Monday evening students and Nadine Strossen, a former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, gathered to discuss the limits of free speech on college campus.
The first amendment protects a number of rights that citizens of the U.S. hold in high regard. The event Monday night touched on some of those rights but focused on the freedom of speech. Strossen opened with discussing what it means to have the freedom of speech on campus. UW is a public university and strossen stressed that the first amendment applies only for public places.
“At public universities the limits on free speech are just the same as they would be at any other street or park for what you can say,” said Strossen.
Private universities choose to endorse and protect the freedom of speech on their campuses since they are not public spaces. They create a contractual right with their students and faculty to utilize freedom of speech.
Strossen steered her remarks toward hate speech, what constitutes hate speech and what type of speech is protected.
“Hate speech is speech that conveys a hateful, degrading message based on identity” Strossen said.
Concerns about free speech can stem from both sides, from those who are using hate speech to those that are hearing it. Censorship of hate speech and whether or not it is effective also came up during the discussion.
“One of the arguments that’s made in favor of censoring hate speech is it has a silencing impact on those it’s directed at,” said Strossen. “I understand that there are concerns about free speech on both sides of the equation. I take the potential harm that is caused by hate speech very seriously and I oppose censoring it not because I believe it does no harm but because I believe that censorship does more harm than good.”
On the topic of censorship Strossen mentioned several groups on campus that had attempted to invite guest speakers in the past to the university but had been denied while others had no problems.
Towards the end of the discussion Strossen gave examples of how censorship of hate speech was affecting how people respond. She discussed examples of traditionally derogatory slang in a unanimous Supreme Court case from 2017 ruling that prohibited trademarks that may be offensive to certain people, institutions or symbols was unconstitutional.
“We have a lot of government officials arguing that Black Lives Matter is hate speech, Blue Lives Matter is hate speech and even free speech has been deemed as hate speech in some places,” said Strossen. “Don’t silence the hateful speech but rather use your free speech rights to answer it back.”
