Free Speech on College Campuses
On Monday, March 21st, 2016, students at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, awoke to find the word “Trump” chalked on several sidewalks stretching across the 630 acre campus. Amidst a heated political climate, a group of politically-minded students had expressed their electoral sentiments through one of the mildest forms possible—sidewalk chalk. In response, a coalition of forty to fifty dissenting students began to protest on the Emory quad against the chalked expressions. They shouted about the pain they felt as a result of the temporary “Trump” chalk and about the attack they felt that such chalk was to a free and inclusive study environment. As they moved their protest into the main building on campus, they continued: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains” (Svrluga). What these students eventually appeared to be imploring from university officials was that the ability to chalk the expression of electoral stance contrary to their own political position be forbidden. The President of the University, James Wagner, soon issued statement supporting the protesters and clarifying that such aggressions were not backed by the University, neither in their content nor their ability to be expressed, chiefly because of on the University’s “commitment to respect, civility, and inclusion calls us to provide a safe environment that inspires and supports courageous inquiry.” (Wagner) Wagner proceeded to outline a number of steps the University was taking to prevent such expression in the future and to compensate for any harm caused by this political speech.
Such a chilling of speech as the silencing of “Trump” chalk attacks the most basic form of free speech—political speech. The very origins and central purposes of unfiltered free expression concern the voicing of political opinion, in order that no government or authority might overstep its boundaries or bar the freedoms of its people. Free speech, which not only checks authority, but constitutes an opportunity to pursue truth, is the single most important principle of a democratic society. A corollary and core element of such a democratic society, particularly in the modern world, is the operation of universities; for without education, there is no freedom. Indeed, a university that provides safe harbor for free expression has traditionally been a hallmark of a free society, and oftentimes a center for revolutionary thought and political protest. It is a pulpit for academia and to inhibit the speech of a university’s students is to severely cripple it. Unfortunately, however, the exercise of free speech and expression in universities within the United States has plummeted drastically; content-based discrimination against and prior restraint of student speech are not only undermining the basic philosophical purpose of a university, but also, in many instances, are violating the binding legal rights established for the American citizenry which are established by the United States Constitution and required to be upheld by the government not only of the United States but also of each individual state as well.
Universities across the nation have begun to create and enforce various speech codes and similar restrictions. These limitations purportedly seek to prohibit types of expression and content from so-called hate speech to so-called microagressions. Often, their rationale is rooted in a forced exterior diversity. The new banner of the speech-restricting universities is no longer truth, but inclusiveness. They force acceptance of ideas without challenging or even entertaining differing thought. The element of racial and ethnic diversity has taken such an important role on many campuses that it oftentimes supersedes the purpose of the classroom and the rights of the students. Yet the enforcement of speech regulation breaches the U.S. Constitution in two ways. First, in public universities, and in some private universities,[1] where students should enjoy the rights afforded them by law, both statutory and common, and by the Constitution, the employment of speech codes by universities severely transgresses the First Amendment. Second, when a student is charged with violating a university speech code, that student is oftentimes refused due process of law, a right granted to each citizen by the Fourteenth Amendment. For instance, the lack of such procedural fairness sometimes takes place in the form of no counsel being afforded to the student or having his or her defense against the charges highly restricted. A university’s violation of such laws and students’ constitutional rights constitutes not only a rupture of the legal system and, therefore, a wrong by its own nature, but also disrespect, if not rejection, of the human rights and freedoms which the laws protect.
Furthermore, the university has traditionally served as a sanctuary for thought and a haven for debate. The American campus has long been the epicenter of the nation’s most radical and controversial propositions, which may within a sound campus environment be formed into new ideas which revolutionize the world’s intellectual, legal, political, and economic landscape. To limit such an environment is of tremendous detriment to society as a whole. Indeed, reflected in prior restraint of speech content is a new set of American values: the glorification and protection of emotion and sentiment, particularly of minorities and women. These new ideologies take precedence over all other ideals—universities stop at nothing to force dissent and potential offense back into the mouths of their speakers. This compulsion has become the scourge of many campuses. Rather than offensive expressions being disproved by exchange of ideas, they are closeted to fester, never to be contested, let alone debunked and always to remain in the corner of some mind. The new ideals of inclusiveness and diversity have themselves conquered that which is true diversity: free speech and expression.
As a growing number of American universities, both public and private, have adopted some sort of speech code on their campuses, the content of student expression is being cabined both unjustly and illegally. On the campus of James Madison University, for example, student leaders for the 2016 freshman orientation received from the state-funded institution a seven-page speech guide to be followed during the introductory event. The guide forbade such phrases as “some of my best friends are,” “love the sinner hate the sin,” and “I know how you feel.” (Hardiman) This guide was supposedly aimed at preventing the “triggering”, or upsetting, of any oppressed group, at the cost of free speech. Such a guide exemplifies the extent to which universities will go—indeed, have already gone—to provide an environment in which no one is offended. Rather than emphasize to these student leaders the importance of introducing the incoming freshman to James Madison, or explaining campus life, or discussing classes, the university instead opted to distribute a seven-page guide to ensure that no students felt uncomfortable or upset in any way at any time throughout the orientation.
The restraint of speech by a public university raises one of the foremost issues with speech codes and regulations. State universities, James Madison among them, have allocated to them, on average, about 13% of a given state’s collected tax dollars[2] (McNichol). Furthermore, public universities are chartered by the government, and thus their employees are employees of that same government which was founded solely to serve its people. These universities are therefore institutions of the people as well as of the state. Therefore, they must act as governmental institutions, serving their citizens. Governmental institutions such as these must abide by the principles laid forth in the Constitution so that they might best serve their citizens and provide them their due freedoms. The free speech clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that “Congress shall pass no law [] abridging the freedom of speech.” Through landmark cases of the Supreme Court, this protection has come to apply to each State’s institutions as well as preventing all States’ governments and institutions from infringing upon the speech of any of their citizens by engaging in prior restraint of content. Therefore, state universities such as James Madison, as institutions of the governance of the United States, gravely contravene the Constitution and the ideals upon which its authority stands when they partake in such activity.
