludes discourse.
But my defence of uncensored dialogue inevitably extends to the protesters themselves. TCDSU/ALMCT has one thing right about this situation, and it is that “students have every right to protest [Biden’s] visit, challenge those in positions of power and demonstrate their solidarity with the Palestinian people.” But this statement also had its excesses. Despite their claims that the protest was totally innocuous, the footage begs to differ. Charging towards Biden’s vehicle and throwing milk cartons towards the senior was deeply unserious, and certainly not peaceful. But while these foolish acts of the few naturally made the protest raucous, the violence inflicted upon these protesters in turn — whether they were peaceful or not — was undeniably excessive. There is no reason to repeatedly strike a protester with a baton when he was already on the ground. Apart from the injudiciousness of a protester or two, one truth remains. The right to peaceful dissent is directly compatible with the right to uncensored discourse, and it too should be protected.
But when the protesters chant “Shame to the Hist”, and Trinity BDS encourages people to boycott the society entirely, they are not acting in alignment with their ostensible values. Curbing discourse in the name of political correctness is not a cause to which we should ever be sympathetic. As Hunter Biden acknowledged in the Exam Hall, engaging in dialogue with people you oppose is an invaluable asset. The ability to articulate our own beliefs is only as strong as our ability to listen and assess the beliefs of others. We mustn’t forget that tolerance towards discourse is an essential intellectual faculty. It is a sign of discernment, attention, and above all, care. Just as the Hist welcomed Hunter Biden, we must welcome the supporters and dissenters alike. It is friction alone that sparks debate.
