Could it have been any clearer when John Ellison, dean of students at the University of Chicago, wrote the following to incoming freshmen?
Ellison wrote: "Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual 'safe spaces' where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own."
To many in the class of 2020, these words may have felt like being dashed with a bucket of ice water on a cold Chicago morning. Assuming that one accepts the definition of political correctness as the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize or insult certain groups of people, I can easily see how some would applaud the university's actions, while others would bemoan them in disgust.
On its face, reaction to Ellison's words may depend greatly on whether one holistically adopts a conservative or liberal orthodoxy. But to do so misses the point of the university's message.
Political correctness, however defined, if left unexamined, can quickly morph into a slippery slope of stale pabulum. While there are certain terms that are unaccepted universally in the public discourse, what should be the penalty for such infractions? And who should adjudicate what is unacceptable? Isn't that too subjective?
I take a backseat to no one in my opposition in the run-up of the preemptive strike and occupation of the sovereign nation known as Iraq, but was disappointed by the churlish behavior of students at Rutgers University who protested former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice being the commencement speaker in 2014.
President Obama, shortly after the Rice kerfuffle, accurately summed up the larger issues involved: "I don't think it's a secret that I disagree with many of the policies of Dr. Rice and the previous administration. But the notion that this community or this country would be better served by not hearing a former secretary of state or not hearing what she had to say -- I believe that's misguided."
How can any university boast of preparing the best and brightest minds to contribute to the fabric of America if those minds only have room for the thoughts that correspond with their own? My grandmother would often tell me as a child, "What I don't know could start another world." That is true for all.
Ironically, is it not contrarian thought that serves as our best ally when it comes to crystallizing what we believe? Hasn't the opposite been proven true by right-wing (not to be confused with conservative) think tanks, talk show host, and bloggers that eschew all things liberal?
It is easy to assume how political correctness is viewed, especially on university and college campuses, would depend on where one fell on the baby boomer to millennial age continuum. But according to a recent Gallup poll, 78 percent of college students preferred to attend a college or university "where students are exposed to all types of speech and viewpoints." This would include a campus that allows offensive speech over a campus that institutes prohibitions.
It is to operate in the comforting but erroneous belief that difference equates to deficiency. This is where political correctness can take on the ethos of arrogance and certainty.
The "I'm right, therefore you're wrong" thinking is counterintuitive. E pluribus unum (out of many, one) is not a clarion call for homogenized thinking. It is instead the recognition that we require myriad voices in order to comprise and sustain the American experiment.
While advocates of political correctness may believe such thinking is aligned with a genealogy that goes back to the Enlightenment, it can be detrimental to our public discourse. If allowed to run amok, political correctness in its present form can evolve into an idiosyncratic morass of anti-intellectualism.
When Ellison wrote: "We do not condone the creation of intellectual 'safe spaces' where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own," is that not the essence of education?
Maybe, as some critics have espoused, the letter by the University of Chicago was to pacify donors, but are not students the ultimate beneficiaries?
There will always be speech that offends, that is an affront to someone's sensibilities. Is arbitrary censorship the answer? Or should our institutions of higher learning follow the University of Chicago's example and others by embracing a philosophy that speech in all its forms is better for the culture?
The Rev. Byron Williams is a writer and the host of the NPR-affiliated "The Public Morality"