The Chronicle of Higher Education: Although it is foolhardy to generalize about a generation of college students, their understanding and attitude about freedom of speech was strikingly different from what we, two baby-boomers, expected when we began teaching a course on free speech on college campuses to 15 freshmen at the University of California at Irvine.
3 comments:
This article is exactly what the world of higher education needs right now. These students really got to dig into something that is so under fire in our society today, and by the tone of the author, they were able to do so in a safe and academically fostering environment. The students “agreed that campuses should not be cleansed of all controversial opinions or all expressions that some might consider offensive.” On the matter of the SAE racist chant case, however, I also believe that this is the students’ opinion for college campuses everywhere. I remember there being an article about the censoring of syllabi in some colleges and how outraged I was at this because my minor classes have many topics that could easily be pulled under rules akin to this one – but those classes are also the ones I’ve had the best relationships and learning experiences in here at Carnegie. I would really love this free speech class to be available everywhere because it really seems to the bridging the generational gap.
I had a really nice talk some people at a different college about free speech on campuses and more specifically censorship and coddling college students. Add the three people I have a conversation with, all three of us had differing opinions. In the end, hate speech is inappropriate and as a stepping stone two hateful actions. On the other hand, you could have jokes in bad taste that not everyone’s gets and some people are offended by. This could be considered hate speech, but I don’t think it is, and I think this is where the line gets hazy. As for toppings that make people uncomfortable, or are generally difficult to talk about I think it’s not fair to limit what we talked about classwork between students because there maybe a topic that is sensitive to one person. Ideally I want be able to respect everyone’s boundaries when it comes to conversation topics, but I think censorship can lead to a dangerous place where important issues are not talked about.
Also, as a member of SAE here at CMU I am ashamed and embarrassed to have been associated with that hateful speech that was spoken at Oklahoma and that is the kind of hate speech that i believe is inappropriate and can lead to hateful crimes.
I don't know what schools these kids grew up in, but at my high school in Texas, hate speech was still an ever present thing. I was called "chink" and "dyke" too many times to count, and other people were called much worse names. There really wasn't this whole politically correct ideology that I know a lot of kids here were brought up with. You were either Christian, or all your friends, or in my case, teachers would try to convert you or "pray for you." So being in a new culture where people don't say these sort of things was actually jarring to me at first. And those are the type of kids the authors are talking about in this article, the ones that never really experienced prejudice.
I think free speech is a good thing to preach and the differenciation between hate speech and what's okay to say is necessary. But they shouldn't combat people fighting against hatred like we often do now. It's good that those things are taught here. I think it's good that kids are now taught not to hate.
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