HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Troubling Climate At Yale. “I don’t know whether Stone is right or not, though it is telling that his letter is signed almost entirely by natural and social scientists. From the humanities, there was no similar supportive word for the kind of dialogue that is the lifeblood of higher education. It is certainly to the administration’s credit that they did not capitulate to demands to punish the Christakises. But it would be heartening if they were at least as concerned with the worries about barriers to a free exchange of views expressed by people like Stone as they are with meeting the protesters’ demands. To these they have already directed the university’s energies and some fifty million dollars. Can they spare a dime for liberal education?”

I was deeply disappointed that not a single faculty member from Yale Law School signed that letter, even though it was the home of free-expression pioneer Thomas Emerson. When I wrote Yale Law Dean Robert Post about it, he did not seem to share my concerns for free speech.