The annual ritual of freshman orientation, which begins in mid-summer and extends through mid-September, is in full swing. Colleges are welcoming students and showing them around, acquainting them with classmates and college facilities, and making them aware of the full range of campus activities, clubs, and programs. 

Most Americans understand that individuals who have been subject to an authorized disciplinary procedure and have accepted their prescribed punishment shouldn’t be investigated and punished a second time for the same offense. 

Much as administrators and faculty may dislike it, the fact is that public colleges are subject to both the First Amendment and the state legislatures that fund them. Legislators shouldn’t micromanage the campuses, but they must set some basic rules.

On college campuses, outrage over provocative speakers sometimes turns violent. It's becoming a pattern on campuses around the country. A speaker is invited, often by a conservative student group. Other students oppose the speaker, and maybe they protest. If the speech happens, the speaker is heckled. Sometimes there's violence.

When one-fifth of college students believe it's fine to use violence to silence speech, we have a huge problem.

The well-documented inability of American colleges and universities to reverse the several-decades-long curtailment of free speech on campus is a matter of considerable public interest. Whether the federal government is capable of producing effective reform is another question. President Trump seems to believe Washington is up to the task.

According to recent polls, instructors at American universities are overwhelmingly liberal: 72 percent of faculty members describe themselves as liberal, whereas only 15 percent call themselves conservative. Some critics charge that this ideological imbalance has created a code of political correctness that inhibits freedom of inquiry and expression in our universities. Is this true? And if so, what should be done, or can be done, about it? Peter Robinson speaks with David Horowitz and Graham Larkin.

The Supreme Court will soon announce its decisions on two cases that are being called the most important for affirmative action in a quarter century. These cases both challenge the use of racial preferences in the admissions policies at the University of Michigan. On one side of the legal dispute over the Michigan policies are those who argue that creating racial diversity on college campuses is a "compelling interest" that justifies the use of certain types of racial preferences in the admissions process. On the other side are those who argue that any system that rewards people solely on the basis of race is unconstitutional. Who's right? And how will the Supreme Court's decision affect the future of affirmation action?

AUDIO ONLY

In this wide-ranging conversation, Thiel discusses his politics, his campaign, and the scourge of totalitarian conformism in the United States and abroad; the problem with “following the science”; where President Biden deserves the blame and where he doesn’t; and why cryptocurrency may just save the world.