Essay 3 Presentation (part of my presentation)

Sources that support my thesis

• Patrick Gary’s “Censorship by the free- speech generation”
• Identify:
  -Stresses the negative effects of political correctness
  -Argues that intolerance of free speech and the existence of extreme political correctness are not the solution to prejudice in our society
  -Compared the current political correctness and speech code with weed in a lawn as an example. He said, “It is easier and temporarily gratifying to cut it down but unless the roots are pulled out, the weed still lives and grows.”
• Methodology (Patrick Gary cont.):
  -The critics that is for the argument does not employ a specific theory.
  -Examples used:
  -The analogy of weed in the lawn
  -University of Wisconsin – as it established the first university codes
  -University of Michigan
• Solutions:
  -Strengths of the author’s claim:
  -Besides making a claim that supports my thesis, the author had many quotes from university deans and other officials from different organizations to strengthen his claim.
  
  

Interesting information

By David L. Hudson Jr. First Amendment Center research attorney
"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 two competing values." — Judge Avern Cohn, in Doe v. University of Michigan, 1989
During the 1980s and early '90s many public colleges and universities sought to combat discrimination and harassment on campuses through the use of so-called speech codes. Proponents of the codes often argued the codes were necessary to prevent a rise in discriminatory harassment. Others said the push for the codes was merely part of a general movement of political correctness.
Whatever the reason, this time period witnessed an amazing rise in the number of speech codes on college campuses. More than 350 public colleges and universities regulated some forms of hate speech, Arati Korwar reported in 1995.
Many speech codes sought to end hate speech, which code proponents said should receive limited or no First Amendment protection. Supporting this view were many academics who subscribed to so-called “critical race” theory. Critical-race theorists contend that existing First Amendment jurisprudence must be changed because the marketplace of ideas does not adequately protect minorities. They charge that hate speech subjugates minority voices and prevents them from exercising their own First Amendment rights.
Those who argue for speech codes contend that hate speech is akin to fighting words, a category of expression that does not receive First Amendment protection. In its 1942 decision Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the Court wrote that fighting words are those that incite an immediate violent response. According to the Court, they “are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to the truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”
The speech codes that have been challenged in court have not fared well. Courts have struck these policies down as being either overbroad or vague. A statute is overbroad if it prohibits a substantial amount of protected speech in its attempts to restrict unprotected speech. A statute or regulation is vague if it does not adequately inform a person what expressive conduct is prohibited and what expressive conduct is allowed, leaving a person to guess at its application.
An example is a 1989 federal court decision, Doe v. University of Michigan, striking down that university’s speech code. Administrators had adopted the speech code in 1988 after a campus anti-discrimination group threatened to file a class-action suit against the university. The group was upset over several incidents, including the distribution of a flier on campus that declared “open season” on blacks and referred to blacks as “saucer lips, porch monkeys, and jigaboos.”
The policy prohibited:
“Any behavior, verbal or physical, that stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, creed … and that …
“Creates an intimidating, hostile, or demeaning environment for educational pursuits, employment or participation in University[-]sponsored extra-curricular activities.”
The university published a guide explaining the speech code. The guide provided examples of harassing conduct, including:
“You exclude someone from a study group because that person is of a different race, sex, or ethnic origin than you are.
“You display a confederate flag on the door of your room in your residence hall.
“You comment in a derogatory way about a particular person or group’s physical appearance or sexual orientation, or their cultural origins, or religious beliefs.” 1
Several complaints were filed against students under the policy. One was filed against a student for stating that Jewish people used the Holocaust to justify Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. Another complaint was lodged against a student who said that “he had heard that minorities had a difficult time in the course and that he had heard they were not treated fairly.”
A psychology graduate student, identified only as John Doe, challenged the policy. He argued that discussion of certain controversial theories in his field of biopsychology, the study of individual differences in personality traits and mental abilities, might violate the policy.
The court agreed that the policy was overbroad. “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,” the court wrote.
Examining the complaints that had been filed under the policy, the court determined that “the University could not seriously argue that the policy was never interpreted to reach protected conduct.”
The court also determined that the policy was unconstitutionally vague because people would have to guess at the meaning of the policy’s language. The court reasoned that it was “simply impossible to discern any limitation” on the policy’s scope and reach.
The court concluded: “While the Court is sympathetic to the University’s obligation to ensure equal educational opportunities for all of its students, such efforts must not be at the expense of free speech.”
Wisconsin speech-code caseThe next major legal challenge involving a speech code arose out of a plan called “Design for Diversity” at the University of Wisconsin. Several campus incidents triggered the adoption of a speech code targeting hate speech. The incidents included a fraternity erecting a picture of a black Fiji islander during a party. Another fraternity held a “slave auction,” featuring pledges in blackface mimicking African-American entertainers. The policy in part prohibited addressing any specific individuals with “racist or discriminatory comments” that:
“Demean the race, sex, religion, color, creed, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry or age of the individual or individuals; and
“Create an intimidating, hostile or demeaning environment for education, university-related work, or other university-authorized activity.”
