Carson Bonner, Campus Carrier news editor
Freedom of speech is one of the most clearly outlined rights in the Constitution. It is the right to express opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship or legal sanction. It also includes the right to perform and protest peacefully, provided that all communications and protests are executed in a non-violent manner.
In public universities, these rights remain the same. Public universities cannot censor students any more than the government can censor citizens, taking away the need for most public universities to outline a free speech policy in their handbooks. Since public universities are funded and managed by the government, the same rules apply on campus as they do off campus.
“Public schools have the luxury of not having to really regulate speech as much on their campus as administrators on a private campus would,” Associate Professor of Political Science Michael Bailey said. “In a classroom setting and on campus, it’s understood that freedom of speech is a right in any context. It’s only when it comes to directly threatening hate speech to an individual or a group that this right no longer applies.”
Private campuses are not government funded, nor are they government entities, so they are not required to uphold freedom of speech in an on-campus capacity. Because of this, in most college codes or handbooks, there is a free speech policy outlined. The Berry College Viking Code reads: “Freedom of expression does not include the right to intentionally and maliciously aggravate, intimidate, ridicule, or humiliate another person. The Berry College community embraces both the goal of protecting its members from harassment and the principle of free speech in a place of learning. In attempting to balance the two sometimes conflicting values, Berry College expects community members to hold themselves to high standards that are needed for a healthy community.”
“My own position coincides with that of the college,” Bailey said. “Speech in the classroom ought to be unrestricted apart from the caveat that what is talked about pertains to the course material. To go on a rant about a particular group in a math class would not be appropriate. And to allow it would not be appropriate as it is sidelining the mission to educate and teach.”
Technically speaking, hateful and offensive speech is in fact protected by the First Amendment. There is not any sort of exception in the First Amendment that condemns hateful speech. However, speech that is unprotected, such as threatening speech or speech that attempts to take away the liberties of a group or individual, can be silenced or responded to with legal action. On public campuses, this is always the case. On private campuses, it comes back to what is stated in the handbook or code.
“The Board of Trustees basically gets to set the rules,” Professor of Communication Brian Carroll said. “When we enter the Gate of Opportunity, ironically, we have just yielded a lot of our rights. Now fortunately, the way it plays out in life is sort of the opposite. There are a lot of things you can’t do or say at a public university that for us, we just take for granted. We are certainly faith friendly, so we get to express ourselves in a way that is more free than we would have at a public university. It’s a paradox.”
Hate speech is defined by the United Nations as offensive discourse targeting a group or an individual based on inherent characteristics such as race, religion or gender, and that may threaten social peace. Hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, but private campuses are free to address hateful and offensive speech in any way they see fit, including censorship.
“How hate speech is regulated is really up to Berry,” Carroll said. “On a private campus, they can handle it basically however they want to. Public schools, not so much. They have to come up with policies that embrace, protect and promote first amendment rights. But at the same time, in quite a contradictory way, it has to protect individual students from harassment and threat and what we’re referring to as hate speech.”
In most cases, hate speech is legally permitted but it rarely goes unaddressed by universities, especially if it is on a larger scale. In 2019 at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, a public university, racist hate messages from a Snapchat group chat were made public. The five students who were responsible for the messages were investigated and ultimately suspended from their sports teams for their hate speech. The Chancellor of the university made a public statement condemning the messages and posts during the investigation. Even though hate speech is legally permitted, it is not ethically acceptable and often will be recognized and publicly dealt with.
At Berry during election season in 2016, chalk was used to write several messages in support of republican candidate Donald Trump’s principles and ideas. One message was the phrase “Build a Wall,” a message referencing Trump’s idea to build a large border wall to prevent illegal immigration. Another was a profane quote made by Trump in a leaked audio. Berry’s president Steve Briggs addressed the chalk, and action was taken by other students, who covered the perceived hate speech with loving chalk messages. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an article about the incident and the reasons for the lack of removal of the chalk art by the college. The reason cited was the risks of censorship.
“We have to be careful about censoring things because censoring can happen on both sides,” Briggs said in the article.
A statement was also made on Facebook by the Berry College Student Government Association in response to the chalk messages. The post states that while chalk art is a freedom protected by freedom of speech, messages that were considered threats of violence or profane would be removed and did not reflect Berry’s values.
“Berry is proudly inclusive and encouraging of diversity,” the post said. “These sidewalk chalkings do not reflect Berry. They reflect the incredibly contentious political climate we are faced with in this election year. SGA encourages you to be active and to counter speech to which you disagree with more speech.”
According to Carroll, the loving chalk art was a clear indicator that hate speech would not be tolerated on Berry’s campus.
“I said that I hoped there would be a wave of love across campus that would outweigh the hate speech,” Carroll said. “Thankfully there was. Students took the initiative to not tolerate hate and instead responded with love.”
In the event of public hate speech or instances of religious attacks such as antisemitism and Islamophobia, private colleges tend to have a more large-scale response. Harvard University experienced a series of hateful acts against Jewish and Muslim students since the catalyst of the current Israel-Palestine conflict on Oct. 7. The now former president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, did not respond in a way that students felt was adequate, and this, along with allegations of plagiarism, led her to resign from her position. Since then, task forces have been formed at Harvard to prevent antisemitism and Islamophobia. According to the Associated Press, one Rabbi involved with the anti-semitism task force said he would reach out to the task force, hoping it will be able to create and implement policies that will change the campus climate.
Freedom of speech is a right that was put in place to protect the speech and rights of the individual American. However, on private and even some public campuses, it does not guarantee that speech will be accepted and endorsed, especially in the case of hate speech. While hate speech may be protected by the Constitution, it has been proven that it will not be protected by ethics nor will it be tolerated by those who care about the effects of hate.