Speaking to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) during a briefing on sexual harassment law in education, Democrat Commissioner Michael Yaki gave a surprisingly blunt — and revealing — defense of campus speech codes, claiming that they were necessary because the brains of college students are still developing and cannot handle certain ideas.
To paraphrase him slightly, you want the truth? You can’t handle the truth.
“There are very good and compelling reasons why broader policies and prohibitions on conduct in activities and in some instances speech are acceptable on a college campus level that might not be acceptable say in an adult work environment or in an adult situation,” Yaki said, according to an unofficial transcript printed by Eugene Volokh, a law professor and blogger at the Volokh Conspiracy. Volokh testified at the briefing.
Yaki’s words make it clear that while college students might be adults in the eyes of the law, he does not believe that they are yet intellectually capable of exercising adult rights, like free speech.
“It has to do with science, and it has to do with the fact that more and more the vast majority, in fact I think overall in bodies of science is that young people, not just K through 12 but also between the ages of 16 to 20, 21, is where the brain is still in a stage of development,” Yaki, also a former adviser to Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said.
Straying off point somewhat, he likened the need for speech codes to court rulings forbidding the death penalty for juvenile offenders.
“It is not, and those studies by the way were utilized by the Supreme Court to rationalize why killing a minor was unconstitutional because in large part notwithstanding the fact that they did commit a crime and the court made it very clear, they weren’t going to excuse them from committing a crime.”
While his testimony rambled and is at times incoherent, a few points were quite clear. The commissioner said flat out that he favored banning speech perceived as distasteful or offensive, such as “a slave auction at a fraternity engagement” or a celebration of Latino culture marked “by making everyone dress as janitors and mop floors” or a situation where women would “as a ritual parade around in skimpy clothing and turn in some show or something.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education took issue with Yaki’s position, telling Campus Reform that while it couldn’t respond directly until an official transcript of the briefing was released, there’s some — shocker! — constitutional reasoning for why he’s off.
“In the meantime, I would point you to the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, which extended the franchise to 18-year-olds. FIRE has long argued that if college students can vote and can even be sent off to fight in wars, we must grant them full political rights — and that prominently includes their First Amendment rights,” Robert Shibley, senior vice president at FIRE, told the outlet.
Yaki clearly stands at the top of a slippery slope. At what point does someone seize on this kind of thinking to restrict First Amendment rights for other purposes?
(via Campus Reform and The Daily Caller)
