LETTER TO THE EDITOR / CODDLING ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES?
What’s in the drinking water on college campuses? Is victimhood the new rebellion, like swallowing goldfish and panty-raids? A lengthy article in Atlantic Magazine by a constitutional lawyer and a psychologist (“The Coddling of the American Mind”) showed that, in the name of emotional well being, college students are demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. The essay pointed out that this recent phenomenon is disastrous for education – as well as for the mental health of students.
The core conflict is between free speech, access to education and academic freedom on one hand, and the avoidance of emotional discomfort for any student on the other. Harvard Law students, for example, demanded that rape law not be taught because it might cause some students discomfort; and students successfully got former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the IMF’S Managing Director Christine Lagarde disinvited as speakers on their campus for reasons that escape me. The premise for student demands that different views not be expressed seems to be that today’s scholars are fragile and need to be protected.
Sensitivity, empathy and respect for others regardless of differences, not to mention good manners, are important and admirable attributes in civilized societies. However, legislating and institutionalizing such virtues at the cost of democratic rights, like free speech and academic freedoms, is a serious mistake. This is a case where good intentions produce much more harm than good, and rational debate disintegrates when “victim’s” claims of being offended are used as cudgels that cause cowardly universities to acquiesce. This phenomenon creates a chilling effect on education because universities are supposed to encourage critical thinking by teaching students how to think, not what to think.
Roger C. Kostmayer
KW
12/14/2015
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