FREE SPEECH 38: The Death of Free Speech on Campus? with Robert Cohen
The First Amendment was ratified in 1791. But have we always had free speech, especially on campus? Are we witnessing the death of this hallowed American practice and ideal in today's campus controversies? Professor Robert Cohen is America's foremost historian of the free speech movement from its origin in 1960's California until today. Have we lost our way and the strong commitment to free expression fought for by so many, among them Mario Savio, the leader of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement? How are today's controversies different from skirmishes and culture wars of the past? How should universities respond to provocateurs, and how can we distinguish between set-ups meant to undermine the university, and real threats of free expression on campus? Cohen is the author of many books, among them Freedom's Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s and The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s.