Bari Weiss, journalist and founder of media company The Free Press, and Mitch Daniels, former Indiana Governor and president of Purdue University, spoke Thursday evening at an event titled “Where Do We Go From Here? The Future of Free Speech on College Campus” in Old Cabell Hall. During the event, Weiss and Daniels shared their concerns about the erosion of free speech on college campuses, the dangers of self-censorship and how college and university administrators should respond to protests and large gatherings.
The event was hosted in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement by Think Again at U.Va. — an initiative with the stated mission of encouraging students to think critically and promote free expression — and the Heterodox Academy, an organization that says it works to improve research and education at the University by encouraging open inquiry.
Weiss’ company, The Free Press, is a media organization that bases its reporting on values of independence and honesty, according to its website. Prior to starting The Free Press, Weiss worked as an opinion staff-editor at the Wall Street Journal from 2013 to 2017, and the New York Times from 2017 to 2020. When Weiss left the New York Times in 2020, she published a resignation letter in which she stated that the paper had made itself performative instead of committed to free speech, with X, at the time known as Twitter, being their “ultimate editor.”…