\u201cI\u2019m making what might be the most dangerous film of my career \u2026 I\u2019m going back to school,\u201d Bienstock notes as the film commences.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The project started over a decade back. Her two kids were set to start university and she was concerned how they might fare in light of the fact that \u201cclashes over speech and identity had put universities in the crosshairs of a political backlash.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cleft-leaning\u201d Bienstock recalls in a phone interview undergoing protest times as a student at McGill several decades back, but she is quick to point out that there was a semblance of civility even in disagreement with others back then.<\/p>\n
Nor did Bienstock go to just one school for research purposes. She essentially embedded herself at about a dozen universities: Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Stanford, the liberal-arts school Evergreen State College and the University of Sussex in the U.K. She deliberately picked institutions where some of the most divisive ideological conflicts reshaping higher education were taking place. She tracked students, professors and administrators from all corners of the ideological spectrum. And she has emerged with a disturbing picture of polarization where every utterance can carry consequences with careers hanging in the balance.<\/p>\n
![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/speechless-evergreen-campus-protest-1-_302498445.jpg\")
Evergreen State College students protest a Patriot Prayer rally on their campus in a scene from the film Speechless. Ric Esther Bienstock \/ Good Soup Productions<\/p>\n
\u201cHow did we get here? Just asking that can get you cancelled,\u201d Bienstock says. \u201cWe spoke to hundreds of people, many off the record, and some were so petrified about losing their jobs or being cancelled \u2014 students, professors, administrators alike. Because if you didn\u2019t toe the line, you ran the risk of being vilified by friends or being socially ostracized. It was quite emotional. Many of them broke down into tears, because they had been living through such stress.\u201d She talks about a professor of anthropology who\u2019s digging up bones and who runs risks simply by trying to figure out first if the bones are male or female.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow gender is on the line, and professors became some sort of target in a gender war and most weren\u2019t trying to be political about it at all. There was a new sensitivity about certain things, but there\u2019s also a little bit of truth, too. And it\u2019s true that science has done some terrible things. What was worrying me was that this was curtailing peoples\u2019 ability to teach, to learn and to speak freely. Even\u00a0in trying to avoid any kind of controversy, there\u2019s no limit to what might offend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bienstock\u2019s mission was to listen to all points of view no matter how extreme. Regardless, she faced some hairy situations on campus where even she was considered suspect.<\/p>\n
Talk about lighting up a powder keg.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really was the most dangerous movie I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d Bienstock states. \u201cAnd it started off being dangerous for one reason and then it ended up being dangerous for reasons that I never could have anticipated.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very generational thing and (the issues) were not carried very much in mainstream media when I started this.\u00a0Though this was new to me trying to understand issues like safe spaces and trigger warnings and microaggressions back then, I was wondering how this was affecting education and our ability to talk across differences and to speak to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
The situation was volatile and fluid back then and remains even more so today. What started off as a probe into what constitutes free speech at universities and the halls of government morphed into gender-identity terrain and then into an overall battle for power exacerbated by events in the Middle East, which had turned some college campuses into war zones.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no idea the film was going to unfold in this way,\u201d she says. \u201cI was ready to end the film after dealing with the identity issues. But then the Hamas attack happened and everything changed again. I didn\u2019t want to litigate the war. The Middle East is very complicated, but what I did want to explore was the ideology that campuses have been infused with over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bienstock concedes the project has been quite the learning experience for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the beginning, what I was feeling and witnessing was vaguely uncomfortable, but I didn\u2019t totally understand it. It\u2019s just mind-boggling when you put it all into perspective. We had to expand the canon. And I\u2019m all for that as people fought for more representation. Those are all positive changes.\u201d<\/p>\n
But what was particularly troubling to her was dealing with the reality that too many refused to engage with those whose ideas offended them.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s precisely what Bienstock encountered. Essentially, that free speech is fine as long as it\u2019s their free speech not that of their adversaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut both sides do have something in common: using power to (silence) what they can\u2019t tolerate,\u201d Bienstock says.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone says this is a generational struggle, and it\u2019s true. But principles have to apply, otherwise we end up with a pendulum going back and forth. Where is the middle? Not everybody is out for a fight. Some students say they don\u2019t make comments in class. They keep their heads down. They need the degree, and that is literally antithetical to the reason for being in higher ed.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Bienstock believes there is hope:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to start talking to one another. Institutions need to revisit teaching students to engage in ideas they don\u2019t agree with. Most of us are in the middle who want and enjoy dialogue. That doesn\u2019t mean you insult people. But you have to be able to discuss things like race and gender.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember at a certain point I had a lot of colleagues saying: \u2018Why are you doing this film? It\u2019s a career-ender!\u2019 I would say it\u2019s about race, gender and the (Middle East) events of Oct. 7 and free speech. What could possibly go wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n