The policy did not prohibit speech expressing derogatory opinions about a specific racial group in a classroom discussion because the speech was not directed at a specific individual.
A student newspaper and several students challenged the policy on First Amendment grounds. In the 1991 case UWM Post v. Board of Regents of University of Wisconsin, a federal district court agreed and struck down the policy.
The university argued that the policy was a constitutional way to prohibit fighting words, or words defined by the Supreme Court as inciting an immediate breach of the peace, as described in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. But the federal court in UWM Post thought otherwise, writing: “Since the elements of the UW Rule do not require that the regulated speech, by its very utterance, tend to incite violent reaction, the rule goes beyond the present scope of the fighting words doctrine.”
The university also contended that the policy was consistent with the major anti-discrimination employment law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The university contended that because Title VII regulated hostile workplace environments, the university could regulate hostile academic environments.
No, said the court, for several reasons, including: (1) differences between the employment and educational settings; (2) the fact that employers can generally be liable for the conduct of their employees, but universities often cannot be held liable for the conduct of students; and (3) Title VII is a statute that does not supersede the First Amendment.
The court also rejected the speech-code defenders’ rationale that the code was necessary to stop discriminatory harassment. The UWM Post federal court wrote:
“This commitment to free expression must be unwavering, because there exist many situations where, in the short run, it appears advantageous to limit speech to solve pressing social problems, such as discriminatory harassment. If a balancing approach is applied, these pressing and tangible short run concerns are likely to outweigh the more amorphous and long run benefits of free speech. However, the suppression of speech, even where the speech’s content appears to have little value and great costs, amounts to governmental thought control.”
Cross-burning case: doom for speech codes?Though no challenges to university speech codes have reached the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court did decide R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, a 1992 cross-burning case with heavy implications for speech codes.
In R.A.V., a juvenile burned a cross on the lawn of a neighboring African-American family in St. Paul, Minn. The youth was charged with violating a hate-crime ordinance, which provided:
“Whoever places on public or private property a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including, but not limited to, a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
The Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the statute, construing it to apply only to fighting words. But the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Minnesota ruling unanimously, although the justices differed sharply in their reasoning.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the R.A.V. Court’s main opinion, reasoned that the ordinance violated the First Amendment because it selectively proscribed a certain subset of fighting words. To Scalia, such a ban would be like the government prohibiting only libel that was critical of the government. “The First Amendment does not permit St. Paul to impose special prohibitions on those speakers who express views on disfavored subjects,” he wrote. “In its practical operation, moreover, the ordinance goes even beyond mere content discrimination, to actual viewpoint discrimination.”
Legal commentator S. Douglas Murray writes that “while speech codes faced an uphill battle under the constitutional precedent in place before R.A.V., this decision made it virtually impossible for a speech code to pass constitutional muster.”
Anti-harassment policies: speech codes reborn?The R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul decision, coupled with the Michigan and Wisconsin decisions, created a formidable legal hurdle for universities to clear. Central Michigan University and Stanford University could not clear that hurdle.
In 1995, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the University of Central Michigan’s speech code in Dambrot v. Central Michigan University. That same year, in Corry v. Stanford, a California state court ruled that Stanford University’s speech code violated the First Amendment. Some First Amendment advocates cheered these court decisions as the demise of campus speech codes.
Some universities dropped their broad, wide-ranging policies, such as those found at the Universities of Michigan and Wisconsin, in favor of more narrowly crafted anti-harassment or code-of-conduct policies. Whatever the terminology used, many universities still regulate various forms of hate speech.
George Mason law professor Jon Gould writes that “hate speech policies not only persist, but they have actually increased in number following a series of court decisions that ostensibly found many to be unconstitutional.”
“Many of the provisions that used to be called speech codes are being wrapped into anti-harassment policies,” says First Amendment expert and law professor Robert Richards of the University of Pennsylvania.
Although these policies tend to punish harassing speech and conduct, as opposed to offensive speech, Richards says that many of them still present First Amendment problems. “We need to examine how these anti-harassment policies are being applied to make sure that the First Amendment is not being trampled on again,” Richards says.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a Philadelphia-based civil liberties group that fights for academic freedom and free expression on college campuses, goes even further in its condemnation of speech codes.
According to FIRE’s executive director, Thor Halvorssen, more than two-thirds of college campuses restrict student speech. “It is false (a myth) to say that universities are reluctant to punish student speech,” he wrote in an e-mail message. “Colleges and universities routinely punish students and faculty for their speech, their writing, and even their membership in campus groups. FIRE opposes the current wave of campus censorship, pronounced as it is on our campuses, and we seek to defend and to enhance freedom of expression at America’s institutions of higher education.”
Halvorssen and FIRE challenge even policies that apply to fighting words. “The fighting[-]words doctrine is a dead letter,” he said. “The only valid restrictions on speech involve time, place and manner.”
FIRE has instituted a new Free Speech on Campus program that Halvorssen said “will put an end to this new censorship at America’s liberal arts institutions.”

