Sep 29, 2022

“Should academic journals appoint themselves social justice gatekeepers?”

That is the question journalist and author Jonathan Rauch asks in responding to new ethics guidance from the academic journal Nature Human Behaviour. The journal introduces the guidance by ominously noting that “although academic freedom is...

Sep 15, 2022

This Saturday, Sept. 17, is Constitution Day. It was on this day in 1787 that delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed America’s Constitution. And while the First Amendment was not ratified until 1791, discussions over the role of free speech and expression in a democratic society were alive long before...

Sep 1, 2022

What can Charles Darwin teach us about dissent? What do the professional basketball careers of Wilt Chamberlain and Rick Barry tell us about conventional wisdom?

On today’s show, George Mason University Professor Todd Kashdan helps us understand the value of principled dissent: what it is, how to do it, and the...

Aug 17, 2022

Last week, a would-be assassin attacked Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,”  in an apparent attempt to carry out the infamous fatwa placed on Rushdie’s life. Fortunately, Rushdie survived the attack. Vice News Tonight correspondent and “The Fifth Column” podcast co-host Michael Moynihan joins the...

Aug 11, 2022

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion in the United States, many people expected states to pass laws restricting access to abortion services. Perhaps less expected was that some lawmakers now seek to pass laws restricting — and criminalizing — speech about...