Time To Say Goodbye Kimmel, Free Speech, and the University as the New Church with Zena Hitz
Sep 24, 2025
Zena Hitz, a philosopher and faculty member at St. John’s College, dives into the complexities of free speech amid today’s cultural climate. She explores Jimmy Kimmel's canceling incident, questioning if it exemplifies cancel culture or corporate pressure. Hitz argues that America’s conformity hampers meaningful discourse and warns that politicizing universities undermines their mission. She advocates for reviving nonpolitical conversations to restore civic life, while highlighting the erosion of trust in academia due to social media and political influences.
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Free Speech Serves Political Competition
- Free speech's constitutional role is to secure open political competition and assembly.
- Hitz says the pressing issue is institutions and communities failing to support that political function.
Politics Has Lost Organizational Discipline
- Politics no longer organizes into disciplined coalitions with accountable leaders.
- Hitz claims chaotic information flows and weakened leadership fragment political authority and norms.
Administration Hollowed Out Academic Standards
- Administrative and financial changes hollowed out disciplinary standards and internal academic norms.
- Hitz argues this erosion, more than ideology, damaged universities' capacity for free inquiry.
