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 should endorse verbal harassment. Yet surely if we did that, we would threaten the free flow of ideas that is the essence of university life.
Here student's representative is trying to show that a person who spoke his/her mind (and they have the right to do so as per the university rule) is unnecessarily getting penalised under verbal harassment and this is wrong .
Dean of students re-framed the whole point of student's rep and connected it with verbal harassment guidelines which leaves no room for student's rep to counter attack . Directly challenging students rep on the topic which was student rep was against .
Which one of the following is a questionable technique that the dean of students uses in attempting to refute the student representative?-- which option reflects how the Dean of students trapped the students rep in his own questions ?
(A) challenging the student representative’s knowledge of the process by which the student was expelled- Here knowledge hasn't been challenged - Reject A
(B) invoking a fallacious distinction between speech and other sorts of behavior- there are no other sorts of behavior - Reject B
(C) misdescribing the student representative’s position, thereby making it easier to challenge- YES Dean of students re framed the question in his favour and left the student's rep in weaker position .
(D) questioning the motives of the student representative rather than offering reasons for the conclusion defended- Motives haven't been questioned .
(E) relying on a position of power to silence the opposing viewpoint with a threat- No one is relying on anything in this argument specifically the question has been re framed in such a way that they compel the student's rep to answer / counter attack so there is no question of power to silence .