What Should Free Speech Look Like on College Campuses?

By: Mollie Guba

Edited By: Alexandra Dickerman and micah sandy

Throughout U.S. history, Americans have placed immense cultural and political significance on freedom of speech, possibly more than any other civil liberty. Beyond the concrete protections granted by the First Amendment, freedom of speech also symbolizes core values in America’s history, such as the ability to openly express one’s opinions, discuss controversial ideas, and individually decide what to believe in. Free speech is an especially important value on college campuses, as it is crucial for students to be exposed to new ideas in college and, in turn, to be able to offer their own perspectives. However, this concept creates two conflicting visions of free speech on college campuses. One side of this debate argues that colleges should go no further than the First Amendment in restricting speech because of the need for free intellectual discourse on campuses, including the most controversial ideas. The opposing perspective, however, is that certain types of speech, particularly hate speech, do not represent a defensible expression of free speech but rather silence other voices through the harm they cause. At public universities, guidance regarding freedom of speech is relatively clear under the First Amendment, but at private universities, approaching this debate is complicated by their greater discretion in limiting speech beyond the restrictions accepted under the First Amendment. For example, while hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, it is commonly restricted at private universities, thus fueling much of the debate about free speech on college campuses. [1]

Despite the First Amendment’s protection of hate speech, there are forms of speech that are unprotected in any setting, including college campuses. The most relevant categories for the university environment include speech inciting violence or expressing a “true threat” against an individual or group, and the line between these forms of speech and hate speech can be somewhat blurred. [2] Hate speech can be understood to go no further than the expression of a harmful idea, although a common concern for private universities is that hate speech can quickly escalate into violence or threats, putting targeted students and their own rights to free speech at risk. To avoid this, many universities implemented speech codes against hate speech in the 1980s and 1990s, seeking to protect students from discrimination and harassment and to promote equal access to a positive educational experience. [3] While speech codes on college campuses do not look the same thirty years later, these goals remain largely consistent.

Today, many are expressing growing concerns about how limitations on speech can affect students’ abilities to express themselves and to hear a diverse range of opinions. The decision to invite controversial guest speakers to colleges has become one of the most common points of conflict regarding free speech on campuses. Avoiding these speakers entirely would significantly reduce the range of opinions students are exposed to and would quickly raise questions of how to objectively define “controversial.” However, some schools take on the risk of inviting speakers they know will create tensions, which sometimes even amount to a threat to safety. An often-cited example of this occurred at UC Berkeley in 2017 when right-wing political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was invited to speak at an event. [4] Over 1,500 students gathered to protest the event nonviolently, but the protest took a violent turn when about 150 protestors from outside the UC Berkeley community arrived. [5] This group caused over $100,000 of property damage on campus, including some from fires deliberately set near the campus bookstore. [6] Clearly, hosting speakers with extreme opinions can have deep and potentially damaging effects on schools in some cases, showing the difficult balance schools must strike between the risks of restricting a free exchange of ideas and harming the campus community.

Since the First Amendment does not apply to private universities, most decisions that shape the extent of on-campus free speech are at universities' discretion, creating a divide regarding how schools should use this discretion. On one side is the view that universities should primarily heed the spirit of the First Amendment in decisions such as which guest speakers to host. [7] This argument emphasizes that a core purpose of college is to engage with different points of view, even those that some might find offensive, and that limits on free speech are difficult to justify except in the extreme cases accepted under the First Amendment. In the debate surrounding controversial guest speakers, though, concerns about limiting speaker choices do not pertain to silencing the individual speaker but fostering a culture that silences unpopular opinions. If the range of views given a platform at universities is limited, this can send the message to students that their own free expression will be met with hostility. We can all likely agree that students should feel comfortable expressing their views, so a slippery slope of free speech restrictions is a definite concern whenever the spectrum of permissible opinions is narrowed on campuses. Many also argue that silencing hate speech is an intrinsically wrong approach to promoting tolerance and dismantling discriminatory ideas. [8] That is, being unable to openly confront harmful ideas will not actually eliminate intolerant viewpoints but will merely leave them unchallenged. 

In response, however, others claim that arguments in favor of broad permissions for free speech give undue value to views that do not actually contribute to productive debate on campus. [9] Under this view, supporting hateful ideas with the traditional arguments for freedom of speech essentially misrepresents the meaning of free speech. Highly controversial speakers such as Milo Yiannopoulos, for example, are said by some to not be contributing any substantive ideas to campus discussions that warrant protection as intellectual discourse and, instead, only express hateful ideas that give a voice to others holding the same intolerant beliefs. [10] This highlights one of the major disagreements regarding universities’ approach to controversial guest speakers: whether giving a platform to hate speech will be productive long-term through friction with more tolerant ideas or will fuel further intolerance by giving hate speech an audience. Adding to these concerns around the potential ramifications of hosting speakers with extreme views is the potential for harm that could interfere with a student’s education or, according to some, amount to harassment. [11] Students in groups targeted by hate speech will naturally be affected emotionally by this experience, so giving voice to such potentially harmful speech creates worries of an unequal educational experience for targeted groups.

