Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee
Feds Propose National Speech Code
At many colleges, vaguely written speech and harassment codes grant vast, arbitrary powers to administrators, who often use them to quash free expression. Now the Obama administration plans to create a single, nationalized code that will constrict free speech on campuses nationwide, warns the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). On May 17 FIRE reported:
In a letter sent yesterday to the University of Montana that explicitly states that it is intended as âa blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country,â the Departments of Justice and Education have mandated a breathÂtakingly broad definition of sexual harassment that makes virtually every student in the United States a harasser while ignoring the First Amendment. The mandate applies to every college receiving federal fundingâvirtually every American institution of higher education nationwide, public or private.
FIRE notes that the fedsâ letter insists that âallegedly harassing expression need not even be offensive to an âobjectively reasonable person of the same gender in the same situationââif the listener takes offense to sexually related speech for any reason, no matter how irrationally or unreasonably, the speaker may be punished.â Such codes, FIRE points out, could be used to punish as harassment anything from innocent flirtation to âa debate about sexual morality, a discussion of gay marriage, or a classroom lecture on Vladimir Nabokovâs Lolita.â
FIRE president Greg Lukianoff said, âThe Departments of Education and Justice are out of control. Banning everyday speech on campus? Eliminating fundamental due process protections? . . . They even misquoted the Supreme Court. This cannot be allowed to continue.â
Pro-Lifers Silenced
On March 12, 2013, the Student Government Association (SGA) of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore voted to deny Voice for Life status as an official student organization, according to Lifenews. The SGA asserted that Voice for Lifeâs involvement in peaceful sidewalk protests outside abortion clinics violated the schoolâs âharassmentâ policies and that one website (the Center for Bio-Ethical Reformâs) linked to on the Voice for Life site was âoffensive.â In an e-mail an SGA official compared Voice for Life to a âracist hate group.â
It took âintense national pressure and a strongly worded letter from a pro-life legal group,â but on April 10 the SGAâs executive Judiciary Committee overruled the associationâs previous decision and granted Voice for Life the same rights as other student organizations. Voice for Life president Andrew Guernsey told Lifenews: âWe hope that our story of rising above discriminatory opposition can inspire pro-life students around the country to courageously take a stand for life at their own college campuses.â
Campus Chaplaincy Under Assault
At George Washington University in our nationâs capital, two students launched a campaign this spring to press the university to remove Catholic chaplain Greg Shaffer and cut off the chaplaincyâs university funding. Why? Because Reverend Shaffer reaffirms biblical teaching on marriage, sexuality, and the sanctity of life. Thatâs what you might, in saner times, expect a Catholic priest to do. But these studentsâand the schoolâs left-leaning student paper, The Hatchetâconsidered Shafferâs religious speech âtoo polarizingâ and wanted him silenced. According to The Hatchet, GWâs âvice provost for diversity and inclusionâ said her office was reviewing the Multicultural Student Services Center, which oversees religious life at the university.
When Catholics and consistent free-speech advocates rallied around the embattled priest, the two students who started the campaign claimed that they didnât want the priest fired but only wanted to determine whether Reverend Shafferâwith his restatement of traditional Christian teachingsâwas in âviolation of university anti-discrimination policies.â They also called for vetting of campus religious leaders to âbetter hold them accountable to university standards.â
Jesuits Try to Banish Knights
Not all Catholic priests are so hidebound as Reverend Shaffer. Jesuit-run Gonzaga University announced on March 7, 2013, that students could not form a Knights of Columbus chapter at the university because the Knights are âa menâs organization in which only Catholics may participate,â according to a letter obtained by the Cardinal Newman Society. Which strikes us as funny, since another âmenâs organization in which only Catholics may participateâ is the Society of Jesusâthe religious order that founded and still operates the college. It seems that the antidiscrimination regulations at Gonzaga apply only to student Âorganizationsânot to shrinking religious orders in control of multimillion-dollar college endowments and properties.
This decision provoked a nationwide uproar and alienated the Knightsâknown for their generous philanthropy and support of Catholic collegesâso it was not surprising when the universityâs president, Thayne McCulloh, quietly overturned the ban on the Knights. The faculty adviser for the Knights chapter at Gonzaga, Professor Eric Cunningham, told the Spokane Spokesman-Review that he heard of the decision only from reportersânot from any school official. âI donât get the sense the [universityâs] opinion of the club has changed any,â Cunningham said. âIt would be nice for the administration to say the [Knights of Columbus] exemplifies the values of Gonzaga.â The nature of Gonzagaâs âvalues,â it seems, is an open question.
At Elite Colleges, Environmentalists Quash Dissent
In the 1980s students led successful efforts to push their universities to divest from companies that did business with South Africa. (Other African dictatorships were left alone, as was the Soviet Union.) Now activists are trying to rouse the same moral dudgeon against . . . investment in fossil fuel companies. The most dramatic events so far have occurred at Swarthmore and Vassarâwhere anti-fossil-fuel activists have aggressively tried to silence and intimidate dissenting students and keep alternative voices off the campus.
Eyewitness (and Intercollegiate Review contributing editor) Danielle Charette reported in the Wall Street Journal that at an open meeting of Swarthmoreâs board on May 4, 2013, activists from the anti-fossil-fuel group Mountain Justice positioned âthemselves to grab the microphone and disrupt the proceedings. The chairman of the Board Investment Committee, Chris Niemczewski, was in the middle of delivering the opening PowerPoint presentation . . . when more than 100 student protesters burst into the room, waving signs and shouting.â Administrators present, including the collegeâs president, Rebecca Chopp, made no move to restore order. âOne of the student panelists grabbed the microphone out of turn and handed it to a line of protestors who delivered speeches,â Charette reported. The protestors demanded, and got, a day of campus-wide required âteach-ins,â at which they presented demands including âmaking courses in ethnic studies and gender and sexuality required for graduation,â Charette wrote.
At Vassar College, students from the schoolâs embattled Moderate, Independent, Conservative Alliance tried to answer the divestment movement by inviting a dissenting speaker, Alex Epstein, president of the Center for Industrial Progress. As Intercollegiate Review Online reported: âTwo students, Jeremy Bright and Will Serio, . . . did everything they could to stop the event, kill discussion on the issue, and silence their opposition, even going so far as to pay Epstein not to speak. Threats on Epsteinâs Facebook page ensued, and posters advertising the event on campus were stripped down. . . . At the event, nearly one-third of the audience . . . staged a pre-planned walkout,â totally disrupting an attempt at reasoned discourse.
Coming soon, to a campus near you . . .