Hoover Institution fellow John Yoo discusses his Washington Post article "The House doesn’t have to be ‘fair’ in its probe. But it should give Trump due process."

Once upon a time, universities were the ultimate forum of ideas. Today however, college campuses have become the most intolerant places for diverse and even conventional viewpoints. The First Amendment, intellectual freedom, and the very idea of free speech are under attack with threats, bans, and even violence. A growing number of Americans don’t even believe you have the right to speak your mind if what you have to say might offend someone, somewhere. They advocate for campuses to be “safe spaces” in which open debate and discussions are not allowed. This disturbing movement has now been extending beyond colleges and into the wider world. Will we all be silenced for expressing ideas that may not conform with the politically correct? And what can be done to restore constitutional and civil liberties?

Jack Goldsmith is Shattuck professor of law. As such, he is known for his work on the legal aspects of terrorism, national security, and other fraught topics in international law. But like all faculty members, he has a life beyond the classroom and his scholarship. In his case, the complications of that personal life are the subject of the new book, In Hoffa’s Shadow: A Stepfather, a Disappearance in Detroit, and My Search for the Truth (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28). 

Hoover Institution fellow Jack Goldsmith discusses UVA Law professor G. Edward White’s final volume in his “Law in American History” series.