AND THAT’S HOW IT OUGHT TO BE: George Korda: UT President: The university doesn’t referee free speech.
Conservative students and faculty at the University of Tennessee who fear that speaking their minds will spark backlash and retribution from politically and socially-liberal students and faculty should consider Randy Boyd, UT System president, their 9-1-1 call.
“We encourage people to speak their minds regardless of position, in all cases, all the time,” Boyd said Dec. 22 in an interview with me on “State Your Case,” the radio show I host from noon–2 p.m. Sundays on WOKI-FM, Newstalk 98.7.
“We just hope that they can do it civilly and professionally,” he said. “As long as that’s done, we encourage the free speech of conservative, liberal, any view whatsoever. I’m hopeful no one feels afraid to share their views. If they ever do, my e-mail is .
“They can e-mail me or just call me and I’ll be glad to talk to them and encourage them and support them in any way they feel necessary to be able to share their views.” . . .
The world into which UT students will emerge is a tough one demanding resiliency, Boyd said. Graduates will encounter environments in which everything won’t be shaped for the individual to be protected from thoughts and ideas that don’t conform to their worldview.
“As we know, when they leave their communities and they leave the University of Tennessee they’ll be going into the world where it’ll be challenging and it’ll have a lot of people with different points of view,” Boyd said. “We want to provide a university that provides a safe place for them to learn and grow but also – an area in which we need to improve – we want to be able to teach resilience. Because it’s a tough world out there and we need to make sure they’re prepared for the world after the university.”
His answer led me to ask this question: “If somebody says ‘I don’t agree with gay marriage, I think it’s wrong,’ and somebody else says ‘I feel threatened and unsafe by that,’ where does the administration get involved in refereeing that sort of thing?”
Boyd said the administration officials don’t get involved in throwing a flag on free speech.
That’s certainly an improvement over Long Island University President Kimberly Cline.