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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.
Some people might expect my advocacy for robust debate to get a hostile reception. 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. Even the horrific events in Utah earlier this month illustrate the point. Thousands of students at Utah Valley University had gathered to hear Charlie Kirk speak and debate audience members before he was killed by an assassin with no appare
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