Here’s Your Degree. Now Go Defeat Demagogues. | Bloomberg | April 2016 The following is an adaptation of an address to the University of Michigan’s class of 2016. The most useful knowledge that you leave here with today has nothing to do with your major. It’s about how to study, cooperate, listen carefully, think critically and resolve conflicts through reason.
Wondering whether today’s college students have become too fragile? Read this document. | Washington Post | May 2013 I’ve written before about the array of upsetting things that college students have demanded trigger warnings for (fatphobia, nude models in a life drawing class, etc.), as well as the kinds of activities that now get somewhat arbitrarily punished as “acts of
Trigger-unhappy: Student “safety” has become a real threat to free speech on campus | Economist | June 2015 From town-sized public universities to tiny liberal-arts colleges, students have declared and administrators accepted that teachers or visiting speakers should aim for a psychologically safe learning environment, avoiding ideas or imagery that might prove distressing.
I’m a Duke freshman. Here’s why I refused to read ‘Fun Home.’ | Washington Post | August 2015 As a Christian, I knew that my beliefs and identity would be challenged at a progressive university like Duke. My first challenge came well before I arrived on campus, when I learned that all first years were assigned “Fun Home,” a graphic
Closed Minds, Great Books | New York Times | June 2015 There is much media ado these days about the rise of political correctness in university life, the emphasis on campus “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” meant to alert students to the possibility that they may find certain learning materials “offensive.” Much of this talk is overdone, but it does