71 percent of top colleges still have policies that severely restrict speech | Hacker News Reader

71 percent of top colleges still have policies that severely restrict speech

reason.com

72 pointsJacobAldridge49 comments

This is pretty shocking as a Stanford grad student. Apparently several students sued the university 15 years ago (Corry v. Stanford University) and won. You can read response of the university president at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-provost/president/speeches...

The student desperately explained that it was an ordinary history book, not a racist tract, and that it in fact celebrated the defeat of the Klan in a 1924 street fight.

Just so you guys understand: This is the point of the speech codes (and similar laws in Europe [1]). It is very difficult to get people to make strident affirmations of their political allegiance...unless you start making threats, even if they are crazy threats. This pattern is common.

[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1241994/Businessman-...

> It is very difficult to get people to make strident affirmations of their political allegiance...unless you start making threats, even if they are crazy threats.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. How is this any different than McCarthyism? Aren't you just trying to publicly 'call people out' on something in an attempt to embarrass them or shame them (or get them arrested)?

Even in the story that you linked to, that guy's reputation will be sullied over being arrested for something that he didn't do, much the same as someone being accused/arrested for child rape/porn. Even if the person is innocent, people will always wonder, or know him/her as 'that guy/gal that was arrested for being a pedo.'

Newsflash: School Administrations Hotbeds of Misguided Authoritarianism

The title seems rather meaningless. Saying 71% of 'top colleges' where 'top colleges' has a rather fluid definition doesn't say very much.

<anal_retentive>

You should probably refer to them as 'universities' since from my experience people outside the US (specifically Canada, but I understand Australians and Europeans are the same) understand 'college' to refer to what Americans view as the 'community college.' When you say college they wouldn't understand you to be including MIT, CalTech, UCLA, etc under that term.

</anal_retentive>

It's a fair point (too late for me to change it) although as an Aussie I did understand what it meant. I felt the original title ("PC Never Died") was either vague or misleading, so went with a paraphrased quote from within the article ("71 percent of the 375 top colleges still have policies that severely restrict speech") that I thought summed up the content and relevance to HN.

No worries. The entire comment is a little anal (the last part being even moreso).

I think any Canadian with sufficient exposure to the Internet will get it, but here in Quebec we don't really use the words 'college' or 'community college'. I remember being a bit confused about its meaning at first.

I've come across people that were mildly confused. Even with non-trivial amounts of exposure to American language-isms/culture it's still possible to over-look the nuances. There are probably a lot of instances where the context doesn't allow the listener to make the distinction between whether the 'Canadian definition' or 'American definition' of the term is being used (unless you're really paying attention for that sort of thing; like if someone told you to pay attention to it).

Actually, in Australia, "College" is used in a few different ways, I think varying by state. Where I went to Uni, college was where you lived. This has been now changed to "residential hall" though it is still referred to colloquially as college.

In some states, College means the final two years of school (16-18 yr olds).

Since I graduated (3 years ago), my old university has substituted "college" for what used to be called "Faculty." I think previously they still used it as an alternative organizational structure (Faculty of Arts vs College of Fine Arts). Today it seems that The University is now divided into colleges divided into colleges, divided into faculties & schools divided into departments, more or less.

Basically, the term is a moving target down here.

Anyway, we know what americans mean because all of that wonderful TV that seems to be the number one Yankie export.

What I don't understand is the term "community college," other then the fact that is not as good. I'm not sure we have an equivalent. We have crap Universities, obviously, but it's a scale rather then a different creature altogether.

Apart from Universities there are TAFEs. These are pretty much "everything else" from 1 week OHS courses to multi-year diplomas similar to University courses, training for 15 year old apprentices and professional training for every class of profession. They are not bound to any particular format.

You have a point, but I suspect the tier of colleges below "the top" are just as bad if not worse. So the statement is probably fundamentally true.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I understand the case he's making in the article. But on the other hand, a private university is just that: private. If someone comes into my home or a small shop that I own and says something that I consider derogatory to my family members or employees, shouldn't I have the right to eject them? Shouldn't I have the right to fire an employee who is disrespectful to other employees? How is a private school any different?

It's not any different. It is hypocritical however, given that academia is premised upon 'academic freedom.' It's defense of tenure and the controversial statements of professors is based on the notion of academic freedom. Yet the same academic institutions turn around and severely restrict the means of their students to engage in free academic inquiry.

And, like the author of the article notes at the end, it is a civic-moral issue. Freedom is not an abstract concept, nor is it simply the absence of coercion. Freedom is a practice—a way of thinking about freedom that goes back to Tocqueville at the very least. Habituation is a very important part of the learning process, and if students are habituated into practices that are antithetical to a free society, we will be profoundly injuring the sustainability of our republic.

Simply because private institutions can restrict speech does not mean that they should.

Hmm,

Universities have traditionally had codes of conduct. They weren't invented by pot-smoking hippies.

Tenure is based on the idea that after working like a dog and reaching to top of your field, you should then get an unrestricted forum to express yourself - you've earned it.

The examples of someone being falsely accused and convicted of racial harassment don't prove that students should be able to shout racist and sexist slogans whenever they want. It shows that universities should correctly aply statutes against harassment in a reasonably limited fashion.

So, of course, universities should restrict some speech. They certainly go overboard in some cases but that's a different matter.

Well, no one should shout racist and sexist slogans whenever they want--inside academia or out. Nevertheless, people--inside academia and outside--should have the right to say controversial and offensive things, express themselves, and read the books they choose to. I am not clear why people outside of academia should enjoy broader freedom to speak their minds and read controversial books than people inside academia.

I entirely agree with you that behavior intended to disrupt or harass should not be tolerated, but the speech codes are clearly written with the intent to prevent certain types of speech, opinions, or political positions.

Most of the schools mentioned in the article are government schools: Purdue, Wisconsin, Cincinnatti, UConn, Texas A&M, Murray, Idaho, Delaware (probably more).

Also, most private schools get lots of money from the federal and state government.

Also, most private schools get lots of money from the federal and state government.

Just because you receive money from the government doesn't make you part of the government. Much of that is in research grants, as well.

Receiving money from the government does impose various governmental restrictions on you (e.g., Title IX).

It isn't so simple. There are a variety of institutions receiving money under a variety of contracts from "the government" (which, itself, encompasses a large variety of institutions). Not all impose the same restrictions.

The state school versus private school thing is a red herring.

Most public universities are run as trusts somewhat separated from the state governments that sponsor them.

Moreover, a state school pretty much has have policies equivalent to private universities.

Freedom of speech means the state doesn't go out and restrict what people say in their own property or in public areas. The constitution's Freedom Of Speech claus isn't a freedom of speech on government property as such; your speech is very much restricted inside a courtroom, for example and even Rush Limbaugh hasn't been dumb enough to challenge that one.

Elementary school students aren't accorded freedom of speech either. Perhaps they should be but that's not the kind of freedom Rush Limbaugh is after, I think.

Public universities are government agencies, and as such, must obey the constitution. Their funding comes (in part) from taxpayers, their employees get state employee pensions, etc. I would also demand that private universities which take government money respect constitutional limitations.

In any case, no one is demanding free speech inside a courtroom. Also, no one is demanding free speech inside a final exam. What is being demanded is free speech in government spaces of public accommodation. This means that the government can't restrict speech in the plaza in front of a courthouse, a national park, or a college quad (except in content-neutral ways).

Public universities are government agencies, and as such, must obey the constitution

IANAL, but I don't think this is true. For example, I imagine the second amendment is quite restricted on most campuses.

Public universities are government agencies

I'm pretty sure this is not true in the US. "State schools" (eg University of [state]) are private organizations that are chartered by the state, and partially funded by the government. So there is definitely a strong public link, but they're still private, and there is a big difference between a public university and (say) a public secondary school.

Not to disagree with your overall point; public funds should come along with some basic respect for the Bill of Rights.

As the other replies to you go plus:

... "Freedom Of Speech" merely means the government will not put judicial sanctions on the exercise of speech. As owner or employer, the government can limit speech as much any private individual can limit speech. Federal civil service employees are restricted in their political speech as a condition of their employment. This is utterly and absolutely constitutional.

