Enjoy this article and learn why there is less laughter going on at politically correct college campuses. Hear from comedians and why they are now choosing to avoid making stops at universities.

How political correctness drove away comedians from campus

When comedian Chris Rock explained last fall why he stopped performing on college campuses, it hit a nerve with his peers and shone a light on the politically correct perils of trying to make college students laugh.

Stand-up comics told The College Fix they make a deal with the devil when they step foot on campus: The gigs pay well, but a performance that backfires can endanger their other revenue streams.

Asked about University of California-Berkeley student leaders trying to disinvite comedian Bill Maher from speaking at December’s commencement, Rock told New York he called it quits with students years ago because of “their social views and their willingness to not offend anybody.”

Students have been “raised on a culture of ‘We’re not going to keep score in the game because we don’t want anyone to lose,’” and they are afraid to even identify their African-American peers as “black,” Rock continued. “You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.”

Disinvitations go hand-in-hand with humorlessness

Rock’s response to Maher’s kerfuffle drew applause from Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

“I was excited to see that Chris Rock was open and honest about a problem I’ve seen for a long time,” Lukianoff told The Fix in an email: The environment on campus is terrible for comedy, satire and parody.

The hostility to comedy – with its frequent attention to ugly truths that students would rather avoid – has grown in tandem with disinvitations like Maher’s.

FIRE reported in May that college disinvitations hovered around 10 a year through the mid-2000s, started climbing in 2008, reached the high teens through 2012 and spiked around 30 in 2013.

Its report said that institutions with the highest number of “disinvitation incidents” also maintain “severely speech-restrictive policies.”