Free speech in the United States is defined by the Bill of Rights – the First Amendment to be exact. In case you need to see it again, here it is:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
One of the only circumstances that abridges this freedom of speech is yelling fire in a crowded theatre.
Free speech is not as clear on a college campus. There are multiple court cases that I will spare discussion of in this venue, but colleges in general are not protected by the same free speech rights as everywhere else. Most colleges try to maintain some sort of open forum in the name of fostering academic discussion and student development.
I bring this up because free speech has been a particularly volatile discussion on our campus this year. The first incident occurred in our "Free Expression Tunnel". The tunnel was created as a Public Works project in 1939 as part of FDR's new deal programs; it was opened to Free Expression in the 1960s as a response to graffiti around campus related to the Vietnam War. Over the years it has evolved into a BillBoard for all manner of writing including being painted by rival schools (video).
The problem arose when the night after the election of President Obama. Several students painted messages using offensive language and mentioning that someone should assassinate the president. Many students were upset when these images were found the next morning. The Secret Service was called to investigate the threat, per the law, and the images were quickly painted over.
Among the student affairs folks, an intense discussion began about how to handle this incident. Some wanted to make an example of the students, some wanted to brick up the tunnel to avoid any future painting, and some wanted to use it as a teachable moment. I'll be honest, I don't know that there is a consensus to this day on what course of action should have been taken. The students were disciplined internally, the images were painted over, and a series of discussions were held to promote campus healing.
The second incident I wanted to talk about was something that connected with me personally. I work with our campus activities board doing programming and for our last event of the year, the committee I work with will have a comedian who describes himself as an "equal opportunity offender". I have been told that certain people will be there to "monitor" the event in case there are offensive things being said; I'm not sure what their course of action will be if there is something offensive (there will be).
I found these events both interesting because I think they go back to a central question…how do we deal with free speech on campus? As student affairs folks, I think we all want people to enjoy their college experience, persist and graduate, and hopefully learn something while they're here.
I think I could nitpick some of the approaches I've seen, but I don't think it is our charge as student affairs folks to control the speech on campus. I think it is our charge to challenge and support our students in all things and to do everything we can to foster their learning and their retention. We should be the ones helping to foster the discussion and hope that our students learn how to deal with people saying offensive things rather than to try and stifle free speech.
One of the approaches that I loved came from one of our campus professionals. He suggested we tell our students to stand up when they think something is offensive and to speak out – be the one who's not afraid to paint over speech in the Free Expression Tunnel. Through doing this, we're educating our students about the right of free speech – people have the right to say offensive things, but we also have the right to speak up and say the right things. Hopefully, this approach will foster student learning and build the campus community that we all would like to have.