Expelling a student from a public university for not obeying a code of conduct isn't putting any unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech since it isn't a judicial sanction. Again, the government puts all sorts of non-judicial limits on speech.

I agree that about the public accommodation part but that's a different issue - that's the issue of whether non-students will allowed to speak in semi-public places like Sproul Plaza. I think they should but I realize there's no constitutional basis for this.

Your unlimited freedom position seems to be asking whether a student should be able to shout "honky" or "niger" out their dorm window without being expelled from the university. I think they shouldn't be able to, they should be expelled. I think the university should have the authority to remove those who create an unpleasant environment and I think it should use it in a limited, appropriate way.

Of course universities should have codes of conduct, some part of those codes are going demand minimally respectful behavior. I boggles my mind that so many people want to grand-stand "freedom of speech" and "the constitution" only and specifically with regard to the "anti-PC" hobby-house.

No, the government can't limit speech in the same manner as a private individual. See Pickering vs Board of Education; it was not permissible to sanction Pickering (a teacher) for his speech (as a citizen) criticizing the Board of Ed. They could only sanction him if he criticized the board of ed while carrying out his teaching duties (which he didn't).

Similarly, if my students criticize me during class, I can say "shut up unless you want to talk about linear algebra." If they criticize me on ratemyprofessor.com or in the hallway, I'm out of luck.

Google, however, can fire their employees even for complaining about Marisa in a bar.

As for whether students should be permitted to shout "nigger" out their window, the answer should not change if they should "asslicker" out the window. The government can ban shouting out the window, they just can't ban shouting certain things but not others. They can even ban fighting words (shouting strong insults at a specific person) as long as they do so in an all-or-nothing manner (they can't ban "nigger" but not "asslicker").

Legally, I think you're right. Private universities should not be told what sort of speech they have to forbid or permit by the government.

That said, there are many forms of social pressure that may be brought to bear on a private organization - publishing articles at reason.com, for example. I'm all for putting pressure on universities and employers place unreasonable restrictions on free speech. Of course, everyone has a different interpretation of reasonable.

This isn't so cut and dry. How many rights do you expect to hold over people in your private store? I had a boss tell me that if he was paying me I had to do anything he said. If I didn't like that I had the "right" to quit. Fantastic. Imagine if every company worked like that.

This on top of the nonexistence of student rights in grade schools. Why do we think all students are murderers and race/sex/religionists?

This issue also bears similarity to airport security after 9/11. America's becoming an expert on inconveniencing the many based on the actions of a few.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines

Students in public schools have the right to free speech, so long as it doesn't interfere with the operations of the school.

No they don't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazelwood_v._Kuhlmeier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_v._Frederick

I consider these decisions disgusting, wrong, and anathema to the Constitution, but there you are.

> This on top of the nonexistence of student rights in grade schools.

I think this is mostly because in grade schools students aren't legally considered adults. If I was being really cynical, I could say that the only reason there aren't 'student rights' in grade schools is because grade-schoolers don't vote.

Minors don't necessarily have the full array of rights that people of majority age have. Schools for a very long time operated in loco parentis -- essentially possessing the same ability to restrict a minor's actions as a parent would have. The doctrine of in loco parentis has been mostly dismantled since the 1960s, but not wholly.

That a college would prosecute a student for reading a book is shocking. However most of the article is about colleges banning thing like "using any email message to insult or embarrass". This is not "severely restricting speech". It is just protecting students from bullying and harassment.

Sending an insulting email could be at disciplinary offence at work. It is reasonable not to allow them in colleges.

This kind of thinking terrifies me:

> Not content to limit speech, the program also informed resident assistants that “all whites are racists” and that it was the university’s job to heal them

But it doesn't terrify me for the reason it would terrify most people. Me, I'm pretty international, from what I know of genetics I'd actually prefer to have mixed blood and bi-cultural children.