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/speech/pubcollege/topic.aspx?topic=campus_speech_codes

Essay 2

Without a doubt, the political correctness the American society is promoting and the speech code in universities of this country is establishing have lost sight on the original purpose and started invading individuals’ freedom. While political correctness and the speech code have earned multiple criticisms from scholars and students, both ideals win praise from experts on the either side of the political spectrum. In Racial discourse, hate speech, and political correctness, Linda Greene argued that political correctness is what the American society currently needs and that “the foes of political correctness want to privatize the question of the liberty of the individuals to speak freely, while the historical victims of racism bear the cost of this privatization policy” (Greene 32). Over years, arguments sparked by the so-called foes of political correctness are not aimed at racism or prejudice towards all kinds of diversity, but the freedom of speech every American citizen is guaranteed. Free speech advocates strive to protect this principle our founding fathers set up, and believe if a certain topic is prohibited now, sooner or later the others will be abolished as well. It is unwise to say that victims of racism bear the consequences of privatization policy, as the majority of hate crimes are in physical forms. In fact, the root of hate crimes is not about the words a person use to attack another individual, but a person’s attitude. Hate crimes often start off as a feeling of dislike or hatred toward someone or a group of people who are different, which is why the blame of hate crimes or political incorrect speeches should be the frame of mind a person embraces. Therefore, the current political correctness system and speech codes are overrated and have started to swift its goal to invading a citizen’s privacy to prevent hate speech and actions from happening. On the other hand, the current news and court cases have reported incidents about how political correctness has reached to campuses all around the country, and at some point, the actions taken by the administrators are outrageous and too sensitive. For instance, recently “Vanderbilt University renamed its Confederate Memorial Hall dormitory to Memorial Hall because the word ‘confederate’ may make some people uncomfortable”(Paulin 16). While political correctness aims to make everyone in this nation as comfortable as possible, this case has made the public forget one of the crucial parts of the history of the United States. Especially for the South, “confederate” is very sentimental to many of the residents there because their great grandfathers might have participated in the Civil War, and the word “confederate” embraces the history many southerners still share today. Although what the confederate soldiers stood for is immoral and ruthless, today Americans look at this word with respect and treat it as part of the history and a culture the southern states have together. Hence, from looking at the case of Vanderbilt University, the sense of disappearing tolerance is easily seen surfacing in the higher education setting in America, and it is only a matter of time when every college and university adopt the same twisted philosophy.

