The First Amendment and the College Campus

[JLB32168]

Recently there have been a large number of incidents on college campuses that are alleged to be free speech issues. Some examples are:

CSULA president William Covino announced he had unilaterally decided to cancel a speech by conservative author and political commentator Ben Shapiro, editor-at-large of the Breitbart News Network. Corvino called for it to be rescheduled when other speakers could also be present so that the speech would be “balanced.�

One committee member of the University of KA student council indicated that decreased funding to the Kansan over an editorial criticizing the results of a student government would be an opportunity for the paper to “fix their content� before returning the following year when they could seek a restoration of their funding. Another committee member indicated that the funding cut because some coverage “had been really problematic� because the student government was not asked for comment in connection with the editorial.

Georgetown law students were recently forbidden from campaigning on campus for Bernie Sanders as the election season began w/the Iowa caucuses.

In 2014, George Barnett’s then-fiancé—who was not a TU student—criticized two TU professors and a student in Facebook posts tagging Barnett or written directly to Barnett’s page. Susan Barrett, one of the professors mentioned in the posts, filed a complaint against Barnett, claiming he should be held responsible for Christopher Mangum, his then fiancé’s (now husband’s) posts.

In November, students at Yale called for the resignation of Associate Master of Silliman College Erika Christakis and her husband. She responded to an email from the school’s Intercultural Affairs Council asking students to be thoughtful about the cultural implications of their Halloween costumes by saying she was concerned about how policing students’ costumes could limit the exercise of imagination, free speech, and free expression since people had a right to be “a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive.�

My question asks if these examples are troublesome. I think they are. People have a right to be tacky, tasteless, and insensitive and downright offensive. By protecting their right to do that, I ensure my right to point out their tackiness, tastelessness, insensitivity, and gross offensiveness.

[Masamune]

Institutions of higher learning should be places where students are exposed to a wide variety of differing viewpoints. This strengthens one's critical thinking skills. Yet, I agree many times they are becoming either an echo chamber, or are becoming silent on anything controversial.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 1 by JLB32168]

This is one of those rare opportunities where I agree wholeheartedly with you, JLB.

[koko]

I always find it interesting that we see so many threads like this in online discussions since schools like Oral Roberts, Utah St, BYU, Bob Jones, Liberty and others have been closed to even the slightest form of dissent from their narrow mindedness for decades. But since we all now agree that disagreements should be tolerated, it is time for these schools to become more open minded.

[Divine Insight]

It seems to me that this is more of a legal issue than an issue that could be decided based on public opinion.

To begin with, if the college in question is a privately funded school then they can do anything they want in terms of who they allow to speak. Freedom of Speech doesn't mean that they need to HOST any particular speaker. That person is still FREE to speak out wherever they want to, just not at the expense of the time and resources of the private college.

Publicly funded colleges may have to allow for more freedom of speech, but then again maybe not. Just because a college is publicly funded doesn't mean that it needs to just allow anyone to use the public funds and resources as a stage to voice their views. Not allowing them to do so in no way violates their "Freedom of Speech". They would just need to find another venue to host their speech is all. It's not like they are being prevented by the law from speaking out.

If I call up a college and say that I would like to give a talk on their campus, they could turn me down for any reason they so choose.

I think the only place where it might be problematic is if the actual STUDENTS of the college were forbidden to speak on certain topics when they are being given the stage and mic. That could then be clearly seen as a restriction of freedom of speech. But I'm not even sure if that would necessarily apply at privately funded schools. A private school might be within legal rights to even dictate what topics the students can even speak on.

Also, aren't there laws against "Hate Speech"? I don't think we are totally free in the USA to actually say just anything we want. I think there are laws against hate speech and speech that is intended to incite hatred in the audience, or incite a mod to becoming violent.

I think there are limits to freedom of speech. I don't think freedom of speech means that a person can just say anything they want.

I do know that it is against the law to scream "Fire" in a theater or building when there is no fire. That's because this is intended to incite panic when there is no threat. And people could be harmed in a mad rush to get out of the building when there was no threat.

So there are definitely limits to freedom of speech, and rightfully so.