We often dread entrapment in the NYU Abu Dhabi Saadiyat bubble but never consider its ideological counterpart: blind leftism. There is a pressure to conform politically and, more dangerously, morally. In recent times, we have seen active public demands to curb and censor speech that clearly falls below the bar of hate speech. Only last week, The Gazelle published an opinion article titled The Gazelle Cannot Be Neutral On Equality. Authored by a former Managing Editor, the article is an example of the abandonment of journalistic neutrality in the name of moral clarity, and such lines of reasoning have resulted in the dismissal of consistent conversation and thoughtful dialogue. Rooted in the argument that a publication needs to exercise moral clarity in its editorial decisions, the author fails to truly understand the dangerous precedent that this sets, as well as how said moral clarity can easily be hijacked to justify the curtailment of all speech.

As appealing as this may seem, framing and assessing arguments or opinions with the filter of moral clarity — whatever that entails — is vague at best, and irrational at worst. In this day and age, we are trapped in our respective echo chambers, and the last thing we need is some form of a moral aristocracy wherein particular opinions are inherently less valuable due to this arbitrary filter of moral clarity.

In our opinion, this should not be a publication where any opposing thought or view, irrespective of intent or context, is devalued due to its supposedly lower moral stature. If people feel uncomfortable expressing their views or feel that they have to resort to anonymous forums as an outlet, this is a powerful indicator that we as a community, have failed to truly protect not just freedom of speech, but also freedom of thought. Censorship in the guise of “strategic silence” should not be sold off as “navigating complexities.”

Freedom of speech becomes gravely threatened when institutions feel the pressure to conform to a single moral code. The author of the article claims that the publication’s neutrality is a facade for complicity. This is a problematic claim. It is manipulative and rhetorical because it is predicated on the assumption that if one is not aligned with the mainstream school of thought, they are necessarily against it. The moment an institution — or a publication, in this instance — deviates from neutrality and makes value judgments or starts defining its moral obligations and priorities, it becomes a propagator of certain ideologies and agendas. This is a normalization of polarization and creates the echo chambers and hiveminds that deeply damage our social fabric. Further, this is even detrimental to the advancement of said moral priorities, since it legitimizes the existence of publications and media outlets like Breitbart, which follow the same line of reasoning, just with their personalized, narrow conceptions of moral clarity.

While certain views and opinions can be deemed problematic by those who subscribe to alternative perspectives, in a truly inclusive society, the only justifiable response to an unsettling opinion is to counter it. Calling for a publication to curb certain voices by pointing to the psychological damage they may cause to certain groups of people cannot be justified for anything other than indisputable hate speech, which is a black-and-white matter of legal jurisprudence and not of public opinion. Instead, potential rebuttals and backlash from the community over problematic views should be welcomed and celebrated.

The constructive response to what we generally refer to as invalid opinions is not to resort to suppression or censorship. Not acknowledging the existence of these conflicting views in society by labelling them invalid from the get-go is a grave mistake. While a convenient choice, it sets a dangerous precedent for the curtailment of any or all speech that dares to deviate from a majoritarian narrative.

Out in the real world, a truly neutral publication is a rare sight. Most publications have political leanings, and they cover the entire political spectrum. However, this diversity in the media’s affiliations is what crucially maintains a stable equilibrium that guarantees freedom of speech and ensures that due consideration is afforded to all ideas, regardless of where they fall on sociopolitical matrices. This is an important pursuit for a rational society that aims to be inclusive, because the best way to arrive at the truth value for opinions, no matter how controversial they may be — barring hate speech — is to provide a platform for them and allow the readers to pass a moral judgment, a right afforded solely to them.

We submit to you that in our small campus that houses a comfortable liberal majority and just one publication — that is, The Gazelle — the only inclusive rational choice we can make is for this publication to be consciously neutral. This is not a groundbreaking idea: it was obvious even to the founding team of The Gazelle, that enshrined neutrality as a core idea in the publication’s Code of Ethics, a document that was last updated in 2014 and perhaps deserves more attention from the former Managing Editor who openly called for the abandonment of these values in this article.

Even on campus, we fully support the backlash conservative ideas often get as a manifestation of public sentiment, but what we cannot possibly agree with is the idea that The Gazelle should take down or refuse to publish a particular sociopolitical leaning. The problem with ideological narratives is that they are acquired in bulk. An ideological subscriber’s views are, in a sense, not their own. Without a large orthodox group of people to fall back on, institutions like The Gazelle, which have an ethical responsibility to be neutral, can often find themselves embroiled in controversies.

The Gazelle’s neutrality is a fundamental tenet that plays a vital role on a campus housing a single publication, and we ignore it at our extreme peril. The Gazelle cannot possibly be anything but neutral. Instead of censoring free speech, which sets a dangerous precedent for other curtailments, we as a community, must actively push for greater conversation and dialogue and grapple with the uncomfortable and the unsettling. That’s something which we are capable of and something worth celebrating, instead of the “careful compromises” or “strategic silence” that some offer.