In an era when the Berlin Wall has fallen, the Statue of Liberty has gone up in China's Tiananmen Square, and refugees from all corners of the globe flock to America's shores, the ideals of freedom and Western
civilization are strangely embattled on our college campuses.
The rigorous study of Western civilization and the great books that define it have been displaced by political correctness and cultural relativism. The contest of ideas that once invigorated higher education has given way to a suffocating and complacent intellectual conformity. Many faculty and students are afraid to speak freely about ideas that do not fit the political orthodoxies of today's university.
“The price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.”
-John Stuart Mill,
On Liberty
In order to challenge the prevailing conformity, the Center for Freedom and Western Civilization has been established at Colgate University. It seeks to reinvigorate intellectual discourse on campus by championing a set of ideals which have their origins in Western civilization but which are universal in scope and appeal.
Of these, first and foremost, is the ideal of classical liberal arts education -- an education worthy of a free citizen and a free mind, an education that requires the rigorous and unflinching encounter with the best thoughts and books that have been written.
Second, we believe that history and philosophy show the importance of free speech, free government, and free markets, especially as they have been understood and established by the American founding fathers; these ideals and institutions need to be studied and taught with respect as well as with critical detachment.
Third, we seek not only to champion these ideals in campus debate but also to foster their growth at home and abroad. Accordingly, we honor students whose projects make substantial contributions to understanding freedom and Western civilization and to promoting them in their future careers. And we seek to cultivate the growth of free institutions in Afghanistan and Iraq and in other emerging democracies around the world.