Islam and Free Speech on Campus: A Reading List

Originally published under the title, “The Current Struggle for the Soul of Academia.”

Recently, there has been an encouraging amount of attention paid to the issue of free speech on the college campus. Some of it specifically addresses speech about Islam or Islamism, but a lot doesn’t. The refusal to discuss radical Islam is, unfortunately, not an isolated event but one facet of political correctness in academia. The heckler’s veto that is so obvious in situations like the Charlie Hebdo massacre and American newspapers’ refusal to print Muhammad cartoons is an extreme expression of a phenomenon all too common in American universities today, of speech being policed and ‘trigger warnings’ required because a reader or listener takes offense to it.

The people voicing concerns are not new to the issue, but the amount of focused attention they have paid to it in just the last few months is noteworthy. Here’s a suggested reading list on the issue:

It is, perhaps, unsurprising that so many people who have been schooled in an atmosphere that elevates feelings of victimhood above truth would rather avoid the subject than admit both the right and the necessity to say openly and straightforwardly that Islam needs reform, and that many who call themselves mainstream (CAIR comes to mind) are nothing of the kind.

Here’s to hoping that the above speakers make an impact.

Johanna Markind is associate counselor at the Middle East Forum

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