Last year, New York University professor Ulrich Baer published a book in which he argued that they do.
Today, writing for the Martin Center, Robert Shibley eviscerates that book.
Shibley writes:
The result is a book that does nothing to change the minds of those not already disposed to agree with the author, and almost seems intended to alienate them. Baer repeatedly cites Donald Trump’s election, in lurid terms, as a justification for universities to forbid speech that creates ‘inequality.’ Every example paints his ideological opponents in a bad light, and those who agree with him in a positive one.
In sum, Baer contends that there are some arguments that certain campus groups should never have to hear because they’re supposedly threatening. And who gets to decide what arguments must be forbidden? Campus officials who are invariably allied with the students who want to silence people they disagree with, of course.
Shibley concludes his review:
One comes away from What Snowflakes Get Right with a sense of puzzlement. Why write a book arguing that people shouldn’t have to argue about some things, and do it in a way so poorly designed to change minds? Baer is an accomplished and intelligent professor, but he simply is not equal to the task of justifying the restriction of differences of opinion, on college campuses of all places, of some of the most hotly debated issues in our society. I suspect there’s no one out there who is.