At James Madison and at all American universities upon whose campuses speech codes are enforced, there is also a violation of the philosophical purpose of a university through the implementation of prior restraint on speech. A university has an obligation to promote inquiry towards truth, and this obligation is the university’s primary duty. While universities should serve as marketplaces of ideas, and as fora for diversity of thought, they have in many instances so forced exterior diversity that they sacrifice free expression and thought to do so.
Socrates taught by a manner of cutting away at each viewpoint through debate and questioning, honing towards the truth. A university forum should work similarly. Dissent is expressed, questioned, debated, and, finally, proved to be a falsehood or a truth. Ideas must be expressed outwardly if they are ever to be disproved; and a university with free expression provides an ideal forum for an influx of differing thought, thus serving as a catalyst towards truth-seeking debate. What too often occurs on the modern campus is the antithesis of this purpose. Students cower away from debate and their own thoughts, fearing their impending punishment for something that might “officially” be deemed offensive. They face expulsion for their expression, a punishment for entertaining sentiment different than other students’ or the university’s own. Once convicted for engaging in “offensive” speech, they are estranged from the university community, and in the course of this estrangement are often denied any facet of due process of law or procedural fairness.
The failure to provide such due process of law to students who have been charged with violating a speech code is another legal and philosophical infraction by universities that enforce speech codes. Often at cost of expulsion, suspension, or other severe punishments, university students at public and private institutions alike are put on trial during which they are frequently denied due process of law or procedural fairness. As breaches of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendment at public universities, and a denial of basic human rights at both non-sectarian private and public institutions, such violations of procedural fairness further illuminate the abomination of campus speech restriction and its repercussions.
On January 13, 1993, an event occurred that married several of the issues at hand into a single case. A University of Pennsylvania freshman, Eden Jacobowitz, attempting to write an English paper in his dormitory, was on that particular night distracted by the noise of a rambunctious sorority party. Flustered, Jacobowitz shouted at the partying sorority members to quiet down, but to no avail. Finally, the frustrated student shouted, “Shut up, you water buffalo!” The sorority sisters, who were black, filed a complaint to the University and Jacobowitz was accused of racial harassment. The school and plaintiffs had apparently determined that because a water buffalo is a large dark animal, this comment of Jacobowitz was racially charged and offensive. For engaging in the use of such a description, the options presented to the young student were as follows: apologize, attend a racial sensitivity seminar, receive temporary dormitory probation, and temporarily have this event denoted on his school transcript, or partake in a trial conducted by the school. While Jacobowitz had offered multiple times to apologize to the offended students, he refused to comply with the other terms and was threatened with suspension or expulsion by the University of Pennsylvania. During this affair, Sheldon Hackney, the University president, presided as the central figure presiding over the processing of Jacobowitz’s case.
In the meantime, several linguists and other scholars came to Jacobowitz’s defense. Through their research and findings, they determined that the term “water buffalo” had never, any context, been deemed to be racist in any way. In fact, the water buffalo is native to Asia, particularly India; and it would therefore be an erroneous exaggeration to say that the term was uttered in racial derrogation African heritage of the sorority sisters. As Kenny Williams, prominent scholar of American Literature at Duke University remarked in an affidavit provided to Jacobowitz’s faculty advisor, Alan Charles Kors: “[T]he ability of some administrator…to introduce another racial term into the language [is disturbing]…this is the real racism. Issues of racism are too serious to be treated frivolously by administrators.” (Kors 16)
Williams, who himself is black, raises a valid and relevant point. To hyper-scrutinize each word of speech for potential racism actually demeans the cause of equality. Such excess can weaken, in many instances, the outcry against true racism, and cause actual prejudice, to remain alive and uncontested, as it is masked by a culture of politically correct oversensitivity.
Furthermore, the term beheyma, meaning “water buffalo” was known to be a Hebrew chiding, quite mild and evidently reflecting Jacobowitz’s devout Jewish upbringing. A commonly used term in Hebrew culture, it means rambunctious, annoying, or rowdy. Nevertheless, despite the non-existent relationship between the term “water buffalo” and African Americans, or just blacks in general, his utterance of the phrase was enough to put the innocent Jacobowitz on trial. The potentiality that this insult was a cultural expression of his own, however, was not sufficient to overcome the slight chance that his comment was racist towards blacks. Accordingly, the prosecution of Jacobowitz proceeded.
President Hackney was a driving force behind the reprimanding of Jacobowitz. He explained in a letter to the University of Pennsylvania’s newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvainian: “We will find means to ensure that such acts [as Jacobowitz’s] have important consequences…those who believe they can, with impunity, damage important members of our community have no place [here].” Contrastingly, on April 2nd, just two years prior, Hackney had issued a very different statement in a similar context, concerning a columnist at Penn who had written concerning the shooting of Ronald Reagan, “Too bad [Hinckley] missed…I hope [Reagan] dies.” In response to calls for disciplining action against the student columnist, Hackney responded “He has a right in our society, and especially on a university campus, to speak his mind, no matter how abhorrent his ideas” (Kors 23). Hackney had thus contradicted himself in a core matter of principle. Temporarily setting aside that his ideas concerning the prosecution of Jacobowitz were in their own right a violation of the purpose of a university, he had formerly, in a public setting, expressed a commitment to free expression in an academic environment and had steadfastly refused to scrutinize speech based on its content. Presented with a change in the content of the speech at issue, he, two years later, expressed a radically different and self-contradictory assessment of a student’s use of vocabulary.
Such contradiction epitomizes the current state of campus speech, the cabining of which conforms to a particular set of ideals perpetrated by certain students (and some faculty) in a number of institutions of higher education throughout America. The challenging of such ideals, whether it occurs accidentally, as in the case of Jacobowitz, or constitutes another students purposeful and deliberated dissent in pursuit of truth, often suffers a similar result: an unfair trial aimed at some sort of punishment, even as draconian as suspension or expulsion.
