Just as an anecdote, met a recent state school grad who said he arrived on campus as a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, tried to get into campus activism, and his fellow activists and teachers scared him so much that he's now not sure where he stands politically.<p>Obviously I can't verify this, but for example he had a professor who actively taught that nations are a completely artificial social construct, and as such all immigration policies of any sort are illegitimate and harmful.<p>France was brought up as a particular example. Also, this view point was not up for classroom debate -- you would get a bad grade if you deviated from this in homework essays.<p>I think true liberalism is not just having a general set of 'progressive' values, but also being open to dissenting opinions and facing them honestly and openly. That doesn't mean agreeing with those opinions, but it does mean being exposed to them and debating them.<p>What we see on campuses today doesn't sound like liberalism to me, but a reactionary movement that aims to protect an orthodoxy composed of generally liberal viewpoints not by engaging in debate, but by preemptively shaming and denouncing anyone who disagrees.<p>Even if you believe liberal viewpoints are generally correct, nobody has a total monopoly on Truth.
I'm in the UK, working at a university and I'm going to say, the conservatives do have something of a point, although they greatly exaggerate it.<p>Before the Brexit vote, I found it would offend many academics to even discuss that the vote might pass, and people might have legitimate greviences that would make them vote for Brexit.<p>Now, I'm personally against Brexit, but i think the main reason it passed was the "liberal elite" refused to even discuss with the people who wanted Brexit, so they they turned to the likes of UKIP, who would talk to them about the problems (and then lie to them, which is how we ended up in this Brexit mess).
As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality, it should be no surprise they are increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge.<p>If you reject not only the politics of your opponents, but the value of fact itself, why should they listen to or accommodate you?<p><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis" rel="nofollow">https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/a...</a>
I think the article makes good points about some craziness on college campuses, particularly regarding actions restricting freedom of speech, but to use that as a justification to hurt seemingly left tilted institutions is a weak argument.<p>This kind of justification doesn't help the already partisan environment and further encourages tribalism and defence of bad ideas.<p>The optics of the article makes it looks like "we don't like you, so we're going to hit you where it hurts", something that the constitution seeks to prevent(re: "tyranny of majority").<p>Freedom of speech suppression isn't exclusively a left problem as can be seen in the link below, I'd agree that it's more of a left problem than right: <a href="https://www.thefire.org/resources/disinvitation-database/" rel="nofollow">https://www.thefire.org/resources/disinvitation-database/</a><p>What we need is more debate not less, and taxing endownments isn't going to help that, I'm, not sure what will though either, people seemingly don't want to debate anymore.
I agree that the folks on “one side” get crazy at times, but without their presence to provide an anchor, the other is unrestricted and just as willing to go off the deep end.
> to tax large university endowments and make other tax and spending changes that might adversely affect universities<p>Why shouldn't major universities pay their fair share to help society? Most of these elite universities literally pocket billions of dollars at the end of the fiscal year. Major universities have essentially evolved into corporations.