Beyond the First Amendment
- Spheres of Discourse (Video)
- Cases and Articles ("Cursing at Toilet Not Illegal" Article)
- U.S. Knowledge (Citizenship Quiz)
Flag Burning
- History of the Issue (History)
- Moral Panic (Overview & Links, Video: Moral Panic! at the Disco)
- Legal Brief of Landmark Case (Texas v. Johnson 1989)
- Authoritarian Aesthetic
- Nativism and Flag Burning (Overview with Links)
- Academic Freedom (How Free Should We Be?)
- Flag in Pop Culture (Video)
- Question on the Quad (Poll and Video)
Campus Hate Speech
- Initial Arguments (Initial Arguments)
- Campus Speech Codes (Is There A Solution?)
- Scenarios (Quiz)
- Landmark Cases Briefed (Doe v. Michigan 1989, UWM Post v. The Regents of the University of Wisconsin 1991, Iota XI Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity v. George Mason University 1991, R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul 1992, Dambrot v. Central Michigan University 1993, Robert Corry, et al. v. Leland Stanford Junior University 1995)
- Open Debate on College Campuses (Bradley Smith on Phil Donahue)
Holocaust Denial
- Arthur Butz (Scholarly Holocaust Denier?)
- Denying the Holocaust (Campus and Education)
- Holocaust Museum (About the Museum)
- Landmark Case Briefed (Mel Mermelstein v. the Institute of Historical Review 1985)
- Holocaust Deniers (Links)
Friday, May 9, 2008
Open Debate on College Campuses
Bradley Smith on campus on Phil Donahue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7S8zDDzPNI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7S8zDDzPNI
Denying the Holocaust - Campus & Education
Holocaust denial is an “other side” of history – ugly, reprehensible, and extremist – but an other side nonetheless. As time passes and fewer people can personally challenge these assertions, their campaign will only grow in intensity. To begin illustrating this notion, the impact of Holocaust denial on high school and college students cannot be definitively argued. At a Midwestern university when a history instructor used a class on the Napoleonic Wars to argue that the Holocaust was a propaganda hoax designed to vilify the Germans, and that the whole Holocaust story was a ploy to allow Jews to accumulate vast amounts of wealth. The instructor defended himself by arguing that he was presenting “two sides” because the book only offered the “orthodox view.” The school dismissed him on two accounts: teaching material that wasn’t relevant or of any “scholarly substance.” Some students argued that he had been treated unfairly because “he let us think” and “he brought articles that proved his point.” There was a feeling that somehow firing him violated that basic American ideal of fairness- that is, everyone has a right to speak his or her opinion (these students seemed to not grasp that a teacher has a responsibility to maintain some fidelity to the notion of truth).
Is there a solution for Campus Speech Codes?
Organizations such as FIRE aim to diminish the ambiguity that inhabits this topic:
The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE's core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/4851.html?PHPSESSID=6a2ef7539c7a4a2b78d222055d64c8ab
The on going debate is highlighted in the following headlines:
On campus: Free speech for you but not for me?
Where Mary Beth Marklein, of USA TODAY explores the underlying debate that claims Colleges “seek to privilege one predominantly leftist point of view,” says Thor Halvorssen of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a Philadelphia-based non-profit founded four years ago. “Universities should welcome all perspectives, no matter where on the political spectrum.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-11-02-free-speech-cover_x.htm
The Unmentioned
"It is always the unreadable that occurs." -- Oscar Wilde
Posted by ChrisU on September 21, 2005
I agree with the decision of the courts on this particular speech code – “The Supreme Court has consistently held that statutes punishing speech or conduct solely on the grounds that they are unseemly or offensive are unconstitutionally overbroad.” After all, it's hardly constitutional to punish people for simply holding certain beliefs or opinions of others.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChristopherUlicne/coursework010891.html
University of Delaware: On Freedom of Expression and Campus Speech Codes
Freedom of thought and expression is essential to any institution of higher learning. Universities and colleges exist not only to transmit existing knowledge. Equally, they interpret, explore, and expand that knowledge by testing the old and proposing the new. This mission guides learning outside the classroom quite as much as in class, and often inspires vigorous debate on those social, economic, and political issues that arouse the strongest passions. In the process, views will be expressed that may seem to many wrong, distasteful, or offensive. Such is the nature of freedom to sift and winnow ideas. Where banning speech often avoids consideration of means more compatible with the mission of an academic institution by which to deal with incivility, intolerance, offensive speech, and harassing behavior:
1. Institutions should adopt and invoke a range of measures that penalize conduct and behavior, rather than speech, such as rules against defacing property, physical intimidation or harassment, or disruption of campus activities. All members of the campus community should be made aware of such rules, and administrators should be ready to use them in preference to speech-directed sanctions.
