Zachary Wood grew up in a rough neighborhood. So when he was accepted into the top liberal arts college in the country, he saw an unbeatable opportunity to further himself and expand his ideas.
Unfortunately, Williams College in Massachusetts has not been the bastion of knowledge he was looking for. Like many colleges all around the country, Williams and its president, Adam Falk, have recently prevented several controversial right-leaning speakers from coming to campus, all in the name of "tolerance."
And Wood says he's not going to take it anymore and, as the president of Williams' free-speech-focused group called "Uncomfortable Learning," he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to advocate for the return of free speech to college campuses.
"I identify as a liberal Democrat who supports many progressive causes, yet I adamantly believe that students should be encouraged to engage with people and ideas that they vehemently disagree with," said the college senior in his opening statements.
Apparently, this is a controversial opinion to have on today's college campuses. Wood recounted how his invitation to author John Derbyshire this past year ended with president Falk canceling the speech and enacting a new speaker policy, all based on Derbyshire's past remarks on race.
"In my time at Williams," said Wood in the hearing, "I cannot name a single conservative speaker that has been brought to campus by the administration." This is a problem, he contends, because it creates an "echo chamber" where liberal views are seen as "unquestionable."
Previously, in a piece for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), Wood writes that "the best way to deal with speech we dislike is not to restrict it or quarantine it. Rather, it is to combat it, challenge it, to question it, and to expose precisely what it is about such speech that is erroneous."
Hopefully, more liberal students will see the danger of shutting down opposing views instead of engaging them, as Wood has.
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