Betraying Freedom: A Review of Lukianoff's Unlearning Liberty and Powers' The Silencing

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. Those words, written during an existential war, vindicated the rights of a religious minority to dissent from the prevailing orthodox patriotism of the day. Those words, which reversed a Supreme Court decision from three years before, embody Freedom — a self-evident truth that, along with Equality, unites a People and defines the American Nation. If our society abandons either Freedom or Equality, then one must question whether the United States “can long endure.” Unfortunately, in the second decade of the third millennium, American higher education is betraying Freedom. In a post-modernist era, academe no longer believes in “freedom for the thought we hate.” Instead of creating an environment “where we are comfortable with questioning long held belief in the presence of those who seem different at first but become familiar with each passing moment, word, and deed,” public institutions frequently restrict the speech of students. Instead of encouraging the entire university community to “follow the truth wherever it may lead” while tolerating “any error so long as reason is left free to combat it,” universities punish professors for speech. Instead of implementing institutional policies that promote a market place of ideas, the academe denies the First Amendment rights of student organizations. Instead of pursuing policies promoting both Freedom and Equality, our institutions subordinate or even ignore Freedom in the name of Equality. Two recent books illustrate academe’s betrayal of Freedom. First, in Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Greg Lukianoff, the self-described liberal who serves as President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (“FIRE”), offers “a theory of how the world of higher education today is harming American discourse and increasing polarization” by revealing “the many ways that today’s university’s violate basic rights and betray the principles that undergird fundamental liberties.” Second, in The Silencing: How the Left Is Killing Free Speech, Kirsten Powers, a liberal who contributes to both USA Today and Fox News, describes how “an alarming level of intolerance emanates from the left side of the political spectrum who express views that don’t hew to the ‘settled’ liberal world view.” “It’s become clear that attempts — too often successful to silence dissent from the liberal worldview aren’t isolated outbursts.” Lukianoff and Powers are the canaries in the coalmine. Together, they sound the alarm about higher education’s betrayal of Freedom. This review has three parts. Part I discusses Lukianoff’s systematic exposition of how higher education denies free speech, religious liberty, and associational rights. Part II explores Power’s survey of the political left’s efforts to silence, intimidate, and diminish those who disagree with progressive orthodoxy. Part III explains why Higher Education must reverse course and reaffirm its commitment to Freedom. Freedom is essential to (1) achieving the educational benefits of diversity; (2) ensuring “all members of the University community [have] the broadest possible latitude... to discuss any problem that presents itself; ” and (3) as John Inazu has shown, the promotion of a “confident pluralism that conduces to civil peace and advances democratic consensus-building.”