I'm on a one day break from touring with Jordan Peterson and joining me in studio today

is a free speech lawyer and the director of the individual rights defense program at

the foundation for individual rights in education, aka fire.

Ari Cohen, welcome to the Ruben Report.

Thanks for having me.

That was a wordy intro right there.

A lot of freedom stuff in there and that's all the stuff that I like so I'm looking forward

to this.

So you guys fire as an organization is one of the few bastions of sanity these days.

Like when I see what you guys are tweeting about and consistently defending the principles

of free speech and free expression and open inquiry, I'm always like ah there are some

good guys left.

So first can you just tell me a little bit about the organization why you guys got started

how you personally got involved?

Well we got started in 1999 with a professor at Penn and a civil liberties lawyer in Philadelphia

who were they both decided that there was a problem.

There was an epidemic at our colleges and universities of the core individual rights that

make up our constitution if you will as individuals, as people, as citizens of the United States.

We're being respected on campuses across the country.

Back in 1999.

That's interesting because a lot of people say this is just a totally recent phenomenon.

Well I think a lot of it there is the political correctness movement of the 80s and 90s a little

...