In Robby Cohen’s article “Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Paving the Way for Campus Activism,” he describes the Free Speech Movement at the University of California Berkeley during the Civil Rights Movement. (1982) Student protests were instigated by actions performed by the University, which many students believed were attempts to inhibit and limit their right to free speech. Although student protests contributed to adaptations being made to University laws allowing students the right to advocate for political issues on campus, I think it is important to think about why those policies were there in the first place. I can very easily be wrong about this, but I believe that the prevention of students from advocating for political issues on campus (so called limitations on free speech) was more intended to prevent controversy and conflict on campus. It makes sense to me that the university would want to avoid conflict on campus at all costs. Controversial political issues can easily facilitate confrontation between groups with different opinions. So, one method of avoiding these kinds of issues would be to prevent advocacy for such polarizing topics.
Also, when discussing free speech I think it is important to acknowledge that free speech should be applied to both sides of a political argument. For example, when Martin Shkreli and Milo Yiannopoulos (two extremely controversial people) were supposed to speak at UC Davis earlier this year, the event was cancelled due to overwhelming protests from students. Although I understand that these two are infamous for their intolerance, racism, homophobia, etc., I don’t believe it was fair for them to be silenced. When it was announced that Skrelli and Yiannopoulos would be allowed to speak on campus, the Interim Chancellor sent a letter to the entire University explaining how not allowing them to speak would be a form of censorship. (2017) The chancellor also explained that if people had alternative beliefs than the speakers, then it would be beneficial for them to attend the event in order to learn more and understand the opposite perspective. I know it can be easy to label people like Skrelli and Yiannopoulos as empirically racist or sexist, but that doesn’t promote a higher level understanding of their beliefs. I think that in order to fully combat intolerance people need to first try and understand where these beliefs are coming from.
Question: Should “hate - speech” be considered free speech? Does this methodology deserve official platforms for public expression?
References
Cohen, R. (1985). Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Paving the way for campus activism. OAH
Magazine of History, 1(1), 16-18. doi:10.1093/maghis/1.1.16
Phillips, K. (2017, January 14). Protests derail UC Davis event with Breitbart’s Milo
Yiannopoulos, ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli. Retrieved November 05, 2017, from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/01/14/protests-derail-uc-davis-event-with-breitbarts-milo-yiannopoulos-pharma-bro-martin-shkreli/?utm_term=.f3ded2c3dd59
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