(Editor’s note: This article first appeared on Forbes.com.) Hostility to free speech has become a salient characteristic of American college campuses. Speech codes that make it dangerous for students (or…
Politics is on many people’s minds this year, so this is a good time to write about that topic. But the politics I’m thinking about does not involve the presidency.…
Imagine a college student who has just formed a student group. In order to generate interest in this group, the student goes to the student union and passes out flyers…
I urge all North Carolinians to make a commitment to preserving individual rights on college campuses. Currently, my organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, is working nationally on a campaign to encourage universities to adopt the University of Chicago’s new free speech policy statement. This statement promises “all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn,” and recognizes that “it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”
In the last few years, the rights of students in North Carolina universities have received some significant new protections. It is important that state legislators and educators continue to do so, for such rights—pertaining to free speech and due process of punitive proceedings—have been under assault on college campuses nationwide in recent years.
Alan Kors is a highly-regarded professor of history who has taught at the University of Pennsylvania for decades. Kors was the recipient of the Pope Center’s Caldwell Prize for academic…