Freedom under Threat on US Campuses: From a Left-Wing to a Right-Wing ‘Political Correctness’

The “political correctness” movement emerged on American campuses in the middle of the 1980s, in the context of a revival of conservatism in the United States. This movement, which was associated with left-wing politics, not only called for the recognition of diversity, especially within the mainstream curriculum, but also for the adoption of measures to ensure respect for and greater sensitivity toward ethnic, racial and sexual minorities as well as women. The speech codes, which were put in place in several universities following a series of mostly racial incidents, were met with harsh criticism at the highest level of the government. Indeed, in a speech delivered on May 4th,1991 in which he focused on the nature of freedom, Republican President Georges H. W. Bush denounced “political correctness” for threatening freedom of speech. During his first presidential campaign, Republican Donald Trump accused Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of having “put political correctness above commonsense, above your safety, and above all else.” His opposition to “political correctness” is credited in part for his electoral victory in 2016. As Trump is beginning his second term, he has launched a financial attack on several Ivy League universities, notably to coerce them to make changes in the courses they teach, thereby infringing academic freedom.Adopting a historical approach, this paper will first retrace the genealogy of the “political correctness” movement, to then analyze the extent to which both this movement and President Donald Trump have threatened academic freedom and freedom of speech on University campuses, by trying to impose their own orthodoxy. It will thus be argued that Trump, who claimed to be “politically incorrect,” is now endeavoring to impose a right-wing “political correctness.”