College students unclear about Free Speech - FIRE

[Augustus]

You'd have to define what you mean. But I do think that racists ought to be able to speak, and be criticized, on campus. It's not easy to listen to vile speech, but it's a skill college students have to learn.

Do you believe that students should be free to direct racial abuse at individuals? So someone could call a black student a *n word* and the university would not be able to punish them. Or could they call for lynchings and claim 'free speech'?

The point being if you do, you support 'restrictions' on free speech. That is why asking vague, fuzzy questions is worthless.

 

[Sunstone]

How does punishing intolerant and hateful speech violate the principle of free speech?

It represents a return to the intolerance for free speech that existed prior to John Stuart Mill's famous treatise on the attempts of British corn merchants to legally suppress criticism of their greedy, misery-inducing practices.

The merchants wanted to make hateful and intolerant speech illegal in order to protect themselves from the "radicals" who were calling them bad names because the merchants were jacking up prices for grains to the point people were starving to death. Mills came out swinging against the merchants, saying that free speech should not be restricted unless it threatened to incite people to do physical harm against someone or their property.

Mill's "Harm Principle" was almost immediately adopted through-out the Western world, such was his stature at the time as a thinker and logician. Today, such a thing probably would be impossible for we no longer respect thinkers.

 

[HonestJoe]

As for differences, I disagrees with anyone who thinks "offensive" speech should be censored.

That's perfectly fine (and I'd mostly agree) but it isn't what your OP said. You just flatly accused those who (apparently) think differently of not understanding what free speech means. That is unfair rhetoric.

You have the right to say it of course, but that doesn't mean you should.

 

[Sunstone]

Those same people who want to abolish Mill's "Harm Principle" as the standard rule for the limits of free speech are the same people who would be the first to be "publicly lynched" if it were negated by broadening it to include hate speech.

People these days are superficial and incapable of thinking things through in depth. People learn how to reason from listening to talk radio and TV commenters. Folks who have never seen the inside of a university classroom on logic and reasoning think themselves logicians. Shameful times! We live in shameful times!

 

[Revoltingest]

You need to counter for the public and their whim. Look at the Betsy Ross flag. A whole product line pulled because some group used it while every ignores the myth about the flag itself.

Will people abandon the Pride flag if some nazi group uses it. Fascist and Fabulous!

 

[icehorse]

Do you believe that students should be free to direct racial abuse at individuals? So someone could call a black student a *n word* and the university would not be able to punish them. Or could they call for lynchings and claim 'free speech'?

The point being if you do, you support 'restrictions' on free speech. That is why asking vague, fuzzy questions is worthless.

Do you think the questions on the survey linked to in the OP are vague and/or fuzzy? To me, one goal of the survey is to determine the degree to which students understand their civil liberties, no?

 

[icehorse]

That's perfectly fine (and I'd mostly agree) but it isn't what your OP said. You just flatly accused those who (apparently) think differently of not understanding what free speech means. That is unfair rhetoric.

You have the right to say it of course, but that doesn't mean you should.

My conclusion from reading the results of the survey is that many students don't understand what free speech in the U.S. means. That is distinct from students who understand it, but want to amend it.

 

[Vidensia]

Will people abandon the Pride flag if some nazi group uses it. Fascist and Fabulous!

Do you believe that students should be free to direct racial abuse at individuals? So someone could call a black student a *n word* and the university would not be able to punish them. Or could they call for lynchings and claim 'free speech'?

The point being if you do, you support 'restrictions' on free speech. That is why asking vague, fuzzy questions is worthless.

When violence is being called for, violence is being called for. School is no place for that. Name calling? People need to grow up and stop trying to create yet more laws to restrict another’s free speech, just because they lack the power to personally resolve their disputes.

Furthermore, I don’t agree with the banning of words, especially not simply because some group finds them offensive.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Nope.

Sure it is....It is always someone else's definition.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Tranquility is vague

Not it is not. For example if you're in a lecture hall and you yell out racial epithets you are disrupting the tranquility of the environment because it disrupts the learning process of students. Tranquility in this case is the peace of mind that you're able to receive and retain the information that is being given by the lecturer. i cannot believe someone actually thought this post was a winner.

and can be applied in contexts in which the harm is merely being uncomfortable with a spoken fact.

