Ohio State Board of Trustees Stands Up for Free Speech
“It is not the proper role of the university to attempt to shield individuals from free speech…”
If you know me, then you know I hate Ohio State. But…I have to give props to the Board of Trustees. It’s a shame we have to even give props for this!
From The College Fix:
The Big Ten university’s trustees passed an interim resolution on speech at its August 18 meeting. The resolution stems from a law signed by Republican Governor Mike DeWine in 2020 that requires public universities in the state to protect free speech.
“Students have a fundamental constitutional right to free speech,” the resolution states. The resolution can be read in the meeting minutes.
It affirms further:
The university is committed to maintaining a campus as a marketplace of ideas for all students and all faculty in which the free exchange of ideas is not to be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the institution’s community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, indecent, disagreeable, conservative, liberal, traditional, radical, or wrong-headed.
It is for the university’s individual students and faculty to make judgments about ideas for themselves, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress free speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas that they oppose.
“It is not the proper role of the university to attempt to shield individuals from free speech, including ideas and opinions they find offensive, unwise, immoral, indecent, disagreeable, conservative, liberal, traditional, radical, or wrong-headed,” the trustees wrote in the resolution.
It also creates a “process under which a student, student group, or faculty member may submit a complaint about an alleged violation by an employee of the university for violations,” of the speech resolution.
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“openly and vigorously contesting the ideas that they oppose”
A segment of the population will interpret this as license to scream angrily at people who say the wrong things. This will, of course, escalate quickly into violence, which they will claim was their only choice since cancellation was not an option.
I understand why you say this, Irv, but there is reason to hope for better. The university trustees’ statement clearly supports intellectual debate in the stead of violence or other forms of non-intellectual opposition to ideas. So far, so good. The test will be whether the university’s administration will carry out the trustees’ announced policy. If they don’t, they should be fired. We need to wait and see how this goes. I can imagine the administration’s largely ignoring this new edict and the trustees’ failing to confront the administration to enforce the free-speech policy.
Mary, as an alum of Ohio State, many of us have rebranded the place as Wokeo St.
As a Michigander I would love to laugh at you, but unfortunately U of M is probably even more woke.