Whose Speech Is Free?

Reading about or watching the news these days is like the old game that asks you to find “how many things are wrong in this picture?” In the matter of Elise Stefanik vs. the Ivy League, perhaps too many wrong things to count.

First, a brief excursion through recent examples of educational leadership malfeasance, each dealing with “expression.”

Daryll George, an 18 year-old Black student was suspended for non-compliance with his high school’s dress code, specifically refusing to cut his hair. It is just too good to be true that his high school is Barbers Hill High School. The absurdity of this kind of repression of harmless expression is self-evident. I wrote about dress codes several years ago for Huffington Post:

A notch up (or down) is the dismal response of Dartmouth College’s President to protestors camping on her front lawn. She had them arrested. My own leadership style would have involved marshmallows and hot chocolate. Read about it here.

As to the main event . . .

At a Congressional hearing the reprehensible Elise Stefanik baited the trap and the presidents of Penn, Harvard and MIT stumbled right in, blindly following a roadmap provided by lawyers. I paraphrase: “Do you think genocide is wrong?” “Well, it depends on what your definition of ‘is wrong’ is.” Ding. Wrong answer. Right answer would have been:

“Of course it’s wrong, you hyper-partisan twit! But our students didn’t advocate for genocide. They attempted, with sincere intent, to recognize the current and historic plight of Palestinians. They used ill-advised language that was understandably alarming to the Jewish community. Your political gotcha gamesmanship does little to advance a very complex and volatile issue.”

The incident also invites the question, “Why would Congress have anything at all to say (or ask) about policies and practices at private institutions?” And I’ll not even get into the disgusting irony of any Republican denouncing any kind of bigotry, including antisemitism. Does “Jews will not replace us!” ring any bells?

From bad to worse. UPenn’s president resigned under a barrage of criticism. The New York Times reported, “The president, Elizabeth Magill, and the chairman of the board of trustees, Scott L. Bok, are leaving after intense pressure from donors, politicians and alumni” - a candid acknowledgment of where true power rests in education.

This incident further inflamed an ongoing debate about free speech from a constitutional and policy perspective. Many commenters point out what they believe is inconsistency and/or hypocrisy on college campuses where (what they claim are) minor micro-aggressions draw sanctions whereas allusions to genocide are robustly defended. This, folks on the right (and some on the left) consider a distinction between preferred speech and free speech.

In this odd view, the voices of conservative white men are woefully underrepresented on and off campuses and this viewpoint censorship is the gravest offense against free expression. As if. A quick review of the racial and gender makeup of the U.S. Senate might be a rebuke to that opinion. And, as written above, “. . . leaving after intense pressure from donors, politicians and alumni.” I would guess that the “donors, politicians and alumni” flexing their power are not primarily queer, Black activists. Just sayin’.

A long-valid standard for freedom of speech is that the answer to bad speech is more speech. Parsing the complexity and context of any expression is perilous, at least from a legal or policy perspective. What to one person is a petty claim of micro-aggression is to another person a pattern representing real, dangerous, racist aggression. The invocation of “intifada” or “from the river to the sea” is to one person a call for genocide and to another person an expression of support for Palestinian self-determination. Appending one’s own particular and personal experience is, of course, understandable, but not dispositive.

Elizabeth Magill unwisely raised the importance of context from her Congressional hot seat. She was right, but raised the issue in the wrong context, if you will.

In fact, context matters a great deal. We would all benefit from learning why a so-called micro-aggression is painful. We should all learn what heart-shattering inferences can be drawn by Jewish friends from careless use of some words and phrases. We should all understand that a Black boy’s “dreads” are a statement of cultural pride to be honored, not a form of rebellion to be punished.

In the absence of a clear and direct incitement to violence, freedom of speech must be protected, including - perhaps especially - on college campuses.

And we should all have marshmallows and hot chocolate with those with whom we disagree.