The Times Higher Education Supplement (U.K.) reports, Mar. 17, 2006:
Academic freedom is under threat in even the most modern democratic nations, John Sexton, president of New York University, warned this week.
He told a joint meeting of the New York-based Scholars at Risk and the UK’s Council for Assisting Refugee Academics that for too many scholars the problem of freedom, or the lack of it, was painfully concrete….
“Forces outside our gates increasingly threaten the sanctuary of our campuses.
“The very diversity of the global village that enriches us simultaneously activates those, including some holding great power, who would limit the scope of our conversations and silence the diversity of voices….
“[E]very university president at some point faces external pressure because a speaker deemed ‘controversial’ is coming to campus ….
“Those who care about vibrant debate within the university must resist such doctrinaire approaches — what a colleague has called ‘a culture of constraint’ — whether from the Left or Right.”
Yes, indeed. And, only two short weeks later ….