During the course of Jacobowitz’s trial, he was denied any sense of procedural fairness. With such considerable stakes, it would have been fitting to allow him, as a student, citizen, and human being to have legal counsel within the university’s equivalent of a courtroom and to present witnesses in his defense. In advance of the university proceedings, which promised “substantive justice [to] the University community” (Kors 33), Jacobowitz received calls from his intended witnesses telling him that at the university’s bidding they would no longer testify. Furthermore, the university informed Jacobowitz that he would not be allowed to have legal counsel at the testimony. As Kors, his faculty (but not legal) advocate, soon discovered, the University had also been withholding an extensive document recounting the entire event and proving Jacobowitz’s innocence, but after declaring the document confidential, the University never brought it forth throughout the entirety of the trial.
Such an abomination towards the ideals and purpose of a university exemplifies and illustrates today’s severely deteriorated campus environment. If a student trying to study may no longer express his frustration using a term from his own culture, do not the ideals of content-based speech codes to respect multiculturalism contradict their own purpose? To not even entertain certain thoughts or their expression is the greatest example of the very narrow-mindedness that these universities seek so dutifully to eradicate. As Cardinal Newman remarked in his magnum opus, The Idea of a University “a narrow mind is thought to be that which contains little knowledge and an enlarged one that which holds a great deal” (Newman 98).
The University of Chicago seems to have accurately identified and exemplarily combated the atrocity of content-based speech restriction on campus. Dean of Students Jay Ellison emphasized such sentiment in a portion of his letter to incoming freshman in the fall of 2016:
Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called “trigger-warnings,” we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual “safe spaces” where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.
Ellison proceeded to emphasize that true diversity comes through diverse thought, and therefore its resulting expression though speech. As dean, he recognized the essential purpose free speech serves for the students and for a campus environment, and enacted it therefore on his own campus. Ellison wanted his students to know that at the University of Chicago that they cannot cower from controversy or dissent, rather, that they should be prepared to defend their own viewpoints. The phrase intellectual safe space is an oxymoron. The reason Ellison’s letter so condemns these spaces is such: a safe space in which some thought may not be expressed is not an intellectual space. Likewise, an intellectual space is a space where students entertain all ideas—all dissent, regardless of the discomfort it might render, is debated towards truth.
Such truth-seeking through free speech is at the core of modern political and social philosophy. The Founding Fathers of the United States understood the philosophy of free expression, so much so that they placed its protection under the foremost amendment of the Constitution. “Congress shall make no law” the First Amendment states, “abridging the freedom of speech.” Throughout the country’s history, the states’ governments have established public institutions of higher education. Beginning with the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, States have provided a quality education funded by taxpayer dollars. With the noble goal of providing cheap higher education to the citizens of the States, such institutions have improved the standard of living in the United States since their inception. These public universities are and always have been tax-funded institutions of the government, and therefore, as with all other institutions of the government, must obey the binding legal principles of the United States Constitution. Yet, as progressively more universities, public among them, continue to engage in prior restraint of student speech, it is helpful if not necessary to examine more fully the law and principles that afford public university students the right to free expression.
In 1995, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Rosenberger vs. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. The factual background for the legal question at issue was that the University of Virginia had a Student Activities Fund (SAF) from which they allocated a certain amount of money to fund student activities. Ronald W. Rosenberger, a student at Virginia, had sought $5800 from the SAF for a campus Christian publication, Wide Awake: A Christian Perspective at the University of Virginia. . This particular student publication was denied funding based on the content it spread, while the University of Virginia continued to fund all secular activities and publications. The University, in refusing Wide Awake funds, essentially restricted their existence, for without the funds they could not create pamphlets for distribution. The Christian group petitioned with Rosenberger, and the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, meriting for them their desired portion of the SAF. Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, pinpointed the offenses of the University:
Vital First Amendment principles are at stake here. The first danger to liberty lies in granting the State the power to examine publications to determine whether or not they are based on some ultimate idea and if so for the State to classify them. The second, and corollary, danger is to speech from the chilling of individual thought and expression. That danger is especially real in the University setting, where the State acts against a background and tradition of thought and experiment that is at the center of our intellectual and philosophic tradition.
The primary placement of the First Amendment by the Founding Fathers reflects the primacy of its importance. Not only is this initial constitutional amendment a legal principle, by which the institutions of the government must abide, but it is also a philosophical and intellectual doctrine. The reason that the writers of the Constitution placed the freedom of expression and speech within the Constitution’s foremost amendment was because the issues at hand were of utmost importance. Free expression is the characteristic staple of a free society. Democracy itself hinges on the right of free speech. As Timothy Sandefur, a scholar and lawyer of the Goldwater Institute, comments “the First Amendment of the United States Constitution embodies the singular most important statute in Western Civilization” (Sandefur). It is imperative that this concept be realized in the understanding of the United States Constitution and its principles. Without the First Amendment, the remainder of laws and rights become subjected to indisputable government interpretation. The second danger of such a content restriction, as Kennedy so eloquently comments, disregards the rights and nature of the individual. To impose content-based discrimination of speech upon a group or individual, as the University of Virginia had done, is to demean their thoughts as inferior to those of the ruling governance. It is a singularly grave offense within the university setting, within which truth is sought; for officials of a state university to restrict speech content defeats the very purpose for which the State had founded and continues to maintain the university.
In 1973, in the case Papish vs. the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri, The Supreme Court reinstated into the University of Missouri a student who had been expelled from its graduate school of journalism. Barbara Susan Papish had published a newspaper with a front-page headline which declared “MOTHERFUCKER ACQUITTED”[3] and within which there was also a cartoon of policemen raping the Statue of Liberty and the Goddess of Justice. The court stated, in overturning the decision to expel Papish, as follows:
Since the First Amendment leaves no room for the operation of a dual standard in the academic community with respect to the content of speech, and because the state University's action here cannot be justified as a nondiscriminatory application of reasonable rules governing conduct, the judgments of the courts below must be reversed.
The very dual standard the court brings up is a core issue for university free expression. Lawrence H. Tribe, a scholar of Constitutional Law at Harvard, points out that “If the Constitution forces the government to allow people to march, speak, and write in favor of peace, brotherhood, and justice, then it must also allow them to advocate hatred, racism, and even genocide” (Kors 47). Many universities do not abide by this principle that Tribe discusses. Only some speech is protected, defeating the very purpose of free speech in a dual standard. Much akin to the dual standard of Sheldon Hackney in the early 90’s at University of Pennsylvania, the dual standard at all universities infects speech constraint on campus. Similarly, considering a non-legal perspective, a dual standard on student speech reflects rather evidently the agenda of a school, and while a non-sectarian private school may have a mission, it philosophically defeats the purpose of the university forum to eradicate dissent through prior restraint on student speech.
The Supreme Court thus reasonably overturned expulsion of Papish, basing their decision on the legal factors that bound the University of Missouri, as an institution of the government, by the Constitution and taking into consideration the philosophical purpose of a university in consideration, with the irrationality and illegality of the dual standard having been recognized, the University reinstated Barbara Papish to the school of journalism.
Among the greatest infractions against the First Amendment that public universities have committed in the past and continue to commit today concern the prior restraint of speech content. While such content-based punishment after the fact at public colleges remains an offense with regard to the Constitution, the prior restraint of speech on campus is even more egregious. In 1989, the University of Michigan created a speech code following a noticeable increase in racist and sexist sentiment on campus. A biopsychology student, John Doe[4], feared that some of his research and theories, which concerned biological-based differences between races and sexes, could possibly offend some students to the point of breaking University of Michigan’s speech code, which forbade “any behavior, verbal or physical, that stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, creed, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, handicap or Vietnam-era veteran status.” (Doe vs. University of Michigan) Judge Avern Cohn, a district judge in Michigan who ruled on the case, points out that “[i]t is firmly settled that under our Constitution the public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers” (Doe vs. University of Michigan). This point is pivotal not only to this particular case but to the general issue of university speech constraint. The offensiveness of a certain statement is by no means a valid criterion for forbidding its expression. This idea of offensiveness, however, serves as the only criterion for many modern universities to restrict a student’s speech. Such a jailing of speech is in essence exactly what the writers of the Constitution sought to eradicate. However, such a violation of speech is not only wrong because it breaches the Constitution. The First Amendment, while it makes such codes as the University of Michigan’s illegal, is not an absolute end. The First Amendment is important and was placed first among the amendments because of its importance to a free society. The philosophy of the Founding Fathers recognized that without free speech, nothing in a society is free. That society which cabins speech not only ceases to be a democracy, but also ceases to be a system of governance befitting of the free-willed human people.
Such principles of speech are equally applicable in a university community. “These principles [of free speech]” Cohn continued, “acquire a special significance in the University setting, where the free and unfettered interplay of competing views is essential to the institution's educational mission.” (Doe vs. University of Michigan) The competition of views is what truly diversifies the university community. There is no element of racial or ethnic integration which matches the diversity which results from free expression of ideas. Indeed, there is no purpose to racial or ethnic integration if the very people integrated may not speak on account of a university’s speech code. Furthermore, if those of an ethnic or racial minority are kept away from contesting viewpoints by a university code, they themselves receive no benefit from their time spent at that university. An allowance of all speech necessarily results in both the learning of the ethnic minority and majority; each university student learns by exposure to the ideas and defenses of all people. Freedom of speech and the principles of the First Amendment must not be sacrificed under any circumstances on account a social goal set by a university; such a sacrifice would defeat the very purpose it was enacted to serve.
The Doe vs. University of Michigan case substantiates the basis of many refutations of public university speech codes within court. Its overarching vagueness with regards to the First Amendment was a true constitutional breach, and the oft-cited case becomes more prevalent as an increasing number of universities adopt some sort of speech chilling regulation.
As cases such as Rosenberger’s, Papish’s, and Doe have become more and more widespread, it is essential to consider not only the legal factors that apply to the public colleges, but also the importance of a given university’s purpose. Free speech is an instrumental element to any free and progressive society, and is not limited in its importance to university campuses. To study the origins of societal free speech itself can elucidate why free speech is, more specifically, so valuable and vital to universities.
Sir Thomas More, in his April 18th address to King Henry VIII in 1523, petitioned for the first time in recorded history for free speech. He preludes his appeal by telling the King that in the current state of his rule, there is a great deal of thought that is withheld due to fear of displeasing the king; More calls the fear “reverent dread.”(More 241) Such reverent dread clouds the minds and thoughts of students in a speech-restricting environment. More concludes to the king:
“It may therefore please [you] to give all your commoners here assembled [permission] and allowance for every man freely, without fear of your dreaded displeasure, to speak his conscience and boldly declare his advice…[These words will] proceed nonetheless toward the profit of your realm and the honor of your royal person”
More, in this speech, speaks the very core principle of free expression. Regardless of the King’s opinion of the speech, the words will profit the kingdom, whether they are criticisms which the King takes heed of, or complements, which the King takes pride in and makes effort to improve further. More’s language captures the general result and intent of free campus speech. Although his discourse concerned a kingdom, each principle so described is equally applicable within the university forum. Every word spoken without restraint could be aimed at resulting in some good, be it true or a misconceived notion of good, and thus must be considered. Aristotle discusses in his Nicomachean Ethics that each human act is aimed at the result of some good. Although the performer of the act, or in this case, the speaker of the speech, may have a misconceived notion of what the good is, he may never arrive at the true conclusion should he not be afforded the opportunity to express his false sentiment and from there be disproved though debate. Each man’s speaking his conscience, as More words it, benefits society and would particularly benefit the campus in pursuit of a collective and well formed conscientious truth. Well-formed consciences, by their nature, tend towards truth are products of exercise and learning. Should a student not be allowed to exercise free speech or, for that matter, speak his conscience, it remains in its unchanged state, and the student leaves the university with no higher idea of or inclination towards the truth.
The ideal university serves as a marketplace of ideas. Rather than a forced comprehension and acceptance of racial or other similar types of diversity through speech codes, free speech on campus allows a wide variety of thought and expressions, therefore achieving true and beneficial diversity. Within the true marketplace of ideas, thought, no matter how abhorrent, has a right to be expressed. Indeed, abhorrent ideas, in theory, are defused quickly by exposure, and more controversial ideas or debatable topics are slowly pared away towards final truth. The hindrance to this paring lies in the over-sensitivity of many university students. Students coddled by speech codes have come to know that there are safe zones for them to bunker away from people who disagree with them. Ben Shapiro, a political commentator and former editor of Breitbart.com reasons rather satirically that “[s]ince everything offends someone, universities may soon resemble silent monasteries.”(Shapiro 51) It is a valid point that Shapiro makes. President of Dartmouth College, James Wright, accurately articulated the modernly prevalent university sentiment on free speech: “In a community such as ours, one that depends so much on mutual trust and respect, it is hard to understand why some want still to insist that their ‘right’ to do what they want trumps the rights, feelings, and considerations of others” (Shapiro 52). Wright’s comment that it is hard to understand is rather ironic. He himself speaks from a podium of a private university, Dartmouth College, because he has the ‘right’, as he calls it, to speak freely his mind. While the community of Dartmouth may in some way hinge on mutual trust and respect, this idea is far inferior and less important to a university community than free expression. If some university were to have perfective mutual trust and respect among students without exception, that university would in no way, by that factor, contribute to the society that permits its existence. In contrast, a university in which debate is embraced and truth sought would seemingly contribute far more to that same society.
When the emotions of one person take precedent over the established rights of another, the future of the modern American university is at stake. As Alan Charles Kors observes in his book The Shadow University[5], “the only disadvantaged person is the one reduced to silence.” (Kors 49) While the voices of proponents of speech restriction today are, rather ironically, clearly heard, those in opposition are silenced by the same speech codes which they oppose. Diversity and inclusiveness have become the new truths of the United States of America, and the methods through which they are sought thoroughly ignore the philosophy which originated their institution and current existence, let alone their current promotion. In order that the value of what advocates of diversity and inclusiveness propose might be realized, the opposing viewpoints must be debated to the point that they are proven wrong. In other words, free speech is more necessary for the promotion of equality than the constraint of speech. To simply eradicate the expression of the opposing opinion by speech code will not only leave the opposition yet to be disproved, but will also fail to convince the opposition of what those champions of equality believe to be truth.
In 1989, the University of Wisconsin-Madison adopted a code similar to The University of Michigan’s in the previously cited Doe case. The University Board of Regents in 1988 had initiated a program called “Design for Diversity” to promote the embrace of diversity on campus, which, similar to the University of Michigan case, followed an increase in racist and discriminatory sentiment and speech engaged by some students. After two fraternities on campus had held mock slave auctions for new members, Design for Diversity began to draft extensive “non-discriminatory conduct policies.” After the Board of Regents approved the “Policy and Guidelines on Racist and Discriminatory Conduct” it was widely implemented throughout the campus. This officially sanctioned undertaking forbade any speech meant to “[d]emean the race, sex, religion, color, creed, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry or age of the individual or individuals” as well as comments that “[c]reate an intimidating, hostile or demeaning environment for education, university-related work, or other university-authorized activity.” (UWM Post vs. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin system) The University of Wisconsin-Madison Post, the school newspaper, sued the Board of Regents after the policies had been utilized on nine occasions. The court ruled that the policies and speech code were too vague with respect to their applicability, and therefore held them to be unconstitutional.
One of the most critical aspects of the case concerned the discussion of so-called “fighting words”. A chief argument raised by the defendant was the invocation of the Supreme Court doctrine of “fighting words”. The defendant attempted to use it as sufficient legal sanctuary for preserving the speech code at issue. Although the court eventually rejected this argument, the principle of fighting words is worthy of further consideration. The 1942 landmark case, Chaplinsky vs. New Hampshire, had focused almost exclusively on such fighting words. A Jehovah’s Witness, Walter Chaplinsky had been yelling in the streets of Rochester, New York, and the town marshal had advised him not to cause a commotion. When Chaplinsky refused to stop and the marshal returned to quiet him, the activist called the marshal “a damned fascist” and “a God-damned racketeer.” He was arrested, and eventually convicted under New Hampshire’s Offensive Conduct Law. Soon after, he appealed his conviction all the way to the nation’s highest court based upon his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the arrest, however, listing as expressions not protected by the First Amendment “the lewd and obscene, [] the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words – those which, by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” (Chaplinsky vs. New Hampshire). While this rather broad definition of unprotected utterances might appear to be wholly applicable to and convenient in the case of justifying university speech restraint, the idea was carved away in the decades following the Chaplinsky decision. Seven years after the Chaplinsky decision, the Supreme Court honed the definition of “fighting words” in its decision in Terminiello vs. Chicago, [6] with the majority ruling in favor of the appellant, Terminiello, a preacher. Terminiello had been fined for violating the Chicago Breach of Peace Ordinance. In reversing his fine, the court stated that
[The] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech, though not absolute, is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment. (Terminiello vs. Chicago)
Subsequent to the Terminiello decision, the case of Cohen vs. California came before the Supreme Court in 1971, concerning a man who had worn a jacket stitched with the phrase “Fuck the Draft” into a criminal courtroom. The Court ruled that the jacket was not an example of “fighting words,” further empowering the speech of the people and whittling away at the uncut parameters and generalities of Chaplinsky. Finally, in the most permissive fighting words case yet, Gooding vs. Wilson, the court ruled in favor of Wilson, a Vietnam War Veteran who, while protesting, had shouted at a police officer, among many curses, that he would “choke [him] to death [and] cut [him] all to pieces.”
Gooding’s case was, in its leniency, definitive of the expansive domain of protections provided by the First Amendment. To see the court rule in Gooding’s favor clarified with no exception that the speech which many of today’s universities restrict does not qualify as fighting words. It also might be challenged that a university speech code prohibits obscenity. However, obscenity refers almost exclusively to sexually graphic language, and not in any way to epithets or curses.
As acknowledged by the majority ruling in Terminiello, the purpose of free speech under the United States governance is to invite dispute. Similarly, within a University, dispute must be invited. Dispute is at the very core of a university. Though the words of some might light flame to anger or hard emotion in others, they are not constrainable by Supreme Court ruling. These words, unless they start a violent riot, do not constitute fighting words. Unless they are graphically sexual, they are not obscene. The words, particularly if spoken are most likely not libel. These words do not meet the criteria of the Court to be forbidden. They are indeed protected speech, speech which must be defended unyieldingly and necessarily by the First Amendment.
