In Minnesota, a college push could reaffirm free speech as of “paramount” importance for academic freedom and the pursuit of truth. Opponents, however, have concerns about its implications for “hate speech.”
The University of Minnesota at Twin Cities Faculty Senate is debating a statement passed by the Faculty Consultive Committee to emphasize that the university is “absolutely committed to protecting free speech, both for constitutional and academic reasons,” according to Inside Higher Ed.
“Ideas are the lifeblood of a free society and universities are its beating heart. If freedom of speech is undermined on a university campus, it is not safe anywhere,” the statement declared.
That includes protections for speech that’s “offensive, uncivil, or even hateful.” The statement affirmed that speech shouldn’t be regulated “on the ground that some speakers are thought to have more power or more access to the mediums of speech than other” and “even when protecting free speech conflicts with other important University values, free speech must be paramount.”
The statement is a powerful rejection that universities must institute speech restrictions to oppose racism and other social ills.
Minnesota isn’t the only university in the Midwest to reaffirm its commitment to free speech and academic freedom. In 2012, the University of Chicago adopted a “statement on principles of free expression” that stated it “guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn.” Purdue University followed suit and committed to “the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.”
Critics of the statement have been, perhaps unsurprisingly, students. “Much of the criticism centers on free speech being a ‘paramount’ value, and detractors point to its potential to conflict with various other laws and concerns about educational access, campus safety[,] and protecting students,” Colleen Flaherty wrote for Inside Higher Ed.
The Council of Graduate Students passed a formal response that noted a free speech statement is “necessary and appropriate,” but worried that the proposed statement was “ill-advised” and unreflective of “consensus values.”
Minnesota will have to do more to live up to the statement if it passes. It has a yellow light rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education, which criticizes broad rules and policies that limit the free speech rights of students and faculty. Students, faculty, and university administrators have struggled to persuade their peers about the importance of free speech as a basis for academic freedom and a method for confronting social ills. With the proposed faculty statement, they can at least enshrine a commitment and hold Minnesota accountable.