So why am I terrified? Because this kind of nonsense is really the only way that a vicious white nationalism could make a comeback. It's been thoroughly beaten down, but you could generate a hell of a backlash if you kept up with this kind of "all whites are racist" (direct quote!) type stuff.

Really, I think we need to put all forms of nationalism down. White nationalism, yes, but also various fanatical patriotism, religious nationalism, and other forms of racial nationalism - including amongst minorities. This isn't a popular opinion right now, but I think encouraging people to make their skin color part of their identity is likely to lead to adversarial relations.

I understand the historical reasons and practical considerations on why it can be beneficial. But at some point you've got to take the high road and stop playing that card, lest you risk resurrecting white nationalism, which certainly wouldn't be a good thing.

At the very very least, cut out the "white people are the enemy" thing - the vast majority of educated whites in Western democracies are very open minded, accommodating, and even go a little out of their way to look out for people from tougher backgrounds. The only thing that could be done to screw that up is repeatedly ostracize them... which is exactly the strategy some people are taking. Seems like a very bad idea to me, on pretty much all levels.

There is nothing wrong with a group wanting to protect their language, culture and identity (what you label as XXX nationalism).

IMHO, it is naive for individuals to assume that someone else would protect/fight for their rights.

> (what you label as XXX nationalism)

Not my definition - I'm using "nationalism" to mean the belief that your group should be distinct/superior/excel more than other groups.

As an example - wishing to preserve and continue the Spanish literature tradition in Spain wasn't Spanish Nationalism. Prohibitions against teaching, learning, and using English under Francisco Franco was Spanish Nationalism. The former is good, the latter is bad.

> IMHO, it is naive for individuals to assume that someone else would protect/fight for their rights.

The Greeks used to fight like crazy amongst themselves, for instance, the Peloponnesian Wars. There was lots of bloodshed and destruction and waste. The Greeks had a nationalistic loyalty to their particular city-state. This ended when the Persians showed up, who were orders of magnitude less appealing to the Greeks, and that did away with a lot of inter-Greek warfare and nationalism.

I believe the same can be said of races and religions these days. Conflict between races is like conflict between the various Greek city-states: A damn waste. We've got bigger problems to solve, and can probably work on a better level than that.

Thinking that black people and white people, etc, etc can look after each other might sound now like the idea of Spartans and Athenians and Macedonians all on the same side. Crazy, but when it comes to pass, we'll be better off. I understand the purpose of the nationalism, but it's got to stop at some point if we want a better world. At the very least, enemy-centric nationalism where other groups are villainized needs to stop ASAP. Bad will come of it.

> The Greeks had a nationalistic loyalty to their particular city-state. This ended when the Persians showed up, who were orders of magnitude less appealing to the Greeks, and that did away with a lot of inter-Greek warfare and nationalism.

By replacing it with pan-Greek nationalism? The Greeks shared a lot of attributes (language, ideology, etc…). What you are railing against is “Geographic nationalism”. There is more to nationalism than that.

> I believe the same can be said of races and religions these days. Conflict between races is like conflict between the various Greek city-states: A damn waste.

The word “race” is a loaded word.

IMHO nationalism is not a waste. Each and every group should have the right to their own culture, religion, language and self-determination. As the UN Charter states:

> To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace

> All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development

> We've got bigger problems to solve, and can probably work on a better level than that.

To what end? Are problems really so big that the religious and cultural identities should be destroyed? Are our “problems” really bigger than a hundred years ago (when almost everyone died of Polio)?

I think that the common trend in many places is to replace culture with some Americanised version of culture and replace all native languages with English. I think this is a huge step backwards.

...it is naive for individuals to assume that someone else would protect/fight for their rights.

When you say "someone else" in this sentence, you have to mean someone different.

I disagree. I believe someone with a different skin color or a different culture would fight for me and protect my rights. It's a matter of the individuals and their values, not their cultural origins.

> When you say "someone else" in this sentence, you have to mean someone different.

I mean someone not part of the cultural, language or national grouping.

> I disagree. I believe someone with a different skin color or a different culture would fight for me and protect my rights

That may be a nice sentiment, but historically this has not happened (you also conflate skin colour with ethnic, cultural and language identity). Probably the best example where “other people” did not fight for a certain group’s rights is language rights.