Among the violations against free speech on America’s campuses, First Amendment violation constitutes, in accordance with the philosophical and natural rights violation of the constraining of free speech, the foremost offense of college speech codes. In accordance with First Amendment violation, the enforcement of speech codes often is accompanied by a lack of due process, as in the “Water Buffalo Affair”. The Fourteenth Amendment states that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” As with the First Amendment, this amendment is founded on basic principles of natural human right. Each person, as a citizen within the domain of the ruling governance necessarily must be afforded the right to a fair and just ruling of law, if the government aims to be an effective and moral institution. Such was the reasoning for the institution of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the Supreme Court case of Goss vs. Lopez, it was ruled that high school students are owed due process in consideration of imposing suspension. It could be reasonably argued a fortiori that college students, not only as adults, but also as students of a higher level of education, enjoy at least the rights of a high school student. The court famously remarked during the case that students “do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door” (Goss vs. Lopez). If such a doctrine is applicable to minors and less advanced students, it is logical to infer that those same rights are applicable to college students. In this vein, Harvard Law School Professor Warren A. Seavy wrote a short essay entitled Dismissal of Students: “Due Process” in the Harvard Law Review, asserting:
Our sense of justice should be outraged by denial to students of normal safeguards. It is shocking that officials of a state institution, which can function properly only if our freedoms are preserved, should not understand the principles of fair play. It is equally shocking to find that a court supports them in denying to a student the protection given to a pickpocket.
This observation, made in 1957, considered a medical student who had been expelled for cheating with a complete absence of proof, basing the expulsion solely off a peer informant. It is equally, if not more, applicable to the speech crisis that faces the modern American university. The event that reasonably astounded Warren Seavy falls infinitely short of such a violation against procedural fairness as in the case of Eden Jacobowitz. Seavy further points out that schools and professors are fiduciaries to the students requiring them to act with the interests of the benefit for the student forefront in their minds, as they accomplish their primary purpose—the education of the student.
In 1961, Alabama State College[7] expelled for undisclosed reasons six students who had no prior criminal record and were in good standing with the college. However, it was presumed and later confirmed that their partaking in civil rights demonstrations was the true genesis for their dismissal. These six black students had attempted to be served in the lunchroom of a public courthouse in Alabama, and when they were denied service they remained in the lunchroom until police forced their departure. Alabama State College president, Harry Ayers, expelled the students with no prior notice or reasoning. The students challenged the college’s actions claiming that they were owed due process of when undergoing dismissal procedures. Brought before the Supreme Court in the landmark case of Dixon vs. Alabama State Board of Education, the dispute clarified on a national level the importance of due process for students, even if potentially problematic and difficult for educational institutions to effect:
[P]ublicity and disturbance of college activities [] might be detrimental to the college's educational atmosphere and impractical to carry out. Nevertheless, the rudiments of an adversary proceeding may be preserved without encroaching upon the interests of the college. In the instant case, the student should be given the names of the witnesses against him and an oral or written report on the facts to which each witness testifies. He should also be given the opportunity to present to the Board, or at least to an administrative official of the college, his own defense against the charges and to produce either oral testimony or written affidavits of witnesses in his behalf. If the hearing is not before the Board directly, the results and findings of the hearing should be presented in a report open to the student's inspection. If these rudimentary elements of fair play are followed in a case of misconduct of this particular type, we feel that the requirements of due process of law will have been fulfilled.
In this excerpt from Dixon, the Court compellingly explained its resolution of the case. This ruling, applicable by law to and binding upon all state universities also makes for a logical basis for private universities should provide similar due process for students. The provision of due process recognizes the human right of each student and provides the opportunity to bring a good and just conclusion to whatever the issue at hand might be.
Despite the outright wrongs that university speech restraint causes, it is imperative to consider the reasons that some propone such constriction. A primary argument hinges upon the idea that debate does not move towards truth in modern society; rather, debate is meant to inflict and to impose harassment and unwanted opinion. As the results of such programs as Affirmative Action manifest themselves and the general racial integration of modern society occurs, an arrival of cultures, races, and ethnicities floods the modern campus. Such an influx creates the potentiality of tension and argument; students of not only different races but entirely different cultures and upbringings unavoidably clash. While one possible solution is to allow students to discuss points of disagreement, another is to completely eradicate by statute any speech that offends or contends the perspectives of others, particularly minorities. The issue at hand is this eradication. Nevertheless, many in the academic community hold the belief that debate does not accomplish much, particularly in areas of racial offense. The dean of Yale Law School, Robert C. Post, is outspoken on this issue, asserting that “Public debate fails to achieve [] enlightenment because the pervasive racism of American society devalues and stigmatizes minority contributions to this debate.”(Post 307) In essence, what Post holds is that debate fails to disprove racism, and, the best way to cease racism is indeed to forbid it in any form. Insofar as the majority of enrolled university students in the country are white persons[8] (NCES), Post concludes that such an outnumbering necessarily demeans minority contribution and renders it ineffective. Racist expression, in his mind, actually takes away significantly from the nature of an academic environment. It deters or “is contrary to particular educational values that specific colleges or universities seek to instill.” (Post 277) As implied, the university, it is believed, has in many instances a duty to educate a student on moral code and acceptable conduct. For many years prior to the 1960’s[9], the university was supposedly viewed as acting in loco parentis for the students whom it taught.
Although almost every college student is a legal adult, Post’s argument necessitates that a university may act as a guardian or parent of sorts if they desire to push some set of values or ideals. He advocates speech codes— one form in which speech may be kept in alignment with the university aims— because, in his own words, “these rules are plainly not designed to regulate specific forms of behavior or expression, but rather to encompass and to forbid all exterior ‘signs’ of an interior frame of mind.” (Post 269) In order to eradicate a racist or any other mindset of hatred, it must be forbidden in its expression, that it might simply disappear. Post proceeds that racist and hate speech on campus may be attributed to the racist history of the United States and a continually racist culture. He believes such speech not to be public dialogue, but rather offensive and purposeless, if not derogatory, banter. (Post 307) Post’s position thus advocates that codes and constraints of student expression are absolutely necessary on campus.
