Free speech is perhaps the most important element to the Bill of Rights. Protecting speech is a noble cause, especially protecting speech you don’t like.
And ignoring that point is the problem with a new proposal that the ASUO Student Senate passed last week. The idea is for a pledge of respect that would state the University’s support for diversity, its stance against bigotry and racism and its need for cultural respect. This pledge is non-binding; students don’t have to sign it, and it doesn’t even take effect until the University administration — read: University President Dave Frohnmayer — adopts it.
And the administration shouldn’t adopt it.
Flag burning, Ku Klux Klan rallies, hardcore rock ‘n’ roll and even grotesque anti-abortion demonstrations are all examples of things we perhaps would rather not tolerate, but we accept them with the notion that even bad speech has a place in a democracy.
But when such hatred is revealed, as it was for instance two years ago with the killings of Matthew Shepard in Montana and James Byrd Jr. in the Texas dragging death, we tend to speak out against it in droves. The shock to our system produces hate crime legislation or promises to teach our children more about different cultures.
And while these sentiments are popular, speech that promotes bigotry or hate is not treated with the same respect.
On the surface, any statement that promotes diversity and rejects bigotry is a good one. We’ve noticed that this campus could use some more diversity, and in no way are we suggesting that diversity not be a positive issue. The Multicultural Center and all the other programs on campus that work toward diversity — racial, sexual — are much-needed. Tolerance is a good value to have, and past campus events (the notorious e-mail last year that caused the diversity sit-in in Johnson Hall) show us we need more tolerance.
The pledge then is a good idea for some. But that only applies if you agree with those ideals. No one can force a racist to change his or her mind, and constitutionally, the racist doesn’t have to. The University shouldn’t change that.
Because if the University proclaims some dogma, some guidelines, some pledge to respect all people, it really isn’t promoting the diversity of ideas that such a proposal prides itself on. Diversity itself does not mean a diversity of ideas.
And the danger is that freedom of speech will be snuffed out by democracy. The majority of people — or at least outspoken people — on this campus are liberal. And conservative views are often pushed out of the way altogether because no one shouts loudly enough to be heard. To include all speech, we should at least have an atmosphere at our public university that leaves the door open for it. Even speech we deplore.
Speech and thoughts are now being used against people in the legal system. Hate crime legislation means that killing people because they are black is different than just killing them. The message is meant to be that hatred is wrong, but the alternative message is that people killed because of their race are more important than people killed in a random burglary. We don’t know how far to go with this. Should thoughts be important? And should freedom of speech apply to killers?
These are questions we still wrestle with because hate crimes are a problem in our country. But in taking such drastic measures to curb hate violence are we in fact policing people’s thoughts in addition to their actions?
And in wanting a diverse campus are we in fact legislating personal desires and morals?
College campuses have always been a home to free speech. In the 1960s, that speech was directed at ending the status quo of racism, sexism, anti-gay and pro-government sentiment. Now the status quo is political correctness, suspicion of the government, diversity and acceptance of all lifestyles. Those who challenge this are not unlike the protesters of old. Even if we feel that they are personally misguided, we certainly should respect their right to be so.
Tolerance is good for this campus and for America, but no pledge is going to change the way people feel about one another. If anything, being forced or being asked to accept someone else’s priorities could create a backlash. At the very, very least, it should create concern that we are not the liberal campus we pride ourselves on being.
Otherwise, we’d really let people be who they want to be, and we wouldn’t decide what they should think.