Jerry Coyne

Retired biologist Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution Is True, has begun to understand what it means to say that university campuses are no longer a home for ideas, but for grievances: Many universities, including public ones, have created “bias response teams,” in which speech considered hateful or offensive is reported to University authorities and dealt with promptly. The number of these teams is growing. While universities are perfectly free to recommend standards of civil discourse, public schools must adhere to the First Amendment and thus have no right to police speech unless it falls into the Amendment’s exceptions: speech that’s a clear and present danger, that is libelous, that creates a climate of harassment that impedes Read More ›