Common rubric so what are those commonalities . That so many people have simultaneously lost their minds . [laughter] and i am here today in part because i hear a great deal of the art of not losing your mind and asking questions about how do we return to a more sane place in politics . And for two main locations in that environment and the other social media. What do these have in common . So my answers are as follows. First the de tocqueville effect is a wellknown phenomenon in Political Science where a society takes to reform itself is often precisely the way in which those conditions make it even more intolerable that somehow things end up seeming worse. And there have been a number of social positive changes in recent years. People have met with social acceptance and the quality. We have had a great deal in our past and very much evidence nowadays but yet somehow we are angrier than ever before and we have seen a resurgence perhaps some degree of racism but also in that is puzzling with the subject of the book we have seen things formerly regarded as watershed with significant positive developments and one example is that big boys dont cry which was to talk about how durant transgender people for as they actually are and now seem that problematic. So at the time they were not considered problematic at all. So the second point i would suggest is that both in the college environments and all through social media there is a strong incentive to play to an audience so to be outside your group and you raise your own social esteem and standing within your group. And so it seems simultaneously we seem to do this to our own social groups. And they hate the idea there are other ideas but it is my experience this is the case someone social media we also segregate and on campuses there is a strong degree of selfsegregation and this is why it seems we are also angry now. Were all finding the worst from the other side and presenting that to our own side to raise our own social standing within her own groups. This is a dangerous dynamic. I dont know how we pull out of this and the third dynamic that is very similar on social media and College Campuses with these potential gatekeepers. And by his grace yes there were nazis or environmental terrorist or crazy abominable people out there. And they were not on our blog and that is great. That is enough for go that is all that was needed. We are okay. But suddenly everything politics changes. Try to capture those gatekeepers to take our side to keep the other people out and that is something social media has brought to the online experience that was not present before. But in the social media age as to the internet before social media. They now have the prospect of a gatekeeper and everyone tries to please you or become the new gatekeeper. So those were three of the many thoughts that i had while reading the book and im sure our panelist will have many of their own. Of course our author, associate editor at reason a commentator in many different venues with his work with Sexual Assault alleged at the university in 2015 Southern CaliforniaJournalism Award accomplishing as his writing appeared in the New York Times, new york post, cnn, usa today and newsweek in 2016 he made the 30 under 30 list for law and policy and a regular guest on fox news, cnn and other radio programs. He will speak first of next is james a senior politics editor at fox. Com with the gop in the far right also a cohost of the popular podcast that weeds her work has been featured espn magazine and other venues. Lastly craig is an attorney New York Times bestselling author and president of the foundation for individual rights education the author of unlearning liberty censorship and debate and fires guide to campus and most recently he coauthored the American Mind of these ideas are setting up a generation of failure. This New York Times bestseller expands on september 2015 the atlantic cover story he did with his coauthor and the executive producer of a featurelength documentarys scoring the division without rage culture on and off campus. Please welcome our panelists. [applause] thank you all so much for coming here today. The subject of my book panic attack is the culture of activism at the moment particularly on College Campuses where a number of progressive activists particularly the elite educational institutions, have engaged in attempts to shut down speakers who they may disagree with, professors who may be well to the left who they object to something and offer investigations of them or through other student groups whose activities they dont agree with. This is a problem more pervasive like at harvard and yale man liberal arts institutions where the culture not all students our most students but a small number of progressive radical fringe believe that ideas that they disagree with our not only a tactical political scheme but to represent their wealth one her health and wellbeing and that should be unfavorable on a College Campus. This is a problem with the National Media started to pay more attention to beginning late 2015 when there was notable events at yale as the dean was there for that event and his wife had written an email to the students saying that they rejected the guidance Previous Administration had given the students over Halloween Costumes that you can decide for yourself what is appropriate to wear for halloween and a number of students got rejected. This attempted not to be materialistic and berated him for a long time. Asserting it was his role on campus to provide a safe space for them from discomfort and emotional harm. And he failed in his