I was surprised that this thread is still going, and I was also surprised to see my post quoted in the OP. I listened to the New York Times Review of Books podcast that interviewed the author and the tone from one of the authors, Jonathan Haidt, and it's very different than what I'd imagine Sam Harris is going at it... And it's very different than where this thread has gone. Haidt is a Social Psychology professor at NYU, a liberal, and I don't know if he'd reach the sort of conclusions that seem to immediately be drawn out as soon as someone like Sam Harris features your book on his show. But, then again, I don't listen to Sam Harris' podcast, go to his website, or any of that, I just know his reputation and have no interest in giving him any more ad revenue.
Here's a link to that NYT book review episode:
https://pca.st/8Sqq (begins at about 0:30:00) and also
the print review of this book with another one on a similar topic.
The case in the book as far as I can tell from the NYT Interview and the book review, is less the idea that "free speech is under attack" (though that is definitely the case of the other author, Lukianoff's organization, although FWIW, his organization isn't a right wing org though he may be... WHen I worked in college administration I was very familiar with it, but more so for its defense of the ACLU and what was considered, at the time, to be the "radical left wing" ... I worked at a college that ran afoul of FIRE for not hosting social activists on a particular issue). What I took away from the Haidt interview and the NYT book review wasn't that the books were advocating for the right wing or defending right wing speakers on campus (Although I'm sure that 'FIRE' would defend that today), but rather, that the consequence of colleges not challenging your preconcieved notions about something are precisely what allow for things like the radical alt-right to move into the White House. And the The_Donald is a great example of the rise of a safe space.
What both of these books make clear from a variety of angles is that if we are going to beat back the regressive populism, mendacity and hyperpolarization in which we are currently mired, we are going to need an educated citizenry fluent in a wise and universal liberalism. This liberalism will neither play down nor fetishize identity grievances, but look instead for a common and generous language to build on who we are more broadly, and to conceive more boldly what we might be able to accomplish in concert. Yet as the tenuousness of even our most noble and seemingly durable civil rights gains grows more apparent by the news cycle, we must also reckon with the possibility that a full healing may forever lie on the horizon. And so we will need citizens who are able to find ways to move on despite this, without letting their discomfort traumatize or consume them. If the American university is not the space to cultivate this strong and supple liberalism, then we are in deep and lasting trouble.
If the NYT book reviewer sees this book as a defense of liberal values in the face of something that is perhaps not liberal, then I'm inclined to think that's what the tone of the book is. Though, having not read it as it ... hasn't been out but for a couple days and having a million other books in front of it, I'm not sure if that is the true motive of the book.
One major annoyance of mine is how publishers are lack so much creativity that they just can't avoid referencing Allan Blooms 'The Closing of the American Mind,' in any book that challenges the conventional narrative of higher education.