Self-Censorship in the Academy
Two cheers for inclusivity
The strongest case against academic freedom is that professors are not a freedom-loving people. H. L. Mencken made this argument a century ago. Professors show by their choices that they do not love thinking and speaking freely. They have gone into the business of education, a civilizing business where they manufacture “citizens who are as nearly like all other citizens as possible.”
Mencken had a point. Professors (I am one of them) are mainly selected from the category of people who got good grades in school. Let us hope that our grades are a mark of our intelligence, our excellent work, maybe even — if schools are sound institutions — our expertise in our fields of study. Our grades might also indicate other, darker talents and inclinations. Maybe we received high marks because we have the gift of pleasing our teachers. Maybe we are the kind of people who want to please our teachers. Maybe we love thinking and speaking agreeably.
What is it like, today, to study at a small liberal arts college in the U.S.? Are these schools the “rolling mills” of conformity that Mencken wrote about? Part of an answer is suggested by a Gallup poll conducted in 2018 at Pomona College (where I teach): 88 percent of students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that “the climate on my campus prevents…
