2021-06-01

Book Review: "Speak Freely" by Keith E. Whittington

I've recently read the book Speak Freely by Keith E. Whittington, but it has been sitting on my bookshelf for nearly 3 years. This is not a book that I chose for myself, nor is it one that someone to whom I'm close chose for me. Instead, this book is one that the Princeton University president Christopher L. Eisgruber chose for the then-incoming undergraduate class of 2022 as well as all other students, staff, and faculty to read. This in itself was typical; examples include the book Whistling Vivaldi by Claude Steele, which I have reviewed here, and the book Our Declaration by Danielle Allen, which I have reviewed here. Less typical for this book was the fact that the president personally ordered that physical copies be sent to every student (including graduate students, which included me at that time), staff, and faculty; it was commonly understood that the president is a personal friend of the author, who is a professor of constitutional law in Princeton University, and did this as a favor. Furthermore, there was a lot of chatter about this book in the middle of 2018 when this book was mailed to all students, staff, and faculty, just because so many people read it. In such a university with students & faculty who have very progressive (in the US context) political views, a conservative defense of unpopular free speech on university campuses, as expected, was seen as controversial. Personally, a few of my friends did read it and recommended that I not read it because it would be a waste of my time. I admit that these occurrences may have prejudiced my view of this book to some degree, but I genuinely tried to read & understand this book as fairly as possible. Follow the jump to see more.