How to Save the American University
At its heart, a university is a gamble on what happens when an institution shows an uncompromising commitment to free speech. Academic freedom is not just another rule in a policy manual. It is perhaps the constitutive feature of the modern American university, which is envied the world over. Yet few universities have come to a full-throated defense of that value. Few administrators seem to publicly espouse it; faculty openly question it; and the public hardly has reason to believe in it if universities themselves do not. For the university to save its soul, attitudes will have to change. […]
Universities are not very good at politics. They are good at allowing competing ideas, including terrible ones, to be thoroughly hashed out. They are good at equipping students with the skills to question and debate difficult ideas by providing an environment that encourages questions and debate. That is the soul of the university, and the only one worth fighting for.
Read the full Guardian featured essay, “How to save the American university,” The Guardian