In Eastern Europe, many Russians are finding their language and identity marginalised.

Tibet is another example where the majority does not protect the language, religious and cultural rights of a minority.

Other historic examples are the Basque in Spain, Pigmies in the DRC, Tamils in Sri Lanka, people of Chinese ancestry in Malaysia, Kurds in Turkey, etc…

There's an important distinction to be made here between public and private colleges. Can't private colleges, being private entities, restrict speech however they see fit, in the same way that your company can?

Since most private colleges receive large amounts of public funding, this distinction is blurred considerably.

Yes. And the article addresses that distinction. Public institutions are legally obligated and private colleges are morally obligated as well as presumably also motivated by a desire to not appear hypocritical.

Having just done a word search in the article after reading the article, I don't think the article claims that there is any such distinction. The author of the article, of course, advocates that students generally enjoy broad free speech rights on campus, and gives examples from many different colleges and universities (state-operated and privately operated) where those rights have been severely restricted. I don't think the article gives any comfort on a LEGAL basis that private universities can be substantially more restrictive than public universities in this regard. "And of the 13 legal challenges launched since 2003 against codes that FIRE has deemed unconstitutional, each and every one has been successful. Given the vast differences across judges and jurisdictions, a 13-0 winning streak is, to say the least, an accomplishment."

Yet FIRE has determined that 71 percent of the 375 top colleges still have policies that severely restrict speech. And the problem isn’t limited to campuses that are constitutionally bound to respect free expression. The overwhelming majority of universities, public and private, promise incoming students and professors academic freedom and free speech. When such schools turn around and attempt to limit those students’ and instructors’ speech, they reveal themselves as hypocrites, susceptible not only to rightful public ridicule but also to lawsuits based on their violations of contractual promises.

"Constitutionally bound" is not the only form of "legally required." To give the example of race discrimination in admission, the Supreme Court has HELD certain public university practices to be illegal under the fourteenth amendment, but it has also opined that the same practices are illegal for private universities under the federal statutes related to nondiscrimination by entities that receive federal funding. Just about all universities in the United States receive federal funding through channels that trigger federal statutory regulation. And, as the submitted article itself pointed out, any state legislature can regulate a private university in its territory (and the example of California regulating Stanford, a private university, was prominent in the article).

The OP (karzeem) inquired whether there is a distinction between public and private colleges with regard to their obligations not to inhibit free speech. The article addressed that.

You might argue that the acceptance of strings-attached public money bears on whether a private college is truly private, but this does not change the fact that a truly private college and a public one operate under different legal regimes regarding free speech.

I agree that they're morally obligated, but there's more than one step between "they're morally obligated" and "courts should enforce that moral obligation".

If colleges can be regulated in that way, then why not regulate corporations the same way? A company like Lockheed Martin probably gets a bigger percentage of its revenue from the U.S. government than any college.

This is what happens when we cede terrain to these idealistic and demented pressure groups, such as the feminists and the racialists.

Okay, I actually partially agree with you, but I also think I know why you're being downvoted and how you could comment a little differently so it doesn't happen.

I firmly dislike works-in-theory fails-in-world idealism. It's a terrible thing, it causes all sorts of hell and misery.

That said, you're probably getting downvoted because you didn't back up your claims to add to the conversation much, and generalized too much. There's sane feminists, and crazy radical feminists. Then, while "idealistic" conveys information, "demented" doesn't add anything. You'd be much better served just pointing out what the dementia specifically is, and dropping the word demented entirely as it's just mudslinging. So, I reckon if your comment had read more like:

"This is the end result of ceding terrain to people who are highly idealistic but don't care if their plans work in the real world and don't think about the secondary effects of their actions. For instance, take Radical Group XYZ (link to Wikipedia) - it sounds like a nice cause at first, but it's done a lot of damage." I think that comment would get upvoted quite a lot, as I agree with your general sentiment but slightly disagree with its presentation (I upvoted you though, you were -2 when I came along).

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