The recent rise of the Alt-Right on the coattails of the Trump presidency, has caused many to forget the most valued of our rights: the right to free speech. Consider the flamboyant speaker Milo Yiannopoulos. In the run-up to the 2016 election, and until recently, he was the golden star of the Alt-Right. He was the very definition of the First Amendment: provocative political speech. His views are (hopefully) not shared by very many people, but he received lots of attention because the stalwarts (i.e., Universities) of a liberal interpretation of the First Amendment were attempting to deny him access. Bizarre, isn’t it?
Even more bizarre is that many of these same institutions are exercising the same discriminating practices against faculty for supporting causes that are counter to the school’s administrative beliefs. When we become retaliatory, instead of using intellectual debate to settle our differences, then the very notion of the university is lost. In my opinion, the final outcome of a undergraduate education is to provide students with the ability to follow logical thought; read and interpret difficult written essays and articles; discuss and debate information gained verbally and in written context; present information in written and oral context; and most importantly, think critically (i.e., make judgements based on facts). Without the exposure to other views, our students are not put in a position to make critical judgments – this is exactly how passive religions become terrorist organization: we call that indoctrination.
I get my news from several sources (including opposing views like NPR and Fox News), so I can make informed decisions. If we limit speech, in any way, we start to revert to the propaganda machines of the Cold War. Instead, universities should embrace divergent views and offer alternative opinions for students to get more than one side to an argument. And, universities need to respect that all faculty will not share the administration’s views. Although we would all like to believe we are correct in our view of the world, just a simple look at US Constitutional law and the US Supreme Court decisions will dispel that myth…