Campus misinformation : the real threat to free speech in American higher education / Bradford Vivian.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 169-215) and index.

"Campus Misinformation shows how misinformation about colleges and universities has proliferated in recent years. Currently popular but misleading claims about so-called free speech crises and a lack of intellectual diversity on college campuses emerged in the mid-2010s and continue to shape public discourse about higher education. Such claims, which this book defines as "campus misinformation," impede constructive deliberation about higher learning while helping to normalize suspect ideas about First Amendment freedoms and democratic participation. Campus Misinformation is a study, above all, of misleading language and its detrimental effects. The chapters in this book detail how campus misinformation popularizes flawed arguments about such specific key terms or concepts as viewpoint diversity, trigger warnings, safe spaces, free speech, and orthodoxy. The sum of that terminology reflects elitist and politically reactionary meta-discourse rather than consistently informed and responsible arguments about colleges and universities. More disturbing still, portions of campus misinformation resemble both past and present forms of organized resistance to creating multicultural institutions of higher learning. Campus Misinformation helps readers to identify examples of misinformation while encouraging them to advocate for better quality public debates about academic freedom in higher education and democratic participation beyond. This book should matter to anyone concerned about the state of higher education and the state of our democracy alike"-- Provided by publisher.