Bilbo once advised his nephew, Frodo that it was a dangerous thing to take a step outside the front door. Who knows where you would end up? The fashion these days on too many university campuses is to make sure all doors, not just the front door, remain firmly shut at all times.
The anti-free speech trend amongst American universities has recently taken the form of students demanding "free spaces" where their beliefs, ideas, and prejudices will not be challenged. It has been an entertaining development. "Speech should be free only if it affirms my beliefs and confirms my prejudices"--at least according to lots of students on lots of US campuses. We note, in passing, that the sensitivities of the precious petals are being earnestly protected by faculties up and down the country.
Thankfully, for the moment, the UK is not going to be subjected to official, governmental support for such idiotic contradictions. This exchange took place recently in the UK House of Commons:
During England’s weekly “Prime Minister’s Questions” session at the House of Commons, one member of Parliament asked newly installed Prime Minster Theresa May if she supported the growing trend of creating “safe spaces” on college campuses.
The question came from Victoria Atkins, a back-bench member of Parliament. Atkins started with a brief but rousing endorsement of the value of free speech — especially at universities — before she posed her question about the so-called “safe spaces” to May:
As students around the country return to their places of learning at the start of this academic year, does [the prime minister] agree with me that university is precisely the place for lively debate and the fear of being offended must not trump freedom of speech?
May quickly rose to express her agreement with Atkins:
We want our universities not just to be places of learning but to be places where there can be open debate which is challenged. … And I think everybody is finding this concept of “safe spaces” quite extraordinary, frankly. We want to see that innovation of thought taking place in our universities. That’s how we develop as a country, as a society and as an economy. [The Blaze]
How do you think Vladamir Putin would have answered such a question?
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