The following is an opinion contribution and reflects the author’s views alone.
Last week, a friend and I were walking together through Central Park in New York City. It was the first time we had both been there, and we hadn’t seen each other since we had both gotten out of the Marines nearly two years ago. We were walking slowly, casually catching up on everything that had happened since we last been in touch, when by chance we came into earshot of a couple talking to one another as they slowly overtook us.
“… well the issue with the Iraq War that no one realizes is – ”
“ – Shhhh!” we then heard. At the behest of her boyfriend, the girl turned her head and made eye contact with us, a look of concern dawning on her face. They changed direction and quickly walked away.
This bizarre encounter appeared to suggest that our very presence had caused these complete strangers to quickly and instinctively censor themselves — it was a striking phenomenon indeed for a casual weekend stroll through the park.
The assault on free speech is real, pervasive, and not directed at conservatives alone. For liberals, this topic seems like little more than conservatives skulking in the corner with a bloody nose after being properly rebuked. But for those of us who are watching more carefully—far too few it seems—the most alarming assaults on the free expression of ideas have been against those individuals firmly planted in the left. Personal attacks on people for promoting certain beliefs or ideas have become a commonplace tool in political discourse, and now they are being martialed against those who simply express disagreement to new ideas from within their political party. Ad hominem attacks and threats to job and welfare are being used not only to keep the other side in check, but also to enforce conformity among one’s own ranks.
However, college campuses including Princeton’s are a significant source of this stifling of expression. One symptom is a serious lack of ideological diversity among public speakers on campus, likely exacerbated by the predominantly liberal views of faculty and administrators, whose liberal-conservative ratio is nearly ten times that of the student body. The effects of this overwhelming orthodoxy are already evident at Princeton and on campuses across the nation, where students and faculty are becoming increasingly hostile to dissenting and alternate viewpoints.
What may be surprising is that the most vivid attacks against liberals have occurred at the very places that used to be their safe havens: colleges and universities. In 2017, Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, married professors of evolutionary biology and self-professed progressives, were embroiled in a bitter campus battle at Evergreen State College in Washington State. In response to a faculty-led diversity campaign for a “Day of Absence,” where all white faculty and students were asked to stay at home, Weinstein wrote an email in opposition that caused nothing less than a student-led revolt. Even as mass hysteria broke out, the president of Evergreen refused to allow police on campus, which resulted in law enforcement recommending Weinstein stay outdoors for his own safety (the professor was surrounded multiple times indoors by groups of hostile students). This bizarre and alarming event, along with the University’s hostility to Weinstein and his actions, resulted in both Heying and Weinstein resigning from their positions.
Two years earlier a similar event occurred at Yale University, where Erika and Nicholas Christakis ignited the fury of certain minority students over an email concerning Halloween costumes. The email recommended less social regulation of costumes, suggesting people should be able to wear attire from other cultures if it is not offensive or demeaning in character. The whole altercation resulted in a twenty-minute scene later uploaded to YouTube with college students telling a faculty member to be silent. The students’ seizure of control over the conversation and disinclination to constructively engage opposing viewpoints is chilling to say the least.
This does not bode well for conservative scholars. Limits to their academic freedom were apparent in the recent example of Professor Samuel Abrams at Sarah Lawrence College. Last October, Abrams, a politics professor, wrote an article for The New York Times entitled, “Think Professors are Liberal? Try Administrators.” Here, Abrams cited a recent study that found liberal college administrators outnumber their conservative colleagues twelve to one, with a shocking twenty-five to one ratio in New England universities. Abrams noted that this disparity clearly impacted the choices of speakers and events hosted by schools. Following the publication of his piece, Abrams had his office vandalized, endured false claims of sexual harassment having been made against him, and had threats made to his family’s safety. This harrowing display eventually culminated in the formation of a student-controlled group that demanded his tenure be reviewed by a board of minority faculty members. In addition, forty faculty members signed the list of demands. When Abrams reached out to the president of Sarah Lawrence for support, he was told that he should have contacted her before writing an opinion piece, and that he had insulted his colleagues. She then suggested he start looking for employment elsewhere. Simply because he expressed his desire for more diverse thought on campus, Abrams had his whole life turned upside down.
