Student Paper at Temple University Calls for ‘Hate Speech’ to be Barred on Campus
“hate speech…is disruptive to the learning process for people of color”
Who gets to decide what qualifies as hate speech? I bet we can guess.
Campus Reform reports:
Editorial board at public university calls for ‘hate speech’ to be ‘barred’ on campus
Temple University’s student newspaper editorial board published an editorial criticizing the school’s administration for not denouncing hate speech. The piece came in response to a thread of tweets on the official university Twitter account defending the First Amendment after another Twitter account reported allegedly racist students on the social media platform.
“Temple respects the first amendment rights of all, including those that express unpopular and even hateful speech that is antithetical to the university’s mission. Temple’s Conduct Code is in accord with the First Amendment and students are not disciplined solely for speech unless circumstances indicate there is a violation under the Code,” Temple tweeted Friday.
An editorial published Sunday by The Temple News pointed out that the Student Conduct Code doesn’t mention either hate or racist speech, specifically, writing that all members of the community should be respectful of one another despite any of their differences. The student newspaper editorial board claimed that Temple cannot allow speech that “threatens the physical and emotional security of its students.”
It further claims that “hate speech…is disruptive to the learning process for people of color” and that “not condemning hate speech is tolerating it.” The board writes that the university must acknowledge “the violent nature of hate speech.”
The proposed solution to recognizing hate speech and denouncing it is to change the “language in the Student Conduct Code to actively speak out against racism, racist speech and racist acts in the Temple community.” Before any changes are finalized, the editorial board recommends that the university “consult with multicultural student groups and community members.”
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Everything I don’t like should be outlawed. — Karen
Except for me and my friends and when I change my mind. (- Still Karen)
They can start by barring themselves. But that would require even an atom of self-awareness. Too much to hope for, I guess.
“It further claims that ‘hate speech…is disruptive to the learning process for people of color’ and that ‘not condemning hate speech is tolerating it.’ The board writes that the university must acknowledge ‘the violent nature of hate speech.'”
This part contains items that would concern me, especially when the school has no choice, they say, but to submit to the Orwellian dictate that hate speech = violence.
1) The claim is steeped in hyperbole, illogic, and political pandering.
2) In admitting its helplessness in having to assent to the equation, the school contradicts its own claim that is supports the First Amendment right to free speech, even if it involves hate.
3) The catch is to codify the effects and sociology of hateful (read: hated) free speech.
4) So, students while constitutionally protected to speak freely, even if it’s considered hateful by others, cannot be exempt from a school code that will not tolerate violence done to students claimed to result from said speech.
In sum, therefore, when constitutionally protected free speech at Temple is judged hateful AND FELT AS VIOLENT by others opposed to such speech, that bro or sis faces code sanctions and could be punished, perhaps severely — First Amendment be damned! Temple’s saying.
In the end, there is no free speech at Temple worth its label. Free speech there, as on most college campuses today, is a sham.
My Assessment
Some emotionally frayed people find being wished a “Merry Christmas” as being hateful. Could the inferred hatefulness of the speaker be nothing more or less than an ill projection onto the speaker by the percipient of the speech? If it sometimes is, and I think it is much more than clinicians will admit, why is the speaker being held responsible, even sometimes punished for the mistake of the percipient?
The Temple community needs to be very — unfortunately, too — careful. Careers, as students, teachers, and in administration, are, under these most crazed rules, in the balance.
If we all started over in this mad rush to injustice and took a little time to get to know, rather than to immediately oppose and critically judge our associated others, we might all have a chance to survive, even reverse what’s today the means to our disintegration as a society. On the other hand, it might be too late.
Left this comment there:
“So afraid of free speech, and different messages by others, that you have to shut it down. Who is actually intolerant? What scares you so much, that when people can get both sides, they reject your ideas?”
If hate speech, however defined (and I’m sure their definition will be very, very broad), is violence does physically attacking the speak now constitute self-defense? I suspect that is exactly where they’re going with this.
“Hate speech” is whatever ideas and communication the people in power “hate.” “Hate speech” and free speech are inseparable, because free speech is the right to say things that the people in power “hate.”