Slamming shut the lid of the crucible

[Brian Howell]

I've recently been reading and thinking a lot about administrative repression of speech on college campuses. More and more, colleges and universities are restricting what can be said and to whom. A few months ago, Slate had an article about speech codes being imposed by various academic institutions. The author makes the claim that speech codes are beneficial: "Critics complain that universities are treating adults like children. The problem is that universities have been treating children like adults." The argument is generally that we need to protect students for themselves, from themselves, creating "safe spaces" as discussed in a recent article in the New York Times. "A year and a half ago, a Hampshire College student group disinvited an Afrofunk band that had been attacked on social media for having too many white musicians; the vitriolic discussion had made students feel 'unsafe.'” Salon has also commented on the subject. As has Reason and many other notable publications. In March, FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) published a study that showed that 50% of the nation's colleges have implemented restrictive speech codes.

Throughout much of recent history, college was a place to explore ideas, to be confronted with opinions and doctrines opposed to yours, and to be broadened by such experiences. Now it's being sanitized for everybody's protection. We are teaching students not to face the inevitable trials of adult life, but instead to run to the nearest (older) adult for comfort and refuge from bogeymen. And I think students are poorer for the it. And so will be our country. 

Today's college students are the teachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, engineers, scientists, accountants, and architects of Tomorrow. How are they going to be able to survive in an unknown and—extrapolating from the rest of human history—chaotic, confrontational future, if they can't—and won't—earn the skills and gain the experience to cope with such challenges today?

[Craig Good]

Yet another reason why I’m content that my daughter has decided not to go to college. Students may face relentless indoctrination rather than free speech, but at least they leave with a crushing debt.

On May 21, 2015, at 08:49 AM, Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Throughout much of recent history, college was a place to explore ideas, to be confronted with opinions and doctrines opposed to yours, and to be broadened by such experiences. Now it's being sanitized for everybody's protection. We are teaching students not to face the inevitable trials of adult life, but instead to run to the nearest (older) adult for comfort and refuge from bogeymen. And I think students are poorer for the it. And so will be our country.
>

--
--Craig WWJGD?
clg...@me.com http://www.craig-good.com

The sentence 'Are you as bored as I am?' can be read in reverse
order and still make sense.

[Scott Hotes]

There was an interesting "Intelligence Squared" debate on this topic a few months ago
entitled (somewhat loaded):  "Do Liberals Stifle Intellectual Diversity On The College
Campus?"

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/03/390254974/debate-do-liberals-stifle-intellectual-diversity-on-the-college-campus

If nothing else, it's interesting to see liberals on the defensive here...

Brian, I agree with you, this is disturbing.

A review of a recent book on this subject by Greg Lukianoff in Forbes is also a good
read (along with a Cato Institute debate on same):

http://www.forbes.com/sites/harveysilverglate/2013/01/16/campus-censorship-breeds-societal-dysfunction/

For example:

Equally disturbing is Lukianoff’s description of various “sensitivity training” programs ubiquitous on campuses, although often well-hidden. He spends several pages describing a particularly horrifying “Residence Life” program carried on for years by the student life bureaucrats at the University of Delaware. UD’s mandatory ideological training program seems worthier of a prisoner of war camp than a college campus. Students were required to discuss their sexual identity with their resident advisors. They were exposed to “right beliefs” that might replace their “wrong” beliefs about a plethora of religious, political or otherwise quite personal subjects. The goal was to extirpate views deemed racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise “oppressive.” When reading about this program, one would be hard-pressed to make up such details. (The last great writer to do justice to such a task was George Orwell.) And those whose views were found wanting were then subject to what was referred to as “treatment” by the Delaware Residence Life officials.

Yikes!

Scott

[Jack Saunders]

Liberals are hell on incorrect opinions.  Tiresome and obnoxious.

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