Not so well-informed

As a 30-year veteran of teaching in higher education, I feel compelled to address Mr. Goehner’s baseless charge (“Not fooled by brainwashing,” Dec. 13) concerning the alleged banning of free speech at today’s colleges and universities.

Our mission in higher education is to teach students to think for themselves. Unlike actual brainwashing, which is a forced form of indoctrination, we expose our students to a broad range of views and facts, ask them to reflect upon divergent opinions, and require them to argue effectively for their own viewpoint, whatever that may be. Students may express any opinion they wish, provided it is based upon informed judgement, as opposed to supposition, assumption, or guess work.

We do not ban free speech. Rather, we teach that free speech has consequence and comes with responsibility, that facts cannot be out-and-out dismissed when someone claims to present the truth, that terms like “radical” have actual meaning which, when used in public discourse, need to be recognized and understood. We teach them to analyze and judge opinions like those on this page on the merits of argumentation, evidence and accuracy.

You state that you are pleased to see opinions exchanged here, so I would think that you would support our academic mission to create an informed, thoughtful younger citizenry, one who could contribute a cogent, reflective viewpoint on this page. As someone whose job it is to evaluate such viewpoints, I find your own contribution to be far from a passing effort.

Andrew Goldman

Spokane