Not necessarily.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

false dilemma.

Not really eleaborate

 

[Augustus]

Do you think the questions on the survey linked to in the OP are vague and/or fuzzy? To me, one goal of the survey is to determine the degree to which students understand their civil liberties, no?

The '57%' question you highlighted was vague and fuzzy enough to be meaningless.

Unreliable data is worse than no data.

 

[icehorse]

The '57%' question you highlighted was vague and fuzzy enough to be meaningless.

Unreliable data is worse than no data.

Disagree on your first point, agree on the second, although it's not relevant in this situation, so it's not in good faith.

 

[icehorse]

That is the problem with free speech absolutionists to think that you should absolutely say whatever you want whenever is the major problem. Free speech protects you from the government, not the rest of society. If certain speech is disruptive to the tranquility of an environment especially when learning is involved, it needs to be mitigated. Not a hard concept.

On this thread, no one is talking about free speech absolutionists. That's why it's a false dilemma.

 

[Audie]

Do you believe that students should be free to direct racial abuse at individuals? So someone could call a black student a *n word* and the university would not be able to punish them. Or could they call for lynchings and claim 'free speech'?

The point being if you do, you support 'restrictions' on free speech. That is why asking vague, fuzzy questions is worthless.

It is the old "fire" in crowded theatre thing.

 

[Augustus]

Disagree on your first point, agree on the second, although it's not relevant in this situation, so it's not in good faith.

You don't seem to understand what "not in good faith" means.

I believe that asking a question about "restrictions" is too vague to be meaningful seeing as this could mean anything from a university restricting incitements to violence, personal racial abuse of other students, verbal sexual harassment, "shouting fire in a crowded theatre", etc.

These are not really 'free speech' issues, but personal conduct issues yet if you agree universities should restrict them (which I image the vast majority of people of all demographics do) you are somehow 'confused on free speech'.

You disagree that a generic reference to 'restrictions' is vague.

If you agree with me, the data is bad. You don't. That's basic disagreement, not 'bad faith' argument.

In general, do you believe that question wording and question context make an enormous difference to poll results? So that a small change in language can completely skew a result (by 50+%), or even asking the same questions but in a different order can have a significant impact?

 

[icehorse]

Unreliable data is worse than no data.

This line seems to me to be in bad faith. It assumes a point that's till under discussion.

The question from the survey:

"Q19: Colleges and universities should be able to restrict student expression of political views that are hurtful or offensive to certain students."

How is this unclear? It seems very clear to me.

 

[Augustus]

This line seems to me to be in bad faith. It assumes a point that's till under discussion

It was a statement of opinion. Stating your opinion is not 'bad faith'.

In general, even very basic polls are far less reliable than we think (political opinion polls for example), let alone long, repetitive questionnaires that people fill in with minimal effort and are subject to a 'what comes to mind' recall bias. Also there are a significant number of variables that can have a large impact on results.

The question from the survey:

"Q19: Colleges and universities should be able to restrict student expression of political views that are hurtful or offensive to certain students."

How is this unclear? It seems very clear to me.

I was actually looking at Q18, which I now notice I had completely misread

It still lacks specificity though.

Do you believe students should be able to form a Nazi Party that uses university facilities to call for a genocide against Jews and advocate violence against gay people?

Or a Jihadi society that advocates domestic terrorism and verbally harasses female students who are 'showing too much flesh'?

 

[icehorse]

Do you believe students should be able to form a Nazi Party that uses university facilities to call for a genocide against Jews and advocate violence against gay people?

Well you're shifting the goal posts a bit here. But I would say that - reprehensible as those stances are - student groups must be allowed to invite and listen to speakers of views like that. Those views will only be eliminated by exposure to daylight.

Or a Jihadi society that advocates domestic terrorism and verbally harasses female students who are 'showing too much flesh'?

Shifting the goal posts again. Free speech is not the same as personal verbal harassment. And again, students must be allowed to listen to the Jihadi's arguments. We ALL must be able to listen to those arguments. It's the only way we will be able to weed them out.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

On this thread, no one is talking about free speech absolutionists. That's why it's a false dilemma.

I was responding to Shad actually regarding that due to his initial post which implied saying whatever you want.