obligation to do that explicitly they said that is the role of the ministration to provide this overbroad safety from ideas that could trouble us. This is an undercurrent of activism that has propped up time and time again since this incident some of you are aware of some of those that have attracted more National Attention and asked the college to stop between a conservative Charles Murray or a liberal is the activist actually attacked not only prevented the speaker but actually put him in a neck brace and berkeley are prevented from being far right speakers trees were set on fire and the events were not taken place. This isnt just happening on the far right people people like Brett Weinstein and those students who objected and had her investigated. This continues to today with the news over the last few weeks at Harvard University ron sullivan who is well known he was an advisor to senator obama to help free wrongfully incarcerated as you do with your defense attorney with those accused murderers are terrorists those that were accused of Sexual Harassment and assault those that had protest said that sullivan made the campus unsafe for women and should be impermissible not as law professor but one of the residential colleges and to say that he is concerned of those institutions that they are now dictating the policies that are overwriting values that the left used to believe very strongly in those are two areas where libertarians and progressives are in close proximity. And with those despicable people to defend their free speech and process rights but now the aclu has that activist culture with william and mary two years ago the aclu and they talked over her to prevent that from happening and they gave the mic to the leader. Of the Free Speech Movement i actually learned in 1963 the far left very Progressive Student Group invited nazis to campus to make a freespeech point and with that whole nazi regalia nobody heckled him but they just laughed at him when he was done. And this is something that the progressive students did that we are for ironclad freespeech campuses would be shut down as a national day of mourning and how the Mental Health of the entire campus was negatively affected to the point nobody could go to classes or take exams. So this is a survey of the problems i described in my book and i talk about different activist groups that have been active over the last ten years and specifically their goals though without getting too hyper specific i will just very briefly talk about the trends linking these groups and contributing to them choosing these tactics. So i spoke to some of these activists, specifically at university of michigan and thats where the event Charles Murray was supposed to speak and they prevented him from speaking. And i would say things doesnt this make him look more sympathetic and you look foolish for thinking he cant even be allowed to speak . But what they told me then over and over if you let somebody speak who makes people feel they disagree with on campus or marginalize on campus or uncomfortable then that can take place so we are committed to not having these Uncomfortable Conversations with people who are not left us to speak on campus because the result of that will be mental trauma and that exist on that same spectrum that obviously the campus is obligated to prevent and those tactics are justified and necessary to protect peoples lives and their health. That is a new trend that poses a complication for those of us that believe campuses should be a place were Difficult Conversations can take plac place, where a range of ideological viewpoints could be aired and discussed and have wide latitude to tackle difficult subjects in the classroom with students complaining to administrators to be investigated for something they disagree with and just as a joke yesterday talking to a friend of mine who is an education policy for a think tank and she just talked to a professor she is friends with and the professor was horrified he has a review pending for him to be investigated because at the start of class one of his female students announced she is not on the gender binary and not to be identified with a pronoun which he was willing to do but this was news to him he accidentally said she instead of they and not intentional so the student left the classroom and went straight to the administration to report this and now is being investigated. There is a climate speaking out of self victimhood on campuses that stems from that phobia and also as the most victimized person. The philosophy that i think of that intellectual trend that enhances that way of thinking is intersection nullity which is incredible importance of activists and the term comes from a sociologist who coined it in the late eighties to describe you can have different sources of oppression working against you if youre a woman you could have racism but if you are a woman of color you have sexism and racism intertwined so many of these activists are on campus offer gender identity Sexual Exploitation disability status age et cetera. Many are indeed sources of oppression but if you ask everybody to be worked up about all of this at the same time and you also say you only want to work from that perspective with people on these categories, now you have narrowed down the range of people who are okay or in Good Standing with you to be a very small tiny fringe. Many of the activist that i spoke to talking about the womens march after the trump inauguration, hundreds of thousands of people marched to object to his history of statements about treatment of women. They said they hated