Critical Reasoning

51. Student representative: Our University, in expelling a student who verbally harassed his roommate, has erred by penalizing the student for doing what he surely has a right to do: speak his mind!
Dean of students: But what you're saying is that our university would endorse verbal harassment. Yet surely if we did that, we would threaten the free flow of ideas that is the essence of university life.

Which one of the following is a questionable technique that the dean of students uses in attempting to refute the student representative?
A. Challenging the student representative's knowledge of the process by which the student was expelled.
B. Invoking a fallacious distinction between speech and other sorts of behavior.
C. Misdescribing the student representative's position, thereby making it easier to challenge.
D. Questioning the motives of the student representative rather than offering reasons for the conclusion defended
E. Relying on a position of power to silence the opposing viewpoint with a threat.

c

CAn somebody explain the reasoning behind OA?

A) The dean dosen't challenge the student's knowledge of any process.
B) The dean does not make a distinction between speech and any other sort of behavior.
D) The dean doesn't say anything about motives.
E) The dean's argument in no way relies upon the fact that he is the dean.

C) This is the answer becuase he is equivocating the right to speach and verbal harassment. He argument relies upon these two things being one and the same.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Jared

C is the answer because the Student rep is only saying that the student should not have been expelled. But the Dean is taking this to mean that the university should ENDORSE verbal harassment. "Not expelling" is NOT equal to "endorsing".

C is the right one