American University (AU) is a private United Methodist-affiliated research university in Washington, D.C.
"American University student Alex Knepper certainly has earned a Purple Heart, and perhaps even a Bronze Star with Valor, for his steely and courageous actions in defense of free speech, the First Amendment, academic freedom, and free and open intellectual inquiry. But where, pray tell, have been the American University faculty during this entire brouhaha surrounding Knepper’s “date rape” column?
So far as I can tell, the AU faculty — including the school of communications and law school faculty — have been conspicuously silent and Absent Without Leave (AWOL). Can it be that professionally trained academics, men and women who make their living examining and disseminating ideas, don’t see the danger to free speech posed by AU’s social and cultural jihad against Mr. Knepper’s heretical views?
Mr. Knepper, of course, had published a column in which he made the completely commonsensical point that young college women who get drunk at fraternity parties, and who then escort drunken men to their rooms are, in effect, asking for trouble.
Amazingly, albeit not surprisingly, stating the obvious has gotten Mr. Knepper into hot water with the left-wing campus thought police. But surely, there must be at least a few faculty members who don’t run with the pack, and who believe deeply in free speech and the First Amendment.
Mr. Knepper’s opinion piece has been widely condemned as “hate speech,” which should never have been published. And the student newspaper, the Eagle, after much emotional blackmail and intellectual bullying, has apologized for its supposed lack of editorial judgment.
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Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).
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