FIRE survey: 73% of public universities have unconstitutional speech codes

posted at 3:03 pm on December 7, 2006 by Allahpundit
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Go figure, huh?

I thought it’d be closer to 90.

The roll of shame:

* Macalester College bans “speech that makes use of inappropriate words or non-verbals.”
* Furman University bans any “offensive communication not in keeping with community standards.”
* At the University of Mississippi, “offensive language is not to be used” over the telephone.
* The University of North Carolina–Greensboro prohibits “disrespect for persons.”

Just to make things extra Orwellian, on Tuesday the SG at Carleton University in Canada voted to defund campus groups that it deems to be “anti-choice.” “Pro-life” groups are fine; it’s the “anti-choicers” who need to watch out. Said the anti-life student-body president,

“Where we draw the line in terms of anti-choice is that anti-choice is a stance that aims to limit or remove a woman’s right to choose her best option in the case of pregnancy.

“Anti-choice often wishes to use the law to force women to bring unwanted pregnancy to term and they usually advocate for the recriminalization of abortion or a return to the board-granted abortion process,” he said, adding the students’ association did not want to fund that kind of activity.

The reporter contacted a law professor for her take and got this dropped on him:

“There are certain forms of speech we constrain because there are other competing interests we think are more important, and this is a case where it is not a radical position on the part of the student government to decide that between freedom of expression for anti-abortion groups and respect for reproductive autonomy and equality rights of women, we come down on the side of women’s equality rights.”

Rarely will you see it put as bluntly as that — freedom of expression versus “respect.” It’s a false choice in this case, besides. The interests aren’t competing: they could fund the pro-life group and pass a resolution expressing their “respect” for abortion rights. Or they could fund pro-choice and pro-life groups proportionate to the size of their respective memberships, which would reflect the sentiments of the student population while at least making a cursory nod toward the marketplace of ideas. To do it the way she’s suggesting is to make a show of ostracizing the group — which, having no obligation to fund anyone, they’re perfectly entitled to do.

But it does tend to put the lie to the idea that Carleton “welcomes the diversity of opinion.”

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