The Death of Campus Free Speech -- and How to Revive It

This article was originally published on June 28, 2016 by RealClearPolitics. Click here to read the full article. RCP contributor Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science, the founder and director of the Program on International Politics, Economics and Security at the University of Chicago, and an NAS member. He can be reached at [email protected].

It’s getting harder to tell the difference between real news about colleges and the Onion’s parodies. Take an incident at the University of Northern Colorado. A couple of professors, eager to promote discussion in class, asked their students to read a popular magazine article, written by two free-speech advocates.

You can guess what happened next. Just mentioning “difficult topics” triggered one student’s meltdown. She complained to university administrators. Instead of telling her how real learning depends on free speech, they actually told the professors never even to mention the topic again.

This assault on free and vigorous discussion is now commonplace on campus. What can be done?

Universities Should Take These Five Steps to Protect Campus Speech

                                                                                                To continue reading click here . . .

Image: thespyglass by thespyclass // CC BY

  • Share

Most Commented

July 30, 2024

1.

Don’t Cry for Them, Academia

The dark secret of anti-Semitism is that ignorance alone cannot explain it away or absolve those who adhere to it. If anything, the most vivid episodes of history’s anti-Semitism have......

June 6, 2024

2.

Backlash: Sometimes It Hurts So Good

We have undermined the leftist status quo in higher education for decades with the persistence of Morlocks. You really should be more alarmed about us than you are. Not that I’m going......

August 6, 2024

3.

An Elephant Walks into Class

An assessment of the Republican higher education platform....

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

September 6, 2024

2.

Professor Alleges "Widespread" Discriminatory Hiring Coverup at University of Washington

Audio acquired by the National Association of Scholars describes allegations of coverup race-based hiring coverup at the University of Washington...

October 12, 2010

3.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...