No ‘flop’ at Dartmouth
Gregory Lukianoff did not “flop,” as Unai Montes-Urueste charges in his op-ed in the May 20 Valley News. An honorary degree recipient at Dartmouth, Lukianoff’s Free Speech organization, FIRE, sent Dartmouth a letter immediately after the arrest of 89 protesters at Dartmouth. The letter demanded that charges be dropped against the two Dartmouth student journalists.
Similarly, Montes-Urueste’s implication that Lukianoff and FIRE praised Dartmouth President Beilock’s decision to remove the protesters’ encampment on May 1, 2024, and rewarded Dartmouth for doing so in its rankings, is at odds with fact: Four months after the arrests, Dartmouth received a grade of “below average,” and ranked 224th of 251 schools.
Lukianoff is not being honored because he “flopped,” but because he studied the First Amendment intensely at Stanford Law and has fought for free speech at FIRE since 2001. He is co-author of the best seller, “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.”
Contrary to Montes-Irueste’s insinuation, neither Lukianoff, nor FIRE, is a shill for right wing causes. Lukianoff, a life-long liberal Democrat, receives hate mail for his advocacy from both right and left.
As for Montes-Irueste’s claims of “trans bashing,” it is an argument oft used, by activists and condemned by Lukianoff in his book, “War on Words”: argument by ad hominem — if you can’t win on merit, just distract by name calling.
Lukianoff has never called trans people names. All he has done is raise the First Amendment protection against “compelled speech” announced by the Supreme Court in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 1943. Under that decision, refusing to use an individual’s preferred pronouns may cause offense, but such offense is protected by the First Amendment. The government cannot compel one to say something they do not believe.