Heather McDonald: The Victim Mentality on College Campuses

Leftist Activist: Campus Free Speech is a “Luxury”

Restoring Campus Free Speech: The Impossible Dream?

University of Chicago political scientist Charles Lipson has some suggestions. But before he offers those, he outlines some of the outrageous intolerance he has seen.

“Safety,” as it happens, is a magic word on campus. It has its own special meaning, well beyond legitimate concerns about robbery, sexual assaults, and coercive threats. Some students have stretched the term to mean “I feel unsafe because I disagree with your ideas. So shut up. Right now.”

In this Bizarro World, you can feel unsafe if someone says fracking is a good idea, or that the Constitution protects gun purchases, or offer the opinion that employers should not have to provide free birth control. Crying “unsafe” is the campus equivalent of pulling the fire alarm—but with no sense of what a fire really is and no penalty for false alarms.

Okay, you say, it’s a free country and anybody can voice a complaint, justified or not. Surely, university administrators who receive silly complaints will gently explain that classrooms are supposed to challenge students, supposed to elicit spirited, informed debate, and occasionally prompt students to rethink their views and offer better reasons for them.

If you need to see a psychological counselor, we have them available. If you face any real dangers, tell us immediately, and we will help. Otherwise, do the assignment, develop your own views, buttress them with logic and evidence, and prepare to deal with alternative perspectives.

Oh, you naïve denizen of Earth.

Few administrators would even consider saying that. Today, dean-of-students offices are devoted to comforting delicate snowflakes and soothing their feelings. If that means stamping out others’ speech, too bad.

The deans are typically helped by small bureaucracies with Orwellian titles such as “the Office for Diversity and Inclusion.” The title is deceptive; these offices are ideologically driven. They are not about “including” Chinese-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Jews who support Israel, or evangelical Christians who may feel themselves beleaguered minorities on campus. The diversity police have zero interest in encouraging diverse viewpoints. Instead, they are university-sponsored advocates for approved minorities, approved viewpoints, and approved grievances. Full stop.

The rot has even spread to schools such as the University of Chicago, which has exemplary principles of free speech. Where Chicago slips—where many schools slip—is translating its worthy principles into practice. This year, for example, Palestinian activists disrupted two pro-Israel events on campus, with no consequences.

That’s standard fare across the country. An administrator, charged with protecting students, actually stopped both events after order had been restored. She simply announced the events were over, even though the student sponsors wanted them to continue. Instead of protecting free speech, she squashed it.

She was not alone. A couple of years ago, her colleagues twice admonished students for advertising ordinary debate topics, one on affirmative action, another on illegal immigration. A student had complained that black students were harmed by even discussing affirmative action. Another said Hispanics were injured simply by seeing the phrase “illegal immigration.”

University administrators duly summoned the debate leaders for “sensitivity discussions.” Remember, this is a debate society, these are prominent public issues, and this is a university, a place where ideas should be contested. No matter. After I complained to senior administrators, they actually defended the sensitivity grilling.

Just for fun, imagine a conservative student complaining about a debate titled “Resolved: We should encourage more undocumented immigration.” Is it remotely possible that administrators would summon the debate sponsors and tell them to be more sensitive to students who think illegal immigration is, well, illegal?

Not a chance. Some administrators told me so directly. That means the whole process is not only ludicrous, it is deeply biased against some viewpoints. That’s what “inclusion and diversity” means in practice, not just at Chicago or Northern Colorado but at universities across the country.

What should the administrators have done? They should have told the complaining student, “I’m sorry you are upset, but alternative views, sometimes disturbing ones, are central to your education and a liberal society. We are absolutely committed to protecting you from physical dangers and imminent threats, but not from ideas you don’t like. Here’s the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It’s not long. Take 20 seconds and read it. Then, go to the library, read the assigned materials, formulate your arguments, and engage with other students. Who knows? You might learn something.”

