Just as elders are not prima facie a source of wisdom, youth isn’t necessarily a fountain of low time preference.
Duke should minimize its interference in the freedom of its students and employees to make choices related to their personal health.
Of course, Duke is overwhelmingly left-wing, both in terms of student and faculty, but this is not uncommon at an elite institution. What is important is that, relative to those other schools, Duke does a pretty decent job at permitting and encouraging heterodox opinions, across the board.
We need to move towards a higher education market that’s more strongly rooted in market principles, rather than in utopian faith in the capabilities of the state, that has time and time again failed to achieve its desired goals.
Putting names, personalities, and lives to theories that are often presented as lifeless graphs and equations can prove to encourage typically uninterested students to pick up economics.
Duke claims that it has considered the health effects of tobacco consumption and the various groups that will be affected by this ban, yet such consideration must necessarily entail a more moderate approach.
