What are “free speech zones” and why are they on our college campuses?
According to The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, one in six college campuses have established free speech zones, also known as First Amendment zones. These zones are areas reserved for political protests and typically share a few common characteristics, such as required pre-registration, limited use, and a limited area.
Some students are standing up against the allotted “zones,” and demanding that all of campus be considered a free speech zone.
“It’s is a consensus on FAU’s campus that 91 percent of the student government passed a resolution to say that we don’t want that,” Florida Atlantic student Bethany Bowra said on FOX Business Network. “So, this is the first step that I’ve seen that we know of, that a school is actually taking steps towards fighting for their free speech and for their right to stay away from safe zones.”
Arizona has decided to eliminate free speech zones from all campuses across the state. Gov. Dave Ducy (R-Ariz.) signed a bill into law this week that prohibits state colleges from restricting free speech to the First Amendment zones, and allows students to file lawsuits against the schools.
Iowa State University has also been wrestling with this issue lately.
“It’s hard to say absolutely that there should be no limits,” professor Mark Rectanus told Iowa State Daily. “I think speech should be respectful of whoever speaking chooses to address. Some forms of speech are targeted. Some are very open. But I think all speech interactions should try to be respectful of the community they’re in.”
However, determining what “respectful” speech is can be difficult, especially in this age of political correctness.
In reference to the students at FAU, Bowra said, “Enough is enough. We don’t need safe zones, we don’t need to be babied. We actually want to be able to be offended. We want our right to be offended to be protected on our college campus.”
Because of the right to free speech, it is unavoidable that feelings will be hurt and opinions will be disagreed with from time to time. But, rather than an indication that freedoms should be limited, perhaps this is just an indication that Americans must become more proficient at defending their beliefs and listening to the beliefs of others.
The First Amendment is just another aspect of the Constitution that is in jeopardy of being largely disregarded, along with the Second Amendment, Tenth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, and Article IV, Section 4, to name a few.
Because the United States is a republic, the Constitution was penned to lay out the structure of the American government, granting specific powers to the federal government and to the states. Unfortunately, it becomes ineffective fairly quickly when it is subjected to an excessive “picking and choosing” of freedoms for the sake of maintaining an elusive unity.
