Do Campus Speech Codes Violate Student Rights? Essay

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campus speech codes violate student rights?

The freedom of expression is not for students alone. It is for all citizens and for students the rights and liberties that are available for all citizens apply in the same manner. In that context if the citizen has a right of speech and expression, it also implies that the citizen student also enjoys this right. Where the general laws abrogate the freedom of speech, making some kinds of speech and expression culpable, it is also applicable to the student. The question is if the academic institution passes rules that prohibit speeches and other form of expressions defined as 'hate speech', it has to be assumed that the 'hate speech' as defined inside the campus differs from the general legislation, or there is no general legislation that covers the 'hate speech 'and therefore being introduced in the campus make it unique to the student community which then is deprived of a right that they posses as citizens. This however is not the case. The campus speech codes are an attempt at stemming hate and violence in the campus.

Thesis Statement "Do campus speech codes violate student rights or the constitutional rights or are they a method of enforcing rights of all persons and hence must be enacted?"

Discussion

The argument of this paper is that the campus speech code does not violate any fundamental right helps in assuring the right for all students. It can be seen that the Campus Speech Codes came about in the 1980s after the Skokie affair, after which many universities all over the country, adopted codes of student conduct restricting offensive speech. The University of Michigan took the initiative with prohibiting "any behavior, verbal or physical, that stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, creed, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, handicap or Vietnam era veteran status.

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" (Walker, 18)

There is a need for the Hate speech codes in campuses because it would act as a means of reducing if not altogether removing hate and discrimination. Thus hate speech regulation is a type of affirmative action that can keep the equality that is needed in campuses and prevent the hurt and other trauma that can be cause to the victims of hate. Therefore the need is very much felt in regulating speech that would other wise make use of discriminatory and hateful groups to form based on color, ethnicity and other issues, and therefore it is time such a regulation is made stringent. In dealing with the issue of the codes it has been argued that such regulations must be seen as mere "affirmative action programs" that bring about equal protection law and therefore ought to be seen as valid under the First and the Fourteenth Amendments. (Ma, 695)

Earlier legislation was simply targeted at specific groups -- like the Ku Klux Klan and activities that violate the rights of black people. (Kelly; Maghan, 150) It is argued that the freedom of speech is not an absolute right under the Constitution, but the authorities cannot arbitrarily restrict it; but it can restrict if there is a compelling state interest. The government's concern for maintaining peace is one such interest that has been acknowledged by the Supreme Court, and thus according to Judge Murphy, who propounded the "fighting words" doctrine in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire gave the direction that some classes of speech could be prevented or punished by the government without violating the Constitution. (Zingo, 139) This makes….....

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