Ogged impishly posts this quote from Phillip Greenspun:
The U.S. Constitution guarantees that the government won’t interfere with your right to free speech. Private employers, however, are free to say “You will continue to receive a paycheck so long as you stay in your cubicle with your head down and your mouth shut.” Only a tiny fraction of Americans have a practical right to free speech and these are primarily the very rich and the very poor. A primary mission of a college is to prepare young people for the real world. Does it really make sense to delude kids into thinking that they can say whatever they want and still have a paycheck and health insurance? Perhaps it would be better for a university president to address the incoming freshmen thusly… “This is my plantation and if you want to stay here for four years you’ll learn to say ‘Yes, Massah’”.
There’s something to that, to be sure. But, of course, I don’t think universities are about training kids to be productive workers but rather teaching them to grapple with ideas. So, students ought to be encouraged to debate ideas–and met with stiff resistance in the form of strong counterargument–from their professors and deans. But, maybe, somewhere along the line someone should note that the real world doesn’t work that way.
