Yale Believes In Free Speech—and So Do I

[Corinthian]

@reuynshard you also say:

Ultimately, I think far too much noise has been made about this whole issue. An overwhelmingly vast majority of college life and academic research, whether it’s doing p-sets, conducting research in labs, writing plays, curating museum exhibits, or having philosophical discussions, is barely ever politically contentious and even more rarely infringes upon the ‘grey area’ of free speech. This is a non-issue and one that you should barely consider in your college search.

There is more to this than just the free speech rights of the students, but also the concept of the faculty’s academic freedom and the existence (or more likely absence) of viewpoint diversity among the faculty, especially in the social sciences. That is what the Heterodox Academy is all about. http://heterodoxacademy.org/problems/. The absence of viewpoint diversity can impact, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, many aspects of academic life including what research is approved, what papers are published, what plays will be permitted to be performed (e.g., Mt. Holyoke canceling the Vagina Monologues), etc.

I’m not singling out Yale for particular criticism, but I’m pushing back against this notion that free speech is a non-issue. And it does seem that whenever someone on CC asks if conservative views are tolerated/respected on various campuses, the answer is a always: sure, in a vague theoretical way, but definitely not if you cross the many boundaries set by the majority about what speech Is too offensive.