Going to an alumni event any time soon? Prepare to be treated like a student when it comes to speech.
Robert C. Platt & Steven McGuire write at Real Clear Education:
Higher Ed Bureaucrats Want to Regulate Your Speech After College, Too“All children, except one, grow up,” wrote J.M. Barrie in “Peter Pan.” Today’s college and university administrators seem eager to prove him wrong.American students are increasingly micromanaged, coddled, and, as a result, controlled by the ever-growing ranks of bureaucrats who run their campus Neverlands. Now some institutions want to continue this infantilizing behavior after students graduate.Alumni-affairs offices have developed overbearing codes of conduct to regulate volunteers and, in some cases, everyone who attends alumni events. Some of these codes prohibit constitutionally protected speech and require signatories to support institutional orthodoxies on topics such as diversity, equity, and inclusion.The codes at Cornell University (where one of us is an alumnus) and Williams College are two of the most troubling examples. Channeling the therapeutic attitude that pervades American campuses today, both schools say that they “are committed to providing a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for all.” They go on to prohibit “derogatory” as well as “demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behavior and speech,” noting that “harassment may include: offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, race, age, religion, disability.”Of course, people should not be subjected to discrimination or harassment, but these codes are hopelessly overbroad and vague, leaving too much room for interpretation on the part of staff who are often ill-equipped to ensure that free expression is protected at university events. It does not inspire confidence that Cornell’s code was adopted after an alumnus used the word “Negro” in a speech in reference to Hall of Fame baseball player Satchel Paige, who spent much of his career in the Negro leagues.Just as bias-response teams encourage students to report one another anonymously, attendees of alumni events are instructed to alert staff if they “are witness to or are subjected to unacceptable behavior.”
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