There is something terribly, horribly wrong with America’s once great colleges and universities: More than one entire generation has been lost to Leftism.
This from gellerreport.com.
A recent MIT survey found a majority of students believe that it is acceptable to shout down or block speakers who hold opposing views.
[The survey] captures the downstream impact [of] primary, middle, and high school education [that is now] treating speech as harmful…
Legal scholar and professor at George Washington University Law School, Jonathan Turley, has written:
It is the face of the new American orthodoxy that has taken hold of our institutions of higher education.
John Sexton, Professor of Law at New York University, wrote on this concern:
In August 2021 a University of Chicago professor named Dorian Abbot co-wrote an opinion piece for Newsweek questioning the value of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts on college campuses.
Here is a small part of what he wrote:
The underlying premise of DEI is that any statistical difference between group representation on campus and national averages reflects systemic injustice and discrimination by the university itself. The magnitude of the distortions is significant: for some job searches discrimination rises to the level of implicitly or explicitly excluding applicants from certain groups.
DEI violates the ethical and legal principle of equal treatment. It entails treating people as members of a group rather than as individuals, repeating the mistake that made possible the atrocities of the 20th century. It requires being willing to tell an applicant ‘I will ignore your merits and qualifications and deny you admission because you belong to the wrong group, and I have defined a more important social objective that justifies doing so.’ It treats persons as merely means to an end, giving primacy to a statistic over the individuality of a human being.
This all sounds perfectly reasonable, but as you can imagine impressionable minds became inspired with woke outrage and likewise became determined to cancel him.
And so it was that when he was invited to give a prestigious lecture at MIT a group of students and alumni demanded he be disinvited. Consequently, approximately a week later, professor Abbot received a call from MIT saying his lecture had been canceled.
Last December, MIT tried to redeem itself by issuing a strong statement in defense of free speech. Again, the results were less than positive.
A commitment to free expression includes hearing and hosting speakers, including those whose views or opinions may not be shared by many members of the MIT community and may be [emotionally] harmful to some.
This commitment includes the freedom to criticize and peacefully protest speakers to whom one may object, but it does not extend to suppressing or restricting such speakers from expressing their views. Debate and deliberation of controversial ideas are hallmarks of the Institute’s educational and research missions and are essential to the pursuit of truth, knowledge, equity, and justice.
Bottom line: All of that sounds good but it turns out a majority of MIT students don’t believe it.
Yesterday Jonathan Turley wrote about a recent survey of students and professors carried out by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).
The survey found that roughly 25 percent of faculty reported they are “very” or “extremely” likely to self-censor. Forty percent of faculty are “more” or “much more” likely to self-censor on campus now than in 2020. It further found that 32 percent of students and 41 percent of faculty “agree that the administration’s stance on free speech is not clear.”
In a free society, there should never be such widespread
doubt on the position of free speech on a campus.
The concept of free speech should be clear and unambiguous.
However, almost half of the faculty are unsure. And the reason is obvious after the Dorian Abbot disaster.
The university leadership is clearly not viewed as a reliable ally in free speech fights. It is one thing to mouth free speech values. It is entirely a different thing to stand by a faculty member’s free speech and academic freedom rights when a flash mob forms around a cancel campaign.
Only 14 percent of MIT faculty believe that it is ‘extremely likely’ or “’very likely’ that the university would stand by a faculty member in a controversy over controversial speech.
Sadly, this is an indictment of the university administration and the board.
And, further, no surprises here:
Only a small percentage of faculty self-identify as Republican or Conservative.
Yet, most alarming is the attitude of the students who have been taught for years that free speech is harmful.
Seventy-seven percent of students believe that it is acceptable to shout down speakers with opposing views to prevent others from hearing them.
Another 52% believe it is acceptable to physically block access to such events or speakers.
