A brief history of the university, from Oxford and Cambridge to Harvard and Columbia, then from the University of Virginia to the University of California. The chapter focuses on the Morrill Act of 1862 (known also as the Land Grant Act) and on the influence of the German research university in the late nineteenth century. Considers the analysis of Laurence Veysey that the university was in some respects “incoherent” from the late nineteenth century on, given the competing constituencies made up of faculty, students, and alumni. Traces the twentieth-century history of the American university, especially the role of federal funding for research, the GI Bill after World War II, and then the Master Plan forged between Clark Kerr, President of the University of California, and Pat Brown, Governor of California, in 1960.

This chapter defines the term new speaker and develops arguments which support the claim that an emergent new perspective on minority language policy and multilingualism poses fresh challenges for official language and educational strategies. It sets forth the approach and methodology of the investigation and describes how data and evidence on language policy and the new speaker phenomenon have been gathered from official publications and an extensive range of interviews with politicians, senior civil servants, academics and civil society activists. Selected features of new speaker profiles are examined, as are the dynamics involved in seeking to integrate into a host community with an emphasis on issues of role models, authenticity, self-confidence, linguistic skills and opportunities to use the target language in safe, breathable spaces.

Chapter 10 examines the spirit of liberty as expressed by Judge Learned Hand, and asks whether current and future generations will continue to revere and protect freedom of speech. Support for freedom of expression has long been part of the American character, and public opinion polls consistently have shown high levels of support for First Amendment protections, even in times of crisis. More recent trends, however, show declining levels of support and demands for the government to provide protection from “unsafe” speech. Among younger Americans, this has been illustrated by disinvitations of controversial campus speakers and demands for “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces.” Ugly demonstrations and deadly clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Berkeley have heightened such demands. Even with these trends, overall support for free speech remains high, but the course of events illustrates that protections for free speech cannot rely on current political fashions.

What does it mean for a relationship to be ethical? Chapter 3 will provide two answers to this question and show how they are related. First, an ethical relationship requires that both parties appreciate and treat the other person as a being of equal non-instrumental value. Second, an ethical relationship requires that both parties are disposed to understand each other well in a specific way. This requires overcoming an epistemological asymmetry by reading the intentions of others according to the idea that they primarily will do some good. The two claims are related as follows: an important way of not respecting a person is to fail to understand her by succumbing to the epistemological asymmetry. It will examine this asymmetry in practice by showing how people typically misunderstand each other. Finally, this chapter will briefly explore the implications of these conclusions for relationship-based ethical education within the existing school system. These include creating spaces for sharing in which young people can feel safe, private and not judged, and where the educators can engender an appropriate atmosphere for listening and dialogue.

The impetus for this article began with a question I was tasked to answer: “Is Freedom of Speech Harmful for College Students?” The query came from my alma mater California State University, Fullerton, for a 2015 symposium they were hosting on the title question, partly in response to a controversy the year before captured in this headline in the Orange County Register: “Cal State Fullerton Sorority Sanctioned for ‘Taco Tuesday’ Party” What was the sorority’s sin? “Cultural appropriation.” That is, appropriating someone else’s culture as your own. Seriously? How could free speech possibly be harmful to anyone, much less college students whose introduction to the invigorating world of ideas begins with the premise that any and all topics are open for debate and disputation? I shouldn’t have been, given that signs had appeared the previous few years – starting around 2013 – with the deplatforming of controversial speakers; the emphasis on protecting students’ feelings from ideas that might challenge their beliefs; the call for trigger warnings about sensitive subjects in books, films, and lectures; the opening of safe spaces for students to retreat to when encountering ideas they find offensive; and the dispersal of lists of microaggressions – words, phrases, statements, and questions that might offend people. This article is my hypothesis of what went wrong.