We need more leaders in higher education to do the same.

This New York Post editorial praises Cornell president Elizabeth Garrett, and rightly so.

Hopefully Cornell president’s free speech stance sets a trend

Calling herself “an avid supporter of freedom of speech,” Elizabeth Garrett — Cornell University’s new president — came out firmly against politically correct censorship last week. Hallelujah.

Meeting with several reporters at a Cornell Club breakfast, Garrett said:

“A university is about the fullest and freest expression of ideas and arguments. There isn’t any idea that ought not to be tested and questioned. Because that’s how we get closer to the truth. We’re about reason, rationality, debate. So if you disagree with someone, the answer isn’t to shut them down . . . I don’t believe there should be any limits on the substance of freedom of speech at a university.”

A University of Virginia law-school grad who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Cornell’s 13th president is a true liberal — one who stands for liberty.

Such figures are ever-more rare in academia, where students and college “leaders” increasingly call taboo on anything that might offend delicate sensibilities.

Garrett directly condemned the idea of “trigger warnings” — that is, the claim that professors should alert the kiddies before exposing them to ideas or, worse, literature that might upset them: “What a professor chooses to do in his or her class has my absolute support, even if I don’t agree with them.”


 
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