Self-Censorship and Freedom

The rise of self-censorhip on campus and in America generally can be traced to the diversity movement, which has elevated racial and ethnic separatism and legitimate the use of anger as a public spectacle. Diversity and performative anger have broken the older restraints that made civil debate on contentious issues possible. A distinction must be drawn between those who break the new boundaries by choosing to speak plainly on contentious matter but who uphold the need for argument and evuidence, and those who seize the pretext of academic freedom to engage in expressions that merely acts of defiance on the public stage.