Rhetoric or reality in discussing free speech

This month, CBS News released a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll focused on Americans’ views regarding freedom of speech. Many questions were asked, yet one in particular is worth analyzing: should colleges concentrate more on fostering diverse points of view or a place where students feel safe? According to those polls, 70 percent of Americans believe in the former, and such a response places them in good company. This past December, President Obama publicly addressed colleges’ inclination to censor disagreeable speech. In an NPR interview, the President said, “What I don’t want is a situation in which particular points of view that are presented respectfully and reasonably are shut down, and we have seen that sometimes happen.” The President also instructed students to “feel free to disagree with somebody, but don’t try to just shut them up.” The original polling results strongly suggest that colleges should serve as a diverse marketplace of ideas, yet the responses also beget a more important question: does America’s rhetoric match its reality? And if not, then is how we conceive of free speech sometimes limiting?

A cursory search through recent news would suggest an answer to this question that would disappoint 70 percent of Americans, as well as President Obama. In this academic year alone, Georgetown Law School prohibited students from campaigning on campus for Bernie Sanders, and the South Carolina State Legislature cut over $69,000 in funding for two of its schools after they assigned LGBT themed reading for their incoming freshman. Several years ago, three students at Modesto Junior College were told by campus police that they could not distribute pocket-sized Constitutions outside of their student center. Quite clearly there has been a disconnect between our state of mind and our state of reality that should lead us to ask: whose speech is protected? Why this has occurred is difficult to answer, yet the disconnect itself should not be hard to remedy. Afterall, our campus is what we want it to be. A slight reminder of what we, as students, should stand for can result in major changes.

Upon closer analysis, the CBS poll is very misleading, as it implies that a university cannot foster both diversity of thought and student safety. As long as a campus is clear in how it defines each goal, they can be achieved simultaneously. Unconstitutional speech, in the form of true threats and intimidating statements, has been clearly defined by the Supreme Court. When speech crosses into this realm, it must be prohibited and condemned. For example, as this newspaper reported this past fall, students of color at the University of Missouri were met with death threats for speaking out against policies at their school; such threats must be condemned for crossing the line from being free expression to illegal intimidation. The definitions supplied by the Supreme Court are tailored to circumstances in which one’s safety is legitimately threatened, and in accordance with these definitions, we as students must accept the silencing of such speech.

By no means, however, does this censorship weaken the goal of diverse views, as any speech beyond these definitions’ scope must equally be accepted. This newspaper has previously stated that “free speech is an invaluable feature of civil society because of its capacity to challenge [perceptions that otherwise would not be tolerated]." In accordance with the above views, by its very nature, freedom of speech is designed to empower minority voices and opinions from majority censorship and the status quo. Those with power will always be interested in negating and limiting the speech of those without power, oppressed people living in a country that reads "power" without words like race or class or gender or sexuality. Free speech can only be truly free when we all speak a common language of truth in the face of power.

In a polemic against his Parliament, the famous writer John Milton said that institutions of higher education ought to be mansion houses of liberty. If the Tufts community were to settle for any lesser standard of free speech and student safety than what the Supreme Court has prescribed, we would simply be another ivory tower. We must strive instead to make free speech free for all and especially those for whom speech is truly stifled.