Sometimes it’s best to shoot the messenger

Charlie Bentley-Astor

You Can’t Teach That! The Battle Over University Classrooms Keith E. (Polity, £45) BEFORE READING YOU CAN’T TEACH THAT! I would have agreed with its author that the free speech of academics and students needs to be protected against the whims of pugnacious politicians and censorious legislators. Keith Whittington brings his prestigious legacy in legal scholarship to bear upon the ongoing academic freedom crisis in American universities. He defends the social value of the often “self-indulgent” academic in his “being able to tell people what they need to know and not necessarily what they want to hear”. The sentiment of “Don’t shoot the messenger” is one with which I tend to agree — more often than not because if there is a gun being levelled, it is being levelled at me.…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 2024

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