What Snowflakes Get Right: Free Speech, Truth, and Equality on Campus

by Ulrich Baer

Angry debates about polarizing speakers have roiled college campuses. Conservatives accuse universities of muzzling unpopular opinions, betraying their values of open inquiry; students sympathetic to the left openly advocate against completely unregulated speech, asking for "safe spaces" and protection against visiting speakers and even curricula they feel disrespects them. Some even call these students "snowflakes"-too fragile to be exposed to opinions and ideas that challenge their worldviews. How might universities resolve these debates about free speech, which pit their students' welfare against the university's commitment to free inquiry and open debate?

Ulrich Baer here provides a new way of looking at this dilemma. He explains how the current dichotomy is false and is not really about the feelings of offended students, or protecting an open marketplace of ideas. Rather, what is really at stake is our democracy's commitment to equality, and the university's critical role as an arbiter of truth. He shows how and why free speech has become the rallying cry that forges an otherwise uneasy alliance of liberals and ultra-conservatives, and why this First Amendment absolutism is untenable in law and society in general. He draws on law, philosophy, and his extensive experience as a university administrator to show that the lens of equality can resolve this impasse, and can allow the university to serve as a model for democracy that upholds both truth and equality as its founding principles.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

216 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2019

About the author

Ulrich Baer is University Professor at New York University, and the recipient of Guggenheim, Getty, Humboldt and other awards, An author, translator, editor, and podcaster, he has published, among other titles: Rilke's "Letters on Life," Rilke's "The Dark Interval: Letters of Loss, Grief and Transformation," "Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma," "110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11," "Beggar's Chicken: Stories from Shanghai," the novel "We Are But A Moment," "What Snowflakes Get Right: Speech, Equality and Truth in the University," "Fictions of America: The Book of Firsts" (with Smaran Dayal).

He's also published museum catalog on a range of photographers, and published and introduced top-quality and well-priced editions of The Great Gatsby, Frankenstein, The Scarlet Letter, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Prophet, Jane Eyre, Mrs. Dalloway, Pride and Prejudice, stories by E. A. Poe, as well as Wilde on Love; Dickinson on Love; Rilke on Love; Nietzsche on Love; Shakespeare on Love, all with Warbler Press.

Reviews

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I found Baer's general argument convincing, the book was rushed, repetitive, and at times unclear. Given the short amount of time between the Charlottesville ralley/protests (which is frequently discussed by Baer) and the publication of this book, it seems that the book is a bit of a rush-job. However, if you are interested in Baer's arguments (which I found compelling), I'd strongly recommend reading his opinion piece in the NYT (which is republished in-full as a chapter in the book and was the inspiration for the book project) instead.

[Ebookwormy1]

Mr. Baer seems to be proposing that free speech is no longer a foundation of democracy. I strongly disagree. Given Mr. Baer's astonishing statism, I have no interest in reading his book -- though I affirm his right to publish/ speak. It is troubling that there is a market for such totalitarianism in the very nation established to resist such a governmental structure.

"NYU’s Baer, a professor of comparative literature, German, and English, and author of What Snowflakes Get Right, told Inside Higher Education last week that “the urge to block speech, which is really a reminder that the university’s purpose is to vet ideas and regulate speech so that teaching and learning can proceed, is related to a new generation’s realization that free speech has become a weapon for conservatives to undermine equality and the university itself.”

See full review here...
https://www.aei.org/op-eds/an-ominous...