Several fresh concepts to reform higher education presented at the Academic Freedom Conference held over the weekend at the Stanford Graduate School of Business deserve further scrutiny.
The conference brought together some of the brightest minds in the nation from all sides of the political spectrum who vigorously defend freedom of thought, inquiry, debate and speech.
Amid this two-day convergence of scholars came suggestions that have not been presented widely before in higher education circles, but should get more traction.
SOURCES: Stanford University law Professor Michael McConnell and Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression President Greg Lukianoff
McConnell: “Borrowing from [a] successful left-wing strategy is to appoint some officers. DEI is all over the place, I can’t tell you how many administrators there are who do this. There is not a single administrator at Stanford whose job it is to protect either student or faculty speech.”
“I have had students call me … and say, ‘This happened to me, where do I go?’ I can’t tell them a place to go. There’s no phone number, there’s no office. When you get an officer whose job it is to promote freedom of thought in the university, they become not just enforcement, they become advocates. That’s why the DEI people are so powerful, right? They elevate the issue. Let’s have some of our own freedom of thought officers.”
Lukianoff: “Require academic freedom and free speech ombudsmen. Using administrators to battle administrators is something I’m increasingly coming around [to]. I can think of ways to keep that position from being hectored.”