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.

“There’s an old maxim,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jeremy Tedesco told Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade on Tuesday morning. “‘I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’” Summing up the concerns of “cancel culture” addressed by The Philadelphia Statement, Tedesco cited a recent poll from the Cato Institute that found 62 percent of Americans are afraid to share their own political views. Tedesco called upon viewers to sign onto the Statement, which calls on all Americans to recommit to the free speech and robust civil discourse.

Watch the clip in full here.

Read and sign the Statement here.