Today, many scholars and even the public have twisted the reasons why free speech activists are being increasingly discontent with the current speech policy in society and colleges. In Racial discourse, hate speech, and political correctness, Linda Greene said, “Arguments framed in terms of political correctness become arguments against public responsibility for the transformation of institutions and the end of institutional racism” (Greene 32). The statement is untrue and clearly shows the lack of understanding of anti-political correctness movement among Americans. The point of the movement focuses on how Americans are having deficit of open-mindedness of different ideas, and have transformed the origin of the problem into lack of necessary speech control Americans have. The arguments regard political correctness and the public responsibilities for the transformation of institution in fact come hand in hand, as political correctness in the 21st century has turned campuses into a zero-tolerance environment and slowly stealing the personal liberty. While discrimination and racism still exist in this country, speech code and political correctness are being chosen to destroy the opportunities for various groups of people to recognize their prejudice side and merge into the peaceful harmony the previous generations built.

Besides racism, general harassment is one of the reasons why scholars and the general public support political correctness. In Slogans, amens, and speech code, Thomas Grey stated an intriguing viewpoint – “if you are going to prohibit harassment, you are going to regulate speech” (Grey 18). Regulating speech is a totalitarian step toward snatching away the rights each citizen is granted. Nevertheless harassment is often in a verbally form, the ground of the issue is neither the content of the speech nor the lack of regulation an institute has. In fact, regulating speech only hides the real problem which has been bothering the society for decades, and besides it is merely impossible to forbid harassment by monitoring speech because hostile feeling still exists even when words are not said. The only solution to this problem is to allow free flow of words in a discussion or any setting with a sense of respect and tolerance so that both parties can seek a common ground together, and eventually the ideal society every person dreams of will arrive.

Essay 2 rough draft

While political correctness and speech code have earned some criticisms from scholars and students, both ideals do win praises from experts on the other side of the political spectrum. In Racial discourse, hate speech, and political correctness, Linda Greene argued that political correctness is what the society needs nowadays and that “the foes of political correctness want to privatize the question of the liberty of the individuals to speak freely, while the historical victims of racism bear the cost of this privatization policy”. The consequences of defending the privacy and liberty of speech of a wrong person or group can be serious, especially when they abuse their right and intentionally attack another individual verbally. History has shown readers what extreme tolerance and inadequate political correctness can bring, examples such as Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis groups, other white supremacists and so on. In this case, Green pointed out that “arguments framed in terms of political correctness become arguments against public responsibility of transformation of institutions and the end of institutional racism”. The current court cases and news have reported incidents arguing about political correctness, and at some point, the arguments ignore the need of preventing racism or any type of discrimination by enforcing political correctness.
Besides racism, general harassment is one of the reasons why scholars and the general public support political correctness. In Slogans, amens, and speech code, Thomas Grey stated an intriguing viewpoint – “if you are going to prohibit harassment, you are going to regulate speech”. Almost nine of 10 cases of harassment are verbal incidents, which is why it is a very strong piece of evidence to support necessary political correctness and speech code. Thomas Gary is also an advocate of establishing speech code at Stanford University, and explained “Stanford’s regulation was an attempt to reconcile two existing university policies: first, our prohibition against discrimination n the provision of educational services on racial or other grounds; and second, our guarantee of free speech and free debate on campus.” Although speech code supporters are often viewed as opponents of free speech, the reasons provided are in fact very valid and considerable.

