Greg Lukianoff Books

Greg Lukianoff is an attorney and the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He authored Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate and has contributed to numerous publications, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe. Greg is also a regular columnist for The Huffington Post and has made appearances on major television programs such as the CBS Evening News, Fox & Friends, The Today Show, CNN’s New Day, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, and Stossel.

In recognition of his work, he received the Playboy Foundation Freedom of Expression Award in 2008 and the Ford Hall Forum’s Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First Amendment Award in 2010 on behalf of FIRE. Greg holds degrees from American University and Stanford Law School.

The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All―But There Is a Solution

A “galvanizing” exploration (The Wall Street Journal) of cancel culture and its threats to American society, The Canceling of the American Mind comes from the team behind Coddling of the American Mind.

Cancel culture is a relatively new phenomenon, and this book is the first to systematically analyze its effects, providing extensive data and research on what cancel culture is and how it operates. It includes hundreds of fresh examples illustrating how both the left and right attempt to silence their adversaries.

The Canceling of the American Mind offers a paradigm shift in understanding cancel culture. Instead of seeing it as a moral panic, it should be viewed as a dysfunctional element in the American struggle for power, status, and dominance. Cancel culture exemplifies a broader issue: the reliance on cheap rhetorical tactics to “win” arguments without engaging in substantive debate. Why bother refuting your opponents when you can simply strip them of their platform or livelihood?

The book brings hope by suggesting that this threat to democracy can be countered through better citizenship. The Canceling of the American Mind provides concrete steps to reclaim a culture of free speech, with practical advice for parents, teachers, business leaders, and social media users. It encourages everyone to practice intellectual humility and uphold essential American values of individuality, resilience, and open-mindedness.

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

In recent years, something has gone awry on many college campuses. Speakers are being shouted down, and students and professors feel they must tread carefully, fearing to speak honestly. The rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are on the rise, both on campus and nationally. How did this happen?

First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, trace these new campus issues to three insidious ideas that have permeated American childhood and education: “What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker,” “always trust your feelings,” and “life is a battle between good people and evil people.” These three Great Untruths contradict fundamental psychological principles of well-being and ancient wisdom from various cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the ensuing culture of safetyism—hinders young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual growth, making it more difficult for them to become self-reliant adults capable of navigating life’s challenges.

Lukianoff and Haidt delve into the social trends that have converged to spread these untruths. They discuss changes in childhood, such as the rise of overprotective parenting, the decline of unsupervised play, and the pervasive influence of social media on teenagers over the past decade. They also analyze shifts on campus, including the corporatization of universities and the advent of new perspectives on identity and justice. They place the campus conflicts within the broader context of America’s escalating political polarization and dysfunction.

This book is essential for anyone puzzled by the current state of college campuses, parents concerned about their children’s futures, or individuals worried about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across political divides.

Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate

For over a generation, alarming instances of censorship at America’s colleges and universities have imparted harmful lessons about living in a free society. Drawing on a decade of experience advocating for freedom of speech on campus, First Amendment lawyer Greg Lukianoff reveals how higher education often fails to cultivate critical thinking. Instead, by stifling open debate, campuses intensify ideological divisions, promote groupthink, and foster undue certainty about complex issues.

Lukianoff guides readers through the life of a modern-day college student, from orientation to the end of freshman year. Through this lens, he recounts shocking violations of free speech rights: a student in Indiana punished for publicly reading a book, a student in Georgia expelled for posting a pro-environment collage on Facebook, students at Yale banned from using an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on a T-shirt, and students across the country confined to tiny “free speech zones” when expressing their views.

But Lukianoff extends his analysis beyond the campus, showing how this culture of censorship is infiltrating broader society. He examines public controversies involving figures like Juan Williams, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, Larry Summers—even Dave Barry and Jon Stewart. Through these examples, Lukianoff illustrates the growing challenge to rational discourse in America.

Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate illuminates how the current intolerance for dissent and debate on campuses threatens the freedom of every citizen and undermines our collective intellectual growth.

Freedom from Speech

In Freedom From Speech, author and First Amendment lawyer Greg Lukianoff presents a compelling and provocative theory on why challenges to freedom of speech are likely to escalate in the coming decades, both in the United States and globally. Lukianoff examines numerous instances that reflect a growing desire for “intellectual comfort,” such as the proliferation of speech restrictions worldwide and the increasing tendency of the media to punish “offensive” utterances, jokes, or opinions within the United States.

To illustrate the potential future trajectory, Lukianoff highlights the situation on American college campuses, where speakers are frequently disinvited due to their views, students demand “trigger warnings” for classic literature like The Great Gatsby, and the distribution of even the Constitution is confined to designated “free speech zones.” He argues that these trends indicate a shift from advocating for freedom of speech to seeking freedom from speech, reflecting a broader, troubling move towards intellectual conformity and censorship.