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Colleges’ Big Fail: Protecting Feelings, But Not Speech

September 1, 2015

By Peter Berkowitz

The annual ritual of freshman orientation, which begins in mid-summer and extends through mid-September, is in full swing. Colleges are welcoming students and showing them around, acquainting them with classmates and college facilities, and making them aware of the full range of campus activities, clubs, and programs.

Amidst the festivities, colleges will also be introducing students to the spirit in which they should pursue their four years of study. Laudable in principle, that is bad news in practice for those who believe that the heart of college should be a properly liberal education.

While there are honorable exceptions sprinkled throughout the country, relatively few freshmen will learn at orientation that the venerable purpose of a liberal education is to transmit the fundamentals of the humanities and sciences. It also involves cultivating students’ capacity to think for themselves, which is inseparable from posing—and responding to—difficult questions. And it means providing students a core curriculum that features the moral and political principles that underlie free societies.

Read the full article at Real Clear Politics: Colleges' Big Fail: Protecting Feelings, But Not Speech

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