A Critical Fight For Free Speech Is Underway. Can It Be Won?

Whatever happened to the idea that colleges and universities were sanctuaries of free speech, where academics and students could vigorously study and debate differing ideas? Why have so many institutions of higher learning—once regarded as bastions of vigorous, honest scholarship, where the search for truth was inviolable—morphed into places of intolerance and rigid ideological conformity? Speakers with “unacceptable” viewpoints are shouted down or even resisted with violence. Students whose views are not in line with the prevailing orthodoxy on these campuses can risk real trouble with their peers, professors and college administrators.