But when the universities punished "water buffalo," they went too far.
I don't disagree if that incident actually occurred as reported in right wing places. I don't know. Moreover, as with any policy, there are going to be over eager administrators who misapply, particularly those who think the proper way to deal with students is to offer more rules and stricter enforcement. A large mistake in my view.
IMO. If the universities would set more reasonable standards I don't think that they would be challenged.
I notice that the book Nadine found on Amazon, the blurb on it, or one of the reviewers, noted that this is a very complicated area. With that I completely agree. It's the case, however, that it's also highly politicized and has been done so by the right wing for many years. They bundled it into the culture wars, an artful political bundle, but the policy issues are different.
My guess is that if you and I worked our way through some hypothetical instances, thus the factual basis would be uncontested, we would agree more than disagree. I should add, Bill knows this, I've never felt a policy which depended strictly on enforcing speech codes would help reduce campus hate speech. It can, in some instances, increase it--the popular "down with authority" undergrad attitude.
My own personal approach is that one addresses hateful speech with more speech not less. But that's an ideal proposition, a kind of guideline. However, it does mean I would err in the direction of less codes more talk; a great many campus administrations, in my view, err in the opposite direction. |
