Brown president pens article for Washington Post

Brown University President Christina Paxson recently had an article published in the Washington Post, titled “Brown University president: A safe space for freedom of expression.”

The article was written to address students for the new academic year who are entering college during a time of debate over the size of the student body at colleges and universities across the United States. Paxson wanted to prepare students for the difficulties and issues facing society.

“Freedom of expression is an essential component of academic freedom, which protects the ability of universities to fulfill their core mission of advancing knowledge,” Paxson wrote in her article. “Suppressing ideas at a university is akin to turning off the power at a factory. As scholars and students, our responsibility is to subject old truths to scrutiny and put forward new ideas to improve them. I don’t share the view that American college students want to be protected from ideas that make them uncomfortable. Just the opposite. Over the past few years, our students have addressed topics that make many people very uncomfortable indeed — racism, sexual assault, religious persecution."

Paxson says these are some of the toughest problems facing society today, and that Brown does not shy away from them.