2. Colleges and universities should stress the means they use best -- to educate -- including the development of courses and other curricular and co-curricular experiences designed to increase student understanding and to deter offensive or intolerant speech or conduct. Such institutions should, of course, be free (indeed encouraged) to condemn manifestations of intolerance and discrimination, whether physical or verbal.
3. The governing board and the administration have a special duty not only to set an outstanding example of tolerance, but also to challenge boldly and condemn immediately serious breaches of civility.
4. Members of the faculty, too, have a major role; their voices may be critical in condemning intolerance, and their actions may set examples for understanding, making clear to their students that civility and tolerance are hallmarks of educated men and women.
5. Student personnel administrators have in some ways the most demanding role of all, for hate speech occurs most often in dormitories, locker-rooms, cafeterias, and student centers. Persons who guide this part of campus life should set high standards of their own for tolerance and should make unmistakably clear the harm that uncivil or intolerant speech inflicts.
http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/freedom/aaup.html
American Civil Liberties Union: Hate Speech on Campus (12/31/1994)
In recent years, a rise in verbal abuse and violence directed at people of color, lesbians and gay men, and other historically persecuted groups has plagued the United States. Among the settings of these expressions of intolerance are college and university campuses, where bias incidents have occurred sporadically since the mid-1980s. Outrage, indignation and demands for change have greeted such incidents -- understandably, given the lack of racial and social diversity among students, faculty and administrators on most campuses. Many universities, under pressure to respond to the concerns of those who are the objects of hate, have adopted codes or policies prohibiting speech that offends any group based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.
The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE's core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/4851.html?PHPSESSID=6a2ef7539c7a4a2b78d222055d64c8ab
The on going debate is highlighted in the following headlines:
On campus: Free speech for you but not for me?
Where Mary Beth Marklein, of USA TODAY explores the underlying debate that claims Colleges “seek to privilege one predominantly leftist point of view,” says Thor Halvorssen of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a Philadelphia-based non-profit founded four years ago. “Universities should welcome all perspectives, no matter where on the political spectrum.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-11-02-free-speech-cover_x.htm
The Unmentioned
"It is always the unreadable that occurs." -- Oscar Wilde
Posted by ChrisU on September 21, 2005
I agree with the decision of the courts on this particular speech code – “The Supreme Court has consistently held that statutes punishing speech or conduct solely on the grounds that they are unseemly or offensive are unconstitutionally overbroad.” After all, it's hardly constitutional to punish people for simply holding certain beliefs or opinions of others.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChristopherUlicne/coursework010891.html
University of Delaware: On Freedom of Expression and Campus Speech Codes
Freedom of thought and expression is essential to any institution of higher learning. Universities and colleges exist not only to transmit existing knowledge. Equally, they interpret, explore, and expand that knowledge by testing the old and proposing the new. This mission guides learning outside the classroom quite as much as in class, and often inspires vigorous debate on those social, economic, and political issues that arouse the strongest passions. In the process, views will be expressed that may seem to many wrong, distasteful, or offensive. Such is the nature of freedom to sift and winnow ideas. Where banning speech often avoids consideration of means more compatible with the mission of an academic institution by which to deal with incivility, intolerance, offensive speech, and harassing behavior:
1. Institutions should adopt and invoke a range of measures that penalize conduct and behavior, rather than speech, such as rules against defacing property, physical intimidation or harassment, or disruption of campus activities. All members of the campus community should be made aware of such rules, and administrators should be ready to use them in preference to speech-directed sanctions.
2. Colleges and universities should stress the means they use best -- to educate -- including the development of courses and other curricular and co-curricular experiences designed to increase student understanding and to deter offensive or intolerant speech or conduct. Such institutions should, of course, be free (indeed encouraged) to condemn manifestations of intolerance and discrimination, whether physical or verbal.
3. The governing board and the administration have a special duty not only to set an outstanding example of tolerance, but also to challenge boldly and condemn immediately serious breaches of civility.
