How free is free?
On the heels of a study released earlier this month that high school students increasingly believe that the freedoms of speech and of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment go “too far,” those freedoms are once again under fire.
For their opinions, Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers and University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill are being pressured to resign their positions for making some unpopular suggestions.
Granted, their opinions are highly controversial, but as the Washington Post said in its editorial pages on Saturday, “a primary function of universities is to ask questions and to advance knowledge, popular or otherwise.”
If Summers and Churchill are punished for their opinions, the intellectual freedom needed to bring fresh perspectives on the topical subjects of our day may be in jeopardy – not just on college campuses, but in government and anywhere else people have the power to do something about them.