Death of free speech on campus and the death of universities

Universities have abandoned their mission of the development and dissemination of knowledge in favor of a woke, DIE mission, wholly unrelated to their societal mandate.

If you have been paying any attention at all to academia in this country, you know it has entered a dark age, neglecting what my alma mater once described as its function: A place for the sifting and winnowing of ideas. Today’s academic “marketplace” increasingly sells only one product, drives others from the agora with a variety of bullying actions, and threatens both the sellers and purchasers into silence about alternate products.

Here’s an eye-opener to illustrate the extent of the assault on free speech and free thought.

We are entering a future where blacklisting, censorship, and the abuse of power will become the norm, because apparently the new generation thinks such things are always justified, if they have been offended in any way. From a recent poll of 2,000 students at 130 colleges: In one eye-opening finding, 74 percent of undergrads endorse the view that a professor who says “something that students find offensive” should be reported to the university. By a majority almost as lopsided, 65 percent believe that a fellow student who says something they consider offensive should be turned in. That informers’ mindset is especially pronounced among students who identify themselves as politically liberal, fully 85 percent of whom would report a professor who offends them. But even among self-identified conservatives, a solid majority, 56 percent, are of the same mindset.

The consequences of this are far reaching. After detailing a number of outrageous campus actions, Heather Mac Donald contends the deleterious effect on society.

Every year, thousands of college students graduate and carry into society the same megalomaniacal confidence in their own righteousness that has turned campuses into zones of conformity. Those graduates regard any disagreement with their own political outlook as a manifestation of “hate,” and as such, fair game for suppression. Democratic politicians and the mainstream media have adopted the same tactic, defining political disagreement as “hate” rather than the product of a good-faith difference in world view. Any college presidents not already committed to the premises of the victim revolution should follow the lead of Robbins, Yager, and, before them, the University of Chicago’s Robert Zimmer. The preservation of our Enlightenment culture of reason and violence-free discourse rests on their shoulders.