The subject of free speech is a topic of hot debate in classrooms, teacher boards, and the broader society at large. The argument goes about whether or not the introduced means of censorship, be it banned words, theories deemed triggering and unpleasant, micro aggressions, and similar subjects. The article by Lukianoff and Heidt (2015) claims that the reason for the censoring of academic language and scientific pursuits is to blame a small but very vocal minority. This minority, according to the authors, is not representative of the American population and is to be opposed by the majority in order to return education to the status quo. Likewise, they postulate that the offensiveness of certain subjects to specific people should be ignored due to their subjectivity.
The article by Palumbo-Liu (2015), written in response to the first essay, holds a different opinion. He claims that the issue of free speech on campus is misrepresented and that whatever problem is being perceived lies in the pre-college state of education and society. Palumbo-Liu (2015) claims that censoring certain words and subjects and preventing micro aggressions is a defensive mechanism in response to racism, sexism, and other flaws that exist outside of campus. Likewise, he challenges the teachers’ own inherent biases as part of the problem.
The takeaway from either article is that neither addresses each other’s points, despite the latter being an alleged response to the former. The answer provided by Palumbo-Liu (2015) could be summarized as “if you stop being racist and sexist, then protectionist measures would not be necessary.” This answer is too vague and general. Personally, I find the issue identified by Lukianoff and Heidt (2015) to be important and convincing. However, their article does not answer the question of where did this “vocal minority” come from, and how did it suddenly gain so much power to be able to stir public conversation in this direction. I think that answering this question would be a good direction for further research.
References
Lukianoff, G., & Heidt, J. (2015). The coddling of the American mind. The Atlantic. Web.
Palumbo-Liu, D. (2015). Coddled students? That’s not the problem. Huffington Post. Web.