Senate panel mulls free speech on college campuses

WASHINGTON — Free speech on college campuses attracted congressional attention on Tuesday as a Senate panel questioned students, academics and lawyers after the abrupt cancellation of several high-profile speeches from California to Texas.

Students and academics insisted the golden rule is for the speech to go on as long as violence can be prevented, dismissing the idea of intolerance.

The hearing came after a speech by conservative commentator Ann Coulter at the University of California at Berkeley was canceled amid fears of violent student protests. More recently, a commencement address by the No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, was canceled after opposition from students at a historically black university.

Eugene Volokh, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, said that a “heckler’s veto” should not be allowed.

“I think the answer is to make sure they don’t create a disturbance and to threaten them with punishment, meaningful punishment, if they do create a disturbance,” Volokh said.

“If thugs learn that all they need to do in order to suppress speech is to threaten violence, then there will be more such threats.”

The witnesses on Tuesday acknowledged that university officials at times have a difficult choice to make.

“These are always judgment calls that are made,” said Frederick M. Lawrence, secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. “I think the way to start with this is a strong presumption in favor of the speech.”

Republicans on the committee were overwhelmingly critical of the cancellations. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-iowa, said that on too many campuses, free speech appears to have been “sacrificed at the altar of political correctness.”

Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the tensions on college campuses reflect the growing political polarization in society.

Cohen said only in rare cases should universities cancel a speech.

“We fight speech that threatens our nation’s democratic values with speech that upholds them. It’s an obligation that university officials have and that everyone in public life, starting with the president, has as well,” Cohen said.