University Speech Codes Curtailments on Term Paper

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Delgado further argues,

Rules against hate speech, homophobic remarks and misogyny serve both symbolic and institutional values... It has been argued that such prohibitions operate in derogation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech, but that amendment already is subject to dozens of exceptions -- libel, defamation, words of conspiracy or threat, disrespectful words uttered to a judge or police officer, irrelevant or untrue words spoken in a judicial proceeding, copyright, plagiarism, official secrets, misleading advertising and many more. The social interest in deterring vicious racial or sexual vituperation certainly seems at least as great as that underlying these other forms of speech deemed unworthy of First Amendment protection. (Gottfried and Delgado 25)

Another defender of speech codes is Barbara Bowen, the president of the Professional Staff Congress, the faculty union of the City University of New York, who states, "I don't accept that the left has created a climate of intolerance by vigorously denouncing racist speech. Racism is something that should be denounced each and every time it's encountered" (Glenn 11). Some cases, though, suggest that the sensitivity of some may be too heightened for these odes to be reasonable. David Glenn cites one case from California's Orange Coast College in which a political science professor was suspended with pay after a heated discussion with four Muslim students in one of his classes:

The students claim that Hearlson is biased against Muslims, that he accused them personally of supporting terrorism and that he inspired a jingoistic rage among other students in the class.

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Hearlson denies these charges, saying that he merely intended to stimulate a discussion about whether there is a double standard at work among Middle Eastern governments that have denounced the World Trade Center attacks but praise Hamas suicide bombings in Israel. (Glenn 11)

Noted First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams note some of the reasons why the left has been seeking these laws and recognizes the validity of some of their concerns, but he disagrees that these codes are th way to address those issues, writing,

But liberals, nonetheless, should resist the temptation to opt for narrowed First Amendment protections. They should recall, if only in their own self-interest, that censorship of speech has long been all too congenial to the American public... [and] censorship in America has generally been aimed at the left. The right may profit more these days from an expansive reading of the First Amendment but the day will surely come when only a broadly interpreted First Amendment will protect speech the left cares about. (Abrams 54)

The arguments for these codes are largely based on a belief that some persons who are not part of the mainstream majority need special protection as they try to enter the mainstream through education, and opposition stems from the view that free speech should really be free, that demonstrating a real harm is not possible, and the speech codes go against the real purpose of the university.

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