Dean John Ellison has put prospective students to the University of Chicago on notice. While deans and other university officials are bending over in order to kiss the butts of their students, even allowing them to censor those with a different viewpoint that they do, the University of Chicago is not for you. Dean Ellison wrote a letter to incoming students and in it he told them exactly what to expect and if that doesn’t suit them, they are free to attend elsewhere. Maybe the University of Missouri.
Here are a couple of salient points made by Dean Ellison:
“Once here you will discover that one of the University of Chicago’s defining characteristics is our commitment to freedom of inquiry and expression, Members of our community are encouraged to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn, without fear of censorship.”
“Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”
Along with the letter, students were given a copy of a book, “Academic Freedom and the Modern University,” which centers on academic freedom that the United States used to be noted for.
Ellison’s approach is in sharp contrast with that taken at another Chicago university, DePaul. A May visit by conservative journalist Milo Yiannopoulos descended into chaos after it was disrupted by student activists and school security refused to restore order. Later, the school banned Yiannopoulos from returning, and it alsopreemptively banned journalist Ben Shapiro for good measure.
Other schools have seen a rollback of free speech rights as well. California State University, Los Angeles tried to block an appearance by Shapiro and only backed down when Shapiro showed up anyway. Schools like the University of Michigan and Case Western Reserve University have announced safe spaces to protect students from unwelcome opinions. At the University of California, Santa Barbara students demanded trigger warnings for all classes, along with the right to be excused from any lessons that may “trigger” them.