John Palfrey

As Americans loudly hammer out partisan views on the world stage these days, colleges and universities have been drawn into the fray as campuses, with speakers and their mobile-enabled audiences, become venues for audio and video that has a propensity to go viral. What was once considered healthy student debate can easily become a political inferno with a viral international following. Factions have formed, aligning people into either diversity or free speech advocates. This bifurcation is something John Palfrey sees as mistaken. In his new book, Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces published by MIT Press, Palfrey says diversity and free speech share much more than not and argues both are imperative for a modern education and the promise of educating our youth in the American ideal. The former Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School offers clear examples of where the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of both diversity and free expression and he breaks down the trajectory of the past few decades that led to the fanning of these flames by provocateurs and by the emergence of a highly-interconnected world of viral platforms like Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook.