Discover this podcast and so much more

Podcasts are free to enjoy without a subscription. We also offer ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more for just $11.99/month.

Sean Decatur doesn’t see a free speech crisis on campus

Sean Decatur doesn’t see a free speech crisis on campus

FromThe Gray Area with Sean Illing


Sean Decatur doesn’t see a free speech crisis on campus

FromThe Gray Area with Sean Illing

ratings:
Length:
81 minutes
Released:
Jan 17, 2019
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

Sean Decatur is the president of Kenyon College and the first African-American to hold that job. He’s also one of the most thoughtful voices in the debate over free speech and political correctness on campus."Colleges and universities have been charged from their very origins to advance civility, and this has meant regulating student behavior on campus,” he says. "If anything, the approach taken earlier in history was far stricter than anything that 21st-century critics of higher education see as a product of 'political correctness.’” Decatur manages these conflicts as a college president, looks at them as a historian, and brings a perspective that’s unusually alert to the larger social context. As such, this is a conversation that begins in the fights over speech but quickly dives into more fundamental questions, like what kind of learnings we value, whose definitions of civility matter, what we ask colleges to teach, and what the role of the student has become.This debate often plays out with far less nuance than it deserves. Decatur's perspective is an antidote to that.Book Recommendations:Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education by Nathan D. GraweThe Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity by Kwame Anthony AppiahLab Girl by Hope Jahren
Released:
Jan 17, 2019
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Winner of the 2020 Webby and People's Voice awards for best interview podcast. Ezra Klein brings you far-reaching conversations about hard problems, big ideas, illuminating theories, and cutting-edge research. Want to know how Stacey Abrams feels about identity politics? How Hasan Minhaj is reinventing political comedy? The plans behind Elizabeth Warren’s plans? How Michael Lewis reads minds? This is the podcast for you. Produced by Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.