Greg Lukianoff: How Colleges Fight Free Speech

"You can get in trouble for saying almost anything these days on a college campus," says Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. 

Lukianoff's latest book, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, discusses 11 years of free speech restrictions and the how college bureaucrats have hampered open debate and encouraged a culture of uncritical thinking. 

Reason correspondent Kennedy sat down with Lukianoff at FreedomFest to discuss the book, his work at FIRE, and what students can do to fight back. 

Held each July in Las Vegas, FreedomFest is attended by over 2,000 limited-government enthusiasts and libertarians a year. ReasonTV spoke with over two dozen speakers and attendees and will be releasing interviews over the coming weeks. For an ever-growing playlist, go here.

 About 4 minutes.  

Shot by Tracy Oppenhiemer and Alex Manning. Edited by Joshua Swain.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Too many administrators with not enough to do.

[Res Publica Americana]

Sort of like those British hospitals that only have administrative staff, with no doctors or patients.

[allen]

Well yeah, that too but not only that.

The administrators creating these rules aren't at personal risk in any sense so there's no down-side to enacting speech codes. Get a slap on the wrist from FIRE, lick your wounds for a year or so and then find some pretext or some circumlocution and re-instate the speech codes.

The first time an administrator gets socked with a $50,000 fine for ignoring a previous, adverse judgment is that last time this sort of thing will be popular but as long as all a judge does is waggle a finger at the malefactors they'll just come back for another bite after waiting a decent interval.

[DJF]

What do you expect from an organization which is set up to tell you the "truth" and then test you to see if you can repeat back to them that same "truth"

[Concerned Citizen]

Leftists are the opposite of everything they claim to be.

[Metazoan]

I think it is that leftist "morality" is basically that you can and should use any tool available to fight for the leftist cause. The result of this is obviously extreme hypocrisy, because these tools are, to them, only available to the Correct Team.

[Mr. Soul]

We have to rise up against the Academic-Industrial Complex.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Academic-Industrial Complex is a decent word-construct, but seeing as how the spawn of our colleges and universities are (at least supposedly) headed for corporate white-collar jobs, I think it should be Academic-Corporate Complex.

[Death Rock and Skull]

Academic authoritative snobbery badly needs to be cut down. The best way to start is by unsubsidizing higher education.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

the same leftists that were behind the berkeley free speech movement and shit back in the day, have become the oppressors.

FIRE is doing awesome work. the case cites at their website show they get a LOT of this shit overturned without a trial, and when and if shit goes to trial, they win.

[neoteny]

Hey Dunphy, you're going to get re-educated...

[Dunphy (the real one)]

1) i don't work for seattle police
2) i still haven't had a chance to read the doj report, but i suggest that reasonoids, who would be kneejerk critical of doj subjective analysis on terrorist threats, and a host of other subjects are instantly going to assume the doj analysis in THIS case is of course 100% correct
3) the only example i've seen of a case cited in the doj report was extremely bogus. again, i am entirely open to the possibility that doj analysis is correct, but unless and until i can read the report, i remain agnostic on whether the doj analysis is correct

i do know that a few officers who have failed our field training program ended up with SPD and had no problem with theirs, so clearly we ARE better 🙂

[neoteny]

1) i don't work for seattle police

Aw shucks, no re-education for you then.

[Harvard]

He's more than demonstrated he shouldn't work in any position of authority beyond parking lot cop at WalMart.

[sweeterjan]

ReasonTV spoke with over two dozen speakers and attendees and will be releasing http://www.maillotfr.com/maill.....-3_21.html

interviews over the coming weeks. For an ever-growing playlist, go here.

About 4 minutes.

[sweeterjan]

ficers who have failed our field training http://www.lunettesporto.com/l.....-3_21.html program ended up with SPD and had no problem with the

[sweeterjan]

again, i am entirely open to the possibility that doj analysis is correct, but unless and until i can read the report, i http://sweeterjan.insanejournal.com/ remain agnostic on whether the doj analysis is correct

[Nike air max womens]

Reason correspondent Kennedy sat down with Lukianoff at FreedomFest to discuss the book, his work at FIRE, and what students can do to fight back.

[JoshSN]

"You can get in trouble for saying almost anything these days on a college campus," says person who should learn how to qualify his remarks.