the whole march it was bad because it was not run and organized by the oppressed maybe they only checked off one or two boxes not trans women of color. That is my criticism not that they are wrong but that this can be selfdefeating and self cannibalizing in addition to no longer holding freespeech and due process is a recipe for disaster and my concern is these values although played on College Campuses are permeating social media meet moving forward with these values realizing this isnt real life anyway it doesnt matter but now it is moving to real life and firms and organizations have their policies around their demands of the small tiny subset of these political young people you will have a very hard time having people who disagree or having uncomfortable discussions in the workplace and modern society because that is what these activists want to. I will leave it there. Thank you. [applause] hello everyone thank you for inviting me to be a part of the panel. I am not an editor yet just for correction sake. [laughter] and i want to start out by talking about talk about conservativism on the right and what was particularly interesting and why i am on the panel to have a discussion about these ideological barriers because i have been working on a lot of pieces how the biggest philosophy of oppression taking place are not inherently coming and chris a couple of years ago was so offended with an American Flag with a tiny sock on it to demand it be displayed and it had to be removed and somebody had to do something about it. And that telling incident because those other republicans have championed the idea with the free speech and Free Expression and the alternative is that orthodoxy but it turns out everyone has a form of speech everybody finds deeply offensive and they would rather not do. Everyone. Right now this obsession about social Media Companies and whether they are too big and what they allow or dont allow. In right now section 230 of the Communications Decency act is proposed to be changed so social media have to submit to the fc fcc, the unelected commissioners of the fcc, verification that the moderation policy that the Companies Use is so its important to note to say the activists you are engaging where the rage does not matter as much but to be very clear for not talking about all College Students there are millions of people in college to be a midi middle barry or yale they are attending Community Colleges dealing with major funding issues and bigger institutions for the instances of speech are complex and on the Administrative State of College Campuses that is a topic of conversation i find fascinating so to hire someone to be an expert diversity i am kind of surprised nobody has asked me. So how we talk about these issues is just as important. Is not most students are all students at the university of michigan i was washing dishes for four years that was my job so i remember campus activism at the time there was a group that is referenced in the book with the efforts to end affirmative action on campus even Young Americans for freedom which it was catch the illegal immigrant day and with those affirmative action bake sales. If you look at the spy versus spy cartoons are these the same people cracks you just keep switching so its important to recognize that culture of campus activism what we think of as the left and of the right if they say i am rightleaning thats why the government should regulate social Media Companies but its important to recognize that culture is something of worthy of having this conversation. Not necessarily they are doing activism wrong but in the way that colleges have to do it its difficult when youre on a College Campus then you have no power to change your mind about anything. Your politics are fungible and changeable as they are for everyone but if you are on a College Campus right now the Republican Party controls the white house and the senate and the vast majority of statehouses that determine how colleges receive funding and that is a giant issue where education has taken place under the Republican Administration so if you are on a College Campus and interested in a particular issue, there is a strong drive to a type of liberal radicalism because the alternative seems almost unworkable. You have no space to make actual change you get into spy versus spy of what i would call they could call it virtues signaling but activism signaling to talk about white people in a certain way or even the professor list you can report professors for being mean or leftist so that kind of activism that idea when you get down to it very much of this idea we dont actually want to do this but this is the only way people will listen to us. With the idea the squeaky wheel gets the grease to say we should kick all people off College Campuses by National Media are asking how they get those issues and then to talk to the loudest person when they say im working two jobs to pay off my College Loan Debt so i cant really get involved in campus activism even though there is far more of that person than yelling and screaming. I want us to be incredibly careful there is very much a tendency in our politics to cast dispersions to a wide swath of people to say we didnt mean you but in this case lets be extremely clear who we are talking about an extremely small group of people that is largely the result of how activism is created for a long time in the early 1970s that africanamerican student groups are taking over College Campuses nixon was assembling a black cabinet and then were disassembled and to argue for the placement on the Supreme Court that segregatio