Greg Lukianoff: First Amendment Day Keynote Address

Date/Time
Date(s) - 09/23/2014
7:01 pm - 8:00 pm

“Unlearning Liberty” and “Freedom From Speech:” Why Everyone Should Be Concerned About Censorship on Campus

This year’s keynote speaker will be Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

For over a generation, shocking cases of censorship at America’s colleges and universities have taught students the wrong lessons about living in a free society. Drawing on a decade of experience battling for freedom of speech on campus, First Amendment lawyer Lukianoff reveals how higher education fails to teach students to become critical thinkers: by stifling open debate, our campuses are supercharging ideological divisions, promoting groupthink and encouraging an unscholarly certainty about complex issues. Moreover, a chilling trend of hostility toward free expression points to a growing expectation of emotional and intellectual comfort, both on and off campus. Free speech as a cultural value, Lukianoff will explain, is being eroded as people across the world increasingly argue not for freedom of speech, but, rather, freedom from speech.

Lukianoff is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate and Freedom From Speech. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe, in addition to dozens of other publications. He is a regular columnist for The Huffington Post and has appeared on television shows, including the CBS Evening News, Fox & Friends, The Today Show, CNN’s New Day, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal and Stossel. He received the 2008 Playboy Foundation Freedom of Expression Award and the 2010 Ford Hall Forum’s Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First Amendment Award on behalf of FIRE. He is a graduate of American University and Stanford Law School.

Early this year FIRE ranked Carolina one of the 10 worst universities for free speech. You can read about that here.