Essay 1

Adlai E. Stevenson once said, “The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.” Although the United States still denounces the Chinese government reaction to the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 in China when more than one hundred thousand students tried to exercise their freedom of speech that every human being deserves and were stopped by authorities, America is already gradually leaning towards the speech-controlling lane. As devastating as it is, political correctness and established university speech codes have invaded individual’s personal freedom and raised questions among the public, the press, and the students about the right to free speech, the twisted tolerance, and the slowly extinct open discussion in college classrooms.
In Human Events, it reports, “Few years ago, two editors of the Harvard Business School student newspaper were reprimanded for publishing a cartoon in which they used the term “morons” to criticize the school’s computer system.” That certainly is just one of the hundreds of thousands of incidents that have occurred in universities all over the nation. They claimed it was for the protection of the ones that might feel offended and verbally violated. However, they are just examples of how the right Americans used to be proud of, used to hold against other undemocratic countries, and used to make this country the greatest, is slowly fading away. Where is the end of this? Is it when free speech is taken away from each and every individual? Where is the tolerance Americans fought for? While political correctness has gone beyond the original purpose of prohibiting racial slangs and hate speech, it has become the devil’s grip on campuses all around the country.
The First Amendment stated, “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…” Over the years, freedom of speech has always been one of the things Americans have taken pride in, but unfortunately this right has been challenged since the time when it was granted to all of the citizens.
In our country, universities and colleges are the factory for producing the most intelligent individuals for the future society by allowing students ask all sorts of question, but today, it is “the university is where speech is more strictly regulated by what was once free-speech generation” (Garry “Censorship by the free-speech generation”). The strongest piece of evidence is the twisted speech codes in colleges across the nation. Speech codes were meant to be “asking students and employees to accept personal responsibilities for their speech and actions” (Gilroy “Colleges Grappling with Incivility”), but turns out to be “an increasingly restrictive attitude toward free expression on campuses” (Garry “Censorship by the free-speech generation”). One of the most recent and most famous incidents regarding freedom of speech is the University of Florida Taser Incident. It took place in Senator John Kerry’s Constitution Day Forum, which was organized by an agency of the student government. The heat was set off when a third-year journalist from the college newspaper, Andrew Meyer, asked if Senator Kerry supported the possible impeachment of former President George W. Bush, and whether Kerry was a member of secret society Skull and Bones or not. While Meyer was listing why President Bush should be impeached and one of the reasons was former President Bill Clinton was so as investigations led to the fact that he received oral sex from a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, his microphone was cut off. However, that did not stop Andrew Meyer from exercising his freedom of speech, as he continued asking whether Senator Kerry engaged in Skull and Bones membership. Before Kerry could answer Andrew Meyer’s questions, police officers began to seize him and tase him as he was struggling to break through the police’s force.
The criticism of this incident is not about a college student could not think of a better word to replace “oral sex” in an open forum when a highly-respected political figure was standing on the stage, whether or not Andrew Meyer was too straightforward, or if he picked the wrong questions to ask. When the college journalist innocently brought up a topic that is comfortable in a slight way, he was seized by force. What if he was just asking Senator John Kerry what his goals would be if he became the President? What if he was not asking about the secret society Skull and Bones? Obviously, the situation would have been completely different, and a scene would not be made in front of a presidential candidate and the rest of the world. On the other hand, this incident raised a very considerable question at the same time – what kind of message is the university sending to their students and students all over the country? It is true that there is always a bottom line in freedom of speech, such as falsely accusing a person, giving hate speech, making racial comments, and so on. Nevertheless, Andrew Meyer did not step across the line as all he wanted to do is to prove to other students that they could ask hard questions. As far as what the news reported and videos regarding this incident that have been posted on the internet, Meyer’s questions were clearly legitimate and his right to free speech was undoubtedly denied by the student government or University of Florida. Meanwhile, the unspoken speech code is once again a debatable topic in American higher education setting and making university faculty raise their eyebrows. Donald Kagan, a dean at Yale University, paralleled the current situation with modern history, “there is an imposed conformity of less freedom now than there was during the days of Joseph McCarthy.” (Garry “Censorship by the free-speech generation”). While the purpose of speech codes was originally admirable, it has been twisted and changed the college atmosphere just to suit everyone’s taste. Therefore, the shameful change should act as an alert to every faculty and student and to remind them the fact that it actually takes away their right and tape the mouths of the ones who want to ask intellectual-challenging and controversial questions.
One of the most vital ingredients of making future leaders of America is letting them engage in open discussions and debates, so that they can be better-rounded, respectful, and have deeper understanding of their and others’ political views and values. William Orville Douglas once said, “The most important aspect of freedom of speech is freedom to learn. All education is a continuous dialogue – questions and answers that pursue every problem in the horizon. That is the essence of academic freedom.” Since political correctness has become the guideline of how every college faculty and student should talk, hundreds of universities have adopted different speech codes. According to Censorship by free-speech generation, University of Michigan enacted a code that punishes any speech that stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the basis of any one of the 12 criteria. Speech codes were originated in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement, in order to protect minority from being verbally attacked and hurting their self-esteem. Forty years passed by, and it has transformed and “inhibits any real action on the underlying social problem” (Garry “Censorship by the free-speech generation”). In my opinion, if views cannot be expressed and discussed, people from different groups will never seek a common ground and true harmony will never arrive. In fact, Patrick Garry compared the current speech codes with weed in the lawn in Censorship by the free-speech generation. He said, “It is easier and temporarily gratifying to cut it down but unless the roots are pulled out, the weed still lives and grows.” Nowadays, political correctness has gone so far off track that it basically orders universities to regulate and monitor speeches, and in turn, it hinders faculty and students to investigate social problems, government problems, and political problems.
Tolerance is defined as a fair and objective attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, and race, that is different from your own. In 2009, the tolerance is an academic setting is slowly disappearing due to the rising political correctness movement in the society. Amity Shales, editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal, described the scary side of political correctness as “a sense of airlessness…that is the opposite of the tolerant…”(Giobbe “Political Correctness”), while Juan Gonzales from Los Angeles Times gave tolerance a new definition as “a label foisted on dissident voices by those who want to maintain the mainstream view in the media and education” (Giobbe “Political Correctness”). Speaking from personal experience, I have sit in lectures which professors had a different set of political and social views from mine, but I always stayed until they were over to be respectful. Nevertheless, I seem to notice the kind of tolerance everyone needs to have is being neglected. On one occasion, my American History professor identified himself as a Christian when we were opening a topic about religions in the United States, one of the classmates immediately walked out of the classroom. I wondered there the tolerance for each other was, and what so offensive about my professor’s comment. Today, the mainstream view in education is respecting diversity, not ignoring others’ preferences. However, it is disgraceful to see students not being able to achieve that goal and turning their back on true tolerance.

