School Must Test Ideas, Rehnquist Says : Education: Chief justice tells graduates that universities should not suppress unpopular views in an open marketplace.

WASHINGTON — Universities should not suppress unpopular views but instead expose students to the “marketplace of ideas,” Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said Saturday during a commencement speech at George Mason University.

“Ideas with which we disagree--so long as they remain ideas and not conduct which interferes with the rights of others--should be confronted with argument and persuasion, not suppression,” Rehnquist said, alluding to disputes on numerous college campuses over “politically correct speech.”

“In the traditional view, the university educates, but it does not indoctrinate; it increases your knowledge . . . but does not insist that you choose any particular point of view,” he said.

“On occasion, one senses that some universities today no longer fully accept this traditional point of view. One senses that for them there is an orthodoxy or sort of party line from which one departs at one’s peril.”

Rehnquist added: “At a public university, of course, free expression is protected by the United States Constitution and the constitution of the state where the university is located. . . . Constitutional cases arise only when the university abandons its own tradition of academic freedom.”

He said that individuals should decide for themselves, “stimulated by free discussion,” which ideas and viewpoints to adopt and which to reject.

“So you should be able to look back at your years at the university and feel that your horizons have been expanded, not merely because you have acquired new knowledge, but because you have been exposed to this marketplace of ideas,” he said.

Rehnquist urged the graduates not to define themselves by their careers and to guard against investing their time unwisely.

“Time is a wasting asset. Most of us realize this truth too late to avoid spending a lot of time unwisely,” the 68-year-old jurist said.

He added: “Another way to look at life is as a shopping mall--not the usual kind where goods are purchased with money, but one where items such as worldly success, love of music, a strong backhand, close relationships with your family, a few good friends and countless other things are on sale.

“The commodity with which they are purchased is not money, but time. And as we have seen, contrary to the capitalist system of money and goods, every one of us has exactly the same amount of time in each hour, in each day, in each year.

“Bear in mind this message from the older generation to your younger one: The most priceless asset that can be accumulated in the course of any life is time well spent,” Rehnquist said.