I am, of course, talking about issues of free speech on university campuses. The meaning and limits of free speech are questions deeply embedded in our legal system, in interpretations of the First Amendment and its applications. I am no constitutional lawyer, indeed no lawyer at all, and I do not intend in my brief remarks today to address complex legal doctrines. Nor, clearly, can I in a few brief minutes take on even a fraction of the arguments that have been advanced on this issue. Instead, I speak as one who has been a university president for a decade in order to raise three questions:
First: Why is free speech so important to and at universities?
Second: Why does it seem under special challenge right now?
And, third: How might we better address these challenges by moving beyond just defensively protecting free speech – which, of course, we must do – to actively and affirmatively enabling it and nurturing environments in which it can thrive?
So first: Why is free speech so important to and at universities? This is a question I took up with the newly arrived first-year students in the College when I welcomed them at Convocation last fall. For centuries, I told them, universities have been environments in which knowledge has been discovered, collected, studied, debated, expanded, changed, and advanced through the power of rational argument and exchange. We pursue truth unrelentingly, but we must never be so complacent as to believe we have unerringly attained it. Veritas is inspiration and aspiration. We assume there is always more to know and discover so we open ourselves to challenge and change. We must always be ready to be wrong, so being part of a university community requires courage and humility. Universities must be places open to the kind of debate that can change ideas and committed to standards of reason and evidence that form the bases for evaluating them.
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