A student writer at Harvard University is raising eyebrows after publishing her belief that free speech on campus should be abolished and professors with opposing views be fired.
Sandra Korn, a senior who writes a column for the Harvard Crimson newspaper, thinks radical leftism is the only permissible political philosophy, and the First Amendment only hinders colleges from brainwashing students with her viewpoint.
“Let’s give up on academic freedom in favor of justice,” states the subtitle of her Feb. 18 column, in which she insists Harvard stop guaranteeing students and professors the right to hold controversial views and conduct research putting liberalism in a negative light.
“If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals?” Korn asks.
“It is tempting to decry frustrating restrictions on academic research as violations of academic freedom. Yet I would encourage student and worker organizers to instead use a framework of justice. After all, if we give up our obsessive reliance on the doctrine of academic freedom, we can consider more thoughtfully what is just.”
Korn’s view grabbed the attention of the nation’s top conservative voice, Rush Limbaugh.
“This is not unique. This is not satire. This is not parody,” Limbaugh said on his nationally broadcast radio program Tuesday. “This woman, Sandra Korn, is real, and she’s serious that free speech needs to be abridged because it is threatening liberalism. It means that liberalism cannot hold up to scrutiny. It cannot withstand a challenge. If liberalism were infallible, if liberalism were so powerful and automatic, they would welcome challenges to it – and they would welcome the attempt to persuade and to convert. But instead they’re threatened by it.”
When asked of he thought her belief was going to become a movement, Limbaugh indicated it already was one.
“This is what the left is,” he explained. “Why do you think they want to get rid of this program? Why do you think they want to get rid of Fox News? Why do they want to silence criticism? What is Obama’s modus operandi? Eliminate the opposition. This is already a movement!”
“This woman has just written a column about it at Harvard with what appears to be an extreme view of eliminating the First Amendment as a way of silencing opposition. But she’s very honest. The First Amendment, free speech, ‘threatens liberalism,’ meaning liberalism cannot thrive in an open society. Liberalism is totalitarianism. Liberalism is statism. It is authoritarianism. It is all of the horrible Isms, and it cannot thrive when there is open debate. It cannot survive challenges.”
