Last year, a writer at Harvard student newspaper penned a column with
the subtitle, let's give up on academic freedom in favor of justice.
She asked, if our university community opposes racism, sexism,
and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals?
As a professor, I find this attitude really shocking,
especially since this columnist is not alone.
On campuses around the country, people are arguing that free speech doesn't apply
to ideas they don't like, which would inevitably include any idea
they broadly deem incompatible with their beliefs.
But think about it,
just who would decide which ideas are allowable in the name of justice.
After all, the question, what is justice,
is one of the core questions in political and legal philosophy.
It always has been the subject of heated debate on campus and elsewhere.
So it's disconcerting that some students, faculty, and administrators think they're
so infallible, as to believe they've already arrived at the absolute truth.
What could be more anathema to the spirit of the university and
tolerance than believing that you have nothing left to learn.
This is why academic freedom matters.
Academic freedom means the right of everyone in the academic community to
pursue truth and wisdom, and to reach conclusions according to his or
her own rights.
Harvard students' Op-Ed is symptomatic of much
broader trends across academia in recent decades.
We've seen speech administrations establishing speech codes to tell
students what they're allowed to say.
And free speech zones to tell them where they're allowed to say it.
This justification is usually to create a safe space for learning, but
advocates forget that a fundamental way to learn is to encounter ideas
with which you disagree.
Encountering an argument you oppose will either shift your thinking, or broaden and
deepen your understanding of your own beliefs.
Either way, such encounters foster learning and critical thinking.
And they help you to grow.
But too many people on campus seem afraid
to hear opinions that with which they disagree or which they find offensive.
Lectures and panel discussions are getting cancelled or
disrupted because some students have found the speakers objectionable.
This includes speakers from across the political spectrum.
Including Condoleezza Rice, Janet Napolitano, Charles Murray,
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christine Lagarde, George Will, and
even the Chancellor of the University of California to name just a few.
Such intolerance is harmful because it undermines the fundamental
constitutional and moral right to speak your mind with intellectual honestly.
But it's especially harmful on college campuses, where it suffocates
the pursuit of truth that necessarily relies upon vibrant debate and
varied research in order to breathe.
You can't have free inquiry if some groups have been empowered to bully others
into thinking like them.
As the famous educator, Alexander Meiklejohn, wrote,
to be afraid of an idea, any idea, is to be unfit for self-government.
People who support free speech and open inquiry need to speak out and
organize in order to save the principles of academic freedom and
freedom of speech, which should be at the heart of any University.
It's time for a new free speech movement.