The Myth of the Campus Snowflake

"A few weeks ago, I welcomed Princeton's newly arrived undergraduates to campus with what has become an annual tradition: a presidential lecture on the importance of free speech and civil discussion. This semester, I will host small seminars with first-year and transfer students to impress upon them my view that free speech is essential to the research and teaching mission of American universities."

"Cultural critics of a certain age love to describe the current generation of college students as fragile, steeped in "cancel culture," and reluctant to confront opposing ideas. My own experience, however, is largely the opposite. As I observe in my new book, Terms of Respect, most of the students with whom I talk are committed to constructive discussion and eager to encounter views different from their own."

"Part of the answer is that several cases of genuinely closed-minded student behavior have attracted disproportionate and long-running attention. These include the attack on the political scientists Charles Murray and Allison Stanger at Middlebury College, in 2017, and the heckling of Judge Kyle Duncan at Stanford Law School, in 2023. Such incidents are inexcusable. Colleges must discipline the students responsible when such episodes occur."

An annual presidential lecture and follow-up seminars aim to emphasize free speech and civil discussion as central to university research and teaching. Many students demonstrate commitment to constructive discussion and a willingness to encounter differing views. High-profile violent events and disruptive incidents, such as the Utah attack and past campus confrontations, shape public perceptions of campus illiberalism. A few widely reported episodes of closed-minded behavior attract disproportionate and long-running attention. Colleges have a responsibility to discipline students who disrupt events. Overall, disruptions are rare amid millions of campus lectures, classes, and exhibitions each year.

Read at The Atlantic