From where we currently stand, it might be hard to think of these threats to academic freedom as beneficial, but in some ways they have been. It is odd that most people, at least outside the academic world, are unaware of these disconcerting events. A quick search of any of the names associated with these events finds very little news coverage outside of Fox, Breitbart, or smaller news outlets focused on higher education. This is indicative of a larger trend of unawareness working its way across America. The threat to academic freedom on college campuses and the failure of the liberal-left dominated media to report on certain issues has resulted in a rapid rise of new platforms and intellectual enterprises. Across the nation, Americans are tuning into podcasts, YouTube channels, and new journals in search of insights into U.S Politics and social issues without biases or reinforcement of narratives. One example of the sharp rise in intellectually rigorous free debate is the new journal started by Australian Claire Lehmann — Quillette. Quillette has become a mixed bag of articles written by academics, businessmen, college students, drag queens, and software engineers, all with the same goal of defending free speech against “regressive leftism” and the normalization of the diversity of American politics. Commentators have labelled the journal everything from “the new Slate” to leaning right-of-center. People struggle to definitively label Quillette because it has no political affiliation; it is simply a platform that gives opposing, or even internally dissenting opinions, focusing on the ability and right to be heard. Absent the current environment policing speech, it is unlikely that we would have this strange alliance of politically disparate thinkers centered on the free expression of ideas.
Another example of alternative media platforms contributing to the rise of rational debate is the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW). Coined by Eric Weinstein, brother of Bret Weinstein, this group includes now nationally recognized figures such as Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, and Sam Harris. Its somewhat nefarious name is meant to depict the harsh treatment group members have received from the mainstream liberal media. Rogan’s podcast now has 5 million subscribers (more than Fox and CNN viewers combined) and has been one of the focal meeting points for these thinkers, all podcasters themselves. Just as with Quillette, it is difficult to categorize members of this community into a homogenous label; they come from a diverse background of political beliefs, albeit generally on the left. Harris is a vehement opponent of Donald Trump and supporter of universal basic income, and Rogan has frequently expressed support for government funded healthcare and secondary education. These two-hour-plus conversations cover topics in contemporary social issues such as identity politics, Trump and Russia, social media, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and more. For many Americans, these outlets, which do not restrict their focus to three-minute soundbites and where guests cannot run from difficult questions, have become their trusted source for current events and robust analysis.
Despite the liberal leaning views of members of the IDW and the diverse beliefs of the Quillette writers, these media sources have been relentlessly attacked by mainstream liberal-leftist outlets such as The New York Times, CNN, Vox, and Slate. Of course, the standard rhetoric consists of labelling their points of view alt-right, fascist, racist, misogynist, or other misplaced character-based attacks without any supporting evidence. For example, a common source used to slander Peterson is a New York Times opinion piece entitled “Jordan Peterson, Custodian of the Patriarchy,” The article is littered with falsehoods ranging from Peterson’s alleged support of a patriarchal society to his alleged belief that women should be forcibly married. Despite the obvious inaccuracy of the claims – mere misrepresentations of Peterson’s fairly commonplace denial of the patriarchy and support for hierarchies—Peterson’s numerous fans cannot help but notice that this article was published in one of America’s leading news sources. Recently, a cabal of Canadian academics suggested that Quillette writers who are academics should be catalogued and banned from teaching at universities, even going so far as to say via Twitter that “we are watching you.” Unbeknownst to these “academics,” they have caused these “dark web” intellectuals to become more careful, deliberate, and thoughtful in their arguments. What’s more, they have expanded the Quillette fanbase, as previously agnostic viewers discern that these accusations are the simplistic and malicious attempts to silence opposing views. The visible fear and rejection of intellectual honesty and robust debate does not appeal to those who seek altruistic, useful, and long-lasting solutions.
Princeton University, among other top-tier institutions, occasionally makes itself complicit in this national trend, the most visible manifestation of which can be found in the behavior of its students. In an attempt to open dialogue about free speech, President Eisgruber chose Speak Freely as his Pre-read, a book written by conservative-leaning Professor of Politics Keith Whittington. In an illustrative turn of events, Eisgruber announced that the traditional bonfire following an undefeated football season would be cancelled if students threw their free copies of the book into the fire, as some had planned. Dismayed at the announcement, students still felt it necessary to paint the image of the book cover onto a pallet and burn it, reinforcing the dystopian image. When I asked students who were angry at Eisgruber’s choice for Pre-read what they did not like about the book, I heard the now-familiar, “Why would I even read that thing?” This is hardly a new sentiment. In 2017, The Daily Princetonian released an opinion arguing that those who oppose progressive ideals have no right to be heard and in the same year a department chair gave a lecture titled, “F%*# Free Speech.”
Just a few months after the book burning wars, The Tory released an investigative article demonstrating that the circumstances surrounding free speech at the University had worsened. The exposé chronicled the disinvitation of legal scholar Amy Wax from a Whig-Cliosophic Society event, the topic of which was none other than freedom of speech. However, the cancellation was followed by Whig-Clio’s hosting of comedian Chelsea Handler to discuss wokeness and white privilege, a University department’s hosting of professional football player Michael Bennett to discuss racism in the NFL, and a slew of other spotlighted events covering everything from Marxism to reparations for the black community. I want to be entirely clear: I don’t think there is any issue with these events being held. I myself attended several and enjoyed the exposure to new ideas. But this perfectly illustrates my point. Students and faculty on campus are only allowed exposure to views that survive the cleansing of left-leaning orthodoxy. Professor Abrams’ words in the Times article seemed to be playing out before our eyes.
