Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s “GPS,” is routinely accused by some critics of having a liberal bias, but in a recent segment he cited free speech concerns on college campuses as evidence that liberals are “often” not tolerant of opposing viewpoints.
“American universities these days seem commited to every kind of diversity except intellectual diversity,” Zakaria said, citing negative reactions to commencement speeches by Vice President Mike Pence and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, among others. “Conservative voices and views — already a besieged minority — are being silenced entirely.”
The CNN host noted that some conservative thinkers and firebrands, alike, have been disinvited or harassed on college campuses and said that the entire spectacle is bizarre, considering that colleges typically pledge to give students a “liberal education.”
“The word liberal in this context has nothing to do with today’s partisan language, but refers instead to the Latin root pertaining to liberty,” Zakaria said. “And at the heart of the liberal tradition in the western world has been freedom of speech.”
Despite the early realization in the west surrounding the importance of protecting and listening to speech one disagrees with, Zakaria insinuated that too many people on the American left today have forgotten that principle.
“There is, as we all know, a kind of anti-intellectualism on the right these days — the denial of facts, of reason, of science,” he continued. “But there is also an anti-intellectualism on the left — an attitude of self-righteousness that says, ‘We are so pure, we are so morally superior we cannot bear to hear an idea with which we disagree.’ Liberals think they are tolerant, but often they are not.”
Watch Zakaria speak out below:
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