“The presumption that students need to be protected rather than challenged in a classroom is at once infantilizing and anti-intellectual.” American Association of University Professors One topic I’m interested in is freedom in general and freedom of speech specifically. Especially at universities, given that I have spend almost two decades in that environment, either as a student, a PhD student, or a Post-Doc. So I’m more than a little concerned about the outbreak of “political correctness” and the silencing of different opinions at US universities. I’m in Germany, but as a school teacher of mine once said: “Trends that start in the US usually arrive here within 5 to 10 years.” That was before the Internet became common so the time frames might be even shorter now. And there are signs that this trend has already reached England. But there are also increasing signs of a backlash against a movement that undermines the basic function of a university. Some come in the form of humorous criticism (like this musical treatment of safe spaces), others in more serious and insightful pieces. Regarding the later, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt have written an essay for “The Atlantic” titled: “The Coddling of the [...]
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