Greg Lukianoff is determined to heal a fractured nation and guard America’s freedoms — if it’s not already too late.
Greg Lukianoff in Boston, on Sept. 20, 2023. Lukianoff is one of the nation’s preeminent First Amendment lawyers and most vivid chroniclers of American fragility. | Carlin Stiehl for POLITICOEvan Mandery, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, researches and writes about inequality and higher education. He is the author of A group of Yale deans had sent an email urging students to avoid insensitive costume choices.
The videographer of the Halloween conflict and witness to this quietly critical moment in society just so happened to be Greg Lukianoff, one of the nation’s preeminent First Amendment lawyers and most vivid chroniclers of American fragility. “The Constitution is always what tends to save us,” Lukianoff told me. “‘We have to destroy freedom to save freedom’ is one of the thin-sound philosophies that can lead to tyranny.”Lukianoff’s philosophy — civil libertarianism — is arguably the very core of the American project. And yet it now faces intense threats from the left and the right, which Lukianoff chronicles in a new book on cancel culture.
“We didn’t attend school very often,” says Lukianoff’s childhood best friend, Anthony Rodriguez, today a professor of education at Providence College. “We just wanted to have space for people like us — free thinkers — kids who maybe were born on the other side of the tracks.” As Lukianoff recalls, Sullivan gave him a dose of tough love during their first meeting following a constitutional law class. When he expressed his ambivalence about law school, Sullivan said he should consider dropping out.
By winter 2007, Lukianoff couldn’t stop thinking about suicide. “One day, I went to the hardware store. The plan was to take all of my medications and grind them up and to get wire and a thick bag to put over my head so if I woke up I would suffocate.” But, Lukianoff said, “something finally went off in my head.” He called 911, and agreed to be held for three days at the University of Pennsylvania hospital.
"The Coddling of the American Mind" reached No. 8 on The New York Times bestseller list and sold over 600,000 copies. | Carlin Stiehl for POLITICO The article caused a stir, and they expanded it into a book framed around three “Great Untruths” at the root of the spreading epidemic of fragility:— The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always trust your feelingsWant to read more stories like this? POLITICO Weekend delivers gripping reads, smart analysis and a bit of high-minded fun every Friday.
Supporters of then-President Donald Trump boo members of the media while Trump speaks during a campaign rally on Feb. 10, 2020. Under the right's "efficient rhetorical fortress" principles, one doesn’t have to listen to liberals, experts , and, for MAGA supporters, anyone who isn’t pro-Trump. | Mary Altaffer/APto free speech are more severe from the right or the left is hotly debated, a hardly surprising reality given the polarization of modern America.
“The coercive power of the state, even when it doesn’t seem like it’s intruding that much, nevertheless has a force — the force of law backed up by legal sanctions — that is quite unlike what we see mostly in terms of the threats from the left,” says Brint. “I worry a lot when the state gets involved in these issues.
“A great disappointment of my career is that I couldn’t get us more support from left-leaning foundations,” Lukianoff told me, adding that FIRE now received support from the center-left Knight Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies. He also readily acknowledges the unique threat Donald Trump poses to democracy.
From 2016 to 2021, the percentage of respondents who said a racist book should be removed from a public library increased by 7 points — from 35 to 42 percent. | Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images In 2021, FIRE hired Sarah Longwell, who founded Republican Voters Against Trump, to conduct focus groups on how receptive Americans might be to a pro-free speech campaign. | Cindy Ord/Getty Images
Neo Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va. on Aug. 11, 2017. That year, the ACLU was roiled by conflict after its Virginia chapter defended the right of white nationalists to rally in support of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. | Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images The ambiguity has also caused significant, perhaps irreparable, damage to the perception of civil libertarians. The label, once proudly worn by the likes of Clarence Darrow and William Kunstler, is no longer displayed without reservation. While writing my last book, about inequities in higher education, a college admissions officer who is also a civil libertarian asked me not to mention this identification, fearing its negative connotation.
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