Colleges still flunk free-speech test, but two in Louisiana improve a bit

Far too many colleges still aren’t getting the message that free speech should be the rule on campus, rather than that rules should seriously limit free speech.

That’s the main, and discouraging, takeaway from a report by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Every year, FIRE reviews the speech-related policies at hundreds of colleges. While the good news is that the percentage of schools given a “red light” rating “for maintaining policies that clearly and substantially restrict free speech” has dropped in 12 years from more than 60% down to 20% (98 of 489), the trend in the past two years has ticked back upward.

On the other hand, only 63 schools, or 12.8%, “earn an overall ‘green light’ rating for maintaining policies that do not seriously imperil free expression.” The remaining 320, or a whopping 65.4%, are in a worrisome middle zone with policies that put too much of a damper on speech, although not as oppressively as at the red-light colleges.

For an example of a problematic standard, Adams State University in Colorado (whose rules, alas, are fairly typical) defines sexual harassment as “unwelcome conduct that is of a sexual nature or is based on a person’s actual or perceived sex, gender …,” including “verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature.” That definition is so broad that it can put a student at risk of a sexual harassment inquiry merely for unspoken body language that someone else finds “unwelcome.” So much for harmless flirting.

Meanwhile, Delaware State University “bans users of any campus technology … from causing ‘offense to others’ and even from causing ‘embarrassment’ to the university.” Those Delaware standards are so vague that no student can possibly feel free to express himself on any topic of controversy because someone else might take “offense.”

Happily, four colleges — DePauw University in Indiana, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Radford University in Virginia and the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma — moved from yellow-light to green-light ratings. At least some people, therefore, are getting the message that the very heart of a university is free inquiry backed by free expression.

The situation in Louisiana isn’t good, but at least it is trending slightly less bad. Of the seven Louisiana colleges included in FIRE’s ratings, only McNeese State earned an all-clear “green light” rating. Three — LSU, UL Lafayette and UL Monroe — earned failing “red light” grades. A fourth, Louisiana Tech, actually is listed as having gotten worse, falling from yellow light to red light, but FIRE’s team tells me that Tech moved back to yellow after the list was compiled because it properly narrowed its “harassment” policy to ordinary legal limits.

To show how relatively simple FIRE makes it to show reasonable progress, consider the other two Louisiana schools in the survey, Tulane and Nicholls State. Both moved up from “red light” to “yellow light” ratings, meaning their policies still are problematic but are getting somewhat more reasonable.

Nicholls State had been red because its speech policy banned, with threats of official penalties, expressions that someone could label a “hateful action” merely because it “mocks” a person or group. Thus, FIRE reported, even “an off-color joke” or kidding by a “legitimate peer” could be subject to punishment. Nicholls moved to yellow, though, because it revised its standard so as to punish only expression that “constitutes a true threat, incitement to imminent lawless action, discriminatory harassment, or defamation.”

And Tulane, which as long ago as 1991 drew attention from Gambit Weekly for adopting speech codes and unduly race-conscious policies, now has moved from red to yellow because it jettisoned a rule that, on pain of punishment, demanded students communicate “only in ways that are kind and respectful.” FIRE said this loose definition creates a “myriad of concerns” because it is so open to differing interpretations.

It is entirely proper to try to create, informally, an atmosphere of kindness and mutual respect. To threaten formal punishment via wildly subjective and varying standards, though, is to put a big chill on the free exchange of values and ideas.

This should be easy: No university can encourage exploration of a universe of knowledge unless minds and tongues are free to offer alternative ideas and test them through rigorous debate.

Universities should be where ideas flourish and passion reigns. To be anything else is to fail, abjectly, at their missions.

https://www.nola.com/opinions/quin_hillyer/quin-hillyer-colleges-still-flunk-free-speech-test/article_9f5f4b52-c125-11ee-a781-ff0dfbbace5a.html

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