Harvey Silverglate

First of all, the organization, when I co-founded it,

in 1999, was called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

It focused on

free speech issues on college campuses in academia.

And only earlier this year did we decide to expand our reach beyond the campuses, which is why the name, although the acronym FIRE remains, it's now the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

The E used to be education.

The E used to be education.

It's now expression.

And we basically do a lot of the cases the ACLU used to do.

The ACLU now wars us.

They're a progressive organization rather than a civil liberties organization.

And we've taken the role of dealing with free speech in the society generally.

And now this is a particularly...

an era prone to censorship.

Everybody thinks they're right and that people who disagree with them should not be able to voice their views.

It's a very difficult period right now, both on campus and off campus.

It's about as intolerant an era as I can remember.

I'm gonna be 81 May 10th.

I was born on Mother's Day, 1942.

And I can't remember it being this bad.