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Comment by spamizbad | Hacker News Reader

> And for private universities it's a big blow to the institution's reputations for all but the most objectionable speakers.

Numerous private universities (Christian schools in particular) enforce strict student code of conduct rules that severely limit the student body's freedom of expression as to way to enforce religious or secular compliance. And it doesn't hurt their reputation but instead is an integral component of the school's identity.

I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I'd argue that colleges and universities should have the right to police speech and expression: they should just be upfront about it. "Our house: our rules" as they say.

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Let me preface by saying I disagree with everything you say, but I still think you have the right to say it.

Universities are meant to be institutions of learning. Learning isn’t always comfortable. Some long held truths turn out to be wrong at some point. What we all think is true or right right now could completely reverse in a decade. Letting people speak especially when it’s against your morals is important for learning and understanding. Even if it’s bizarre and incoherent, if somebody believes it, we should try to understand why so that we can better educate those who were persuaded.

As an example of the rapid change in public thought and what’s acceptable, almost nobody publicly supported gay marriage a little over a decade ago. Saying you did would result in mockery, people questioning your sexual identity, people bringing up the religious history of America, etc. Now publicly opposing it is career suicide.

> Universities are meant to be institutions of learning.

They should be, but in this country they are essentially businesses now, and so will likely have the same institutions (TOS and so forth) accordingly.

I generally agree, but here's a concern I have:

The student body is going to have its own set of values, some of which may challenge the prevailing norms of society or the university itself. Should a university ignore, nurture, or challenge the views of its students? I feel like, as a student, you should be allowed to pick. Because depending on the issue, or the individual, the answer may change.

For example, at one time Gen-Xers and Millennials were significantly more tolerant of homosexuality than society overall (they still are, but society has largely come around). Did universities do them a disservice by either nurturing or ignoring these views, rather than intellectually challenging their pro-gay marriage views?

> The student body is going to have its own set of values, some of which may challenge the prevailing norms of society or the university itself. Should a university ignore, nurture, or challenge the views of its students? I feel like, as a student, you should be allowed to pick. Because depending on the issue, or the individual, the answer may change.

And what happens when students cease to challenge their own views? They become accustomed to a monoculture and become adverse to views other than their own. In time, the refusal to challenge their own views morphs into hostility towards those that dare challenge those views.

> For example, at one time Gen-Xers and Millennials were significantly more tolerant of homosexuality than society overall (they still are, but society has largely come around). Did universities do them a disservice by either nurturing or ignoring these views, rather than intellectually challenging their pro-gay marriage views?

It did them a service. By being force to challenge these views, these students were prompted to developed effective arguments to refute those challenges. This better equipped them to turn around and challenge the rest of society's views on these topics.

I think there’s a difference between challenging and shutting down. Challenging should be encouraged since it (at least theoretically) forces people to have a reasonable basis for their beliefs. Students who don’t want to be challenged and just want to be correct and shut down opposing thoughts shouldn’t really be called students. They’re not seeing to broaden their horizons. If they only want to learn about their speciality topic, that’s okay, but university isn’t really the place for that. Technical and speciality schools exist to focus on small fields of learning.

> Numerous private universities (Christian schools in particular) enforce strict student code of conduct rules that severely limit the student body's freedom of expression as to way to enforce religious or secular compliance. And it doesn't hurt their reputation but instead is an integral component of the school's identity.

Perhaps you're coming from a different cultural context than, but in my circles such universities absolutely are mocked and looked down upon. Some people don't even consider applicants from BYU, and other heavily religious universities because they don't want to reward such institutions.

> I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I'd argue that colleges and universities should have the right to police speech and expression: they should just be upfront about it. "Our house: our rules" as they say.

For public universities, the First Amendment legally obligates them otherwise. For private universities they already have the right to police speech and expression. It is, as you say, their house and their rules. They don't police (or rather they are very liberal in their policing) because freedom of speech and expression are central to an effective academy. Once universities start policing heavy-handedly, or on ideological grounds people start to doubt whether the ideas voiced are genuine or whether people are censoring themselves out of fear of retaliation from the institution. This cloud of doubt hangs overall the research published by that university, and the reputation of that university suffers considerably.

