Free speech rack an oxymoron
Written by Nathan Hansen Tuesday, 22 September 2009 08:00
The Memorial Union here at NDSU seems to have a problem with the First Amendment. The Union just seems to keep coming up with new and interesting ways to trample on students right to free expression in the building with their rules for posting flyers and their new and dangerous free speech literature rack.
At least since last year, the Union had a rule that all flyers or posters that go up on the general bulletin boards had to be approved beforehand by the administrators of the Union or the flyers would be taken down and the people who posted them could be sanctioned.
This wasn’t to protect private bulletin boards, but to make sure that the Union could control the where and what of what was posted inside the building. This limiting of the placement and content of speech is blatantly unconstitutional and is considered a form of prior restraint.
Prior restraint is considered even more heinous than being persecuted for your free speech since if you get in trouble for your speech at least someone heard your message, whereas with prior restraint you can still get in trouble and no has had the ability to hear your message.
We rightly condemn countries like North Korea and China for using prior restraint to erase any message contrary to their government’s agenda, but when the Union has that power to shape the messages and content of posted materials in their building no one cares, or people actually defend this action?
They say that this allows the Union to keep offensive or harassing materials from being posted and that true, but what right do the administrators have to censor like that? Is there even a way to come up with objective criteria to determine what is offensive that does not preclude any poster from being posted?
The Newman Center just released posters to be put up around campus for men and women’s nights where presumably they will try to convince men and women to adopt traditional Christian gender standards. I am sure this offends the feminist groups on campus so can and will the Union censor these posters?
How about posters for the freethinkers and atheists society showcasing next week’s events including a showing of the movie “Letting Go of God” which I am sure could be offensive to at least one Christian person or group. Will the Union censor this poster as well?
Regarding the chalk graffiti last week, some argue that the Union has the right and responsibility to keep protected groups from encountering harassing or offensive ‘hate speech.’
While I detest prejudiced and rude speech and consider those that use it to have a lack of understanding and empathy, that speech is perfectly legal and acceptable under the laws of the United States and North Dakota. And since NDSU is a public university, it cannot censor speech like private businesses and universities can.
While I hate discriminatory speech, I would rather have it in the open then left festering and secluded. Prejudice and hate thrive on these conditions and wither and die when opened for people to see and judge in the light of day.
And this sort of paternalistic role the administration takes on only encourages the racists and haters. It sends the message that protected groups cannot handle or deal with offensive speech the way non-protected groups can, and that sells these people far short of their actual abilities, talents, and potential.
And the censorship extends beyond offensive speech. Just ask the people trying to get a student book exchange off the ground. Their ‘Vigilante Bookstore’ was created last spring and they have faced hatred and censorship from many an administrator on campus.
In the Union, where they hoped to post flyers, they had to spend several weeks and meet with the Director of the MU and the Dean of Student Life before they could post their materials. And it wasn’t because they were offensive or harassing, it was because the MU was using their powers to protect their business interests, the NDSU bookstore.
Prior restraint and censorship either do not work or only create a one-sided environment.
The Free Speech Literature Rack, their follow-up to flyer posting rules, is a little row of shelves right next to the Bison Connection where students are able to put their independent papers, magazines, brochures and other literature.
There are several problems with this arrangement. First, it has all the problems of the bulletin boards with prior restraint by the administrators of the MU, and limiting where you can express yourselves in the building.
This is even more extreme because there is only the one rack, severely limiting its exposure to students, and the fact that the rack itself cannot hold many different sets of literature from other groups, so if there are more submissions for the rack then room, obviously someone’s right to speech is going to be trampled upon. NDSU and the Union seem to be taking plays from all of the bad universities that have trampled free speech around the nation. They implemented a UCLA-like bias reporting system even though the ACLU shut down UCLA’s program.
The Residence Life Department is treading dangerous water with a curriculum program heavily influenced by the University of Delaware’s program that has received scathing heat from the press, non-profit organizations and professors around the nation. And now we are beginning to emulate Universities like the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and Texas Tech University that limited the space of free speech on campus to one field and a gazebo respectively.
Obviously, NDSU isn’t that far gone yet, but the spaces here where you can gather and speak your mind or post your mind seem to get smaller every year. The Memorial Union should take a long hard look at the road that they have stared upon before it is too late to turn back.
And as students we have to realize that freedoms can be taken away in a democracy if we do not act. If we do not act, the illegal becomes the legal, and democracy becomes despotism.
