“Women, sexual assault victims, people of color, transgender students. College campuses have created “safe spaces” for all sorts of marginalized groups. But in the process, one member of the campus community has lost precious real estate. Free speech” (1). This quote from the article “Free Speech is Flunking Out on College Campuses” by Catherine Rampell introduces the idea that the right to freedom of speech is being squashed. All over the country, colleges are taking away this right from their students in order to protect others, but in reality, they are only stripping them of what is protected under the Constitution.
Censorship has spread to social media apps causing students to be in constant danger of being accused of harassment. Claims of disrespectful and offensive speech with no concrete evidence are causing colleges to censor their campuses and social media apps which limits the right to freedom of speech, and therefore should not be acceptable. Censoring the freedom of speech on college campuses must be considered unacceptable because of the rights given under the Constitution.
In the article “How Campus Censors Squelch Freedom of Speech”, the author Stuart Taylor Jr. xplains that a student named Steve Hinkle is punished by his college campus because he was posting flyers around campus that described a speech a black man was giving that linked black dependency on government programs to slavery (501). Hinkle has the right to pass out and hang these flyers because he was informing others of a speech, yet some other black students found this disrespectful and offensive and reported him to the campus police. The flyer contained no racial slurs or name calling of any type, and to demand a flyer to be taken down without any type of obvious harassment is disrespectful.
Those students are denying that man to his opinion on a topic that is a huge problem in today’s society. The Constitution allows him to freely speak his mind despite having to worry whether he will hurt someone’s feelings. Taylor Jr. continues to explain that Texas Tech bans students to a freedom of speech zone which is only a gazebo that can hold no more than forty people. If a student would like to engage in any type of freedom of speech activities outside of this zone, then they must have approval six days before the activity (504).
The fact that students are not permitted to speak their mind freely outside of the gazebo without permission is saddening. Higher authorities are limiting the thoughts of not only students, but also all people because of the fear that they will insult someone or they will speak out against their rules. Freedom of speech should not be limited to a certain zone with only a certain amount of students to hear it because the founding fathers did not intend for it be like this. They came from a country where they were not permitted to have their own opinion; therefore, they wanted the United States to allow freedom of speech whenever and wherever.
Limiting speech is limiting diversity, knowledge, and opinion; moreover, censorship is not allowing the country to grow. Rampell continues to state “Crippling the delivery of unpopular views is a terrible lesson to send to impressionable minds and future leaders at Wesleyan and elsewhere” (1). By oppressing someone else’s opinion, people are refusing to hear different thoughts, and it is teaching others to not have different opinions in this society. By censoring the unpopular opinion, people are being sheltered from facts and information that they need to know.
Censorship can be considered as a form of social control because of the way society is trying to manipulate the masses. Society is putting boundaries on different opinions because the fear of expression, and the holes left by censorship are often filled with fabricated information from the media or the government. Freedom of speech is protected for a reason under the Constitution because it is not meant for everyone to like and agree with it. Freedom of speech must be present because the United States of America needs diverse and alternating opinions.
Censoring on college campuses is not restricted solely on the grounds of the university, but also it happens on social media apps. Censoring speech through social media apps on college campuses is not acceptable. The app Yik Yak allows for users that are all on the same college campus to post messages anonymously. Cristina Corbin’s article “Groups Call for Censorship of Popular Social Media App on College Campuses” states that even racist or sexist comments are typically protected under the Constitution, and censorship on college campuses can be compared to the great firewall of American higher education (1).
It is proven here that censoring any type of social media apps on college campuses is blatantly unconstitutional. In most cases, sexual and racist comments that are usually considered offensive and disrespectful are protected because of the freedom of speech. Denying and censoring the different opinions of society only harms the human population as a whole because of the way knowledge is being suppressed causing society to not be able to grow to their full potential. Society must prevent censorship from taking place in all situations because with it, citizens would be too protected from information that is vital to have a fulfilling life.
Taylor Jr. continues, “Administrators typically interpret these rules to encompass any speech that offends nonwhite students or insults the left-liberal-radical-feminist-post modernist orthodoxies of the academic class” (502). There is a certain group of students that are often the ones who complain about being disrespected and offended by the comments and speech that they believe should be censored. In some cases, the speech may not even be directed towards their class, but they will still take offense.
Administrators should not have to worry that they ill offend a certain type of student because then they will not have freedom to say how they feel. Students should not be so quick to call something disrespectful or offensive because when they get into the real world of working and adult life, there will be no administration board to listen to and protect them. Rampell continues to state that even President Obama has made claims that college students are too protected and coddled against the outside world (1). President Obama has very liberal ideas; therefore, even left sided politicians are finding that censorship is becoming too extreme for the American society.
President Obama himself said that students are being coddled and sheltered from the harsh truth of reality. There will be speeches and opinions that not every person of society will agree with, but that does not give anyone the right to demand censorship especially when that speech falls under the right to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech should never be censored when no one’s right have been infringed. With campuses growing and evolving with today’s society, everyone has a place to fit in during college, except freedom of speech.
This right to every American citizen has been ignored by many college administrations because of the fear that they will offend another group of students. Colleges have placed bans on campuses that only allow students to practice their given right in a certain zone, and if they choose to practice it somewhere else, they will be punished or will need approval. Needing approval for a given right is simply unconstitutional, and punishing them for practicing freedom of speech is a clear violation of their rights. Restricting the right to freedom of speech is unacceptable because of the rights given to every citizen in the Constitution.
