The Daily O’Collegian reports that the OSU faculty council approved a speech code banning, under the rubric of “racial or ethnic harassment,” any acts “hostile toward the dignity of an individual, carried out on grounds related to race, color, ethnicity or national origin,” or that “unreasonably interfere[] with the work or academic performance of those of a particular race, color, ethnicity or national origin.” The policy makes clear that this isn’t just limited to face-to-face insults — “print and electronic harassment that interferes with the participation of the targeted population in the life of the university” also appares to be explicitly included. And “All forms of racial or ethnic harassment, including unintentional interference in educational activities and opportunities of racial and ethnic minorities, will be dealt with in a serious manner.” (I’m trying to track down the text of the policy, but haven’t gotten it yet, so I’m going on what the article said.)
Now I’m surely not in favor of acts “hostile toward the dignity of an individual” as I understand them. But I equally surely wouldn’t want the speech of students subjected to such a vague, broad prohibition. What if someone writes a newspaper article harshly criticizing a black student leader, partly because he’s seen as working against the interest of black students? That would be carried out on grounds related to race; someone might say that it’s “hostile toward the dignity” of the person; and someone might say it “interferes with the participation of the [person] in the life of the university” (for instance, because the statement either seriously offends the person, or diminishes his prestige, or persuades people not to reelect him to some office).
Or what if someone writes a newspaper article arguing that white faculty members generally aren’t attentive enough to racial issues — and some faculty members argue that this “unreasonably interferes with the work . . . performance of [white professors],” because it leads black students to be hostile to them, and thus makes it harder for the professors to do their job? Or what if the same happens in reverse, with someone criticizing black faculty members in some department as being too focused on racial matters?
The speech code seems to me quite clearly unconstitutional, both because of its breadth (since it appears to cover even fully constitutionally protected speech, and not just unprotected fighting words or threats or other kinds of speech that might be more easily restrictable) and its vagueness. But it looks like it’ll be there at OSU (since it sounds like it’s well on the way to being finally enacted), hanging over students — many of whom don’t want to become the new First Amendment test cases — until someone sues to get it struck down.
Comments are closed.