That didn’t happen at Northern Colorado. Instead, the complaint went straight to the university’s “Bias Response Team,” and they snapped into action. The teachers, who had done absolutely nothing wrong, were told not to discuss transgender issues again and to avoid stating anyone’s opinions about them, lest it trouble the complaining student.

This was just one of 44 incidents their Bias Response Team handled last year. It is unclear if they want to purchase land in rural China for a much-needed Re-Education Through Labor Camp.

This assault on free discussion is now commonplace on campus. What can be done?

Lipson then offers his remedies:

First, university presidents and top administrators must show some intellectual courage. Their boards of trustees should demand to know if free speech is protected on their campuses, in principle and in practice. Then, they should hold the school administrators accountable for results.

Second, universities should tell students, beginning with their acceptance letters, that “our school believes in free speech, open debate, and diverse opinions. You will hear different views on controversial topics. You are urged to read, write, and develop your own views, but you may not suppress others.” Stress that core value during orientation week. Urge students who seek shelter from intellectual challenges to go somewhere else.

Third, assign one ranking administrator primary responsibility for ensuring free and open debate on campus. This administrator should have no other responsibilities for student affairs since, experience shows, those other student responsibilities undermine the focus on free speech. He or she should make regular reports to the university president, faculty, and board, just as others do about gender discrimination, physical safety, and other issues.

Fourth, demand that student affairs offices stop suppressing basic academic freedoms and start supporting them. Begin by restoring the rightful meaning of “student safety.” It shouldn’t be distorted to shield students from uncomfortable ideas. In the 1950s, that would have prevented students at Ole Miss from urging racial integration, or even hearing about it in class. Somebody would have been offended.

Finally, let students know that they have every right to protest peacefully. They have every right to hold their own events, opposing what others’ advocate. But they have no right to disrupt others, and they will be punished if they do. Stop coddling rabble-rousers who come to campus specifically to disrupt academic events, as they often do. Universities routinely ignore these problems, despite their corrosive effects.

The problems with Lipson’s prescriptions should be obvious: if colleges were willing to do any of that, they would already have done it.

For example, how about telling students “our school believes in free speech?” Schools already do that. In fact, the University of Chicago already does that. But as Lipson has explained, it doesn’t seem to help.

The same thing applies to “intellectual courage” on the part of top administrators, or oversight by boards of trustees. Are the former all of a sudden going to grow a backbone? Are the latter all of a sudden going to start making “trouble” and disrupt the cozy, clubby ambiance of such boards?

And the idea that any university administration would appoint a bureaucrat whose job was, in effect, to make trouble for all the other bureaucrats who prefer that speech be suppressed is utopian. If any administrator had that official job description, we can be sure he or she would be a toothless tiger.

Get Government Involved

The one hope for imposing some tolerance of speech on colleges rests with the Federal government (or perhaps state governments). The Obama Justice and Education departments have been active in bullying colleges to restrict free speech by defining “harassment” so broadly as to cover any statements politically correct types don’t like. It has also bullied schools to restrict the due process rights of males accused of sexual assault.

Justice and Education departments run by conservatives (or those few remaining liberals who believe in free speech) could apply pressure from the opposite direction.

For public universities, the justification is straightforward. Free speech in those places is protected by the First Amendment. In practice, that doesn’t help much, as most students aren’t willing to go to court to vindicate their rights. But Federal regulators could impose punishments (including withdrawal of Federal subsidies) to protect student (and faculty) rights. Whether this would require a change in a statute is a question lawyers have to answer.

The situation with private schools is a bit more complicated, since private colleges have, in fact, a right to restrict speech. Institutions such as Brigham Young and Wheaton College explicitly do that.

Private colleges do not, however, have a right to advertise that they respect free speech, and claim to respect free speech in official documents, and then abridge free speech. Allowing students to complain to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Education when their promised free speech is abridged would be a good idea. Private institutions can have their Federal subsidies withheld.

Can This Happen?

Can any of this happen? At the national level, getting government involved to protect speech on campus would require a Republican president, and one who is willing to put people committed to speech in key places in the Education and Justice departments. That Republican president would have to be willing to expend some political capital on the enterprise. And Republicans in the House and Senate would have to be willing to expend political capital.

