The New York Analysis of Policy & Government examines the opposition to campus censorship in this two-part series.
The movement to oppose the harsh anti-free speech measures prevalent on American campuses has begun to gain traction.
Tom Lindsay, writing in Forbes, notes that “By now, everyone who’s been watching higher education knows that a growing number of American universities have jettisoned objective scholarship, open debate, and free speech in favor of advancing a left-wing political agenda. Having thrust themselves into the political fray, some of these schools may now begin paying the price for turning their institutions into ideological boot camps.”
Writing for the Philanthropy Round Table, Greg Lukianoff explains that “Freedom of expression is under serious threat on campuses, and has been for some time. You may have heard of the phenomenon of free speech zones at colleges. These are tiny areas, such as a 20-foot-wide gazebo, which students are told are the only places they can exercise their free speech rights. About a fifth of universities maintain such restrictions… Why are college administrators trampling on free expression? One reason is federal overreach. The U.S. Department of Education under the Obama administration…made things much worse. It provided a new definition of harassment that is completely stripped of the safeguards the U.S. Supreme Court had earlier put in place to protect freedom of speech. Instead of a standard of harassment being a pattern of discriminatory behavior that is ‘severe, persistent, and pervasive,’ the Department of Education bureaucrats decided to define harassment as any unwelcome verbal conduct or speech. And the department explicitly got rid of the longstanding ‘reasonable person’ standard, meaning that anyone who subjectively experienced ‘unwelcome’ speech has been harassed. That opens the door to miscarriages of justice.”
A Newseum white paper authored by the organization’s CEO Jeffrey Herbst found that “the real problem of free expression on college campuses is much deeper than episodic moments of censorship: With little comment, an alternate understanding of the First Amendment has emerged among young people that can be called ‘the right to non-offensive speech’…The crisis is not one of the very occasional speaker thrown off campus, however regrettable that is; rather, it is a generation that increasingly censors itself and others, largely silently but sometimes through active protest…”
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The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) maintains that “A culture of censorship has taken root and permeated universities, in part due to some students’ unfamiliarity or disinterest in their rights. A likely culprit, in my opinion, is deficient civic education in secondary schools across the nation. In the absence of engaging civics instruction and classroom debate, some students fail to grasp the content or significance of their First Amendment freedoms, allowing those rights to fall victim to restrictions on campus…”
The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal reports that “Student intolerance and opposition to free speech have been gaining momentum. What began as isolated incidents at the University of Missouri and Yale University in fall 2015 quickly spread to other universities, leading to individuals being targeted for simply expressing their opinions… The good news is that state legislators have taken notice. Across the country… proposals have been introduced that would protect free speech on public university campuses. They would abolish unconstitutional barriers to free expression that many universities have erected under the guise of inclusion and safety. The need for such protections is pressing. A 2015 survey conducted by Yale University’s William F. Buckley Jr. Program revealed that more than half of U.S. college students are in favor of their school having codes that regulate student and faculty speech. This new, illiberal campus culture is unhealthy for students and for higher education’s purpose—the search for truth. If there is no pushback against these irrational tactics of the Left, they will only encourage others to replace factual arguments with emotional tantrums, and to treat with contempt those who hold divergent views.
“But the problem runs deeper than students’ attitudes; riots, protests, and other activities designed to suppress non-conforming speech often are enabled by university policies. Many universities are unreliable protectors of the marketplace of ideas and even students’ most basic rights. A recent survey of 440 American universities indicates that nearly half of them have adopted policies that infringe on the First Amendment rights of students. Also, many schools are willing to fire dissenting employees and create “free speech zones” for the sake of maintaining their public image and avoiding controversy. And in some cases a double standard has been established, where controversial expression is tolerated so long as it has a ‘liberal’ slant.”
The Report concludes tomorrow.