Unlikely bedfellows Michael Bloomberg and Charles Koch have found something they agree on: Colleges are creating a generation of “coddled” students who are intolerant to opposing ideas.
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, the two team up to tackle the free speech concerns permeating American campuses, and remind college students and administrators that women’s suffrage and equality were once unpopular opinions that many found offensive. Things only turned around when Americans engaged in a “robust dialogue” with their peers.
“We fear that such dialogue is now disappearing on college campuses. As it fades, it will make material and social progress that much harder to achieve. It will also create graduates who are unwilling to tolerate differing opinions — a crisis for a free society,” the two wrote. “An unwillingness to listen to those with differing opinions is already a serious problem in America’s civic discourse. Unless colleges reverse course, that problem will worsen in the years ahead, with profoundly negative consequences.”
Shutting down views because they are disagreeable presupposes that those doing the shutting down are on the right side, and that shutting down dissent will have no negative consequences. When only one side is heard, everyone loses.
Bloomberg and Koch are correct to urge colleges and universities to begin fostering free speech again. I urge you to read the whole column.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