4. Members of the faculty, too, have a major role; their voices may be critical in condemning intolerance, and their actions may set examples for understanding, making clear to their students that civility and tolerance are hallmarks of educated men and women.
5. Student personnel administrators have in some ways the most demanding role of all, for hate speech occurs most often in dormitories, locker-rooms, cafeterias, and student centers. Persons who guide this part of campus life should set high standards of their own for tolerance and should make unmistakably clear the harm that uncivil or intolerant speech inflicts.
http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/freedom/aaup.html
American Civil Liberties Union: Hate Speech on Campus (12/31/1994)
In recent years, a rise in verbal abuse and violence directed at people of color, lesbians and gay men, and other historically persecuted groups has plagued the United States. Among the settings of these expressions of intolerance are college and university campuses, where bias incidents have occurred sporadically since the mid-1980s. Outrage, indignation and demands for change have greeted such incidents -- understandably, given the lack of racial and social diversity among students, faculty and administrators on most campuses. Many universities, under pressure to respond to the concerns of those who are the objects of hate, have adopted codes or policies prohibiting speech that offends any group based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.
How Free Should We Be?
It is an unfortunate fact of our constitutional system that the ideals of freedom and equality are often in conflict. The difficult and sometimes painful task of our political and legal institutions is to mediate the appropriate balance between these competing ideas.
-Judge Cohn
Timothy Shiell claims that no policy, no matter how sophisticated, no matter how well grounded in history or law or philosophy or politics, will leave something to be desired. We have to make a decision about how we handle campus hate speech because right now we are in the middle with no real answers- because even though free speech is an important moral and political value, hate speech should not be tolerated on college campuses. The task of analyzing the campus hate speech debate is an overwhelming one. The attempt is to draw a line between individual liberty and state regulatory authority, and this is one of the problems of politics, law and philosophy. How free should we be? Within our constitutional democracy, when does my conduct and speech go so far as to require government intervention? Samuel Walker, an authority on the history of hate speech in America, discusses how “tolerant” we should be of the “intolerance.”
If a regulatory code is adopted, what should it prohibit? And why? What exactly are we hoping to accomplish through such a code? How effective will codes be in attaining their goals? Are there more effective ways to promote and attain their goals? Will adoption of such a code open the door to self-righteous censors who simply want to silence their opponents? Will a hate speech code wrongly impinge on student and faculty academic freedom?
Should people be free to assert “fighting words?” what are fighting words? Should citizens be punished for racists libels? Can we identify and punish “bad” speech without chilling “good” speech? Should citizens be punished for proclaiming politically unpopular, even “un-American,” speech? These questions are joining a continuing debate over two fundamental American values, equal opportunity and free speech.
Some defenders of speech codes may be out to silence political opponents, while some would rather provide a mechanism for the protection of individual rights guaranteed by law. The p.c. objection falsely ascribes evil intentions to all of its opponents (they’re ALL ideological thought police), when the intention of many defenders of speech codes is to design a public policy sensitive to the requirements of both free speech and equal opportunity, not to silence political opponents. Ideally, if an advocate’s position is being rejected, it must be because he or she has failed to offer logically compelling arguments for the position, not because you disapprove of or dislike the arguer or suspect bad motives. Thus we must always look beyond people’s motives or agendas (with out ignoring them) to determine whether the arguments for the proposed case pass our shared tests of sound public policy.
How we respond to hate speech depends largely on the vague definitions associated to hate speech acts. There is a need for definitions of: harm, hostile environment, academic freedom, fighting words…etc. The new debate being fought: the law of hostile environment. Since hostile environment harassment based on race, color, sex, religion, or ethnicity has been rules illegal by United States Supreme Court, but there is still a need to focus on the relationship of hate speech and hostile environments. The law changes constantly - this is a fact of all legal systems – the law evolves in response to social and political pressures as well as technological innovations. William Rehnquist says that the constitution is a “living document.” Moreover, the law must be sensitive to contexts, and it is not a settled conclusion that all form of offensive speech should be. What complicates this further is that what was once protected may not be in the future and what was once unprotected may well become protected at some future point (stability becomes instability).
The question still remains: how free should we be? What does free mean? And who decides?
