The 10 Worst Colleges For Free Speech: 2017

@BobShaw, “I am hoping that the ones responsible for the violence in each case were not students.”

Many people have been saying this. Unfortunately, ample evidence points to at least some student participants. I also personally think that’s deflecting the issue. Even if all the violent protestors were somehow outsiders, why were they not stopped? Why did this happen? This wasn’t a sudden thing out of the blue. In both Berkeley and Middlebury, this was a long and building violent and obstructionist event, with multiple opportunities for it to be stopped. If you look at videos, many students participated very eagerly and cheered on the violence. Some of them looked downright frightening.

Let’s take the reverse–let’s say a mob of violent college students/people, including those in black masks, obstructed, bulllied, taunted, smeared, and physically attacked, say, a liberal speaker whose book promotes illegal (undocumented) immigrants The violence escalates to the property, where a million dollar’s worth of damage is done. Finally the person is escorted out for his safety, the entire speech blocked; as he drives away his car is beaten and damaged and he is almost shoved to the ground before he is whisked away for his own safety. Because he was going to speak in favor of illegal immigrants.

Do you honestly think anyone would take seriously the suggestion that it might be only outsiders’? Or that there is some sort of debate here about whether he should be allowed to speak?

I ultimately agree with you @BobShaw .Principles are principles. One cannot advocate freedom of speech and freedom from violence,but only if the person subscribes to your own personal dogmas. Think about that–where does that lead you? Whose dogma gets to decide? There is no logical coherence to that position–that way leads only to tyranny.

@jojo99-- Maybe if many people react that way, there will be a better chance of admission for those who would love to attend such a great school. I will have no problem with my son applying to Middlebury next year if he chooses to do so. What happened was bad, but that type of thing could happen anywhere-- and I thought the college president handled the whole situation very appropriately. I also enjoyed reading the New York Times piece where a lot of Middlebury students were quoted as they reflected on what happened and what can be learned from it. It sounds like the Middlebury college community is using this event to prompt a discussion of what freedom of speech means and what are the best ways to respond to speech with which you disagree.

When a terrible event happens at a college, the key questions are:
1- is this typical of the college atmosphere?
2- are the college administration and community handling it well to heal the community?

For Middlebury, the answers are no and yes.

Hoping that the bad behavior is the work of outsiders is a variant of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. But “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch” is also a fallacy.

No its not.

@generations : I’m not sure what we’re arguing about here. If you think I’m “deflecting the issue” by hoping that the people responsible for the violence were not students, okay, whatever, I am a hopeful person. I don’t know who was involved, I wasn’t there, and I didn’t investigate. Bottom line is that in both situations, better security should have been provided (and it wasn’t) and law enforcement should have acted swiftly and forcefully (and they didn’t). Students at every college need better education on the Constitution, especially 1st Amendment rights, or they are destined to become bad citizens. And I think liberal arts colleges and universities need to do away with this “safe spaces” business. It’s immature. Intellectual growth and critical thinking should have no boundaries, and young people should be challenged to listen to people they violently disagree with as a matter of principle. If a college can’t teach its students to articulate coherent arguments to counter ideas they think are flawed, it should just change its charter and become a vocational school. I think my kids’ teachers were telling them to “use your words” as far back as preschool.

@BobShaw, I don’t think I was clear. I wasn’t really arguing with you–I was seguing off that hope you’d expressed, because I’d seen it expressed many times by others to mean something different. As I said, I ultimately agree with you.

@BobShaw -

In the Berkeley riots, students have come forth and claimed responsibility.

Again I think it’s very telling that folks decide to conflate a few incidences with some widespread movement to curtail free speech while hate crimes against citizens are occurring more and more. If you are looking for a red flag, that trend would seem to be a larger threat to our American way of life than some misguided students. The violence has not been celebrated here but folks continue to persist that this is widespread…

And the sometimes nasty exchanges here seem to mirror the larger national narrative where it’s ok to pander to the lowest common denominator. But when your leaders lack integrity it doesn’t surprise me that there may be a trickle down effect. I actually think most of our college students have more common sense than their elders.

