Steve Simpson, ARI’s director of Legal Studies, appeared on a new student-run video podcast to discuss recent attacks on free speech, the stifling atmosphere on college campuses and related issues in an hour-long interview.

“I did the interview with a couple of guys I met at the Ayn Rand Student Conference in Atlanta,” Simpson said. The video resides on a YouTube channel called “Objectivist Discussions” that’s run by two students: Tyler Ashby, who plans to attend Clackamas Community College in Oregon to study psychology, and Hayden Martz, who’s studying physics and electrical engineering at the University of Alabama, where he’s enrolled in the Computer-Based Honors Program.

“I started the podcast as a way of contributing to the Objectivist movement, by aiming to expand and improve the Objectivist community,” Ashby said. “Our goals are that Objectivists can enjoy our content, especially if they aren’t involved in the Objectivist community in other ways, and that non-Objectivists can be introduced to Ayn Rand’s ideas and the decent people who live by them.”

According to the channel’s description on YouTube, “In our ‘Objectivists Discuss’ series, various Objectivists have an intellectual and entertaining conversation, with a perspective inspired by Ayn Rand’s ideas. In our ‘Free Exchange of Ideas’ series, hosts of the podcast engage with individuals, usually non-Objectivists, to exchange and argue differing views within the open marketplace of ideas.”

“We have a lot of plans for the future,” Ashby said, “so our only challenge right now is building our audience and reaching more people.”