2025 Augustus and Patricia Tagliaferri Dean’s Distinguished Lecture

Cancel Culture & The Conformity Gauntlet in Higher Education

Threats to free speech and academic freedom and conformist pressures in higher education harm not only education but also our democracy. With so many of our next generation of policy and business leaders graduating from the nation's colleges and universities, their ability to build relationships with those with whom they may disagree is seriously hampered if they experience ideological monocultures in high school and higher education. Of course, this isn't just about learning "how the other side thinks," it's also about developing the skills and perspective to think critically about one's own beliefs. This requires not only stated commitments to free inquiry, but also a culture of welcoming "viewpoint diversity" - both inside and outside of the classroom.

In this lecture, one of America's foremost authorities on campus speech and free expression, Greg Lukianoff, will explore how American academia went from a place of liberal and civil discourse to one where both students and faculty feel that they have to "walk on eggshells" when discussing sensitive issues in politics and culture.

Speaker: Greg Lukianoff

Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus. He co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure with Jonathan Haidt. Most recently Greg co-authored The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution with Rikki Schlott. Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story (2020), an award-winning feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.

Greg has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and numerous other publications. He frequently appears on TV shows and radio programs, including the CBS Evening News, The Today Show, and NPR’s Morning Edition. In 2008, he became the first-ever recipient of the Playboy Foundation’s Freedom of Expression Award, and he has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues on America’s college campuses.