As free speech issues rage on campuses, Rutgers’ president is joining the national movement to promote civil exchange

Free speech on college campuses has become an increasingly hot issue: Some argue that certain controversial speakers should not be permitted, while others assert the exchange of ideas, even the most vile, shouldn’t be barred.

Wading into the mix is Jonathan Holloway, the president of Rutgers University, who has joined a national movement of more than a dozen college presidents committed to champion free expression, civic preparedness and the civil exchange of ideas on campus.

For his part, Holloway is teaching a freshman seminar “Citizenship, Institutions, and the Public,” where he invites prominent government, business, media and political figures — including those he doesn’t necessarily agree with — for debate about the state of the nation. Among those he’s had so far are the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, a prominent Baptist pastor, a former Goldman Sachs executive and the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News.

He also made the issue a core message in his new student convocation address in August, encouraging everyone to learn to listen to one another.

“Everybody believes in free speech until they hear something they don’t like,” Holloway, 56, said during an interview this month in his New Brunswick campus office. “That’s the moment when you have to say if you really believe, then you have to deal with this ugly thing that you don’t like.”

Civil exchange is also integral to the college experience, he wrote in an essay with Roslyn Clark Artis, president of Benedict College, a historically black college in South Carolina.

“We have seen students drown out speakers with whom they disagree, faculty hold back from sharing viewpoints that might be deemed controversial, and politics influencing hiring decisions,” they wrote. “This resistance to people and positions that are different is antithetical to the exchange of ideas that should be core to the college experience.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/as-free-speech-issues-rage-on-campuses-rutgers-president-is-joining-the-national-movement-to-promote-civil-exchange/ar-AA1iSmNn

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