-Judge Cohn
Timothy Shiell claims that no policy, no matter how sophisticated, no matter how well grounded in history or law or philosophy or politics, will leave something to be desired. We have to make a decision about how we handle campus hate speech because right now we are in the middle with no real answers- because even though free speech is an important moral and political value, hate speech should not be tolerated on college campuses. The task of analyzing the campus hate speech debate is an overwhelming one. The attempt is to draw a line between individual liberty and state regulatory authority, and this is one of the problems of politics, law and philosophy. How free should we be? Within our constitutional democracy, when does my conduct and speech go so far as to require government intervention? Samuel Walker, an authority on the history of hate speech in America, discusses how “tolerant” we should be of the “intolerance.”
If a regulatory code is adopted, what should it prohibit? And why? What exactly are we hoping to accomplish through such a code? How effective will codes be in attaining their goals? Are there more effective ways to promote and attain their goals? Will adoption of such a code open the door to self-righteous censors who simply want to silence their opponents? Will a hate speech code wrongly impinge on student and faculty academic freedom?
Should people be free to assert “fighting words?” what are fighting words? Should citizens be punished for racists libels? Can we identify and punish “bad” speech without chilling “good” speech? Should citizens be punished for proclaiming politically unpopular, even “un-American,” speech? These questions are joining a continuing debate over two fundamental American values, equal opportunity and free speech.
Some defenders of speech codes may be out to silence political opponents, while some would rather provide a mechanism for the protection of individual rights guaranteed by law. The p.c. objection falsely ascribes evil intentions to all of its opponents (they’re ALL ideological thought police), when the intention of many defenders of speech codes is to design a public policy sensitive to the requirements of both free speech and equal opportunity, not to silence political opponents. Ideally, if an advocate’s position is being rejected, it must be because he or she has failed to offer logically compelling arguments for the position, not because you disapprove of or dislike the arguer or suspect bad motives. Thus we must always look beyond people’s motives or agendas (with out ignoring them) to determine whether the arguments for the proposed case pass our shared tests of sound public policy.
How we respond to hate speech depends largely on the vague definitions associated to hate speech acts. There is a need for definitions of: harm, hostile environment, academic freedom, fighting words…etc. The new debate being fought: the law of hostile environment. Since hostile environment harassment based on race, color, sex, religion, or ethnicity has been rules illegal by United States Supreme Court, but there is still a need to focus on the relationship of hate speech and hostile environments. The law changes constantly - this is a fact of all legal systems – the law evolves in response to social and political pressures as well as technological innovations. William Rehnquist says that the constitution is a “living document.” Moreover, the law must be sensitive to contexts, and it is not a settled conclusion that all form of offensive speech should be. What complicates this further is that what was once protected may not be in the future and what was once unprotected may well become protected at some future point (stability becomes instability).
The question still remains: how free should we be? What does free mean? And who decides?
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Campus Hate Speech- Initial Arguments
Why is hate speech harmful? What legal and moral reasons lend support to campus speech codes? Legally, every U.S. citizen is entitled to equal opportunity in education and employment regardless of race, sex, religion, or ethnic background. Yet also, every U.S. citizen is guaranteed freedom of expression under the First Amendment. What happens when an expression is harassing and seems to deny equal individual opportunity?
The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the University of Wisconsin system were highly influential in the development of hate speech codes on campus. A series of events led them to develop a policy, which identified three tiers of speech. The tiers included student newspapers, public parts of the university, and educational and academic centers. The policy stated that students were subject to discipline for any behavior that victimizes an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, or Vietnam-era veteran status. It also stated that discipline would be taken for sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, etc. which victimizes an individual on the basis of sex.
The codes outlined above were met with no opposition to campuses. It should be noted, however, that the interest administrators had in the development of the policies was that they were to protect themselves from lawsuits. Experts have noted the problems inherent in designing policies in response to public events- rushed policies are typically bad.
To justify having a speech code, universities needed to show that the speech caused serious harm and needed to be addressed. They developed the deterrence argument, which states that campus hate speech causes harm and are a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal rights guarantee. Such violations should be deterred, and are done so by a speech code.
Hate speech can cause emotional distress, can result in disorders and in some cases even suicide. It is also very noteworthy to mention that the United States is virtually the only country which thinks that hate speech should be legal. One suggestion is looking at hate speech itself, rather than looking at the consequences of hate speech. Looking at hate speech through the philosophical lens of Kant, it fails both of his tests. In the end both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist arguments are strong and prove the immorality of campus hate speech.
