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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (37584)	4/3/2004 1:04:01 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793721

critical mass blog - Modest proposal While schools such as UNC-Wilmington, Bucknell, and UNC-Chapel Hill tie themselves in knots trying--ever unsuccessfully--to reconcile their stated commitments to free inquiry (and, in the cases of all but Bucknell, their obligations to uphold the First Amendment) with their well-meant but ultimately misguided desire to ensure that no one on campus is ever exposed to views that might offend them or make them uncomfortable, others recognize that it is the obligation of a vibrant intellectual community to embrace the friction that arises when ideas are freely explored, tested, and debated. Northwestern University law professor James Lindgren--whose name will be familiar to those who followed the Michael Bellesiles Debacle--sends an exemplary excerpt from the University of Chicago's Faculty Handbook: The mission of the university is the discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge. Its domain of inquiry and scrutiny includes all aspects and all values of society. A university faithful to its mission will provide enduring challenges to social values, policies, practices, and institutions. By design and by effect, it is the institution which creates discontent with the existing social arrangements and proposes new ones. In brief, a good university, like Socrates, will be upsetting. Lindgren's opinion is that instead of adopting speech codes and other policies that suggest students have the right not to be offended, universities should formally declare that no one has the right not to be offended: Universities should adopt explicit policies rejecting the right not to be offended. As a current graduate student in Sociology at the University of Chicago, I was offended by the way that some of Marx's ideas on economics were taught, particularly the labor theory of value--as if Marx's critique was sound economics, as if we hadn't had fifty million people killed by the collectivism of agriculture alone (a modest estimate not including the tens of millions dying in collectivist wars). The idea that I had a right not to be offended in class never even occurred to me, and would be one that I would find offensive to be offered. I love this idea--not just for itself, but for what it implies. For a school to adopt such a policy, that policy would have to be consistent with existing policies elsewhere on the school's books. Speech codes, overbroad harassment policies that define "offensive" expression as harassment, and other such directives would have to go if a school were to credibly reject the notion that it is acceptable to seek to punish and silence students who express unpopular views. Speechcodes.org designates the University of Chicago as a rare "green light" institution--one whose stated commitment to free expression is not undermined by policies restricting constitutionally protected speech.