Censorship that is invisible to the Left

In August, Vox cited data from Georgetown University and said that to call the state of free speech on campus a “crisis” is “more than a little overblown.” Others have expressed doubts, too. But to embrace that stance, one must ignore the last three raucous years’ worth of free speech-related incidents on campuses — ranging from the University of Missouri to Middlebury, Vermont, to Berkeley, the birthplace of the 1960s free-speech-on-campus movement.

Students and faculty across the ideological spectrum have found themselves at the center of various events involving campus censorship lately. Last October, just two hours down Interstate 64 at William & Mary, Black Lives Matter protesters shouted down Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, an ACLU representative.

Officials at Evergreen State College in Washington State closed school and moved the 2017 graduation ceremonies after the avowedly progressive school splintered into factions. Students drove out a progressive professor who objected to a proposal that white students and professors stay off campus for a day. Ultimately, fear for his own safety and that of his family led them to go into hiding.

The lack of civil behavior on campus is turning heads, reducing applications for admission and closing alumni checkbooks. At an alumni event this April, students at Duke forced the school president off the stage and proceeded to issue a list of demands via bullhorn. It did not play well with the alums, who had come to pledge class gifts to the school. Undergrads at the University of Oregon’s gave their school president a similar treatment last fall.

Rutgers’ recent disinvitation of journalist Lisa Daftari is another more recent example. By caving in to the loudest group of “not-offended-yet-but-planning-to-be-hurt” petitioners, Rutgers’ administrators managed to deprive students of an extraordinary learning opportunity, to hear ideas that might challenge their assumptions. The university issued an apology for any “confusion” and suggested new dates, but the damage was done.

Ideas are powerful, and choosing to fear an idea instead of learning to understand it or overcome it with a better one is a poor life strategy. Things we disagree with won’t go away if we pretend they don’t exist.

North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona are among the states that in recent years have enacted legislation to protect free speech on campus, and others are considering similar proposals.

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