he is doing is possibly inviting
violence towards these women and women
who are saying this is wrong I don't
like this No this involves every female
in this country well why can't I think I
can't maybe some brought up on try the
other than that speech sorry why can't
he be sued by the ACLU for hate speech I
don't get it I try to get away
freedom of speech the ability to express
yourself it's a cherished idea as well
it should be most of us who live in
liberal Western democracies think of it
as a basic human right people have
fought and died for it but now we may be
in danger of losing it the threat is not
coming from without from external
enemies but from within a generation is
being raised not to believe in freedom
of speech but rather that they should
have freedom from speech from speech
they dislike this is a threat to both
pluralism and democracy itself we see
this in Europe or sensitivity base
censorship attempts to ban anything
deemed hateful or even just hurtful and
to ban criticism of religion especially
Islam but the United States despite its
strong constitutional protections in the
Bill of Rights is far from immune from
the rising trend of suppression of
speech or what is sometimes called
political correctness this is especially
true at America's colleges and
universities the place where our future
leaders are educated and where you'd
expect speech to be the most free highly
restrictive speech codes are now the
norm on campus not the exception
according to a study by my organization
the foundation for individual rights in
education fire fifty four percent of
public universities and 59 percent of
private universities impose politically
correct speech codes on their students
and thanks to recent Department of
Education guidelines 100 percent of
colleges may adopt speech codes in the
coming years how bad is it at a public
campus in California on Constitution Day
in 2013 a student who also happens to be
a decorated military veteran was told he
could not hand out copies of the
Constitution to his fellow students the
objection from the university was not
ideological it was out-of-control
bureaucracy imposing limits on speech
that same day another college student in
that same state was told he could not
protest NSA surveillance outside of a
tiny free speech zone an area that
comprised only one point three seven
percent of the campus months later
college students in Hawaii were told
both they could not hand out the
Constitution to their fellow students
and that they could not protest NSA
policies outside the school's free
speech zone fire took these colleges to
court but the fact that we had to shows
you how bad it has become recently
students and sympathetic faculty have
joined forces to exclude campus speakers
whose opinions they dislike at fire we
call this dis invitation season although
the season lasts all year round since
2009 there has been a major uptick in
the push by students and faculty to get
speakers they dislike disinvited these
speakers have included former Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice the Somali
born feminists and critic of Islam ayaan
Hirsi Ali and the director of the
International Monetary Fund Christine
Lagarde and that's only the obvious part
of the diss invitations to conservative
speakers are invited to speak at
colleges lest they have to be disinvited
later the newest threat to speech comes
from so-called trigger warnings alerts
that warn students that they are about
to read or hear something that triggers
a negative emotional response a 2014 New
York Times article cited the example of
a Rutgers student requesting trigger
warnings for the classic American novel
The Great Gatsby because it quote
possesses a variety of scenes that
reference abusive misogynistic violence
unquote recently Oberlin College
attempted to institute a policy that
heavily encouraged the faculty to avoid
difficult topics and to employ trigger
warnings as a means of making classrooms
safer safety has been watered down to
essentially mean the right to always
feel comfortable new demands for trigger
warnings are popping up on campuses
across the country
add in popular academic theories that
encourage students to scrutinize speech
for microaggressions any statement that
might be construed as racially
insensitive classist sexist or otherwise
unpierced to police what they say this
is precisely the opposite of what is
needed our society needs candor and it
needs freedom of speech not freedom from
speech intellectual comfort is not a
right nor should it ever be not if we
want freedom of speech let's just call
it freedom to survive
I'm Greg lukianov president of the
foundation for individual rights in
education for Prager University