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In Case You Missed It: Art at MIT, Brandeis President's Legacy, and Why Speech Codes Endure

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We know a lot of Torch readers were away for the holidays last week, so here are some excellent articles that you might have missed:
- FIRE President Greg Lukianoff wrote for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology鈥檚 newspaper The Tech to review a series of recent in which 鈥渢he expressive rights of artists were deemed inferior to others鈥 desire to avoid having their sensibilities challenged.鈥 Greg writes: 鈥淸T]here is ... tremendous value in art that forces us to challenge our beliefs. Do we want to live in a world where artists are not allowed to stray beyond the confines of comfort, and where unusual expression is quickly suppressed?鈥
- Former 蜜桃直播 intern and Brandeis University alumnus Daniel Ortner discussed the of former Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz in Brandeis鈥 student newspaper The Justice. Under Reinharz鈥檚 administration, Brandeis was listed on 蜜桃直播鈥檚 鈥淲orst of the Worst鈥 list for its disregard for the fundamental rights of students and professors, including a 2008 case in which a professor was charged with racial harassment after discussing and critiquing the term 鈥渨etback鈥 in his Latin American Politics class.
- Greg and 蜜桃直播 Vice Senior President Robert Shibley penned an about the many factors that have contributed to the proliferation of speech codes on campuses nationwide. In order to fight them, Greg and Robert write, students and faculty must be willing to challenge these policies in court and legislators must work to pass speech-protective legislation. It鈥檚 a Herculean task, but a necessary one in order to protect the 鈥渕arketplace of ideas鈥 that colleges and universities are meant to be.
We highly recommend reading these pieces in full! Remember, you can always find more free speech news and analysis at FIRE's Newsdesk.
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