@tonymon-

This site is dedicated to colleges, so these issues should not be muffled by comparing them to issues that may or may not be happening in the outside world.

Here is a recent article from St. Olaf’s which describes conservative students transferring because they have been harassed due to political beliefs.

http://www.manitoumessenger.com/article/under-the-radar/

So much for Minnesota nice.

@TheGreyKing

“Maybe if many people react that way, there will be a better chance of admission for those who would love to attend such a great school. I will have no problem with my son applying to Middlebury next year if he chooses to do so.”

Except that if less students apply and predominately SJW types, the school ranking will drop, there will be even less diversity of thought, alumni donations will decrease, the degree will be worth less, etc… Do I think this will happen to Middlebury like it did to U of Missouri? No, it is a strong enough school to survive some bad PR and unfortunately these incidents are becoming common enough that in a year most will have forgotten this one. But to suggest plummeting admissions interest would benefit the school or your son, even in the short term, is myopic.

Again unfortunate incidences that should be followed up with appropriate punishments if found to be true but not some widespread movement.

@tonymom - How many times do these unfortunate incidents have to happen before they are considered to be part of a widespread movement?

Happy to review credible studies that deal with this issue from reliable sources. FWIW I do not include FIRE in the above.

I had an Asian studies professor in college who used to go on and on about how evil communism was. Maybe @Zinhead can extrapolate that into some kind of statement about all colleges in the 1980s too.

I can understand being wary of public polling and studies coming form FIRE, but otherwise they are a very good source information on significant news coming out of college campuses. I appreciate that they make an effort to back up their articles with links to the primary sources of the information they are reporting.

@generations, thank you for clarifying. And @Zinhead : That is unfortunate. Well, I tell both liberals and conservatives to get off their respective high horses. There are no angels here. Our elected leaders are a reflection and a direct result of the toxic atmosphere we, the people, have created in our country. I have to agree with @tonymom : the so-called adults of our society have no business complaining about college students when they themselves are such poor role models. My D is shocked to read the immature, anti-intellectual vitriol she reads in social media every day. And when grown men and women lie without impunity, what message does that send to our children? Think about what we were taught in college, and what is being practiced in public life: Alternative facts are okay. Science is suspect. You don’t have to know what you’re doing to get a position in cabinet; you just have to know the right person. Plagiarism is only a problem when you’re nominated for a cabinet position; otherwise, your book will stay on the shelves until someone catches you red-handed and exposes all in the NYT. Deception, misinformation, and manipulation are the best way to rise to power in this world. Hate is justified by fear and cowardice. Don’t have a civil conversation or debate with people with whom you disagree; just scapegoat, call names, and slam the door. Blame everyone but yourself for your problems, because why be accountable for your actions & decisions when your government officials refuse to be? (Now they shut down the phone lines and run from town hall meetings to avoid listening to unpleasant words from constituents who pay their salaries and benefits.) Hypocrisy is a way of life: blame others for doing unto you what you have already done unto them repeatedly in the past.

At the end of the day, as parents, we need to instill in our children the core values they see violated every day, out there in the real world. Tell them this conduct is NOT okay, whether they’re at home or at school. And if we are donors to our alma maters, we need to send a message to the administrations that our students should not be coddled. Let them grow up and be responsible, truthful, respectful and respectable individuals. Otherwise, they are destined to become the very people we detest – irrespective of political ideology.

So they want a safe space? Shouldn’t they respond to speech with more speech? Snowflakes.

Has this ever happened? Literally every top school in the US has consistently become more and more tolerant over the last century, and yet the top schools remain more or less the same. Unless you can give some reason to believe this is true, it’s hogwash.

These are two very different things. FIRE is an astroturfing right-wing activist organization, not really about free speech at all but about trying to create safe spaces for radical right-wing speech.

This former preident of the ACLU disagrees with you:

https://www.thefire.org/former-aclu-president-nadine-strossen-on-fires-critical-role/