Dynamics of Free Speech on Modern College Campuses

Authors

  • Juan Flores-Serrano Rutgers University
  • Trishawna Forde Rowan University
  • Austen Johnson Rowan University
  • Monica Monteiro Rowan University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18113/P8ne6261230

Abstract

In March 2017, Charles Murray--a highly controversial author and academic--visited Vermont's Middlebury College. His visit was met with students protests; the protesters shouted Murray down, and, ultimately became violent, attacking Murray and injuring a Middlebury professor. The administration doled out discipline to 67 students.Some felt the Middlebury Administration lost control of the situation, and their efforts to reign in the chaos amounted to little more than a semi-random disciplinary response that fell short of imparting societal values on students in need of such a lesson. A Middlebury political science professor, critical of the college's response stated: "[this] was an institutional failure...Students do not understand the value of free speech" (Saul 2017). After the penalties were handed down, Charles Murray criticized the leniency of the sanctions saying, "They will not deter anyone. They're a statement to students that if you shut down a lecture, nothing will happen to you."

 

Published

2019-05-29