An instructor at Reed College in Portland has ordered a student not to speak in class because the kid dares question authority — and the school is backing him up.
Welcome to the American campus, 2015.
Jeremiah True questioned the “statistic” that one in five women on US campuses is a victim of sexual assault — and, indeed, dared doubt the whole claim that a “rape culture” infests the universities.
For that, his Humanities 110 professor, Pancho Savery, issued a gag order, barring True from speaking in class discussion.
True told Buzzfeed News that Savery first warned him that other students were uncomfortable hearing his views, then later imposed the muzzle. “In light of the serious stress you have caused your classmates, I feel that I have no other choice,” Savery wrote.
Stress? At hearing a statistic questioned?
In fact, the one-in-five stat is based on a voluntary Web survey of just two campuses. The latest Justice Department data put the campus-sex-assault number at 0.03 in five — lower than the off-campus rate.
True’s real mistake was to think Reed College is dedicated to the search for truth.
Reed spokesman Kevin Myers defended the gag with noise about “maintaining an environment in which people can live and learn and work and express themselves honorably.”
It’s time for Congress to start hearings on withholding federal funds from colleges that deny not just basic free-speech rights, but any semblance of intellectual freedom.