Is free speech fading at colleges? Some defenders think so
In campus clashes from California to Vermont, many defenders of the First Amendment say they see signs that free speech, once a bedrock value in academia, is losing ground as a priority at U.S. colleges.
As protests have derailed speeches by controversial figures, including an event with Ann Coulter last month at the University of California, Berkeley, some fear students have come to see the right to free expression less as an enshrined measure of protection for all voices and more as a political weapon used against them by provocateurs.
“I think minority groups and those who feel alienated are especially skeptical about free speech these days,” said Jeffrey Herbst, leader of the Newseum, a Washington group that defends the First Amendment. “But the powerful can get their message across any number of ways. It’s those who feel powerless or alienated who really benefit from enshrined rights.”
On Wednesday, students at the historically black Bethune-Cookman University in Florida tried to shout down a commencement address by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who said during her speech, “Let’s choose to hear one another out.” Students and alumni had previously petitioned to rescind her invitation, saying she doesn’t understand the importance of historically black schools.
While some cast the debate as a political battle, pitting protesters on the left against conservative speakers on the right, First Amendment advocates warn the line marking acceptable speech could slip if more college students adopt less-than-absolute views on free speech.
When UC Berkeley canceled Coulter’s April 27 speech amid threats of violence, it was only the latest example of a speaker with controversial views being blocked from talking. Since the beginning of 2016, nearly 30 campus speeches have been derailed amid controversy, according to the Foundation For Individual Rights In Education.
In many cases , speakers have been targeted for their views on race and sexual identity.
At Middlebury College in Vermont, author Charles Murray was shouted down by students who accused him of espousing racist views. An event featuring Milo Yiannopoulos at Berkeley was called off after protests over his views on race and transgender people turned violent.
In the past year, other speeches have been disrupted or canceled amid student protests at the University of Wisconsin, UC Davis, Brown University, New York University and DePaul University, among others.
Today’s students have developed a new understanding of free speech that doesn’t protect language seen as offensive to minorities or others thought to be disenfranchised, said Herbst, also a former president of Colgate University, a liberal arts school in Hamilton, N.Y. He sees it as a generational divide, a notion that’s supported by some polling data. A 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center, for example, found that 40 percent of people ages 18 to 34 supported government censorship of statements offensive to minorities. Only 24 percent of people ages 51 to 69 agreed.
The literary group PEN America has also warned free speech is being threatened at colleges.
As students and administrators strive to make campuses more hospitable to diverse student bodies, some have wrongly silenced speech that makes certain students feel uncomfortable, said Suzanne Nossel, the group’s director. “The university has dual imperatives. It has to be a place that is welcoming and open to students of all backgrounds, cognizant of the barriers that impede students from marginalized groups,” she said. “But that cannot and must not come at the expense of being an open environment for speech.”