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OP-ED: Speech on campus must be handled with responsibility
by Albert Cahn
Forum | 9/5/06
Posted online at 1:47 AM EST on 9/5/06
Brandeis must be a place where all people-regardless of their race, religion or beliefs about Israel and Palestine-will feel safe and free to express their views. Rather than limiting controversial speech, the administration should work to empower those with dissenting viewpoints and embrace the educational value of such impassioned discussion.
I am not advocating mindless vitriol; we should all be respectful in our discourse out of empathy for those around us. Adults in our society generally try not to offend others because of self-restraint, not rules and speech codes. Why should college be treated so differently?
It's clear that Brandeis will always have rules to prohibit some forms of speech. The merits of such a restriction aside, it would not be possible for Brandeis to allow for all speech, including the most offensive sort of hate rhetoric, without opening itself up to civil liability.
Proceeding with the premise that we will have some sort of limit on expression, it is essential that whatever regulations we have are viewpoint-neutral, that they are blind to which side of a debate any one speaker may be on. A rule that in practice favors one ideology over competing ones is far more repulsive than having no restriction at all.
Not too long ago, it would have been comforting to know the administration was there to help shield us from those offensive, objectionable elements on this campus. I saw how the extremist firebrands brought to campus by certain organizations would upset some of my closest friends, and I would have been tempted to request that such speeches and events be shut down.
But now it seems clear that cost of such a remedy-the price of suppressing distasteful speech-is far too high to be tolerated.
The writer is the Student Union's senior representative to the Board of Trustees.
I am not advocating mindless vitriol; we should all be respectful in our discourse out of empathy for those around us. Adults in our society generally try not to offend others because of self-restraint, not rules and speech codes. Why should college be treated so differently?
It's clear that Brandeis will always have rules to prohibit some forms of speech. The merits of such a restriction aside, it would not be possible for Brandeis to allow for all speech, including the most offensive sort of hate rhetoric, without opening itself up to civil liability.
Proceeding with the premise that we will have some sort of limit on expression, it is essential that whatever regulations we have are viewpoint-neutral, that they are blind to which side of a debate any one speaker may be on. A rule that in practice favors one ideology over competing ones is far more repulsive than having no restriction at all.
Not too long ago, it would have been comforting to know the administration was there to help shield us from those offensive, objectionable elements on this campus. I saw how the extremist firebrands brought to campus by certain organizations would upset some of my closest friends, and I would have been tempted to request that such speeches and events be shut down.
But now it seems clear that cost of such a remedy-the price of suppressing distasteful speech-is far too high to be tolerated.
The writer is the Student Union's senior representative to the Board of Trustees.
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