UNC Still Having Issues Despite North Carolina’s Campus-Free Speech Act
“one of the great inhibitors at many colleges and universities has been the presence of speech codes”
It’s amazing that something as seemingly simple as free speech continues to be an issue on college campuses.
National Review reports:
Despite North Carolina’s Campus-Free Speech Act, UNC Continues to have Problems
North Carolina was the first state to pass the Goldwater Institute’s model bill for the protection of free speech on campus — the bill Stanley Kurtz was instrumental in drafting and promoting. Now that the law has been on the books for a year, the Martin Center decided to look at how well the UNC system is doing in following it. In today’s commentary essay, Magdalene Horzempa finds that there are still plenty of problems.
Regarding freedom of speech, one of the great inhibitors at many colleges and universities has been the presence of speech codes that make it dangerous for students to speak in ways that could be offensive to someone. FIRE has established a good rating system for speech codes (green, yellow, red) and among the UNC schools, seven have green ratings (no observable problems) and nine have yellow, meaning that the school has at least one policy that could inhibit free speech, such as the vague and overly broad anti-harassment policy at Fayetteville State.
Where the UNC system has done very well is in damping down the kinds of anti-speech incidents that have occurred at other schools, where speakers have been hounded and shouted down. There are no reported cases like that in the past year.
Unfortunately, several campuses still have “bias incident response teams.” Those encourage students to complain to authorities whenever someone says or does anything that exhibits “bias.” These make it easy for zealots to create trouble for students who disagree with them by filing complaints.
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Comments
Just a note – The UNC (Chapel Hill) has a Green rating from fire.
UNC still has an Armed Forces day for football, displays American flags freely, and most importantly, remains a school for NC students. By NC law, 82% of the incoming freshmen class must be NC residents.
We still have a case of prog disease at the professor level…