What does freedom of speech mean to a university setting?

Adlai E. Stevenson once said, “The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.” While the United States still denounces the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 in China when more than one hundred thousand students tried to exercise their freedom of speech that every human being deserves and be stopped by authorities, America is gradually leaning towards that side. In Human Events, it reports, “Few years ago, two editors of the Harvard Business School student newspaper were reprimanded for publishing a cartoon in which they used the term “morons” to criticize the school’s computer system.” That certainly is just one of the hundreds of thousands of incidents that have occurred in universities all over the nation, as they claimed it was for the protection of the ones that might feel offended; however, to many free speech activists, they are just examples of how the right Americans used to be proud of, used to hold against other undemocratic countries, and used to make this country the greatest, is slowly fading away. Where is the end of this? Is it when free speech is taken away from each and every individual? Where is the tolerance Americans fought for? Did Americans forget the reason why the Statue of Liberty is the unchangeable symbol of all the freedoms a citizen is granted today? While political correctness has gone beyond the original purpose of prohibiting racial slangs and hate speech, it has become the devil’s grip on campuses all around the country. As devastating as it is, political correctness and established university speech codes have invaded individual’s personal freedom and raised questions among the public, the press, and the students; for instance, the right to free speech, the twisted tolerance, and the slowly extinct open discussion in college classrooms.

