Student Op-Ed: Colleges Should Screen Speakers for Hate Speech

Student Op-Ed: Colleges Should Screen Speakers for Hate Speech

Speech seems to be the only thing some left wing college students don’t want to be free.

Campus Reform reports:

Colleges should ‘censor’ ‘unsafe’ speech, student op-ed argues

Colleges should “screen” speakers to ensure that they are not giving a platform to “intolerant perspectives,” a University of Maryland student argues in a recent op-ed.

“There is nothing inherently wrong with screening speakers, teachers and even students on the campus,” sophomore Moshe Klein declares in an op-ed for The Diamondback, arguing that “intolerant” points of view “prevent certain groups of people from participating in campus life safely.”

“There are important reasons to censor speech on the campus,” Klein asserts, saying for instance that students would be justified in tearing down “fascist white power posters” to protest a speech by David Duke.

At the same time, he contends that it was “reasonable” for Harvard to revoke the acceptances of incoming freshmen who participated in an offensive meme-sharing group, because such action demonstrated “that there is no space for intolerant behavior.”

He does, however, acknowledge that “in some cases, what we consider intolerant is simply a different perspective,” saying students should only “walk out” on speakers—as University of Notre Dame students did to Vice President Mike Pence at their Commencement ceremony—when they “directly advocate targeting groups and [making] them feel unsafe.”

“That is how decisions about free speech on campus should be made, especially if campuses want to be authentically diverse and open-minded, and not just echo chambers,” he says.

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.