Jonathan Turley: A Majority of Stanford Students Support Canceling Conservative Speakers

 

I've blogged before that the biggest problem that America faces is that our elites don't believe in American values such as free speech, individual liberty or the free enterprise system.  

Jonathan Turley's April 19 column provides more evidence of the elite disdain for these American values. 

Stanford University is at the very top of the hierarchy of American higher education.  Holders of Stanford diploma are well represented among those in  top government jobs, in the tech sector, and on Wall Street.  So what Stanford students and grads think matters a lot. 

According to a recent survey by FIRE, Stanford students have little tolerance for those with views other than their own. 

Last year Stanford students shouted down Judge Kyle Duncan at Stanford Law School.  Instead of defending the Judge, Law School Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Tirien Steinbach criticized the Judge for appearing and sided with the students disrupting his speech.  Oh the irony!

Turley writes of the findings of FIRE's 2024 survey of the views of Stanford students regarding free speech:  

FIRE released “The Judge Duncan Shoutdown: What Stanford Students Think,” including 54% of Stanford students said that Judge Duncan’s visit should have been canceled by the administration.

Another 36% stated that using physical violence to shutdown a campus speaker is “always,” “sometimes,” or “rarely” acceptable.

75% said the same about shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking.

Not surprising, only six percent of conservative students now feel comfortable disagreeing with professors.

The survey is consistent with other surveys and polling in higher education.

The early years of adulthood play a critical role in the formation of our attitudes toward ourselves, others and society at large.  That so many young Americans have closed themselves off to other opinions is disturbing.  That such intolerance is especially widespread among the elites bodes ill for the future of America.

Though framed in terms of consideration of those with different view on political questions, the intolerance displayed by Stanford students is unlikely to be contained to the political realm.

As rising generations today assume leadership roles in American institutions, intolerance of others is also likely to be reflected in the nature of business dealings, in the administration of government, in medical treatment, in foreign policy and in personal and marital relations.  The result: more failures of business judgement, more wasteful public expenditure, more medical errors, more war and regional conflict, and more unhappy marriages and personal relationships.         

John Stuart Mill wrote about the role of free thought and speech in human progress:

It is hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present low state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those which they are familiar. ...  Such communication has always been, and is peculiarly in the present age, one of the primary sources of progress.  (Principles of Political Economy, 1848) 

Higher education has traditionally been viewed as a means for the advancement of human progress.  Today, in many ways, it is the reverse.  The intolerant attitudes acquired and reinforced through one's time on the campuses of Stanford and other elite universities are a barrier to human progress.  A barrier to progress created by the universities themselves and the faculty and administrators that run them.