Do Campus Speech Codes Violate Student Rights?

¶ … campus speech codes violate student rights?

The freedom of expression is not for students alone. It is for all citizens and for students the rights and liberties that are available for all citizens apply in the same manner. In that context if the citizen has a right of speech and expression, it also implies that the citizen student also enjoys this right. Where the general laws abrogate the freedom of speech, making some kinds of speech and expression culpable, it is also applicable to the student. The question is if the academic institution passes rules that prohibit speeches and other form of expressions defined as 'hate speech', it has to be assumed that the 'hate speech' as defined inside the campus differs from the general legislation, or there is no general legislation that covers the 'hate speech 'and therefore being introduced in the campus make it unique to the student community which then is deprived of a right that they posses as citizens. This however is not the case. The campus speech codes are an attempt at stemming hate and violence in the campus.

Thesis Statement "Do campus speech codes violate student rights or the constitutional rights or are they a method of enforcing rights of all persons and hence must be enacted?"

Discussion

The argument of this paper is that the campus speech code does not violate any fundamental right helps in assuring the right for all students. It can be seen that the Campus Speech Codes came about in the 1980s after the Skokie affair, after which many universities all over the country, adopted codes of student conduct restricting offensive speech. The University of Michigan took the initiative with prohibiting "any behavior, verbal or physical, that stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, creed, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, handicap or Vietnam era veteran status." (Walker, 18)

There is a need for the Hate speech codes in campuses because it would act as a means of reducing if not altogether removing hate and discrimination. Thus hate speech regulation is a type of affirmative action that can keep the equality that is needed in campuses and prevent the hurt and other trauma that can be cause to the victims of hate. Therefore the need is very much felt in regulating speech that would other wise make use of discriminatory and hateful groups to form based on color, ethnicity and other issues, and therefore it is time such a regulation is made stringent. In dealing with the issue of the codes it has been argued that such regulations must be seen as mere "affirmative action programs" that bring about equal protection law and therefore ought to be seen as valid under the First and the Fourteenth Amendments. (Ma, 695)

Earlier legislation was simply targeted at specific groups -- like the Ku Klux Klan and activities that violate the rights of black people. (Kelly; Maghan, 150) It is argued that the freedom of speech is not an absolute right under the Constitution, but the authorities cannot arbitrarily restrict it; but it can restrict if there is a compelling state interest. The government's concern for maintaining peace is one such interest that has been acknowledged by the Supreme Court, and thus according to Judge Murphy, who propounded the "fighting words" doctrine in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire gave the direction that some classes of speech could be prevented or punished by the government without violating the Constitution. (Zingo, 139) This makes the problem of evaluating the hate speech proposal easier.

The definition of the hate speech itself would then become identical to the ones sought to be brought out of the ambit of the protection of the Constitution, namely "lewd and the obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or fighting words" which has been enlarged in the proposed campus speech codes and therefore as it was argued in this paper, the student is also a citizen and general laws that abrogate the freedom of speech, making some kinds of speech and expression culpable. Thus proposal for the code is only an administrative matter to keep peace inside the campus and in the consideration that it does not cause the abrogation of any right that is not already regulated by the state and law, there is no hindrance to such codes of conduct being enforced and it will result in the protection of the rights of all the students. In most states in the U.S. The legislatures have taken serious concern over the hate speech issue, because history reminds us what chaos it can bring about to the whole world. Therefore there is no hindrance to student's freedom because of the code. Some arguments are also advanced by scholars to show that it is not desirable and in examining them it is also possible to balance the issue better for clarity.

Response and Counter Arguments Against the Thesis Statement:

The basic argument is that such codes violate a fundamental human right, freedom of speech. There must be an abrogation of such rights where there is a need to prevent serious harm, or an intended mischief. (Uelmen, The Price of Free Speech: Campus Hate Speech Codes) The prohibition in campuses with the definition of "hate speech" is really not a serious issue and it does not cause any harm. The argument is that speeches in campuses do not generate harm that necessarily warrants the restriction on the fundamental right to free speech. It will also stifle the students who may not want to 'politically correct' but have reasonable but nonconforming points-of-view will fall silent and thus researches will suffer. This is one view and it is submitted that while there may be repercussions of this nature, there is no genuine need for having hate-based discussions and researches in communities or other backgrounds. Therefore hate-based speech does not necessarily create a spirit of enquiry into anything worthwhile.