See Thru Edu is a project of the Texas Public Policy Foundation
Thomas K. Lindsay, Ph.D., Editor in Chief and Director, Center for Higher Education, Texas Public Policy Foundation
College students should be able to trust that school officials protect students’ physical safety on campus. Yet some at postsecondary institutions equate protecting students’ physical welfare with stifling free expression.
No one should endorse or accept racist or hate speech, even if protected by the First Amendment. But these days the undefined terms “racist” and “hate speech” are being tossed around loosely against ideas that critics just don’t like.
Credit the New York Times with digging a little ways beneath the toxic surface of the Middlebury College disorders to find out what students there are presently thinking about the protest that injured a professor and closed down the sociologist Charles Murray’s intended lecture.
At Lone Star College, we take the First Amendment seriously. There are no restrictive speech codes, no “safe spaces,” no prohibition of “micro-aggressions,” no mandated “trigger warnings,” and no refusals to let certain speakers speak on campus.
Middlebury came apart, as student protesters blocked Murray’s speech. “I went onstage, got halfway through my first sentence, and the uproar began,” Murray wrote for AEIdeas, the institute’s blog.
Liberals used to say that violence has no place in a civilized country, but that old-fashioned sentiment has given way to excusing violence, as long as it’s used by their good side against the bad side. This is a retrogression into primitive, tribal thinking.
So, while colleges and universities might think they are fighting intolerance and divisiveness by banning certain types of speech on campus, in reality they are really hurting our country’s ability to come together despite its differences.
Bias Response Teams are reminiscent of dystopian novels like 1984. The “whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought,” as George Orwell wrote. We are witnessing the same narrowing of thought on college campuses today.
What can be done? As a Pepperdine alum, I can write and vote, both at the ballot box and with my wallet. President Benton, your shameful capitulation to the new fascism leaves me no alternative: I will not “prioritize” my alma mater when it comes to charitable donations.
The Goldwater Institute partnered with Stanley Kurtz from the Ethics and Public Policy Center to give state lawmakers and university leaders clear, comprehensive ideas for protecting free expression on campus.
