Trustee Responsibility Free Speech

Mitch Daniels
Washington Post

Excerpt: Surveys of those entering college almost invariably report that the No. 1 reason given for enrolling is to increase their earning potential — in other words, to become prepared for success in the world of work. Though that is clearly happening for many, the coddling culture that has grown up at too many schools might actually be setting some young people back instead of readying them to launch the careers to which they aspire.

Benjamin Rothove
College Fix

Excerpt: The University of Michigan announced a new initiative to “enhance inclusion and equity across the biomedical and health sciences community,” which includes hiring 30 new professors. With a $15.8 million investment from the National Institutes of Health and a $63.7 million investment from the University of Michigan, the Michigan Program for Advancing Cultural Transformation will “bolster U-M’s diverse academic environment by hiring tenure-track faculty with a demonstrated commitment to equity and inclusion.”

University of Michigan spokesman Rick Fitzgerald declined to answer a College Fix inquiry about how the program would respect academic freedom and if it was only open to racial minorities.

James Huffman
Quillette

Excerpt: Efforts to censure campus speech have occurred in almost every American state. The problem is not new. Advocates of academic censorship would do well to review the arguments of our predecessors. A little book published 74 years ago, in 1949, by Harvard University Press provides an opportunity to do just that. While the book focuses on American history, its insights are of worldwide relevance.

Maya Bodnick
Slow Boring, Substack

Excerpt: Every year, hundreds of thousands of students around the U.S. participate in competitive debate. Most start competing at a young age (early high school or even middle school), eager to learn about politics. At its best, the activity teaches students how to think critically about the government and the trade-offs that policymakers face. They are assigned to argue for different positions that they may not agree with and engage with their peers’ diverse perspectives.

Instead of expanding students’ worldviews, debate has increasingly narrowed to become a microcosm of critical theory. These critical theory arguments, known as kritiks, are usually wielded by the negation side to criticize the fundamental assumptions of their affirmation side opponents.

Giovanna Dell'orto
Associated Press

Excerpt: A University of Notre Dame professor has filed a defamation lawsuit against a student-run publication over news coverage of her abortion-rights work. The case is raising questions about press freedom and academic freedom at one of the nation’s preeminent Catholic universities.

Tamara Kay’s suit, filed in May, alleges falsehoods in two articles published by The Irish Rover in the past academic year. The Rover defended its reporting as true in a motion filed earlier this month to dismiss the case, under a law meant to protect people from frivolous lawsuits over matters of public concern.

Jonathan Feingold, Angela Harris & Athena Mutua
Newsweek

Excerpt: Last March, Stanford Law students protested when a Trump-appointed judge spoke on campus. An administrator intervened, defending her students' and the judge's right to speak. Her actions nonetheless triggered a rightwing campaign demanding her ouster, and last week, Stanford announced the administrator will not return. To borrow from modern parlance, she was "cancelled."

The story is one of many examples, a reoccurring dynamic in which students speak, then administrators respond (or don't), followed by pundits decrying "cancel culture" and a "free speech crisis." These pundits are in fact right, though not in the way they think. Free speech is under attack. But the students aren't to blame.