The odds of this happening are essentially nil.

But what about state governments? That is more likely. We have just seen Scott Walker and Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature challenge and defeat the University of Wisconsin on the budget.

Where are the state legislatures (perhaps in the more conservative states) willing to do the same over speech?

Congress Moves to Protect Free Expression on College Campuses

A press release from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:

House Judiciary Chairman Wants Answers about First Amendment from Public Colleges

WASHINGTON, August 14, 2015—The Chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee sent letters today to the presidents of 161 public colleges and universities across the country to ask them why their policies fail to protect the First Amendment rights of students and faculty.

The letters were sent by Representative Bob Goodlatte to leaders of institutions that received the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s (FIRE’s) lowest, “red light” rating in our annual report on campus speech codes. Colleges that receive this rating maintain at least one policy that clearly and substantially restricts protected speech.

The letters follow FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff’s testimony before Congress earlier this summer. On June 2, Lukianoff testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice about the state of free speech on America’s public college campuses.

“During my testimony, I shared FIRE’s deep concern that highly restrictive speech codes are the rule rather than the exception on public college campuses nationwide,” said Lukianoff. “A congressional hearing on campus censorship was an important first step. It is even more encouraging that Chairman Goodlatte is taking action to address the problem.”

In the letters, Chairman Goodlatte writes, “In FIRE’s Spotlight on Speech Codes 2015, your institution received a ‘red light’ rating. … We write to ask what steps your institution plans to take to promote free and open expression on its campus(es), including any steps toward bringing your speech policies in accordance with the First Amendment.”

No public college or university may legally maintain speech codes that violate the First Amendment rights of students or faculty.

“Students’ education suffers when colleges and universities infringe on free speech,” said Azhar Majeed, director of FIRE’s Individual Rights Education Program. “FIRE is eager to help these institutions bring their policies in line with the First Amendment and welcomes opportunities to work with administrators to do so.”

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of conscience at our nation’s colleges and universities. FIRE’s efforts to preserve liberty on campuses across America can be viewed at thefire.org.

CONTACT:
Katie Barrows, Communications Coordinator, FIRE: 215-717-3473; katie@thefire.org
Robert Shibley, Executive Director, FIRE: 215-717-3473; robert@thefire.org

Marquette, being a private school, is not affected by this, in spite of having a speech code with a “red light” rating. Of course, private schools should be free to restrict speech if they choose to, although in virtually every case this is a bad idea. And private universities are acting immorally if they promise free expression and then stifle speech. Indeed, in most cases their proclaimed policies protecting speech constitute a contractual obligation.

Campus leftists and campus bureaucrats are likely to whine about “Congressional interference” in higher education. But of course, they have accepted (with enthusiasm on the part of the leftists, and supinely on the part of the bureaucrats) massive intervention on the part of the Federal government, especially the Obama Justice and Education departments. Obama administration bureaucrats have aggressively moved to vitiate due process rights of males accused of sexual assault, and to broaden the doctrine of “harassment” to outlaw speech to which any intolerant and overwrought black, gay or feminist objects.

So it’s good that there is some push back here. Unfortunately, the authoritarianism of campus leftist faculty and staff, and the vested interests of campus bureaucrats are firmly aligned behind the suppression of politically incorrect speech.

Obama Administration Mandates Campus Speech Censorship: More

We recently reported on an initiative by the Obama Departments of Justice and Education to require colleges to impose speech codes on campus speech that is in any way “sexual” or references gender.

Basically, it defined as “sexual harassment” any speech that some person on campus finds “offensive.” Established law dictates that speech, to be considered “sexual harassment,” must be offensive to a “reasonable person of the same gender in the same situation.” The new definition means that anything that somebody takes offense at has to be considered “sexual harassment” notwithstanding that no reasonable person would consider it such.

The Federal government has tried to defend this policy, and it doing so has tripped all over itself.

