Something strange is happening at America’s colleges and universities. A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense. Last December, Jeannie Suk wrote in an online article for The New Yorker about law students asking her fellow professors at Harvard not to teach rape law—or, in one case, even use the word violate (as in “that violates the law”) lest it cause students distress. In February, Laura Kipnis, a professor at Northwestern University, wrote an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education describing a new campus politics of sexual paranoia—and was then subjected to a long investigation after students who were offended by the article and by a tweet she’d sent fled Title IX complaints against her. In June, a professor protecting himself with a pseudonym wrote an essay for Vox describing how gingerly he now has to teach. “I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me,” the headline said. A number of popular comedians, including Chris Rock, have stopped performing on college campuses (see Caitlin Flanagan’s article on page 54). Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Maher have publicly condemned the oversensitivity of college students, saying too many of them can’t take a joke.
Denne historien er fra September 2015-utgaven av The Atlantic.
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Denne historien er fra September 2015-utgaven av The Atlantic.
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'Lord, Help Us Make America Great Again' - A close reading of Trump-rally prayers
A week before Christmas, an evangelical minister named Paul Terry stood before thousands of Christians, their heads bowed, in Durham, New Hampshire, and pleaded with God for deliverance. Th e nation was in crisis, he told the Lord— racked with death and addiction, led by wicked men who “rule with imperial disdain.”
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Pity the Bad Man
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Her surprising marriage to Robert Louis Stevenson changed literary history.
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How Greed Got Good Again
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My Mother the Revolutionary
She cared about saving the world more than she cared about me.
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The filmmaker weathered some of the wildest hype and harshest backlash that Hollywood has to offer. Then he found a different path.
AMERICAN FURY
For years, experts have warned of a wave of political violence. We should prepare for things to get worse before they get better.