Caden Krotchko - Project 2 by Caden Krotchko

Academic Freedom is Necessary for Schools

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 04:56:05 UTC

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 05:28:45 UTC

When schools suppress free speech and free ways of thinking, they are removing critical thinking from students and limiting the ways the brains of students function and grow.

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 05:39:07 UTC

Debates and basic learning experiences are left out without free speech at schools. When students can't express what is on their minds, change or growth is not going to be common.

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 05:41:05 UTC

When students are young, their minds are like clay, waiting for someone to carefully craft them into something useful. If all of the thinking is done for us by limiting our freedom of thought and speech, the clay is already hardened before it was even shaped.

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 05:43:11 UTC

Ideas need to be challenged to learn. If ideas are not challenged we will never know if what we are doing is the most efficient way to do something or if there is an entirely new path that we can go down. Similar to exploring in the woods, if you are not allowed back there, we can never be sure of what is there

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 05:50:05 UTC

The higher education goal is to expand on the mind reach, but when we restrict the mind we are controlling it rather than teaching it to expand

Todays Universities Face Speech Challenges

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 05:51:11 UTC

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:12:35 UTC

Hate speech vs non-hate speech

Hate Speech Classification

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:15:16 UTC

There is a fine line between hate speech and non-hate speech and the line is in a different spot from person to person. Schools struggle to decide what to do about hate speech, they don't know whether to punish hate speech or not because it is not illegal to say hateful things, only harmful actions are illegal

Hate Speech

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:18:24 UTC

Hate speech is not illegal, but it is frowned upon for obvious reasons. Students who gather in the rally and spread hateful messages are within their rights as U.S. citizens, but depending on school to school, disciplinary actions could take form due to hate speech tolerance. Violence from hate speech is common due to the extreme views a lot of hate speech comes with and violence is illegal and not within rights of hate speech

Non-hate Speech

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:20:36 UTC

This is just normal speech and should not be limited based upon the views of one person. Hate speech is widely considered hateful from many different people, while non-hate speech is speech that is not aiming to rip apart one another and is used to calmly communicate points across to others

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:21:48 UTC

Used from both the right and the left to silence opponent

Higher Education Should Prioritize Intellectual Exploration

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:22:52 UTC

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:24:34 UTC

Today, people are no longer treating college as merely a pathway to employment and are using it to grow the minds as an intellectual thinker

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:25:22 UTC

Classrooms should be spaces where students are encouraged to seek knowledge for its own sake, even if it challenges their existing beliefs.

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:25:48 UTC

The rise of online education and AI-driven learning tools poses a challenge to traditional classroom learning, but the human element of debate and exploration remains irreplaceable.

History Shows the Danger of Restricting Speech

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:26:28 UTC

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:55:03 UTC

The article draws parallels between today’s speech restrictions and historical instances of censorship, such as McCarthyism in the 1950s.

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:55:42 UTC

The author warns against institutions forcing faculty or students to adopt certain ideological positions, as this creates an atmosphere of intellectual conformity rather than inquiry.

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:56:21 UTC

Academic freedom should allow individuals to explore, debate, and critique all perspectives without fear of punishment.

Disagreement Should Be Encouraged, Not Punished

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:56:49 UTC

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:58:19 UTC

True intellectual growth occurs when students are exposed to opposing viewpoints, allowing them to refine their beliefs and engage in meaningful discourse. People today are filled with single fixed mindsets that need to be readjusted to accept more than one correct answer in a debate or argument

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 06:58:59 UTC

Instead of banning controversial views, the article suggests that students and faculty should engage in discussion and use logic and evidence to challenge problematic ideas.

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 07:03:10 UTC

Universities should be places where differing opinions can be debated rather than silenced.

ctk62 — 2025-03-04 07:04:05 UTC

The suppression of speech does not make ideas disappear; it often drives them underground, where they can grow unchecked and unchallenged.