Our nation’s institutions of higher learning are supposed to be repositories of knowledge, enriched by the free flow of information and competition of ideas, but they are increasingly failing in this mission.
Our nation’s institutions of higher learning are supposed to be repositories of knowledge, enriched by the free flow of information and competition of ideas, but they are increasingly failing in this mission.
Sadly, college campuses, which tend to embrace liberal ideologies, including tolerance, oftentimes are among the most intolerant of opposing views, as evidenced by the imposition of speech codes and enforcement of “free speech zones,” which limit what can be said and where it can be expressed. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education notes it “has received an increasing number of reports that colleges and universities are inviting students to anonymously report offensive, yet constitutionally protected, speech to administrators and law enforcement through so-called ‘Bias Response Teams.’” More than 230 schools have formed such teams, which oftentimes operate under broad definitions of “bias,” and create “a chilling effect on campus expression,” FIRE reports.
Tensions have reached a boiling point on many campuses. A Cal State Fullerton instructor was suspended for allegedly striking a student from the College Republicans, who were staging a counterprotest of students rallying against President Donald Trump’s policies. And then there was the violent protest that forced the cancellation of controversial conservative speaker Milo Yiannopoulos’ planned event at UC Berkeley a few weeks ago.
There is a bit of a silver lining. About a week before the UC Berkeley riot, a rowdy crowd forced the cancellation of another Yiannopoulos talk at UC Davis. In response, interim Chancellor Ralph Hextor announced he is forming a work group of students, faculty and staff to recommend policies to ensure that even the most polemical speakers can have their voices heard on campus.
There is no place for speech codes and free speech zones on college campuses — or anywhere else. After all, as FIRE senior program officer Adam Steinbaugh wrote in a recent Washington Examiner column, “How will students be able to defend their rights in the legislature or the courts if debating them in the classroom is to be discouraged?”
— The Orange County Register