Although several media highlighted the fact that 100 faculty members joined this newly created council on academic freedom, the real headline is that so many faculty members refused or declined to participate in an organization whose goal is to promote free speech. Some radical professors and students even oppose the organization, presumably because they do not support its goals of free speech and academic freedom. These include many former civil libertarians and liberals who have now joined the ranks of the guardians of political correctness.

This problem is not unique to Harvard, as evidenced by recent events at Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, University of Pennsylvania and other elite institutions where speakers have been shouted down or subject to discipline for expressing politically incorrect views outside of the classroom. …

Today many of my views are also regarded as politically incorrect and unsound, but this time it is by the extreme left. The difference is that today’s censors have tried to silence and cancel me, as well as others who espouse centrist, liberal and civil libertarian positions — and certainly if they express conservative or God forbid pro-Trump views! That is why this council on academic freedom is so important, and that is why it is so disappointing that so many former liberals and civil libertarians have declined to join it.

[Disappointing but not surprising. As Dersh himself knows, standing for liberty and free speech carries onerous consequences to one’s career and social standing today, especially in Academia but also — ironically — in the media industry, too. Dersh works in both, so his public activism for free discourse is particularly courageous. I may not often agree with him, but he’s correct on this issue, and unfortunately he’s proven prophetic about it. — Ed]