Deep Dive: Academic Freedom, Safe Spaces, Dissent, and Dignity—the Fight Over Free Expression on Campus
Setup
Worry not about the demise of student activism: It is alive and well on the college campus. But worry about something else: the future of free speech. This year, the focus on campuses across the US is speech, and arguments regarding fairness, respect, and freedom are loudly voiced. What constitutes “freedom of expression” for some summons deep pain for others, so much so that academic life on some campuses is bound by trigger warnings or fierce calls for resignations. Leaders and experts are disinvited or yelled down by various college communities. Are students today just more sensitive? Are we seeing a rise in intolerance? College has always, at its core, been meant to be an environment conducive to the free exchange of ideas. Is intellectual integrity at risk?
Speakers
-
Jeffrey GoldbergEditor in chief of The Atlantic
-
Greg LukianoffPresident and CEO, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
-
Jonathan HollowayDean, Yale College and Edmund S. Morgan Professor of African American...
-
Michael MiddletonInterim President, University of Missouri; Professor Emeritus, MU Scho...
-
Kirsten PowersContributor, Fox News; Columnist, USA Today; Author
-
Michael RothPresident, Wesleyan University
-
Stephen L. CarterWilliam Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Yale University School of La...
-
Jonathan GreenblattCEO of the Anti-Defamation League
-
Geoffrey StoneEdward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of C...
-
Maggie LoughranEditor in Chief, The Chicago Maroon; Student, The University of Chicag...
- 2016 Festival
- Education
Explore More
Education

Today's kids are coming of age against a backdrop of political, social, technological, and economic upheaval. While these circumstances are shaping a precocious generation tha...


From blockchain to back to school and virus-hunting to bridging divides, speakers at the 2021 Aspen Ideas Festival addressed issues in a new kind of world—one touched, and cha...












We're proud to announce the 2022 winners of The Aspen Challenge, four amazing teams of young people designing solutions to some of the most critical problems facing their comm...





When children see themselves and their communities mirrored in school curriculum, they learn better. But traditional curriculum situates people of the African Diaspora in a mi...