Unlearning liberty

I listened to this book on Audible. It may have been better to read the book only because the quality of the audio for this book was lacking. The narrator was superb, but must have been reading the book with a faulty microphone given frequent highs and lows in volume throughout the tape.

Anyways, on to the book. Lukianoff is a liberal atheist, Huff Post contributor, and, more importantly, the current President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). FIRE, along with the ACLU and other organizations, often defend students, faculty, and staff on college campuses when their first amendment right of free speech has been infringed upon. This book offers in one sense a summary of FIRE’s work during the early 2000s and in another sense Lukianoff’s assessment of how a climate of censorship on American college campuses has eroded the classic idea of what higher education should do: create a public space wherein the exchange of ideas can introduce students to multiple perspectives on the world (many potentially offensive), hone their critical thinking skills, and inure them to the tendency to have knee-jerk reactions to speech that they find offensive or “hurtful.”

Lukianoff indicates that the burgeoning administrative class and bureacritization of colleges and universities in the United States has contributed more to a censorious climate than individual radical student groups or professors. Administrators often wield an inordinate amount of power to censor “hurtful” or “offensive” speech under campus “speech codes” that often adopt such broad and vague definitions of “offensive speech” or “hate speech” that almost anyone could be guilty of violating such policies on campuses. More often than not, administrators and college presidents use this power to censor those who criticize their administrations (e.g. Peace College alumnae), create student orientation programs that Lukianoff says are Orwellian in nature (e.g. see Michigan State University), and ruin the lives of faculty for offenses such as discussing the origins of racial epithets like “wetback.” Lukianoff also joins a growing chorus of public intellectuals who believe that we have entered an “education bubble,” believing that the price of college education (exceeding 50k/year at many private colleges) has risen much higher than its actual value in the market. He fingers the well-compensated campus admin class as the primary driver of rising tuition costs and argues that colleges are becoming more expensive just as they are becoming less well-equipped to educate. In one particularly egregious example (I can’t remember the particular college), the annual salaries for admins had risen 80% while the budget for faculty (those actually doing the teaching) had declined by 1 or 2%.

Lukianoff argues that part of the problem also stems from the fact that primary education (K-12) has failed students by not providing them with a robust knowledge of their constitutional rights. In particular, most graduating high school seniors, he says, have only a simplistic view of the First Amendment and Free Speech, which makes it far too easy for campus admins to violate their rights.

Perhaps the most insidious effect of all this has been to create ideological homogeneity among the faculty, graduate student population, and even among undergraduates. Currently, many universities have a decidedly liberal bent with conservative and Christian voices being the most consistent targets of censorship and harassment. Drawing on convincing social psychological research, Lukianoff argues that ideological “echo chambers” erode critical thinking and push those with like-minded viewpoints toward more radical points-of-view. This means that scholarship becomes more partisan, biased, and ultimately estranged from society. However, Lukianoff’s more far-sighted point is that when the power to ban speech rests in the hands of biased and flawed individuals (i.e. campus admins), censorious behavior can cut both ways affecting both liberals and conservatives. Lukianoff shows time and time again that liberal professors and students are often the target of censorship campaigns when they could not keep abreast of changes in identity politics and eventually ran afoul of some particular interest group. Maybe that my main take-away from this book: when campus admins and others attempt to ban constitutionally protected speech in an attempt to avoid “hurt feelings,” it becomes a very slippery slope because opinions and perspectives will almost always offend someone.

There is a lot more to this book that what I’ve managed to describe above. I would highly recomend it to anyone interested in what’s happening on college campuses in America today, although hopefully Lukianoff’s updated volume will offer even more insights.