The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
Fareed Zakaria (CNN) on "Why University Presidents are Under Fire"
From Friday's opinion piece:
American universities have been neglecting excellence in order to pursue a variety of agendas — many of them clustered around diversity and inclusion. It started with the best of intentions. Colleges wanted to make sure young people of all backgrounds had access to higher education and felt comfortable on campus. But those good intentions have morphed into a dogmatic ideology and turned these universities into places where the pervasive goals are political and social engineering, not academic merit….
Out of this culture of diversity has grown the collection of ideas and practices that we have all now heard of — safe spaces, trigger warnings, … micro aggressions … [and] speech codes ….
In this context, it is understandable that Jewish groups would wonder, why do safe spaces, micro aggressions, and hate speech not apply to us? If universities can take positions against free speech to make some groups feel safe, why not us? Having coddled so many student groups for so long, university administrators found themselves squirming, unable to explain why certain groups (Jews, Asians) don't seem to count in these conversations.
Having gone so far down the ideological path, these universities and these presidents cannot make the case clearly that at the center of a university is the free expression of ideas and that while harassment and intimidation would not be tolerated, offensive speech would and should be protected….
The whole thing is much worth reading.
