Certain freedoms have always been under fire. One constantly under barrage is freedom of speech. This is especially true since the introduction of political correctness. Attacks have been aplenty of late in America’s university system.
Harvard University President Lawrence Summers has come under considerable fire for suggesting that biological differences that affect capability might explain why smaller numbers of females than males populate the fields of math and science.
And University of Colorado ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill’s head is being called for by many (including Colorado governor Bill Owens) because of some horribly insensitive sentiments he expressed in a paper written the day after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The fact that groups try to stop acts of free expression such as these highlights a condescending attitude. These people believe Americans are too dumb to think for themselves or realize Ward Churchill is a bona fide dummy. Let’s take back our rights and allow all views to be heard, especially minority and controversial ones, so we can decide for ourselves whether or not we buy into them.
We’re smart enough to discern these things for ourselves. That’s what this country is all about. The Harvard situation was already bothering me when the Colorado story came across the news wires, bringing with it feelings of an impending assault on controversial academia.
Why is it that the president of one of the most revered American universities can’t pose legitimate questions without having to run for cover? I think everyone can admit, as studies have shown, that women’s and men’s minds are wired differently, just how may be more unclear. As for Churchill, his comments may have been “controversial, offensive, and odious,” as the Boulder Faculty Assembly acknowledged in a statement supportive of Churchill’s free speech rights, but he has a beautiful and sacred First Amendment right to express them.
Freedom of speech, assembly, press and religion are the foundations a democracy is built upon. The views of these men may not be popular, but should that cost them their jobs-as some people are arguing should happen?
Aren’t universities supposed to be the places where free speech and thought are protected most fiercely (BYU aside), even if censorship is abound in all other arenas of discourse?
It seems that certain uber-sensitive “believe-only-as-I-do” people have hijacked our rights to speak as we choose.
When did political correctness become a reason to abandon free speech?
If a Nazi wants to stand on the corner and shout his beliefs about Aryan supremacy, so be it. If Professor Churchill idiotically compares the unfortunate victims of the horrendous Sept. 11 attacks to a Nazi who helped enable the murder of millions, it’s his right. That doesn’t end because of how ridiculous his students, peers and other people think he sounds.