Monday on MSNBC’s “Live,” Breitbart News’ senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak discussed President Donald Trump’s plan for an executive order “requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research dollars.”
When asked if government intervention can change cultural problems on campuses, Pollack said, “I think the real answers are yes and no. So yes insofar as universities that have these speech codes, especially public universities, really shouldn’t have them—they’re arguably anti-constitutional. And as federal taxpayers, we should not want our money going to universities that do this kind of thing, especially if they are public universities. So you could increase tolerance, you could decrease the use of these speech codes by using federal grant money as leverage.”
He continued, “Broadly it requires a much bigger effort. I think the problem is oddly generational. At some of these campuses, Berkeley for example, the faculty and members of the administration actually have in some cases a more open attitude toward free speech than some of the students. You have this campus, which in 1964 was the birthplace of the free speech movement, generating graduates who have become professors and administrators who really do believe in having every idea on campus that they can. And they are struggling with a student body and an activist community around the university that does not like free speech. And that views the university as a kind of microcosm where they want to create a kind of political utopia that doesn’t allow for dissent. So we have to move toward a cultural shift that administrators and professors are able to do and that comes into the culture in general.”
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