America’s colleges have a free speech problem. They are increasingly hostile to those whose views dissent from campus orthodoxy. Late last year, a survey of more than 37,000 college students found that two-thirds thought it acceptable to shout down a speaker (not coincidentally, 81 percent said they self-censor their thoughts). Just recently, after penning a New York Times column lamenting the cancel culture of quiet intimidation on campus, a University of Virginia student was harassed by an online woke mob seeking to silence her.
Confronted with a wealth of evidence that campuses are increasingly hostile to free thought, the editors of the University of Virginia’s student newspaper have mustered a truly bizarre response: They’ve concluded that the real problem is that there is too much free speech and freedom of thought at their institution.
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