The University of Austin: Free Speech Returns to the Academy
I chose to go to Berkeley because I was convinced that this ethos of free speech absolutism being so deeply ingrained in the school s history would have carried free inquiry and civil discourse forward as core institutional values to this day. I consider myself to be a centrist, politically, and I understood that Berkeley had a reputation as being a bastion of relatively far-left thought and organization. But I thought that exposure to new and different ideas would be a great opportunity to have my beliefs challenged through respectful debate and that I would emerge a stronger thinker for it.
Of course, all this rested on my assumption that despite the prevailing ideological bent of many students and professors, ideas that challenged this consensus would still be welcomed and debated respectfully. I assumed that the home of the free speech movement still valued free speech.
Reader, I was dead wrong.
I wish University of Austin the best. There are still plenty of good professors at Cal but many of the students and the administration make open and free thought dangerous at best. It’s a disgrace but what else is new. Building new institutions such as U of Austin seems the only way to go.