No such thing as ‘right to an education’
By Daily Bruin Staff
Oct. 18, 1998 9:00 p.m.
Monday, October 19, 1998
No such thing as ‘right to an education’
RACE: World would face dire consequences if all knowledge were
free
By Maclane Key
In Raymond Ribaya’s recent article ‘Blame aimed at power
structure, not individuals,’ (Viewpoint, Oct. 13) Mr. Ribaya makes
a rather startling assertion: that education is a right, not a
privilege. Since it is impossible anywhere, other than in science
fiction, for someone to remove an education from another’s mind,
it’s safe to assume that Mr. Ribaya is referring to one’s positive
right to an education rather than the negative rights this country
was founded upon.
It’s long past time to put the notion of a positive right to an
education to rest in everyone’s mind. No such right exists! If that
right did exist, it would mean that several other rights would
disappear. A ‘right to an education’ would mean that if anyone else
had the knowledge that you desired, they would have to either teach
it to you or violate your ‘right to an education.’
The practical results of this are quite bleak.
Suddenly, any biological, chemical or nuclear weapons expert is
violating someone’s ‘right to an education’ if the expert refuses
to teach a known terrorist how to build a device of mass
destruction.
Additionally, kiss the right against self-incrimination goodbye.
If the prosecutor or jury wants to know if a defendant is guilty,
the defendant would violate his or her ‘right to an education’ by
taking the fifth. Attorney-client privilege, medical records
privacy, the privacy of your own thoughts  all gone if a
‘right to an education’ existed.
Furthermore, it would be a violation of everyone’s ‘rights’ for
a professor to demand compensation for the knowledge he dishes out
in his classes. One simply can’t demand compensation for giving
something to someone that they already had a ‘right’ to. No
information service company could ever charge for their service, as
that information is part of an individual’s ‘right to an
education.’ Indeed, even all books would necessarily be free of
charge.
It’s clear that a positive ‘right to an education’ is an absurd
concept as are, for that matter, all other positive rights. Before
Mr. Ribaya stakes claim to any more non-existent, positive rights,
I suggest he use the opportunity provided by the privilege of being
at UCLA to obtain an education on the natural-rights philosophy
this country was founded upon.
Key is a graduate student in computer science.
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