My campus free speech group just hit 50 members, and half are from the engineering school

I started a small discussion club at my university in Ohio last semester, just to talk about tricky free speech cases on campus. I figured it would mostly be poli-sci or philosophy majors, you know? But when we hit 50 members this week, I saw the roster and 25 of them are from the engineering college. It really surprised me, but one of them told me they feel like their views on tech ethics get shut down in class debates sometimes. Has anyone else seen a big shift in who's showing up to these kinds of talks lately?

3 comments

3 Comments

calebw5025d ago

Wait, isn't that just a sign the club's topic is too narrow? Maybe those engineering students are drawn to a club that already agrees with them, instead of facing the real debate in their ethics classes where their ideas get challenged. Isn't that the point of class, to have your views tested?

blair_lane25d ago

Yeah, read a study on that exact thing last week.

elizabeth4386d ago

Remember that campus group for people who liked old video games? They started just talking about games, but then they spent a whole meeting arguing if a character's pixel art was sexist. It got so heated the club almost split. Sometimes a group forms around one small thing, and then that just becomes the new box everyone has to fit inside.