buckeyematt2 wrote:Bootstrap wrote:At a university, all of these people need to be free to have their opinions. Hate speech directed toward any of them cannot be tolerated.
Universities have been dealing with this issue for a very, very long time.
Well, they often don't seem to be doing a very good job of it. And there are problems with the idea of categorizing some speech as "hate speech" and off-limits, including the problem that Josh mentioned.
It's a very hard thing to do well. Imagine this: you have a campus full of bright teenagers, all full of opinions and in the midst of discovering who they are, some of them fundamentalist Christians or Muslims or Jews, others LGBT activists, extreme left and right wing politically involved people, many with well-to-do parents who have lawyers. Every one of them wants to speak out. Most of them are easily hurt if someone speaks out against them.
The First Amendment does have limits, you can't threaten people with violence, cry "fire" in a crowded theater if there is no danger, distribute child pornography, etc.
What about speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, etc? Most colleges say that's not OK because it makes it really hard for students who fit those categories to feel welcome at school. But how do you define "offends", "threatens", and "insults"? That's tricky, and schools do it in different ways.
It's hard to get exactly right, but it's helpful to think about what it would be like if someone else did it to you. When we talk about people we disagree with, would we consider it hate speech if they said the same kind of thing about us? That kind of symmetry is really important. It has to be fair to both us and people we disagree with. That's uncomfortable, and a big reason that many go to private Christian universities that can play by different rules.
First of all, consider what FIRE says about the state of religious freedom and free speech on college campuses:
https://www.thefire.org/campus-rights/
Religious liberty is the right to follow the faith of your choice—or to follow no faith at all. Religious liberty is a cornerstone of our nation and is the very first freedom guaranteed to Americans by the Bill of Rights. Yet on many college and university campuses, the right to associate on the basis of religious belief and even the right to express those beliefs is under attack. Under the guise of “nondiscrimination” policies, religious groups are often told that they may not choose the membership or leadership of their groups using religious criteria.
I suspect this is about InterVarsity and other groups who require their leaders to follow traditional Christian morality. I donate to InterVarsity and am on their side, I think they are a really good group. As long as they don't use university facilities or university funding, they can pick their leaders however they want, of course.
Other students who merely express religious beliefs in public are condemned and even punished for “hate speech” or “intolerance.”
I would really need details on this. Depends a lot on who was saying what. A public university has to allow people to have very different belief systems, and if you are asking people to condemn those who disagree with us, using crowd shaming, etc., then that crosses the line. Imagine how you would feel if that were directed against you. People do have to feel safe on campus.
Last week, the New York Times ran a piece titled “Campuses Cautiously Train Freshmen against Subtle Insults.” It opens by recounting a question-and-answer session with Clark’s microaggressions czar, chief diversity officer Sheree Marlowe. A student — who begins by saying she’s “really scared to ask this” — asks Miss Marlowe if, when she’s in her car, or with a group of white friends, its “okay” to sing along with music that uses the “N word.”
Miss Marlowe’s answer, says the New York Times, is an “unequivocal ‘no.’”
The whole microaggression thing is poorly defined, and can easily encourage people to make mountains out of molehills. And colleges are full of narcissistic teenagers, emphatic and intelligent. Worse, "microaggression" has been an excuse for internet shaming people you disagree with - including professors.
I think this is a useful article:
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/09/mi ... mhood.html
I prefer what the University of Chicago has to say about its speech policy. For example, in the report of its Committee on Freedom of Expression:
http://freeexpression.uchicago.edu/site ... Report.pdf
Of course, the ideas of different members of the University community will often and quite naturally conflict. But it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. Although the University greatly values civility, and although all members of the University community share in the responsibility for maintaining a climate of mutual respect, concerns about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community.
Exactly.
Thought experiment: how is that different on a forum like MennoNet? I'm inclined to say that we expect discussion to be held within the bounds of traditional Christianity and with respect for Mennonite and Anabaptist understandings. But I also suspect that a lot of the rest applies here too - we will have different opinions, some of those opinions conflict, but on an open forum, open discussion is a core value.
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?