In a form letter sent to people to write the Office for Civil Rights, the claim is made that:

Furthermore, as we have said in the past, OCR’s regulations and policies do not require or prescribe speech, conduct or harassment codes that impair the exercise of rights protected under the First Amendment.

Then the letter tries to walk back the mandate, by explaining that:

Consistent with OCR’s previous, well-established guidance, the May 9 letter explains that “sexual harassment” is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature but that sexual harassment is not prohibited by Title IX unless it creates a “hostile environment” — that is, unless the harassment is sufficiently severe, pervasive, or persistent such that it denies or limits the student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program.

Note that “conduct” includes “verbal conduct” (speech).

And of course, what constitutes a “hostile environment” is entirely a matter of a student’s subjective response to speech he or she does not like.

Back in December, 2011, we were charged with “sexual harassment” by some prissy little feminist in our introductory American Government class because we debunked bogus rape statistics that feminist professors and activists are always touting.

She apparently felt the “environment” was “hostile” because she heard views expressed that were out of sync with her feminist worldview.

The explanation of the policy by the Office for Civil Rights actually makes clear that purely subjective offense is something that universities ought to punish:

Students will be allowed to bring complaints when they have been subjected to unwelcome sexual conduct, and the University will evaluate whether that harassment has created a hostile environment. Making this determination requires, as it has in the past, the University to examine both whether the conduct is objectively offensive and its subjective impact on an individual.

So the “subjective impact” on the individual is sufficient for a finding of “sexual harassment.” Thus students who are intolerant of speech with which they disagree, and feel the speech is “hostile” have a right to have the university punish the speaker.

Marquette’s Non-Response

We queried Chris Miller, Vice President for Student Affairs, about this. He is out of the country, and gave us only a brief reply:

You are correct; we have no formal correspondence on it yet however I am in discussion with General Counsel on the matter. Let us try to connect upon my return.

It would be nice to believe that Marquette (and lots of other universities) would challenge this is court. There is not a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.

In the first place, there are a large number of administrators (largely in offices that have “diversity” in their names) and quite a large number of faculty who very much like the idea of silencing people who say politically incorrect things about sex and gender. To come out against these rules would inflame them, and start them declaring that Marquette is “soft on sexual harassment.”

Further, as the current scandals surrounding the IRS show, Federal bureaucrats (and especially the “civil rights” enforcers) are liberal, capable of being very vindictive, and capable of causing huge trouble for anybody whom they dislike.

So these rules (like the absurd “Dear Colleague” letter about sexual assault) will probably remain in place, at least until they victimize some student, faculty member or staff member who is defiant enough to challenge them in court.

It’s important to remember that these rules will never be enforced in a neutral and consistent way. They will only be used to punish speech offensive to the politically correct activists who dominate most college campuses.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education notes, for example, that “The Vagina Monologues” could be outlawed for its lewd sexual content. That will never happen. “The Vagina Monologues” is an expression of politically correct feminism, and the socially conservative students who might object quickly learn that, on a modern college campus, they are to shut up and take what is imposed on them.

Likewise, we are very unlikely to ever be harmed by this rule, because (as Provost John Pauly learned the hard way) we can’t be harassed or bullied into silence.

A more likely outcome is that students will learn that any statements or expressions of opinion to which the campus feminists or the campus gay lobby object are voiced only at great personal risk.

And that, of course, would create the exact kind of campus that liberals and leftists want.

Obama Administration Mandates Campus Speech Censorship

From the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2013—In a shocking affront to the United States Constitution, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education have joined together to mandate that virtually every college and university in the United States establish unconstitutional speech codes that violate the First Amendment and decades of legal precedent.

“I am appalled by this attack on free speech on campus from our own government,” said Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which has been leading the fight against unconstitutional speech codes on America’s college campuses since its founding in 1999. “In 2011, the Department of Education took a hatchet to due process protections for students accused of sexual misconduct. Now the Department of Education has enlisted the help of the Department of Justice to mandate campus speech codes so broad that virtually every student will regularly violate them. The DOE and DOJ are ignoring decades of legal decisions, the Constitution, and common sense, and it is time for colleges and the public to push back.”