Another argument against hate speech is that often bigotry escalates beyond speech, and is often acted out- sometimes in the form of destroying property, physical assaults, and even murder. Critics of speech codes agree with condemning hate speech, but believe codes risk opening doors to other types of censorship.
The first amendment argument for speech codes include using the example of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, which upheld a state ban on words that inflict injury by their very utterance. The court has also noted that only fighting words directed at an individual can be regulated, leading to codes that target speech against individuals rather than a group. The group libel model targets this, by stating that the First Amendment does not protect group libel, and because some hate speech constitutes group libel, it should be prevented. Finally, social science states that antiracism rules will deter speech promoting racial hatred. In this way, speech codes can be considered effective in that they deter racist acts that would occur in the absence of campus speech codes.
http://www.aclu.org/studentsrights/expression/12808pub19941231.html
The ALCU website. Includes an interesting Q and A section that addresses questions such as: why protect racist speech? Don't speech codes protect minority groups?
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/speech/pubcollege/topic.aspx?topic=campus_speech_codes
This page provides an overview on protecting speech on campuses. Cites some interesting court cases that are worth a read.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163705,00.html
Story that includes involvement by FIRE. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is a group that exists "to defend and sustain individual rights at America's increasingly repressive and partisan colleges and universities."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtuCk6BDZSU
Video of a hateful speech against Israel at a University of California campus. What are your thoughts on this speech? Should their right to express themselves be protected?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvEzs6AXXTo
A different type of speech on campus- evangelistic. Is this man's speech hate speech? Should he be allowed on college campuses?
The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the University of Wisconsin system were highly influential in the development of hate speech codes on campus. A series of events led them to develop a policy, which identified three tiers of speech. The tiers included student newspapers, public parts of the university, and educational and academic centers. The policy stated that students were subject to discipline for any behavior that victimizes an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, or Vietnam-era veteran status. It also stated that discipline would be taken for sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, etc. which victimizes an individual on the basis of sex.
The codes outlined above were met with no opposition to campuses. It should be noted, however, that the interest administrators had in the development of the policies was that they were to protect themselves from lawsuits. Experts have noted the problems inherent in designing policies in response to public events- rushed policies are typically bad.
To justify having a speech code, universities needed to show that the speech caused serious harm and needed to be addressed. They developed the deterrence argument, which states that campus hate speech causes harm and are a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal rights guarantee. Such violations should be deterred, and are done so by a speech code.
Hate speech can cause emotional distress, can result in disorders and in some cases even suicide. It is also very noteworthy to mention that the United States is virtually the only country which thinks that hate speech should be legal. One suggestion is looking at hate speech itself, rather than looking at the consequences of hate speech. Looking at hate speech through the philosophical lens of Kant, it fails both of his tests. In the end both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist arguments are strong and prove the immorality of campus hate speech.
Another argument against hate speech is that often bigotry escalates beyond speech, and is often acted out- sometimes in the form of destroying property, physical assaults, and even murder. Critics of speech codes agree with condemning hate speech, but believe codes risk opening doors to other types of censorship.
The first amendment argument for speech codes include using the example of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, which upheld a state ban on words that inflict injury by their very utterance. The court has also noted that only fighting words directed at an individual can be regulated, leading to codes that target speech against individuals rather than a group. The group libel model targets this, by stating that the First Amendment does not protect group libel, and because some hate speech constitutes group libel, it should be prevented. Finally, social science states that antiracism rules will deter speech promoting racial hatred. In this way, speech codes can be considered effective in that they deter racist acts that would occur in the absence of campus speech codes.
http://www.aclu.org/studentsrights/expression/12808pub19941231.html
The ALCU website. Includes an interesting Q and A section that addresses questions such as: why protect racist speech? Don't speech codes protect minority groups?
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/speech/pubcollege/topic.aspx?topic=campus_speech_codes
This page provides an overview on protecting speech on campuses. Cites some interesting court cases that are worth a read.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163705,00.html
Story that includes involvement by FIRE. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is a group that exists "to defend and sustain individual rights at America's increasingly repressive and partisan colleges and universities."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtuCk6BDZSU
Video of a hateful speech against Israel at a University of California campus. What are your thoughts on this speech? Should their right to express themselves be protected?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvEzs6AXXTo
A different type of speech on campus- evangelistic. Is this man's speech hate speech? Should he be allowed on college campuses?
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