The Corner

Lee’s Way

When I was a student at the University of Michigan in the late 1980s, the administration imposed a speech code on the campus that outlawed “insensitive” speech, such as ethnic jokes and displaying Confederate flags. It was struck down in federal court as unconstitutional. During this period, the dean of the Michigan law school, one Lee Bollinger, didn’t say a peep. Now he’s president of Columbia, where he recently has bragged about how his school is “distinctly dedicated to the open intellect.” That’s wonderful, simply wonderful. I only wish he would acknowledge his failure to say something helpful back in Ann Arbor, when it might have mattered. I’m also delighted to read Checker Finn’s excellent critique of Bollinger’s other recent musings.

John J. Miller, the national correspondent for National Review and host of its Great Books podcast, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.
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