University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer delivers remarks upon accepting the 2017 Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education. He spoke of how the “openness of universities to divergent and clashing ideas, to analytic debate, to rigor, and to questioning, is a critical ingredient in illuminating societal, scientific, and humanistic issues.” President Zimmer stressed that because “universities are virtually unique in making this long-term contribution only highlights their importance to society.” The award was presented on October 20, 2017.
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., president of Purdue University, paid tribute to the transformative nature of the liberal arts when studied rigorously and in an atmosphere where the robust clash of ideas is allowed to flourish. He gave this speech upon accepting ACTA’s 2018 Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education on October […]
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a fellow of the Future of Democracy Project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and founder of the AHA Foundation, and Niall Ferguson, senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a senior fellow of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, received the 2016 Philip […]
Sigal Ben-Porath’s Inside Higher Ed article, Against Endorsing the Chicago Principles, puts the urgent need for uncompromised freedom of expression on a slippery slope. While properly observing that espousing even a clear statement of commitment is insufficient, Ben-Porath rejects the idea of its absolute necessity and thereby risks entirely derailing mainstream efforts to protect free speech […]
The president of Augustana College would like us to believe that concern about intellectual freedom and freedom of expression is mostly a manufactured crisis. In a recent “Views” article, Steven C. Bahls provides many generalities to support his point. But if he is going to convince anyone that the alarm over silencing of speakers, “response […]
Dive Brief: A lawsuit supported by the U.S. Justice Department against the University of Michigan has drawn fire from the institution, which disputes claims that its “bias response team” was designed to investigate or discipline offending students, and denies the students filing the suit could have been restricted from expressing their views on campus, according to […]
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