Running away from the narrative.
John McWhorter, a black author of race relations and associate professor at Columbia University, criticized racially segregated safe spaces and the suppression of speech on college campuses during a discussion in Colorado this week.
Mr. McWhorter joined New York Times columnist Frank Bruni Thursday at the Aspen Ideas Festival in a discussion published by The Atlantic, which co-hosted the event with The Aspen Institute. Mr. McWhorter, a linguist who teaches English and comparative literature at Columbia, argued that the current “assault on free speech” sweeping college campuses can be blamed on social media, not President Trump.
“I don’t think it’s because of the president we happen to have in office. I think it’s social media,” he said. “I think it’s inevitable that with the rise of social media you would have this assault on free speech on campus, in the same way that I don’t think there would have been a tea party if it weren’t for Twitter and Facebook. I don’t think that it was Obama as the key factor.”
Mr. McWhorter, author of the 2017 book “Talking Back, Talking Black,” said the idea that students of color need to shield themselves from incessant racism by creating racially segregated safe spaces is purely “theater.”
“I think anybody in their more sober moments understands that even though racism exists and microaggressions are real, college campuses are perhaps the least racist spots on earth,” he argued. “And the idea that any student is undergoing a constant litany of constant racist abuse is theater, it’s theatrical — you hate to say that to somebody 19 years old, but it’s not true.”
Mr. McWhorter said the purpose of higher education is to expand one’s horizons, and that the current state of academia is failing students in achieving that goal.