What's Happened to the University?
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.7 • 657 Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2018
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Heather Mac Donald and Frank Furedi discuss the hostility to free speech that has provoked disturbing incidents on campuses across the country and the ideology behind safe spaces, micro-aggressions, and trigger warnings. Their discussion, from a Manhattan Institute event held in June 2017, was moderated by City Journal contributing editor Howard Husock.
American universities are experiencing a profound cultural transformation. Student protests designed to shut downalternative opinions have become frequent and sometimes violent. Frank Furedi's What's Happened To The University? A Sociological Exploration of Its Infantilisation explores the origins of the anti-free speech climate at U.S. and U.K. universities.
Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She has written extensively about political correctness on campus and was a recent target of student protests at several colleges, where she had been invited to discuss her New York Times bestseller, The War on Cops.
Frank Furedi is emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent. He has published articles in major newspapers in Europe and the United States and is the author of 17 books on topics including intellectual culture, parenting, education, and the politics of fear. Furedi is a frequent guest on British T.V. and radio.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Ten Blocks. This is your host, Brian Anderson. I'm the editor of City Journal. |
| 0:07.1 | Coming up on the podcast, we have a special treat for listeners. As many of you know, our contributing editor, Heather MacDonald, the Thomas Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is probably one of the most provocative political commentators in America today. In April of last year, |
| 0:23.2 | Heather was invited to speak to students at Claremont McKenna College in California about policing, |
| 0:29.4 | Black Lives Matter, and her best-selling book, The War on Cops. When she arrived, Heather was greeted |
| 0:34.9 | by hundreds of angry activists bent on preventing her talk. |
| 0:39.7 | Though these protesters did manage to disrupt the event, the story subsequently set off a media firestorm. |
| 0:46.7 | Not long after that controversy, we held a live discussion with Heather to talk about her experience at Claremont and at other campuses. It was an event |
| 0:55.9 | entitled What's Happened to the University. And today we're delighted to share that conversation |
| 1:01.3 | with you on the podcast. Heather was joined by two others on the stage, Professor Frank Ferrudy, |
| 1:07.2 | a sociologist from the University of Kent, and the author of a number of books on college free speech. |
| 1:12.6 | The first voice you'll hear after the intro, though, is that of City Journal's Howard Hussock, who moderated the discussion. |
| 1:19.3 | We hope you enjoy. Hello, I'm City Journal editor Brian Anderson. |
| 1:35.2 | Thanks for joining us for the 10 blocks podcast featuring urban policy and cultural commentary with City Journal editors, contributors, and special guests. |
| 1:55.0 | My pleasure to introduce our speakers tonight from the University of Kent in the UK, where he's the emeritus professor of sociology, Professor Frank Furetti. He's the author of the book, which is featured at the bookseller's table in the back. |
| 2:02.8 | What's Happened to the University, a sociological exploration of its infantilization. |
| 2:08.9 | It's the latest of about a dozen books that he's published, an impressive list since 2001, |
| 2:14.9 | including one authority, a sociological history, particularly intriguing. |
| 2:20.3 | Heather McDonald, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, |
| 2:24.3 | contributing editor to City Journal, and the author of The War on Cops, |
| 2:29.3 | The Most Timely Book, which has really galvanized discussion around the nation. And I'd like to try to set |
| 2:36.0 | the scene for this discussion about academic freedom and the upheavals that we've been seeing |
| 2:41.9 | around the country by asking Heather to set the scene for us by actually recounting in a compressed |
... |
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