Let’s return to Harris and Peterson. When Peterson spoke at Cambridge University, tickets were sold out and students and faculty alike stood in the hall to listen to him. Claims that Harris and Peterson dabble in pseudoscience or “pop-psychology” fail to explain how both have managed to pull a variety of intellectuals to their podcast, ranging from Sean Carroll, Steven Pinker, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ken Burns, Daniel Kahneman, all the way to Princeton’s own Peter Singer. No attempt has been made to bring nationally renowned speakers like Harris or Peterson on campus to provide an articulated rebuttal to mainstream political thought on campus. Whatever their academic qualifications, they meet the same standards as Handler and Bennett. As for explicitly conservative speakers, they have been forced to be hosted by student groups rather than academic and administrative departments, clearly limiting the available funds and venues for these events, and sending a powerful message: liberal speakers are more important than conservative speakers.
Events like these caused me to engage more actively with political discourse on campus with the explicit desire to promote freedom of speech, the diversity of ideas, and the acceptance of others’ rights to hold differing views. Consequently, I have come into contact with black and LGBT conservatives, gay Muslims and Christians, Honey Badgers (a women’s group that supports the Men’s Rights Movement), and many more incredibly fascinating and insightful individuals and groups. Listening to their stories and participating in the discussions that ensued have been some of the most humbling moments of my life, and I have been incredibly grateful to begin this journey.
That being said, I have attended and participated in debates on the rights of conservatives to speak at all about their political views and even conversations on the efficacy of violence in American politics. Once, I attended a public talk where a member of the Institute of Advanced Studies described conservatives as the greatest threat to academic freedom in America. Just two weeks ago, The Daily Princetonian released a news article about a violent encounter between Riley Heath, president of the Princeton chapter of the free speech advocacy group Turning Point USA, and a left-leaning group. In the article, the words “alleged” and “claimed” were printed fifteen times to describe Heath’s statements, while such language of doubt was not featured once in reporting the left-leaning group’s counterclaim that Heath simply “walked into a door.” Both the University’s administration and the leadership of the left-leaning group denied requests for comment. Regardless of veracity, claims of political violence from anyone must be taken seriously and the failure of the University’s administration to publicly condemn such an occurrence sent a subtle message to would-be attackers.
The crisis of free speech we currently face is caused, as Abrams astutely observed, by a lack of meaningful action from faculty and administrators at colleges and universities around the nation. When I applied to the University while in the Marine Corps, I dreamt of a campus focused on furthering debate and knowledge. It is clear now that it is a table with only two legs on which to stand. There does exist a rigorous pursuit of understanding, but the paths are often limited by political biases. A supposedly academic world that holds great contempt for free speech has caused the most intellectually gifted young men and women of our country, all passionate in their beliefs, to be barely able to articulate defenses of their worldview. Gone are the days of good-faith debates and a pursuit of truth. Our public forum today appears unable to distinguish between attacking ideas and attacking people, and even the idea of truth has been corrupted by possessives. Although I am grateful for the intellectual rigor that has been forced upon moderate liberals and conservatives, the failure to welcome opposing views on all sides is pervasive.
Princeton University is internationally renowned for good reason: the faculty and staff stand on equal footing with any academics alive today. I love this place, and this is what drives me to fight for a diversity of views. Princeton’s high stature easily places it in a position to set a national trend of academic and intellectual revitalization and acceptance of differing views that will realign the country onto a path towards political normalization. This, of course, means that the prominent faculty, staff, and administrators that comprise this institution must host and engage those with whom they disagree strongly. Despite an estimated liberal to conservative ratio of 24-to-1 in New England university administrators, and 30-to-1 in faculty at Princeton, Princeton administrators must listen to their students, 30% of whom national surveys indicate as conservative. Colleges and universities that are seeking to be leaders in social change must be aware of the dangers they themselves pose; diversity includes diversity of thought, inclusivity means political inclusivity as well. But most importantly, Princeton cannot forget its primary responsibility is to provide the most rigorous and diverse education to its student body. Princeton trains the future leaders and trailblazers of the worlds and for this purpose it is imperative that it challenge the ideas of all constituent students and expose them to the views representative of everyone. After many insightful conversations with these future leaders and dreamers, it is more than apparent that they are equipped for it.
Tyler Eddy’s piece is part of the Tory’s Saturday Essay series, selected for the spotlight by Editor-in-Chief Jeff Zymeri. Follow the Tory on Facebook and Twitter to start your weekend with the best of our content.
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