Free Speech and the University Under Assault

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

During his tenure as chancellor at University of California, Berkeley, Nicholas Dirks navigated some of the most challenging free speech controversies in the contemporary United States. In one of the most telling episodes, a February 2017 speech by the right wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was shut down amid a riot by left wing “antifa” protesters. In this talk, Dirks reflects on those challenges, on the ideological challenges to a liberal norm of free speech, and on the threat to universities posed by these contemporary disputes.