Writing at The Washington Times on Tuesday, scholars Peter Wood and Pete Peterson explain why they both decided to sign on to The Philadelphia Statement. As Dr. Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, and Mr. Peterson, dean of Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy, explain, “threats to free and civil discourse now mar almost every American institution.”
A return to the key principles of free speech is both timely and necessary:
As two people engaged in the defense of the basic principles of Western civilization in higher education — one through a national organization, and the other at a graduate policy school — we are signatories to a new declaration of the importance of robust but civilized debate in our society: the “Philadelphia Statement: On Civil Discourse and the Strengthening of Liberal Democracy.” We support this statement because we believe that, despite its faults, American higher education can still help to restore America’s center of gravity. As a nation we need to re-learn how to tolerate views we dislike and how to debate people with whom we disagree. The “Philadelphia Statement” points the way.
Read the article in full at The Washington Times here.