Similarly proponing speech codes on campus, Eric Posner, a professor of law at the University of Chicago, recently wrote an online article for Slate.com on the subject of student free speech, asserting that “students are children. Not in terms of age, but in terms of maturity. Even in college, they must be protected like children while being prepared to be adults.” (Posner) He adds that such students are not able to handle debate, but rather must be taught as children, and not as adults. With this assessment of college-aged student maturity, Posner necessarily decides that these students, who are able to get married without parental consent,[10] vote, be drafted for the army,[11] go to prison for crime, and work full time are not mentally capable of handling speech that supports so-called hateful or offensive thought. This idea does not even consider that the content which is judged as hateful or offensive is based on a subjective standard of the respective university. Posner goes even further, however, claiming that the students who enter into the college know nothing, and that the classroom is no place for them to speak or defend their views.
Students who enter college know hardly anything at all—that’s why they need an education. Classroom teachers know students won’t learn anything if they blab on about their opinions. Teachers are dictators who carefully control what students say to one another [] And while professors sometimes believe there is pedagogical value in allowing students to express their political opinions in the context of some text, professors (or at least, good professors) carefully manipulate their students so that the discussion serves pedagogical ends.
In his article, Posner thoroughly argues that the university students are unfit to handle free speech and thus free speech must be eliminated on campus. Furthermore, he contends that as a result of their extreme immaturity, college students must be taught by the university the morals of philosophy and polictics. One of the most intuitive ideas Posner considers is that “the truth is that universities adopted [speech codes] because that’s what most students want. If students want to learn biology and art history in an environment where they needn’t worry about being offended…why shouldn’t they?” (Posner) This observation reasons that if the majority of students desire speech codes, then they can be enacted. Ironically, this seemingly democratic idea that he proposes would only be possible with students being allowed to express their opinions on speech codes through free speech.
In the opinions of both Post and Posner there are both fundamental errors and outright falsities. Post’s primary allegations are that debate often fails to achieve truth and that unwanted speech takes away from the nature of higher education. Even if these assertions were true, however, some authority would be granted the discernment of what speech is good and worthy of expression and what speech is bad and is deserving of restriction. Such discernment, placed upon a human authority, is subject to great fault; and, in a society where the truth is often perverted far from actuality, a refusal to allow students to speak views which may contrast those particular views of the university may be a restriction of the truth. Secondly, Post’s ideas directly oppose the famous quote from the Enlightenment philosopher, Voltaire, in which he said in a letter “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” (Jeanfreau). This attitude that Voltaire takes is essential to any prosperous university campus. The right to speak should be so cherished and so upheld that students possess it with the highest regard; Voltaire himself claimed to be willing to sacrifice his life for such a right. The restriction thus becomes even more frightening when one sees the value that free speech had in the mind of a great and revolutionary philosopher. Furthermore, speech codes are especially frightening at public institutions. A public university that engages in speech codes or has safe spaces promotes an ideology of speech. Such a school therefore becomes an institution of the government that abridges the speech of its citizens; and the government through the school expresses and promotes its own ideas and ideologies while forbidding those of its critics and citizens. Such an atrocity is a grave violation of the First Amendment and the principles upon which it was created. Although racist expression, an example (which Post uses) among other forms of prejudiced or distasteful expression, may detract from an academic environment, it is neither the duty of the state nor of any non-sectarian private institution to create such an ideal academic environment, if such creation necessitates that the rights of the people for whom the education exists are eradicated. In addition, while racism may detract from the environment or even injure students, the ability of students to learn to defend their views and to thoroughly disprove misconceptions of another is a positive effect for both themselves and society. Moreover, with respect to the claims of Eric Posner, college students are, quite plainly, not children. Persons who have the right to vote must be able to speak as to the rationale behind their choice of vote, and should be able to voice their political opinion without a content restraint. In the case of the “Trump” chalk at Emory University, restriction of expression in this arena represents an attack on the most basic and pivotal type of free speech. The offended students seemed to use their right to free speech to oppose free speech at its very core. In refutation of Posner, it can hardly be convincingly denied that students entering a university do know some things; indeed, often know many things. The years of elementary and secondary schooling address the lack of knowledge to which Posner refers. By the time these students have become legal adults, they may join the university community to further their own learning and benefit that of others. And while a teacher may have authority over his class and a great deal of respect is owed to him, he or she is not the dictator discussed nor is he or she compass of thought. His or her ideas, although perhaps born from substantial study, are subject to scrutiny equally as much as a student’s ideas.
Any ideas of university students, catalyzed by the teaching of the professors as well as by the offerings of other students, constitute the very core of a university. John Stuart Mill, in his 1859 essay On Liberty employs the entirety of the second chapter to discuss free speech and debate. In a single section, he concisely identifies the relevancies for the advocacy of free speech in both public and non-sectarian private colleges by proponing free speech in the context of general society. Such an argument is equally applicable within a university:
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
This synthesis embodies the notion that free speech is the ideal vehicle for truth seeking. A student, or any person who holds and expresses an opinion, thoroughly discovers and investigates his own holdings in a debate. Even though, in accordance with the assertions of Post, debate in the moment may not achieve a full conversion to truth by all partakers, and although it can be used to inflict, when an opinion-holder dictates his or her view to another, and is deeply questioned on it, that opinion-holder fully discovers, or recognizes the absence of, his or her own principles. If the idea exposed is a falsehood, good debate serves as the initial instrument of conversion. One further learns and internalizes a held opinion by debating it, recognizes its weaknesses and strengths, and henceforth may scrutinize the weak point to discover the truth.
A singular exception to the philosophical breach of private universities who enact speech codes or restraint is present in religious or sectarian universities. When a student enrolls in a sectarian university, that student accepts that his education and truth-seeking is centered on a pre-established notion of truth, embodied in some religion. While at a secular university, the goal is to find truth, a religious university seeks to impart what it considers to be the truth to its students and through those students to the world. Therefore, it is not an unreasonable contention to say that a religious or religiously affiliated university might have some sort of restriction on heretical preaching or outright refutation of their known tenents. This is not to say, by any means, that a sectarian university must enforce a speech code. If the university wishes to allow dissent on campus, then such allowance is their prerogative and is, depending on the circumstances, perhaps a positive factor for that university forum. Such an option is best left to the discretion of the individual school. If a student attending such a sectarian or religious institution wishes to dissent the truth held by that university, and is prepared to argue and support his claim, the university may or may not allow him to do so. It would seem evident, nevertheless, that the university be able to reasonably explain their holding, and would have a number of students prepared to do so. Under that same concept, if such a university wishes to surpass all such statements contradicting their believed truth, and to focus solely on teaching that truth, they may indeed restrict the student from speaking his disagreement. Such a ruling is left solely to each individual university.
