Over the weekend, media outlets, especially right-leaning ones and those supportive of free speech, were gleeful after Cornell President Elizabeth Garrett called herself “an avid supporter of freedom of speech” at a press event at the Cornell Club in New York City.
Garrett also denounced trigger warnings, saying “With respect to trigger warnings, first and foremost I am an absolute defender of academic freedom,” according to the Cornell Sun.
The NY Post quoted this entire paragraph in its glowing editorial board piece “Hopefully Cornell president’s free speech stance sets a trend”:
“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.”
While this rhetoric and the statement about trigger warnings are statements to be championed by those who believe in free speech, unfortunately, the NY Post and other media outlets failed to research Garrett’s past comments about free speech.
Just four weeks ago at the leftist start-studded Democracy & Inequality panel at Cornell, Garrett defiantly declared: “Speech can be regulated. Speech has to be regulated in the narrowest possible way to serve a compelling state interest.”
The Cornell Review pointed out that on campus the “state” is the administration.
Perhaps Garrett has had a change of heart. If so, that’s great. But a complete change of heart in just four weeks seems awfully close to a flip flop designed for positive press coverage.
