by Steven Felschundneff | [email protected]
Claremont McKenna College government professor Christopher Nadon ignited a firestorm recently when he authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal questioning the school’s commitment to free speech.
The opinion piece, “Censorship at a Top College for Free Speech,” was published August 22 and outlined actions the professor says Claremont McKenna took after a student complained that Nadon uttered the n-word while reading a book of literature out loud.
Within days, follow-up stories appeared in the Washington Examiner and Inside Higher Ed, as well as a response from Claremont McKenna in the Journal.
“On Oct. 4, 2021, my class discussed Plato’s ‘Republic’ and his views about censorship. A student objected that Plato was mistaken about its necessity. Here in the U.S., she said, there is none. Someone brought up ‘Huckleberry Finn.’ She replied, correctly, that removing a book from curriculums doesn’t constitute censorship. I pointed out that the case was more complicated. The book had also been removed from libraries and published in expurgated editions,” Nadon wrote in his Wall Street Journal piece.
“An international student asked me why. I told her, quoting Mark Twain’s precise language, which meant speaking the n-word. This caused the first student to change her mind and acknowledge the existence of censorship in America.”
On Oct. 14 of last year, Associate Dean of Faculty Ellen Rentz sent Nadon an email regarding “some...
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