Ivy League university defies woke activists, announces year dedicated to 'free expression and academic freedom'

An Ivy League school has defied the woke activists who have been terrorizing conservatives into silence on college campuses across America for years and announced that "free expression" will be its featured theme next academic year.

On Monday, Cornell University, located in Ithaca, New York, announced that it had adopted "free expression" as its guiding theme for the 2023-24 academic year. "Free expression and academic freedom have always been core parts of Cornell’s institutional identity and essential to its founding," the announcement stated. In order to facilitate more dialogue about the importance of free speech and peacefully grappling with controversial issues, the university will sponsor several events throughout the year, including guest lectures, community book readings, and artistic exhibits.

University President Martha E. Pollack said she is proud of the school's return to its foundational principles. "It is critical to our mission as a university to think deeply about freedom of expression and the challenges that result from assaults on it, which today come from both ends of the political spectrum," Pollack claimed. "Learning from difference, learning to engage with difference and learning to communicate across difference are key parts of a Cornell education. Free expression and academic freedom are the bedrock not just of the university, but of democracy."

Since taking the reins at Cornell in 2017, Pollack has taken several significant steps to promote the free exchange of ideas and to curtail leftist activists who often prefer to interrupt and bully their ideological opponents rather than engage with them in civil conversation. In 2019, the school formally included "free and open inquiry and expression" as among its "core values," values that school trustees then reiterated in a policy statement two years later.

Despite strong leadership from Pollack and the board of trustees, some student activists have continued to use the "heckler's veto" to keep conservative voices from being heard. Last November, eight Cornell students had to be removed from a lecture given by conservative speaker and Cornell alumna Ann Coulter after they disrupted her presentation with shouts, chants, and an obnoxious whistle.

The school later apologized to Coulter and to those who attended the lecture with a spirit of good will, but the activist students ultimately won the day since Coulter cut her speech short and abruptly left the auditorium. The school promised that the students who participated in the disruption would be referred "for conduct violations," but the outcome of such referrals is unknown.

Still, the year of academic freedom sounds promising, and Pollack has remained firm in her commitment to free speech. A few weeks ago, Cornell's student assembly voted unanimously to require "trigger warnings" for class topics that some students might find unsettling, such as domestic violence, rape, suicide, and transphobia. Pollack and university provost Michael Kotlikoff swiftly overrode that vote, claiming that a mandated trigger warning for professors "violates our faculty’s fundamental right to determine what and how to teach" and could even undermine the "academic distinction of a Cornell degree."

"Learning to engage with difficult and challenging ideas is a core part of a university education," Pollack and Kotlikoff insisted. "[It is] essential to our students’ intellectual growth, and to their future ability to lead and thrive in a diverse society."

H/T: Classic Learning Test

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!