Campus Radicals Against Free Speech

Reason's Robby Soave has been writing about culture, free speech, due process, and moral outrage on campus since joining the magazine...

Reason's Robby Soave has been writing about culture, free speech, due process, and moral outrage on campus since joining the magazine in 2014. His first book, Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump, which will be released tomorrow, examines the ascendancy of the intersectional left and the identitarian right.

Soave was one of the first reporters to question the veracity of a Rolling Stone article that accused several fraternity brothers of a horrific gang rape at the University of Virginia—a story that the magazine later retracted because of insufficient evidence. Earlier this year, when a clip of MAGA-hat-wearing high school students appearing to intimidate a Native American man went viral, Soave was one of the first journalists to carefully scrutinize the raw video, discovering that the interaction was more complicated than the initial reports had claimed. Major media organizations later looped back to acknowledge that they had erred in their reporting.

Reason's Zach Weissmueller sat down with Soave to talk about his experience reporting and writing the book, today's political climate on campus, and why he thinks the college activists' emphasis on identity is misplaced.

Interview by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Alexis Garcia, Paul Detrick, and Justin Monticello. Edited by Ian Keyser and Alexis Garcia. Intro by Alexis Garcia.

Photo credits:

Paul Christian Gordon/ZUMA Press/Newscom

Pacific Press/Sipa USA/Newscom

Mark Reinstein/ZUMA Press/Newscom

SMG/ZUMA Press/Newscom

Michael Nigro/Sipa USA/Newscom

Chris Sweda/TNS/Newscom

Ralph Barrera/TNS/Newscom

Erik McGregor / Pacific Press/Newscom

Jeremy Hogan/Polaris/Newscom

Michael Nigro/Sipa USA/Newscom

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