Response to Greg Lukianoff on Campus Censorship

Greg Lukianoff makes an excellent point in his video on censorship and free speech at American Universities. I agree with his thesis that the American University is doing its students a disservice by enacting censorship codes with respect to free speech. The news almost every day describes how our political leaders, both republicans and democrats, are not able to compromise on policy for the betterment of the people. Lukianoff references the paradoxical assertion that our country is becoming more educated at the same time our discourse is becoming less civilized. The conclusion is clear: that the University is abdicating its responsibility to ensure its students are fully prepared to think critically about the societal issues they will inevitably live through.

Thomas Jefferson, the founder of my alma mater the University of Virginia, said to “follow the truth wherever it may lead” and “tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” In conceiving the University of Virginia, Jefferson envisioned a culture of scholars who through rigorous study of the “useful sciences” would develop the knowledge to make informed decisions with respect to their government and on behalf of the people they lead. The best way to develop this knowledge, however, is to have one’s opinions scrutinized and sharpened through debate and challenge.

The late journalist and moderator of the Meet the Press broadcast Tim Russert commented that in preparing for his interviews with national and international leaders he sought to “learn everything [he could] about the person’s point of view--and take the other side.” Russert knew that by openly and frankly challenging the interviewee’s arguments on the basis of fact they both, and by extension the American public, could develop a more complete opinion than previously considered.

If the American University aims to create the next generation of enlightened thinkers that will be equipped to tackle the major problems of the world, protecting free speech will be paramount. Otherwise, I’m afraid students will be “parrot[s] of other men’s thinking,” as Ralph Waldo Emerson quipped. The American University is a place where students should be exposed to opinions and ideas that range the entire spectrum, because it is with this exposure can students learn to develop their own world view. If students have the opportunity to avail themselves of the richness of college life, their world view will be grounded not in stereotype or prejudice, but a genuine and introspective study of how their value system and principles fit within their society.

Albert Camus wrote that "the evil that is in the world almost always comes out of ignorance …" Knowledge, then, is evil's first enemy and good's first line of defense. The world today is undergoing significant and sweeping political, economic, and social change that will require leaders who are able to think broadly and critically about how issues affect themselves and their society at large. It is imperative that the American University be the stalwart of knowledge that will allow its students to combat the ignorance that evil is based upon. Affirming free speech among its students is a crucial step.