Free Speech Limits Freedom: So Says Harvard

Sandra Korn from the Harvard Crimson has written an editorial piece entitled “The Doctrine of Academic Freedom.”[i] In which Sandra states the case that opposing views of the “university community” should not be allowed and that “academic freedom” hinders “academic justice.”

Sandra writes: “If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of “academic freedom”?”

Sandra is describing a doctrine of propaganda that will only allow an approved viewpoint to be pursued and discussed. History has given us many examples of the destructiveness that this type of “doctrine” has on society. That instead of freedom and equality we get a barbaric system of division and inequality. There is a reason that the first amendment in the Bill of Right is that of the freedom of speech. And what we research we speak.

By definition the word academic expresses the idea of “having no practical importance: not involving or relating to anything real or practical.”[ii] In other words the place of academia is the place to pursue all ideas of varying viewpoints.

Unfortunately there are others in the academia world that share Sandra’s viewpoint. A professor from the law department at Texas A&M University “admitted that she teaches students in her Constitutional law courses that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are obsolete.”[iii]

However, if this bothers you, and it should, take a look at the image below of a plague located on the IRS headquarters building in Maryland.[iv] It reads “The Bill of Rights was not ordained by Nature or God. Very Human, Very Fragile.”

This comes on the heels of The FCC wanting “to send researchers to oversee TV and radio newsrooms”[v] in their effort for “academic justice.”

The issue of the freedom of speech is not a game and needs to be addressed every time it is brought up. To lose the freedom to express oneself is to lose independence.

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ― George Washington [vi]