Appalling rules limiting freedom of speech on many college and university campuses have gotten so out of hand that Congress recently held a hearing to allow those dedicated to freedom of speech to share their stories, views and possible solutions to this ongoing problem.
The hearing highlighted the fact that there is in fact a serious free speech problem in educational institutions throughout the United States. In fact, many students and faculty members have had to take colleges and universities to court in order to exercise their First Amendment Rights on campus.
Witnesses called by the Congressional committee told harrowing tales of harassment and threats resulting from their attempts to exercise free speech that the college or university in question simply didn’t like.
Bret Weinstein, a liberal former professor at Evergreen State College, was forced out of his job when he publicly disagreed with campus activists planning a day when no white students would be allowed to attend classes. He notes that many African-American and other minority students agreed with his stance, yet all were shouted down by an angry mob that refused to listen to anything they had to say.
Tyson Langhofer, the senior counsel and director for the Center for Academic Freedom at the Alliance Defending Freedom, told stories of successful lawsuits filed against educational institutions that denied students their right to speak publicly on topics that the institution deemed to be politically incorrect. In one instance, three students were arrested simply for handing out copies of the United States Constitution outside a designated “Free Speech” zone.
Another university was successfully sued for ordering a student club to pay an additional security fee for inviting a conservative guest speaker onto the campus. Liberal professor Allison Stanger of Middlebury College told how she was injured by enraged students as she attempted to moderate a question and answer session with well-known libertarian author Charles Murray.
Not all panelists called in by Congress agreed with the need to protect free speech. Professor Shaun Harper, founder and executive director of USC’s Race and Equity Center, tried to make the case that students should be able to protest against people whom they think are bringing hateful and poisonous messages into their community. However, members of Congress clearly disagreed with his stance, noting that many universities that seek to block freedom of speech are funded by taxpayers and therefore belong to everyone, not a certain set of college or university administrators.
While there were no conclusive conclusions from the hearing, a number of proposals were set out by members of Congress who were rightfully concerned about the inability of students and faculty members to exercise their freedom of speech at educational institutions.
One proposal was to deprive public universities of public funds if the university in question failed to show political parity in selecting guest speakers and hiring professors. Panelists who testified in front of Congress urged lawmakers to hold college administrators accountable for any denial of First Amendment Rights, stating that those who side with students and faculty members restricting free speech should be called in and forced to defend the reasons for their policies.
Unfortunately, college and university restrictions on freedom of speech are pervasive throughout the United States. While educational institutions in liberal states tend to generate the most news, even educational institutions in conservative states have often violated students’ First Amendment rights by forcing them to adhere to unclear guidelines. For example, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education recently found notable universities in Texas were issuing dubious guidelines restricting the types of content a student could access online.
While Congress may not have a conclusive solution to the lack of free speech in educational institutions for the foreseeable future, students, their families and faculty members can count on the support of a growing number of people who are beginning to see that all speech must be protected if free speech is to exist in the country at all.
~ Liberty Planet
