Free Expression & Censorship On College Campuses

I am confused. Should not the ideology behind liberalism promote free expression? Yet, it would seem that on most college campuses free expression of ideas is only free for those who agree with the dominant liberal culture. Whether in the area of poli-sci, the hard sciences, or journalism it is simply not acceptable to openly express conservative ideas.

In Letters To A Young Conservative, Dinesh D’Souza shares what happened when he was invited to a university to speak. He arrived to find protesters with bullhorns and placards surrounding the auditorium making it impossible to enter without the assistance of security. The protesters then proceeded to follow him into the auditorium where they did everything possible to keep him from sharing his thoughts with those assembled.

Undoubtedly the high point of the evening occurred near the end of my talk when the large, disheveled woman came rolling up the aisle shouting, “We don’t need a debate! Stop this man from speaking! My usual strategy in such circumstances is to try to calm the protester down and engage in a discussion, but this time there was no point. Finally, the woman was dragged from the room by the campus police. On her way out she yelled, “I am being censored! I am being censored!

It is amazing to me that so many of those who invoke the first amendment to justify their own right to freedom of expression, are often the same people who will do everything possible to keep others from expressing ideas contrary to their own. Maybe what we need most on our college campuses are courses in critical thinking.

Are Professors Being Expelled

“Professors aren’t being fired because they support intelligent design, they are being fired for lots of other reasons and then they have to justify their firing to other people and say it was because they advocated ID, rather than admit they were in some other way inadequate.”

That is what I was recently told by a cheeky fellow who was trying to cast an aura of confidence and disdain.

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Why Good Teachers Are Confessional

I have never met Ralph Wood, but I would like to. He is Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University. Theology and Literature — having taught both of them myself I resonate a great deal with the essays, collections, and resources on his website.

I think that he and I would probably have some significant differences in theology, but I think that would make having tea with him just that much more interesting.

I plan on interacting with some of his ideas here on my blog in the near future, but for now I leave you with a point drawn from a presentation he made at Baylor University on March 27, 2003 at the Some Marks of Excellence in Teaching Leadership Development Seminar.

Why good teachers are gladly and deliberately confessional

a. Because all great texts and works and ideas are out to win us over, to convert us

b. Because of the Christian conviction that there is no full understanding without first believing: Credo ut intelligam: “I believe in order to understand” (St. Augustine, via Isaiah 7:9 Septuagint). Since all truth is rooted in the triune God, it is encountered only as God himself is encountered: in trust and obedience and reverence.

Education - Select Quotes

On one occasion Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated. “As much,” said he, “as the living are to the dead.”
~ Diogenes Laertius, in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

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