In a letter sent yesterday to the University of Montana that explicitly states that it is intended as “a blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country,” the Departments of Justice and Education have mandated a breathtakingly broad definition of sexual harassment that makes virtually every student in the United States a harasser while ignoring the First Amendment. The mandate applies to every college receiving federal funding—virtually every American institution of higher education nationwide, public or private.

The letter states that “sexual harassment should be more broadly defined as ‘any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature’” including “verbal conduct” (that is, speech). It then explicitly states that allegedly harassing expression need not even be offensive to an “objectively reasonable person of the same gender in the same situation” — if the listener takes offense to sexually related speech for any reason, no matter how irrationally or unreasonably, the speaker may be punished.

This result directly contradicts previous Department of Education guidance on sexual harassment. In 2003, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) stated that harassment “must include something beyond the mere expression of views, words, symbols or thoughts that some person finds offensive.” Further, the letter made clear that “OCR’s standards require that the conduct be evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable person in the alleged victim’s position, considering all the circumstances, including the alleged victim’s age.”

Among the forms of expression now punishable on America’s campuses by order of the federal government are:

• Any expression related to sexual topics that offends any person. This leaves a wide range of expressive activity—a campus performance of “The Vagina Monologues,” a presentation on safe sex practices, a debate about sexual morality, a discussion of gay marriage, or a classroom lecture on Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita — subject to discipline.
• Any sexually themed joke overheard by any person who finds that joke offensive for any reason.
• Any request for dates or any flirtation that is not welcomed by the recipient of such a request or flirtation.

There is likely no student on any campus anywhere who is not guilty of at least one of these “offenses.” Any attempt to enforce this rule evenhandedly and comprehensively will be impossible.

That, of course, is the main point. When a vast array of speech is illegal, and only a small proportion of potentially “offensive” speech is punished, what will be punished is unpopular speech.

Thus, “The Vagina Monologues” is absolutely safe. Discussion of “safe sex” practices will always be protected. But a Christian ethical critique of homosexual sex will be punished. Criticism of feminism will be punished. Politically incorrect speech will be punished, but politically correct speech, no matter how objectively offensive, will be allowed.

“The federal government has put colleges and universities in an impossible position with this mandate,” said Lukianoff. “With this unwise and unconstitutional decision, the DOJ and DOE have doomed American campuses to years of confusion and expensive lawsuits, while students’ fundamental rights twist in the wind.”

“The Departments of Education and Justice are out of control,” continued Lukianoff. “Banning everyday speech on campus? Eliminating fundamental due process protections? Ignoring its own previous statements? They even misquoted the Supreme Court. This cannot be allowed to continue. FIRE will use all of its resources to oppose this menace to our constitutional freedoms and to free speech and academic freedom on campus.”

It remains to be seen, of course, whether this mandate will survive a court challenge. If federal judges hue to precedent, it certainly will not.

But it is questionable how much longer the federal judiciary will protect free speech when liberal elites are more and more wanting speech they dislike censored.

Shouting Down a Speaker: Left Wing Fascism at the University of New Mexico

You can read an account of the event here.

The interesting thing here is that audience members, clearly sympathetic to the speaker, rushed the demonstrators and forced them out of the hall. Were they justified in doing that?

In this instance, yes.

Either you have the rule of law, or you have the state of nature. Had cops been present to quell the disruption and arrest the disruptors, then audience members would have been obligated to stand by and let the cops do their job. But no cops (apparently) were present.

In a state of nature, people have a right to use force if necessary to protect their rights. It is important that they not use more force than necessary, and in this case all that happened was that the disruptors were pushed or shoved out of the room, and there was a minor scrap over the page of slogans one demonstrator held.

Universities ought to maintain the rule of law. But often they do not, especially when the lawless are on the political left. That’s why we would like to see more cases where the audience uses the force necessary to eject people who have assaulted free speech.