A discussion logically follows such ideas which considers those principles which must be in place for it to be permissible for a university to institute a speech code with philosophical soundness. If the university states a sole belief of truth as their own holding, then that university would seemingly be qualified to have a speech code if it so desired. Yet, most every secular university in the country declares an acceptance of all viewpoints without stating some singular idea as the chief ideology of the university. Therefore, these secular universities must fulfill their philosophical duty and announced commitment by allowing all speech, however absurd or abominable it may be.
In a 2015 interview with Cornel West and Robert George, two esteemed professors of Princeton University, Rick Warren, a renowned Protestant pastor, asked of the two, “Are there intolerable opinions?” and “How do we tolerate evil opinions?” (Warren). George responded by saying that he aligned his views with those of John Stuart Mill, and alleged that, particularly in a non-sectarian private university, there is a duty not only to tolerate opinions, but there is a duty to “be willing to listen to anybody who is willing to come into the university context and present reasons and arguments…even if [one] deeply oppose[s] the position being articulated.” (Warren) He then commented further on people with whom he disagrees, even those with “intolerable” opinions,[12] saying that “in the university context, in the context of truth-seeking, [they have] the right more than to say it, [they have] the right to have [one] listen and thoughtfully consider what [they have] to say. Our devotion to truth should be so powerful that we are willing to do that.” (Warren)
The devotion to truth and debate that Professor George references is the very axis of learning, and hence the axis of institutions of learning. Yet sentiments such as George’s among professors and academics have declined in the modern era. Jason Killheffer of Yale University states that “If your freedom of expression impacts other people’s ability to engage actively in the community, to engage in their education or really take full advantage of everything that the university has to offer, then that’s when things cross that line” (Killheffer). In this way, Killheffer mimes the views of Post, Posner, and Wright, among others, who wish to cabin, if not eliminate, free speech within universities.
Despite the current overcast climate for free speech on college campuses, elements of reform have begun to manifest themselves in increasingly prevalent instances. Such undertakings as Jay Ellison’s letter to University of Chicago freshman have begun to appear, and alliances and organizations have seen growing success in their redress of speech restrictive universities. In further example, on October 17th, 2016, Peter Salovey, President of Yale University, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal entitled “Yale Believes in Free Speech—and So Do I” in which he stated:
Far from discouraging free speech, events[13] at Yale last year triggered a rich and remarkable set of conversations and debates across our student organizations, classrooms and open campus forums. The Yale Daily News, the oldest daily student newspaper in the country, filled its pages and opinion columns with voices that diverged in every conceivable way. Faculty have spoken to all aspects of the relevant events and issues, as have alumni and staff. I cannot remember a greater display of free expression since I arrived at Yale as a graduate student in 1981.
He proceeded to emphasize that Yale has an unfailing commitment to free speech and recognizes free speech as definitive of a university and invaluable for the exchange of ideas. Articles like this have become more common as the small corner of the academic community that remains devoutly committed to free expression begins aright the majority in the oft-strayed world of academia.
This corner remains, however, the minority; and, in order that the chilling of campus speech stop, it is imperative to rebuke the transgression of campus speech restraint. Such restraint will cripple the United States of America if it is not halted. Often a violation of the Constitution, and more importantly defeating the purpose of the secular university itself, speech restraint poisons the American university. The complete eradication of this atrocity is essential for academia.
Because universities serve to educate the American populace, and are instrumental in the thriving of the United States and the world, and they must seek and, through debate, discover the Truth not only for the benefit of their students but also for the benefit of the world their students set out to lead. The world is indeed led by many who were educated in the American university system; when that system falters the world suffers. Timothy Sandefur, lawyer and scholar of the Goldwater Institute, observes that if the United States does not uphold free speech, no other country or entity will, and it will be terminated entirely. Therefore, it must be upheld in the United States’ institutions of higher learning; for if those who might make best use of free speech condemn it, not only universities but speech itself stands at risk as the basis of Western philosophy. The barring of speech implicates the genesis of the destruction of such philosophy, an area which has promoted the success of the Western world for centuries.
The annihilation of speech constraint is therefore the duty of both academia and of the citizens of the United States. This end must be achieved if the United States wishes to restore its universities to the pedestal of study and criticism upon which they might stand. With the restoration of free speech, America will come to flourish driven by fierce inquiry and truth-seeking, centered in its own universities.
[1] Depending on the individual state, some private university students may have their right to free speech established by a clause within that state’s constitution
[2] This was based on a 2012 report
[3] This headline referred to a member of the anarchist affinity group, “Up Against the Wall, Motherfuckers,” which was based in New York City
[4] The student wished to remain anonymous for the case and was thus referred to as “John Doe” when referenced within the ruling
[5] Harvey A. Silvergate co-wrote the book with Kors.
[6] This case concerned a preacher who gave a heated speech to a large and rowdy crowd, in which he denounced several political and ethnic groups
[7] In 1961, Alabama State College was a racially segregated university for black students only
[8] This statistic is not necessarily proportionate to the ratio of whites to minorities in the country as a whole.
[9] In the 1960’s, there was a turn in the tide of university free speech, championed in particular by the rioters at the University of California Berkley who sought free speech on campus. These protests led to significant reform which is now eroding. Ironically, the far left who protested for such free speech now wishes for its cabining.
[10] In Nebraska and Mississippi, one must be twenty-one years of age to get married without parental consent
[11] Only males above the age of eighteen may be drafted to the army
[12] Professor George used the example of his colleague Peter Singer, a famous professor at Princeton, well-known for his promotion of such things as infanticide and bestiality. While George makes clear that he disagrees with Singer entirely, he has clarified that he would be “the first in line to oppose the eviction of Peter Singer from Princeton.”
[13] In 2015, Yale University witnessed several anti-expression demonstrations against such trivialities as Halloween costumes (Hartocollis).