The First Amendment stated, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, or to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Over the years, freedom of speech has always been one of the things Americans have taken pride in, but unfortunately this right has been challenged since the time when it was granted to all of the citizens. One of the most recent and most famous incidents regarding freedom of speech is the University of Florida Taser Incident. It took place in Senator John Kerry’s Constitution Day Forum, which was organized by an agency of the student government. The heat was set off when a third-year journalist from the college newspaper, Andrew Meyer, asked if Senator Kerry supported the possible impeachment of former President George W. Bush, and whether Kerry was a member of secret society Skull and Bones or not. While Meyer was listing why President Bush should be impeached and one of the reasons was former President Bill Clinton was so as investigations led to the fact that he received oral sex from a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, his microphone was cut off. However, that did not stop Andrew Meyer from exercising his freedom of speech, as he continued asking whether Senator Kerry engaged in Skull and Bones membership. Before Kerry could answer Andrew Meyer’s questions, police officers began to seize him and tase him as he was struggling to break through the police’s force. The criticism of this incident is not about a college student could not think of a better word to replace “oral sex” in an open forum when a highly-respected political figure was standing on the stage, whether or not Andrew Meyer was too straightforward, or if he picked the wrong questions to ask. When the college journalist innocently brought up a topic that is comfortable in a slight way, he was seized by force. What if he was just asking Senator John Kerry what his goals would be if he became the President? What if he was not asking about the secret society Skull and Bones? Obviously, the situation would have been completely different, and a scene would not be made in front of a presidential candidate and the rest of the world. On the other hand, this incident raised a very considerable question at the same time – what kind of message is the university sending to their students and students all over the country? Should we all be afraid to ask controversial or hot-topic questions from now on just because it is not politically correct? It is true that there is always a bottom line in freedom of speech, such as falsely accusing a person, giving hate speech, making racial comments, and so on; however, all Americans should stop and think about this question – did Andrew Meyer stop across the line? As far as what the news reported and videos regarding this incident that have been posted on the internet, Meyer’s questions were clearly legitimate and his right to free speech was undoubtedly denied by the student government or University of Florida. Is this the future of American higher education? What are colleges actually encouraging the students to do?

Free speech in universities

(I have decided to narrow down my topic to "political correctness and free speech in univerisities in the United States.)

Have you ever heard of speech codes? Campuses all around the nation have developed their own but similar speech codes to control what comes out of their students’ mouths so that people will hear less and less politically incorrect speeches, and eventually we will achieve the so-called tolerance in a higher education setting.

However, my question is, what is the definition of political correctness? Every one of us has our own set of beliefs. Some people are more conservative, and some people are more liberal. For example, I personally do not support abortion and believe it is a murder, and I am sure some of you may not agree with my opinion. I respect your viewpoint, and do not see the need of reporting you to the administrators or the media just because what you disagree with me and what you believe is not what I believe. One of the greatest and most interesting things about universities is that students are not afraid to express their opinions on controversial issues and have discussions with the others who do not share the same belief with them, and I strongly think that is where college students learn most of their knowledge and social skills from. Then, why do we have speech codes in the places where future leaders of our country are being produced? Is it because we are too cautious about the possibility of offending others? If we are strained from speaking up and standing up for what we truly believe, then what is the point of having free speech?

Tolerance is when people with different beliefs come together and be able to respect each other when they speak their mind. Did us Americans forget about that?