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Why Free Speech Matters on Campus

“Our advice is this: Stop stifling free speech and coddling intolerance for controversial ideas, which are crucial to a college education - as well as to human happiness and progress.”

"The purpose of a college education isn’t to reaffirm students’ beliefs, it is to challenge, expand and redefine them - and to send students into the world with minds that are open and questioning, not closed and self-righteous. This helps young people discover their talents and prepare them for citizenship in a diverse, pluralistic democratic society. American society is not always a comfortable place to be; the college campus shouldn’t be, either.”

Are the safe spaces, trigger warnings, and speech codes that are increasingly characterizing the university actually detrimental to society? Should openness of dialogue and thought have a place in the university? Is the right to free speech what undergirds the very fabric of a democratic society?

In this season of commencement speeches, two men who often disagree — Charles Koch and former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg — give their own advice to higher education.

j street musings

Much like the absence of J Street in Washington, DC, we provide what is too often lacking from today's politics--substantive research and thoughtful discourse.

 

J Street Musings is a collection of essays and articles on a variety of issues and genres.  Authored by our team and by scholars and thinkers across the world, each post highlights a few key quotes and fundamental questions to direct our minds toward a thoughtful engagement of the article.

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