President Trump’s executive order on free speech is the latest government response to what appears to be an atmosphere of increasing hostility to nonconforming ideas in institutions of higher education.
The order was no doubt issued with good intentions and in a civic spirit. Its impact, however, will only be on the margins as it doesn’t address the most profound problems affecting our universities today. And government is not the best instrument to implement the change our universities most need.
Concerned observers have good reason to fixate on the problem of free speech on campus. Instances of speakers being shouted down or disinvited, the emergence of speech codes, and other efforts to curtail speech are well-documented. And who can forget the protests a few years back around a Yale resident head’s suggestion that adult students at an elite university could use their own judgment in picking Halloween costumes?
Justifiably concerned about these efforts to promote “correct thinking,” many have been calling on universities to uphold the foundational American principle of the First Amendment. Trump explained his order in this light during the signing ceremony: “Taxpayer dollars should not subsidize anti-First Amendment institutions.”
The trouble is that the First Amendment is not the appropriate framework for understanding speech in an academic setting. For one thing, the First Amendment does not protect individuals from censorship by private institutions. Moreover, academic freedom is not a matter of individual liberty and creative expression, as the First Amendment has come to be understood.
John Stuart Mill explained that the pursuit of knowledge occurs through reasonable discourse — by making arguments and answering your opponent’s arguments. An atmosphere of free and open inquiry facilitates this dialectic. This is what is meant by academic freedom: disciplined conversation and the imperative to question assumed truths in the service of building and refining human knowledge.
Invoking the First Amendment or fixating on protests of individual speakers reflects confusion about the purpose of speech in education. While individual speaking events have educational value, they are not nearly as influential on students’ understanding as are the courses and curricula that account for the bulk of their education. And it is on this that concerned observers should focus: the education students are receiving.
At its best, a liberal arts education sharpens students’ thinking so that they are more critical and capable individuals and citizens. When this education is conducted by way of great texts of history, literature, and philosophy, students develop a deeper understanding of the human condition — of the human heart and its yearnings, of how our particular time fits into the larger scope of human history, and of the plight of others.
The most profound problem with our universities today is that so many disciplines have abandoned the pursuit of wisdom — of trying to understand the insights on the human condition of thinkers from the past. These disciplines take their bearings instead from the unquestioned premises that everything from art and literature to politics and society must be understood in terms of power and oppression, and that their own role is to correct the resulting injustice. It is from these premises that the obsession with identity politics arises. The predominance of this flat portrayal robs students of a deep education while simultaneously encouraging them to engage in unreflective activism.
The conversation about today’s universities would be improved if focus shifted away from concern with individual liberties and turned instead to the quality of education being offered. Universities have a crucial role to play in educating citizens for participation and leadership in a modern republic. Unfortunately, they are failing in this task today more than they are succeeding.
Civil society has the potential to play a leading role in improving higher education. Students and their families ought to choose their schools carefully. Alumni and philanthropists ought to be discerning about where and how they choose to invest their money. Aiding private citizens in these tasks are a growing number of nonprofit organizations, ranging from citizen watchdogs to donor-advisers, who can guide families and donors about the state of academia today and how those interested can best support a good education. The availability of a proper liberal arts education is crucial for the future of our republic.
Dr. Yael Levin Hungerford is a political theorist and a director at the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History. You can follow the Center’s work on Twitter @JackMillerCtr.
