Greg Lukianoff
FIRE Staff Speaker
Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus. He co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure with Jonathan Haidt. Most recently Greg co-authored The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution with Rikki Schlott. Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story (2020), an award-winning feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.
Greg has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and numerous other publications. He frequently appears on TV shows and radio programs, including the CBS Evening News, The Today Show, and NPR’s Morning Edition. In 2008, he became the first-ever recipient of the Playboy Foundation’s Freedom of Expression Award, and he has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues on America’s college campuses.
Published Writings
- The Coddling of the American Mind: How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus – The Atlantic
- Law Alone Can’t Protect Free Speech – WSJ
- Against Conservative Pessimism about Free Speech on Campus – National Review
Available Speeches
Unlearning Liberty
Based on Greg’s book, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, this speech reveals how the intolerance for dissent and debate on America’s college campuses threatens the freedom of every citizen—and makes us all just a little bit dumber.
Recent Writings
- FIRE statement: Penn resignations can be exactly what the university needs to restore free expression ,
- The new Red Scare taking over America's college campuses,
- Change defamation laws and you're silencing yourself,
- Eternally Radical Poll: 2022 EXCESSIVELY PRESTIGIOUS BOOK award,
- No, canceling Chappelle is not a 'win for free speech',
- ‘Naive Statism’ and how the Rwandan genocide was not about Rwanda’s excessive commitment to free speech: Part 18 of answers to arguments against free speech from Nadine Strossen and Greg Lukianoff,
- Free speech makes people free. We must defend all speech without apology,
- Greg Lukianoff’s ‘book of the month’ recommendations,
- Censorship won’t cure disinformation (featuring Jacob Mchangama and Nadine Strossen): Part 17 of answers to arguments against free speech,
- Some lessons from the sorry history of campus speech codes,
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