> Some people don't even consider applicants from BYU, and other heavily religious universities because they don't want to reward such institutions.

That's just religious discrimination cloaked in something less intolerable: academic elitism. HBCUs probably face a similar problem: should we abolish or enforce strict racial quotes on them because there are racists who will toss a resume with Howard University on it?

> For public universities, the First Amendment legally obligates them otherwise.

This is absolutely true. But to your broader point, that freedom of expression yields greater institutional cache: how do you explain the strong performance (and reputation) of private institutions vs. "state schools"?

> That's just religious discrimination cloaked in something less intolerable: academic elitism.

I don't necessarily agree with tossing such resumes in the garbage, but it is evidence that universities that enforce religious dogma on their students do suffer a hit to their reputation because of that.

> how do you explain the strong performance (and reputation) of private institutions vs. "state schools"?

Not every private school is Stanford, MIT, etc. Plenty of private schools are shitty for-profit enterprises (especially online universities) that essentially scam customers out of their money. Purely on the basis of return on investment many studies also conclude that public university is better than private universities.

Also most reputable private university do respect freedom of speech and expression to a similar degree as public universities. If you factor in the reactions of students, perhaps even better. When Berkeley hosted Milo Y students rioted, smashed up cars, etc. When Stanford hosted Dinesh D'Souza it was very tame with protesters being non-disruptive. Public universities aren't immune from going off the deep end regardless of constitutional protection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cMYfxOFBBM

Again, the private schools with good reputations do behave almost as if the First Amendment applied to them. The ones that don't generally aren't reputable. So your question is based on false premise.

I think the both of you are conflating a multitude of separate topics. Private schools tend to have strong reputations because of legacy reputations, and wealthy alumni funding. Freedom of speech is unlikely to be related. Berkeley and Stanford are both examples of very famous schools with distinct (and sometimes contrasting) cultures. They do not necessarily correlate to supporting/not supporting freedom of speech. (Berkeley was home to a Free Speech Movement in the 1960s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement) Aggressive protest is part of the Cal student body culture, and the behavior of students is not reflective of the actual college administration's actions restricting or upholding free speech.

The above commenter wrote:

> But to your broader point, that freedom of expression yields greater institutional cache: how do you explain the strong performance (and reputation) of private institutions vs. "state schools"?

as a way of insinuating that freedom expression is not important to institutional reputation because private schools (which aren't required to abide by the first amendment) are often very reputable, frequently moreso than public schools.

This is question loaded in false premises. Reputable private schools do support freedom of speech and expression to similar degrees as public schools. And not to mention, the claim that private schools are on aggregate better than public schools is likely untrue.

Banning religious schools is often discussed here in Sweden. It has nothing to do with discrimination. The question is if religion has any right to exist in education that society pay for, and if religious element during education is compatible with the many regulations that cover the education sector.

Education is not some kind of of enterprise free from regulations. The consequences of bad education is similar to bad health care. As I see it, let schools worry about education, political system deal with politics, legal system deal with enforcing the law, health system deal with health issues, and religious communities deal with religion. Trying to mix them together will only cause intolerance and tensions in society.

Sadly the people who mock students from private religious schools are also mocking students from historic black colleges or those who went to comminity college.

Next time you hear about this speak up and change the conversation.

Not the case, at least in my experience. I work in the San Francisco Bay Area. We recruit exclusively at Ives, the likes of Stanford, MIT, Georgia Tech, etc. and HBCUs and HWCUs. There's a big push to increase racial and gender diversity at least in this region. There's not much much diversity at religious colleges (>82% white, nowhere near the kind of representation we're looking for).

Before you try to diversity based on race you need to diversity more based on other factors and stop hiring from the same schools as everyone.

Who cares if you have x number from certain race groups if everyone is from the same monoculture. Why not try to hire the best from African schools.. that will give you race diversity more important cultural diversity.

While I am sure you are well intentioned in your efforts to increase diversity in the Bay Area, your comment makes me think the end result of your hiring policy is going to be diversity in everything but thought. That makes me sad.

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