The First Amendment is in a state of emergency on the college campus. Destructive protests in opposition to free speech have broken out nationwide in the last few years, threatening a right and principle that students once championed.
In fact, the First Amendment emergency is so severe that the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing June 10 to receive input from experts on the issue.
A Pew poll released July 10 shows the majority of Republicans think colleges have a negative impact on America. I value my college experience, but I understand how people can feel left out and betrayed by academia.
I have witnessed it firsthand. I helped host Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through the College Republicans in the spring of 2016. While sitting on the front row of his public lecture, I videotaped a protest against free speech that is all too typical on college campuses today.
About a third of the 400-person auditorium was composed of left wing students dressed in black. These students staged a walk-out about a minute into Shapiro’s opening remarks, refusing to heed his calls to learn a new yet controversial perspective.
Shapiro made the argument that parenting, not race, is the dominant factor in setting up young people for success in life. He claimed the political left uses race as a wedge issue, while the right attempts to judge people by the content of their character. I tend to agree.
The protesters went outside the lecture hall to hold a rally against perceived racism and bigotry while dozens of tolerant conservative and liberal students poured into their empty seats to hear Shapiro.
I sent the video into Campus Reform, a website dedicated to covering left wing intolerance in higher education. Later that year, I interned as a correspondent for the outlet and covered similar stories.
Through the Shapiro walkout and Campus Reform internship, the scope of the college free speech crisis became clear to me. Many of the country’s brightest young minds cannot bear to hear opinions different from their own, and they will go to extreme lengths to shut out diverse thought.
This should alarm citizens concerned about the state of free speech in society, as positive societal advancements are driven by constructive dialogue and criticism. Opposition to free speech in the nation’s top academic enclaves threatens to stall the progress of American prosperity.
Speech codes, safe spaces, protests against minority opinions––often those held by conservatives––and attempts at keeping politically incorrect speakers off campus have made colleges some of the most intolerant places in America.
In the fall of 2015, students at Yale University hysterically confronted Nicholas and Erika Christakis, two married professors serving as residential directors. The students were upset after Mrs. Christakis called into question the illiberal condemnation of culturally appropriate Halloween costumes.
The professor eventually resigned because her students could not live and learn with someone who refused to cloak them in an intellectual and emotional bubble––leftist intolerance has claimed victims.
A protest at the University of California, Berkeley approached the definition of a riot this spring. There, a black-clad mob effectively shut down a speech scheduled by Milo Yiannopoulos, an outlandish free speech provocateur of the alt-right.
The protest against Yiannopoulos drew national media attention, and subsequent speaking attempts made by other right wing figures were met with threats of violence and dissuading letters from university administrators.
In the 1960s, Berkeley students protested when administrators prevented communist speakers from addressing the campus. Now they shut out speakers whom they deem deplorable. The original home of the college free speech movement of the 1960s became the epicenter of the anti-free speech movement of today.
College students should test their beliefs through exposure to new ideas and debate. Learning from diverse perspectives can strengthen their intellectual growth. You can find another opinion repulsive, but still accept its right to be spoken.
By welcoming all forms of free speech on the college campus, students and administrators may grow in empathy and knowledge. This will add value to the college degree and help prepare America’s future leaders for a diverse world.
I wish that the protesters at the Shapiro lecture had stayed to hear what an intelligent stranger had to say and engaged in debate. Leaders from student government, ethnic groups, and social justice coalitions were among the crowd that refused.
We need voices for tolerance and free speech at all levels of the education and public policy communities. Opinion leaders should stand up and speak out for the rights of everyone to be heard.
Will Rierson is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is chairman of the College Republicans. He has participated in the Koch Internship and Fellow programs.
