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Brad's avatar

"Right now, too many believe that the right response to speech they dislike is to censor it, to cancel the speaker, or to bully them into silence."

This was on full display at Stanford a couple of weeks ago. College students increasingly demand ideological and emotional safety, and they’ve demonstrated a growing penchant for using authoritarian tactics to obtain it. The intolerance toward anything that strays from a certain progressive orthodoxy has chilled free speech.

A 2023 survey of nearly 45,000 students found that over 60% fear “damaging their reputations” if they speak their minds and that they “feel uncomfortable…expressing an unpopular opinion” to professors or peers. A similar survey of faculty found that a third of professors describe themselves as self-censoring “often.”

https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/is-the-juice-worth-the-squeeze

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Pacificus's avatar

Thanks for those numbers, Brad...if anything, they may understate how much self-censorship takes place on campus today.

Defund, dismantle and reinvent higher ed--now.

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Scot's avatar

With professors like the one at Wayne State University (Steven Shaviro) saying it would be more admirable to kill a right wing speaker than to protest, it's no wonder some students are fearful of speaking their mind. University’s have become beacons of group-think, with dissenters burned at the stake. It's truly astonishing what our university’s have become.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

And cowards.

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Terence G Gain's avatar

It’s unfortunately not astonishing that Shaviro has not been fired for that outrageous statement but it is clearly unacceptable. Speech should be free but it should not be without consequences.

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Yuri Bezmenov's avatar

Incidents like the Stanford mob have been going on for decades in the demoralized DIEvy League. Here is a full accounting: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-get-into-harvard-part-3

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L.K. Collins's avatar

This is what ceding the educational system to "education professionals" has brought us. It has been a slow and relentless capture and now quietly controls civil...and uncivil...discourse in our world. Speak out and you are a pariah, even though the law supports your position (Parents are responsible for their kids.)

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