Free Speech vs. Bias Speech

As a new generation rises, tension between free speech and inclusivity on college campuses simmers

3 Presidents on the Hot Seat
In a four-hour hearing, the presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT steadily defended themselves, their institutions and free expression. Lawmakers remained skeptical.
Inside Higher Ed
By Katherine Knott
December 5, 2023

House Republicans lambasted the leaders of three elite universities for more than four hours Tuesday in a contentious hearing that was focused on campus antisemitism but frequently veered into broader conservative critiques of higher education.

“I do not refer to colleges and universities as ‘higher education,’ because it’s my opinion that higher-order skills are not being taught or learned, and I think today’s hearing indicates that,” said North Carolina representative Virginia Foxx, the top Republican on the House Education and Workforce Committee, which hosted the hearing.

“I have always defended higher education, but today I am embarrassed,” said Louisiana representative Julia Letlow, also a Republican.

Harvard president Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornbluth testified Tuesday and defended their actions over the past two months as tensions flared on their campuses following the start of the Israel-Hamas war. The hearing was the committee’s second in the last month focusing on campus antisemitism, and likely not the last. House Republicans have used the recent protests and campus tensions to perpetuate their attacks on higher education.

The presidents stood by their policies and commitments to free expression, their efforts to support Jewish students and their institutions’ diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which Republicans on the committee have blamed for the rise in antisemitism. Gay, Kornbluth and Magill all condemned antisemitism and said they need to do more to make students and faculty aware of its “insidiousness.”

Okay first of all there is nothing that the presidents of the colleges and universities can do, there is something that the Republicans keep on forgetting or ignoring  something called the Constitution and First Amendment.

What is bias speech and is it against the law?

According to the American Library Association had the best discussion on bias speech.
Hate Speech

There is no legal definition of "hate speech" under U.S. law, just as there is no legal definition for evil ideas, rudeness, unpatriotic speech, or any other kind of speech that people might condemn. Generally, however, hate speech is any form of expression through which speakers intend to vilify, humiliate, or incite hatred against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, religion, skin color sexual identity, gender identity, ethnicity, disability, or national origin. 1

In the United States, hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. Courts extend this protection on the grounds that the First Amendment requires the government to strictly protect robust debate on matters of public concern even when such debate devolves into distasteful, offensive, or hateful speech that causes others to feel grief, anger, or fear. (The Supreme Court's decision in Snyder v. Phelps provides an example of this legal reasoning.) Under current First Amendment jurisprudence, hate speech can only be criminalized when it directly incites imminent criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group.

Notice that all the pro and anti protests did not include "any incitement of imminent criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group" contrary to the Republican rhetoric nothing can be done to stop the protests they are protected be the First Amendment.

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Creating distrust in the Constitution that is what happening with all these anti-abortion laws and anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Most people do not understand exactly what limits the First Amendment places on bias crimes.

As a new generation rises, tension between free speech and inclusivity on college campuses simmers

AP News

BY COLLIN BINKLEY

January 13, 2024

Generations of Americans have held firm to a version of free speech that makes room for even the vilest of views. It’s girded by a belief that the good ideas rise above the bad, that no one should be punished for voicing an idea — except in rare cases where the idea could lead directly to illegal action.

Today, that idea faces competition more forceful and vehement than it has seen for a century.

On college campuses, a newer version of free speech is emerging as young generations redraw the line where expression crosses into harm. There’s a wave of students who have no tolerance for speech that marginalizes. They draw lines around language that leads to damage, either psychological or physical. Their judgments weigh the Constitution but also incorporate histories of privilege and oppression.

“We believe in a diverse set of thoughts,” says Kaleb Autman, a Black student at the University of Wisconsin whose group is demanding a zero-tolerance policy on hate speech. “But when your thought is predicated on the subjugation of me or my people, or to a generalized people, then we have problems.”

That is the problem when speech denies our existence. I have a quote by James Baldwin on my blog…

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.

But the First Amendment guarantees them to say it and that hurts, but we cannot or should not stop them from saying.

A new understanding of free speech has been evolving on college campuses for years, marked by the introduction of safe spaces, trigger warnings and a rise in disruptive protests that silence speakers with offensive views. But the Israel-Hamas war and its rhetoric appear to be widening the fault lines and pushing students to demand that university leaders take a side between clashing versions of free speech.

That doesn’t mean we cannot protest and let our view be known. We can’t sit by and do nothing but it is a tightrope we walk.

Campus officials are being pulled in every direction from donors, alumni, students and politicians. But the latest battle has seen a reversal of sorts in the allegiances over free speech.

Republicans, who have long characterized colleges as liberal hotbeds that stifle free speech, are now calling on those institutions to curb speech seen as antisemitic. Colleges previously accused of ceding ground on free speech are suddenly emerging as its strongest defenders.

There is no easy answers, we look at the rhetoric coming out of the right and the rhetoric coming out of our side and it makes it impossible to draw a line.

Also our judicial systems has been politicized which makes even hard to draw a line on bias speech when it depends upon which judge is assigned to the case.

Is bias speech as James Baldwin said when you deny my existence? For me the line is when threats of violence are made that I think is when the line is crossed. For me I see it as informative as to where people stand on the issues. When I hear what is coming out of the right, it scares the c**p out of me and I would never vote for them.

One of the problems I have with the local election of the Board of Education is that it is non-partisan and I don't know where they stand. I know they have two children Dick & Jane and a dog name Spot but what I don't know is where they stand on the issues which makes it very to know who to vote for.

When someone protests the issues then I know where they stand.