More campus lunacy
Once again, the campus environment is looking like some sort of Bizarro World where the First Amendment is bad, but anti-Semitism is OK.
First up is an aggrieved group at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville - that very same university where some students wanted a columnist expelled for expressing politically-incorrect thoughts. Now, various members of members from the Black Student Alliance, Black Law Student Association, and the Progressive Student Alliance are marching to condemn racism. A worthy cause, but contained in a list of goals that they provided for the university is a request that is in direct violation of the Constitution.
Some of the goals submitted to administration include...implementing a racist speech and conduct clause in the student handbook and adding a diversity and anti-racism class to the curriculum...Although the implementation of a hate-speech clause technically violates the First Amendment, [BLSA President] Conner and concerned students are looking at the law to see what can be done.
Here's a big hint, Mr. Connor. Nothing can be done. The First Amendment is the law of the land, and college students don't deserve to have their constitutional rights taken away just because they disagree with you. If the university does pass such a speech clause, it will be subject to the same bombardment of ridicule and lawsuits that other universities have endured. I'm glad to see that Instapundit has written about this. Hopefully, his blog entry will generate enough noise for UTK to realize what a mistake it would be to give in to these students' requests.
Update: The Instantman continues to be all over this story. Click here to read commentary on the negative press that UTK has already garnered.
Moving on, we have students across the country taking advantage of their right to free speech by condemning Israel, described as "one of the world's most multiethnic societies, is an open society with democratic institutions, freedom of religion, freedom of the press and an independent judiciary." You wouldn't think college students would have a problem with that sort of society, would you? But you'd be wrong:
A few months later, a pro-Palestinian rally on another university campus featured posters of soup cans depicted with drops of blood and dead babies, labeled "canned Palestinian children meat, slaughtered according to Jewish rites under American license," and posters reading "Zionism equals racism" and "Jews equal Nazis." No, this rally did not take place on a Middle East campus. It was at San Francisco State University on Holocaust Memorial Day in April under the guise of academic freedom and freedom of speech.
At Yale, a poster-board memorial to the 14 Israelis killed on a bus in a bomb attack in late October was torn and scattered across the lawn. At Indiana University, a pig's head was left at the door of the campus Hillel centre for Jewish students. At the University of Chicago, campus buildings and pro-Israel flyers were defaced with anti-Jewish graffiti. And the list goes on.
Are students free to hold such views? Yes, but while the author, Ms. Yacowar-Sweeney, does not call for the expulsion or suppression of such students, she unfortunately does ask that we "implement fair and clear speech codes on campus and penalize those who do not abide by them".
No, Ms. Yacowar-Sweeney, we shouldn't do that. Much as I empathize with victims of racism and anti-Semitism, I am of the belief that good speech always drives out bad. We do not change peoples' minds by illegally banning their speech. In fact, we cannot punish them for holding certain beliefs.
I understand the frustration. When Ms. Yacowar-Sweeney sees a college student holding a sign that reads, "Jews equal Nazis", she sees red, as do I. But we can't punish someone who holds up this sign on a campus. Despise, yes; ridicule, yes; make our own opposing signs, yes; punish, no. If they can be punished for holding signs that say, "Jews equal Nazis", I could be punished for holding signs saying, "Radical Islamics Support Terrorism". And I don't want someone taking away my right, or any student's right, to hold that sign.
Let me make it clear that I am not condoning the types of protest that fall into the category of depriving others of their right to speak, such as the abominable riot at Concordia University that blocked Benjamin Netanyahyu from speaking there, or the constant ruckus and disruption that seems to accompany every non-politically-correct campus speaker. I understand the distinction between "free speech" and inciting a riot, either via "fighting words" or by tossing rocks through windows. Vandalism and destroying property are not protecting by the First Amendment and should be punished regardless of whatever "sophisticated" political philosophy accompanies them.
But holding a politically-incorrect viewpoint, and expressing it, is protected for all Americans, even those on college campuses. After all, without this right, students who attended a speech by Hanan Ashrawi, a controversial Palestinian leader, would not have been guaranteed the right to peacefully voice their disagreement with her comments. The college speech code is a slippery slope. While only the most hateful speech may be punished with these codes today, what's the distinction, really, between a code that denies college students the right to make racial jokes and a code that denies them the right to make any commentary on race at all? There isn't any. Once colleges start on that path of denying others the right to hold viewpoints other than the politically-correct ones, there's no stopping.
What's more, we all know that "hate speech" codes are not fairly applied. Some groups are protected from hateful speech more than others. No white student is going to be able to go to the dean of his or her school to protest being called a name like "honky". No male student is really able to protest the anti-male rhetoric that comes out of many Women's Studies programs. Whatever group is judged to be "disadvantaged" or "oppressed" on campus is going to receive more protection than those who are not. So not only is Ms. Yacowar-Sweeney's call to implement anti-anti-Semitic speech codes wrong, such a speech code isn't ever going to happen, not while anti-Semitism is chic on college campuses. Speech codes are not about preventing hate so much as they are about robbing certain groups of the right to speak their minds.