Greg Lukianoff, the chief executive officer of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and Rikki Schlott, a New York Post columnist, discussed the state of free speech and academic expression at college campuses and in national discourse at a speaking event on March 5.
Discussion centered around Lukianoff and Schlott’s new book, The Canceling of the American Mind, which surveys cancel culture as a “dysfunctional part of how Americans battle for power, status and dominance,” according to a blurb.
The speakers were invited by Prof. Randy Wayne, plant science, a leader in the Cornell Heterodox Academy, an organization that aims to increase the diversity of thought in academia.
The talk was the first of three parts of “The American Mind” speaker series. Wayne and Heterodox Academy presented the event as alternative programming related to the freedom of expression academic theme year, which according to Wayne’s opinion was not effectively implemented by the administration.
Lukianoff, who self-identifies as a “left-of-center liberal,” opened the talk explaining what he saw as the current crisis of freedom of speech in higher education — young people falsely associating free speech with bigotry when, in reality, it serves to protect minority points of view unpopular with those in power.
He attributed the rise in national scrutiny of campus free speech to political rivalry between leaders on the left and right of the political spectrum.
“The powerful really hate to admit that they’re powerful when it comes to higher education,” Lukianoff said. “The political valence is switching on freedom of speech because my side [the left side] of the political fence dominates higher education.”
He said that due to threats to freedom of speech on college campuses, elite higher education is in a crisis of losing popular appreciation and intellectual legitimacy.
“You cannot meaningfully [explore] ideas without the freedom to dissent,” Lukianoff said. “If you’re in a knowledge-producing environment where you can get in trouble for questioning received wisdom, nobody should trust you on the production of ideas.”
Schlott said that though she has identified as an advocate for free speech since high school, she only learned about the philosophy behind the concept by reading independently while she was an undergraduate student.
“[Free speech is] simply not something that I was taught,” Schlott said. “I think my generation was taught the opposite — that words can wound you and that you need to be protected from expression that makes you uncomfortable [rather than] lean into it.”
During her time as an undergraduate at New York University, Schlott felt politically isolated as a conservative student. Beginning in 2021, she began writing about her college experiences in the New York Post.
After taking a leave of absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Schlott ultimately chose not to return to NYU because of a lack of ideological support.
“Free speech is a value that’s more important than just protecting my viewpoint. It’s a much larger philosophical project,” Schlott said. “I would say [now more] people understand [that there is a] lack of viewpoint diversity and civil discourse on [college] campuses.”
FIRE’s 2024 College Free Speech Rankings — which combines thirteen components including tolerance for liberal or conservative speakers and administrative support — ranked Cornell as 212th out of 248 universities meriting a “below average” speech climate.
All Ivy League Universities earned a “below average” ranking or worse, except for Brown University which earned an “average” ranking in 69th place. Harvard University placed last and was the only university to be labeled with an “abysmal” speech climate.
On Feb. 13, FIRE published an article criticizing Cornell’s controversial Interim Expressive Activity Policy, calling the sign-posting rules “neither narrowly tailored nor reasonable” and criticizing the policy as a betrayal of the freedom of expression theme year.
The Coddling of the American Mind, — a 2018 book by Lukianoff and psychologist Jonathan Haidt — named “three Great Untruths” of modern education — “What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker,” “Always trust your feelings” and “Life is a battle between good and evil people.”
“[These three things] reject ancient wisdom, go against modern psychology and will make you miserable if you believe them,” Lukianoff said.
Lukianoff said that these untruths have become prevalent in K-12 education, providing an oversimplified view of social dynamics and teaching anxiety and depression to young people.
“[By constantly asking] ‘Are you okay?’ you’re mentally framing people to look for [something] wrong with them,” Lukianoff said.
Schlott agreed: “I think young people feel that something is wrong in our discourse. They are self-censoring and questioning themselves in a way that prevents them from being authentic.”
In The Canceling of the American Mind, Schlott and Lukianoff added a fourth “untruth” that “No bad person has any good opinion,” which they describe as common on college campuses.
Schlott described two “rhetorical fortresses” outlined in the book that represent norms for social thought on the political right and left. She described the left’s ideological culture filters individuals through immutable characteristics like race, gender identity or sexual orientation, to ascribe value to a speaker.
Alternatively, the right’s ideological norm filters out opinions from liberals, experts and journalists. Schlott described both these ideological filtration systems as being counterintuitive to civil discourse.
“We’re talking past each other and going down these identity politics rabbit holes before actually addressing anyone’s argument,” Schlott said. “It ultimately absolves us all of reaching across the aisle and engaging with people of different viewpoints.”
Lukianoff described the recent discourse over the Israel-Hamas war as a “watershed [moment] because it is something the left disagrees [about] within itself.” He said that the poor state of civil discourse has led to “an overly simplistic narrative about one of the most complicated parts of the world.”
Lukianoff also criticized diversity, equity and inclusion for not representing the ideals it is named after and for applying a double standard to free speech in universities by dividing people into groups.
“[DEI] is always going to require someone being moral and someone being immoral as groups, not as individuals,” Lukianoff said.
Lukianoff said acknowledging the freedom of speech crisis is important, but was skeptical over whether administrators will take action.
The second event in “The American Mind” speaker series will take place on March 12, in which Prof. Barry Strauss, history and classics, will talk about former government professor Allan Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind.
Clarification, March 15, 7:28 a.m.: This article has been updated to include more information about the connection between “The American Mind” speaker series and the freedom of expression academic theme year.