Academy of Dunces: A Decade of Campus Censorship

Today we're talking about the breakdown of discourse — the culture wars.

It's not just in universities, it affects our interactions with everything from the government to schools, workplaces, and more. After over ten years of it, it seems more pointless and degrading than ever.

Ric Bienstock is a director of the new two-part CBC documentary series, Speechless. It explores a variety of student protest movements from Evergreen College in 2017 to today's protests against what's happening in Gaza.

Her film poses some key questions. How did we get here? What is bringing the worst out of all of us? And can we learn how to speak to each other again?

Host: Stephen Marche

Credits: Tristan Capacchione (Producer), Bruce Thorson (Senior Producer), max collins (Director of Audio), Jesse Brown (Editor and Publisher)

Additional music by Audio Network

Fact checking by Kallan Lyons

More information:

• Speechless Part 1 — CBC
• Speechless Part 2 — CBC
• Summary of Evergreen College Protest — Duke Law, Wikipedia
• The politics of culture wars in contemporary Canada — Macdonald-Laurier Institute
• Carole Hooven: Why I Left Harvard — Minding the Campus
• Teaching standardized English isn't racism—it's education — Fair For All
• Tufts University student targeted by Trump administration completes PhD — The Guardian

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