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FIRE
Ninety one percent of undergraduate students believe that words can be violence, according to a new poll by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and College Pulse.
The survey’s findings are especially startling coming in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination — an extreme and tragic example of the sharp difference between words and violence.
“When people start thinking that words can be violence, violence becomes an acceptable response to words,” said FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens. “Even after the murder of Charlie Kirk at a speaking event, college students think that someone’s words can be a threat. This is antithetical to a free and open society, where words are the best alternative to political violence.”
George F. Will
The Washington Post
High school seniors completing college applications confront a smorgasbord of choices. Herewith, eight suggestions:
Arizona State University, because of its School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. University of Florida, because of its Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education. Florida State University because of its Institute for Governance and Civics. The University of Texas, because of its School of Civic Leadership, and Civitas Institute. The University of Tennessee, because of its Institute of American Civics. The University of North Carolina because of its School of Civic Life and Leadership. The University of Mississippi because of its Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom.
And The Ohio State University, because of its new Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society. These eight, with similar programs gestating in other states, are reviving universities’ civic seriousness, that is reinvigorating the humanities, inspiring students eager to grapple with big questions, and reversing academia’s forfeiture of its prestige.
Rose Horowitch
The Atlantic
Administering an exam used to be straightforward: All a college professor needed was an open room and a stack of blue books. At many American universities, this is no longer true. Professors now struggle to accommodate the many students with an official disability designation, which may entitle them to extra time, a distraction-free environment, or the use of otherwise-prohibited technology.
No one should be kept from taking a class, for example, because they are physically unable to enter the building where it’s taught. Over the past decade and a half, however, the share of students at selective universities who qualify for accommodations—often, extra time on tests—has grown at a breathtaking pace.
Emma Whitford
Inside Higher Ed
University of Oklahoma officials placed a graduate teaching assistant on leave Sunday after a student who was given a failing grade on a written assignment claimed she was discriminated against due to her religious beliefs.
Samantha Fulnecky, a junior psychology major at the university, submitted an essay response to an assigned article in a psychology class about how people are perceived based on societal expectations of gender. Her response focused on her interpretations of the Bible and the ways in which she disagreed with the article.
Samuel J. Abrams
FIRE
The recent controversies surrounding Charlie Kirk — and the extraordinary reaction that followed his campus appearances and commentary — offer a revealing window into the fragile state of free expression in contemporary America.
Two recent New York Times opinion pieces examining the backlash were right to highlight how quickly public discourse has hardened into a zero-sum contest in which speech itself becomes grounds for professional punishment, social ostracism, and institutional retaliation. But the deeper lesson is even more unsettling: Free speech is increasingly treated not as a constitutional principle, but as a conditional privilege — one that applies only when speech is politically comfortable.
Emma Whitford
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: The Trump administration last week asked a Pennsylvania court to compel the University of Pennsylvania to turn over the names and contact information of some Jewish employees and students. In recent days, students, faculty members, on-campus Jewish groups and others have rallied around Penn officials’ decision not to disclose the information.
