The student representative is merely saying that in expelling a student who verbally harassed his roommate, the university has penalized a student for speaking his mind, which he has a right to do. Thus, the student representative's point is that the expelled student had a right to speak his mind, even when his opinion constituted verbal harassment.
The dean of students twists the student representative's point to an extreme, saying that the student representative's point is that the university should endorse verbal harassment.
By twisting the representative's words, the dean of students has made it much easier for himself to challenge the position, explaining that by endorsing verbal harassment, the university would actually threaten the free flow of ideas that is the essence of university life.
The student representative is clearly not saying that the university should ENDORSE verbal harassment; he's merely voicing his opinion that penalizing a student who did verbally harass someone is an error, since that is punishing a student for doing something he has a right to do. Remember that not punishing and endorsing are two very different things.
Thus, answer choice (C) is the correct answer: "misdescribing the student representative's position, thereby making it easier to challenge."
If you have any specific questions on the other answer choices, please feel free to clarify.
Hope that was helpful! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
djayasingheJune 3, 2018
Thank you Naz for the explanation! Is this a straw man fallacy?
