Speaking his mind
In days of yore, enraged mobs armed with pitchforks and torches attacked their opponents seeking to silence them. Today’s mob tactics may be different, but no less effective, argued Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of the nonprofit civil liberties group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Technology, especially social media, provides the platform for creating a mob, or the appearance of a mob, in as little time as three minutes, he said. And that is a problem for free speech.
The Stanford-educated lawyer shared this insight while speaking to a group of McDowell Institute Student Fellows at the University of Richmond on Feb. 3. Housed in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, the Gary L. McDowell Institute creates a space where faculty and students from across campus gather to share their diverse perspectives in free and open discussions.
Lukianoff is the institute’s inaugural practitioner-in-residence and co-author of The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All — But There Is a Solution. Prior to meeting him, student fellows read his May 6, 2024, New York Times interview on the state of free speech on college campuses.
“Today, we see cancel culture on college campuses in the uptick in campaigns to get people fired or expelled for speech that would be protected in the public sector,” Lukianoff told the student fellows. “When professors get in trouble for being on the wrong side of every hot-button issue and students are afraid of offending their professors and peers, it’s problematic.
“People don’t trust systems where people can’t disagree. Academia will keep spinning off into the stratosphere if it can’t encourage more diversity of opinion.”
To restore trust in higher education, the free speech activist said, steps must be taken to curb cancel culture: “Schools should emphasize curiosity over judgment. People should get to know people who aren’t like them. Polarization comes from agreement. Depolarization comes from listening.”
After his talk, student fellow Katie Sinclair, ’26, said, “Lukianoff left us with real solutions, such as his ideas for orientation activities. One example was having students break off in pairs, spending a few hours with another student to learn about them and their views of the world, then coming back to the whole group and sharing about that individual. His practical ideas were about fostering a campus environment rooted in curiosity over judgment.”
The day after meeting with the student fellows, the practitioner-in-residence visited the classes of McDowell Institute co-directors Daniel Palazzolo, professor of political science, and Terry Price, professor of leadership studies and philosophy, politics, economics, and law.
“He demonstrated extraordinary knowledge of the First Amendment in fielding questions from students in my U.S. Congress class,” Palazzolo said. Price added that in his Critical Thinking class, Lukianoff “drew connections between free speech and critical thinking and commented on the current state of critical thinking in U.S. colleges and universities.”
Lukianoff also talked with University administrators over lunch, met with Faculty Senate members, and conducted a faculty workshop on free expression.
“During the workshop, faculty members shared their takes on encouraging free expression in the classroom,” said Guzel Garifullina, assistant professor of leadership studies. “Several people brought up specific activities they use to ensure students feel comfortable sharing something they feel very strongly about — and allowing others to engage with those views in a productive way.”
Lukianoff is scheduled to return to campus on Nov. 18 to give a public lecture on free speech and academic freedom in higher education. Meanwhile, faculty and students will have time to contemplate and debate his views, which perhaps he best summed up thus: “Free speech is inextricably linked to knowledge.”