Commentary
Some years ago, I was invited to give a university lecture on the importance of free speech. I gave a competent presentation but it lacked passion, not because I didn’t believe but because I didn’t quite see the threat or the pressing need even to address the topic. Free speech had always been in my adult life a non-negotiable principle of civilized life.
Same with the freedom of the press and religion. These are just things we believe. Only deranged psychopaths and dangerous ideological fanatics would dispute them.
What I had not understood was what had become a daily part of life in most major universities at the time: the punishment of dissent, the restriction on ideas, the muzzling of students, the intimidation of the faculty, and the gradual takeover of campus life by politically motivated administrators who were determined to blot out certain views so that others would ascend.
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