To summarize, what makes debates about free speech at private universities challenging is that they do not generally pertain to how these schools legally can address free speech but rather concern what the right approach within schools’ extensive discretion is. At public universities bound by the First Amendment, schools have far more defined guidelines and precedents to operate within, thus clarifying their obligations to freedom of speech and its corresponding restrictions. At private universities, however, many questions regarding conflicting considerations in issues of free speech persist. For example, would avoiding controversial choices for guest speakers set a problematic precedent of silencing unpopular views, or would certain speech create too much harm to offer any value to the campus community? Would directly engaging with offensive ideas through open discussion be the more effective approach for colleges, or would giving voice to these ideas only perpetuate hateful views? While the right balance of these elements is debatable, students and university leaders must ultimately work together to foster an educational environment where students can both freely express themselves and feel safe on their campuses instead of one where these values exist in conflict.

NOTES:

1. “Unprotected Speech Synopsis.” Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Accessed November 30, 2022, https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/unprotected-speech-synopsis. 

2. “Unprotected Speech Synopsis.” Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Accessed November 30, 2022, https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/unprotected-speech-synopsis. 

3. David L. Hudson, Jr., and Lata Nott, “Hate Speech & Campus Speech Codes.” Freedom Forum Institute, March 2017, https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center/topics/freedom-of-speech-2/free-speech-on-public-college-campuses-overview/hate-speech-campus-speech-codes/. 

4. Terri Mock, “The Cost of Controversial Speakers on College Campuses.” Rave Mobile Safety, March 28, 2019, https://www.ravemobilesafety.com/blog/cost-controversial-speakers-college-campuses/. 

5. Public Affairs, UC Berkeley, “Milo Yiannopoulos Event Canceled After Violence Erupts.” Berkeley News, University of California Berkeley, February 1, 2017, https://news.berkeley.edu/2017/02/01/yiannopoulos-event-canceled/. 

6. Terri Mock, “The Cost of Controversial Speakers on College Campuses.” Rave Mobile Safety, March 28, 2019, https://www.ravemobilesafety.com/blog/cost-controversial-speakers-college-campuses/. 

7. Erwin Chemerinsky, “Hate Speech is Protected Free Speech, Even on College Campuses.” Vox, Voxmedia, December 26, 2017, https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/10/25/16524832/campus-free-speech-first-amendment-protest. 

8. Pablo Delcan, “America Has a Free Speech Problem.” The New York Times, March 18, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-free-speech-poll.html. 

9. Katy Steinmetz, “Milo Yiannopoulos Finally Spoke at Berkeley. But the Protesters Were Louder.” TIME, September 24, 2017, https://time.com/4955245/milo-yiannopoulos-berkeley-free-speech-week/. 

10. Terri Mock, “The Cost of Controversial Speakers on College Campuses.” Rave Mobile Safety, March 28, 2019, https://www.ravemobilesafety.com/blog/cost-controversial-speakers-college-campuses/. 

11. Terri Mock, “The Cost of Controversial Speakers on College Campuses.” Rave Mobile Safety, March 28, 2019, https://www.ravemobilesafety.com/blog/cost-controversial-speakers-college-campuses/.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Chemerinsky, Erwin. “Hate Speech is Protected Free Speech, Even on College Campuses.” Vox, Voxmedia, December 26, 2017. https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/10/25/16524832/campus-free-speech-first-amendment-protest.

Delcan, Pablo. “America Has a Free Speech Problem.” The New York Times, March 18, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-free-speech-poll.html. 

Hudson, David L., Jr., and Lata Nott. “Hate Speech & Campus Speech Codes.” Freedom Forum Institute, March 2017. https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center/topics/freedom-of-speech-2/free-speech-on-public-college-campuses-overview/hate-speech-campus-speech-codes/. 

Mock, Terri. “The Cost of Controversial Speakers on College Campuses.” Rave Mobile Safety, March 28, 2019. https://www.ravemobilesafety.com/blog/cost-controversial-speakers-college-campuses/. 

Public Affairs, UC Berkeley. “Milo Yiannopoulos Event Canceled After Violence Erupts.” Berkeley News, University of California Berkeley, February 1, 2017. https://news.berkeley.edu/2017/02/01/yiannopoulos-event-canceled/. 

Steinmetz, Katy. “Milo Yiannopoulos Finally Spoke at Berkeley. But the Protesters Were Louder.” TIME, September 24, 2017. https://time.com/4955245/milo-yiannopoulos-berkeley-free-speech-week/. 

“Unprotected Speech Synopsis.” Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/unprotected-speech-synopsis.