University of California president Janet Napolitano has attacked “free speech Darwinism” in an op-ed to be published in Sunday’s Boston Globe. While her essay purports to be a defense of free speech, Napolitano actually crafts a devious defense of “safe spaces” on campus and “trigger warnings” in the classroom.
Along the way, Napolitano attacks the University of Chicago’s so-called “free speech Darwinism” — a term she uses to defame, but does not bother to define.
Napolitano’s university system is rife with the suppression of free speech and academic freedom, both in an official capacity (and, more worryingly, by students themselves). Last year, the University of California circulated a list of terms that it called “microaggressions” that faculty should avoid, and which included such controversial statements as “America is the land of opportunity,” “There is only one race, the human race,” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”
In her op-ed, Napolitano offers up familiar free speech mantras: “[T]he way to deal with extreme, unfounded speech is not with less speech — it is with more speech,” she says. Yet she also claims, erroneously, that speech “designed to personally intimidate or harass falls outside First Amendment protections, as outlined by the Supreme Court.”
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