Free speech advocates applauded when the University of California, Berkeley settled a lawsuit with the Alliance Defending Freedom on July 5.
The ADF sued on behalf of students who attempted to form a chapter of Young Americans for Liberty on campus, only to be told that their group was “too similar to Cal Libertarians,” a group that holds similar views in support of limited-government and free markets. The settlement includes a provision that Berkeley will no longer deny or delay club recognition based on “purpose or uniqueness.”
Similar cases are being settled across country, but with hostility toward free speech deeply entrenched in campus culture, it will take more than lawsuits to cultivate free expression in higher education. Courts can force administrators to change oppressive speech codes, but they cannot change college culture surrounding speech because students have become a driving force behind campus censorship.
A 2018 survey by Gallup and the Knight Foundation revealed that 53 percent of students think that protecting diversity is more important than promoting free speech on college campuses. Furthermore, a 2017 study conducted by the Brookings Institution demonstrated that students fail to understand free speech. Only 39 percent of college students surveyed could accurately state that the Constitution protects hate speech, with 44 percent incorrectly claiming that it does not.
These numbers speak to a cultural trend in which activist students, who have historically been advocates for freedom of expression, are now campaigning for censorship in the name of inclusion. Rising demands for trigger warnings and outrage over “microaggressions” permeate college campuses with students leading the effort to create inclusive spaces at the expense of expression.
The sensitivity of this culture is tested when students must confront ideas with which they disagree. The aforementioned Brookings study indicated that 51 percent of students believe that it is acceptable for students to shout down a speaker, while 19 percent think it’s fine to use violence to silence speakers.
Such censorship forced liberal biology professor Bret Weinstein off of Evergreen State University’s campus in 2017. For decades, Evergreen students and faculty of color have met off campus on an annual “Day of Absence” to emphasize racial diversity. But, in 2017, rather than participants voluntarily leaving campus, white students and faculty were asked to remain off campus instead. Weinstein penned a letter expressing his discontent with this shift, arguing that the university should not ask one group to leave. When this letter was released, Weinstein was shouted down by protesters outside his classroom, forced to hold his class in a public park, and eventually left the university after threats of violence.
I was fortunate enough to meet Weinstein this year, through an organization called the Harvard College Open Campus Initiative, a group devoted to diversifying discourse and promoting speech on campus. When Weinstein visited, his story was all too familiar to pro-speech Harvard students like me.
In September of 2017, we hosted libertarian scholar Charles Murray. His event was met with crowds of protesters who waited outside, accusing him of being a white supremacist whose work was built on that of Nazi scientists. Though it may not have been their intention, this demonstration delayed the event, cutting the time remaining for questions and meaningful discourse at the end of the presentation in half. Rather than engage with Murray’s controversial opinions, students chose the easier route: attempting to silence them.
Murray is not an outlier, but an indicator of an arching trend of self-censorship on campus. Harvard students protested Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, interrupting her speech by holding large signs accusing her of “white supremacy” and raising their fists. It is not this legitimate exercise of a constitutional right to protest that is disconcerting, but rather the hostility towards opposing viewpoints that grounded it. Students resorted to character attacks before political discourse.
That same culture of hostility towards public figures with different perspectives extends to other students as well.
As the treasurer of the Harvard Network of Enlightened Women, a conservative women’s group, we carried out an event to promote free speech in which students could write anything they wanted on a large beach ball. While inviting people to write on the ball, I was confronted by other students for putting together the event, insulted for permitting “offensive” speech and not restricting the ball’s content. Even at Harvard, where controversy has raged for centuries, students have opted for sensitivity over speech.
The proliferation of First Amendment lawsuits across the country is an important step in advocating for campus speech, but it would be foolish to believe that codifying the right to free expression on campus is equivalent to securing it in practice. Allowing pro-speech organizations to exist on college campuses does not guarantee that the rights of those organizations will be protected, or that students will feel comfortable expressing their opinions.
Students should take up the mantle proposed at the end of John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty of Thought and Discussion,” in which he contends that all opinions, even those believed to be unequivocally wrong, must be heard, challenged, and vigorously debated, lest dogma prevent “the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.”
Pro-speech students need to lead by example. We cannot run from conflicting opinions or hurl insults at those with whom we disagree. We must embrace controversy, engage it, and stand up for our beliefs. In order to protect speech rights in higher education, students must do their part to change campus culture, rather than only fighting speech codes and oppressive policies.
