Reverse Speech Codes Aren't the Answer

Fighting Campus Hate and Anti-Semitism at the Roots of the Problem

So the shocking pro-genocide/pro-Palestinian marches at top Ivy League schools have put their administrations into a pretty pickle.  They want to escape responsibility for student speech, but their efforts to plead “free speech” ring hollow, when they’ve been eagerly policing student – and faculty – speech for years. Just ask IowaHawk.

And I confess I’ve enjoyed seeing stuff like this:

Or this:

Or this:

And, of course, from America’s website of record, this:

But as much as I enjoy seeing these people stew in the juices of their hypocrisy – and believe me, enjoy it I do -- it is nonetheless true, as Eugene Volokh cogently points out, that free speech principles, and the First Amendment where it applies, prevent things like a selective ban on anti-semitism, or on “advocacy of genocide” or whatever. 

But think how much easier the life of these administrators would be if they and their institutions had just had some principles.  If they had a record of allowing student and faculty speech on everything without punishment, they could point to that record and say, sure, some of our students are saying monstrous things, but we believe in free speech and that the best way to deal with monstrous ideas is by discussing, and refuting, them in the open.

Of course, they can’t say that, because it isn’t true – and, more importantly, it obviously isn’t true.   Top universities have for years been denying the value of free speech, and even suggesting it is some sort of questionable relic of white supremacy, or Christian Nationalism, or something.  They’ve been centers for the belief that the way to deal with ideas you don’t like isn’t to refute them, but to ruthlessly suppress them.

Well, when that’s your stance – and we all know that it largely has been theirs – suddenly appearing before Congress and parsing free speech doctrine to a nicety isn’t very convincing.  When you censor any speech, you make yourself responsible for whatever you allow.

It would have worked better if they had had principles, but they don’t, and everyone knows it.  Or at least, to the extent that they do have principles they fall into the category of When you have power, you give me freedom because that is according to your principles.  When I have power, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.

The proposals by various critics to regulate campus speech in response are a bad idea, though there is one upside:  The strong support for campus free speech that used to exist was basically developed as a tool to protect leftists on campus from populist or conservative retribution.  Perhaps this will have a similar effect.

But if you’re looking for policy changes in response to the despicable behavior of a surprisingly large number of Ivy League students, treating speech is treating the symptoms; the actual disease is elsewhere.  The real problems are layers of corruption that have built up at the university level.  And while they’re worse at the elite institutions, the corruption extends farther.  So here are some more constructive suggestions than reverse speech codes:

1.      Abolish DEI offices, and Critical Race Theory programs, entirely.  They’re harmful, research indicates that DEI programs produce worse race relations on campuses, not better ones, and they soak up a lot of money.  They’re also the incubators of the polarized, racialized, politicized divisions on campus.  As Gene Healy puts it, “Ideologues who can’t do and can’t teach are now entrusted with reshaping the campus intellectual climate. Some of them enforce that mandate with extreme prejudice.”  Not only is there no value here, there’s actually negative value.  They’re not just a waste of money, they’re destructive.  And as Heather Mac Donald writes in the Wall Street Journal, DEI ideologues are directly behind the rise of campus antisemitism:  “The real issue on campuses isn’t antisemitism but the anti-Western ethos that has colonized large swaths of the curriculum. Elite schools once disdained Jews because they were seen as outsiders to Western civilization. Now they are reviled as that civilization’s very embodiment. Students explain that their hatreds come from what they learn in class—that the West is built on white supremacism and oppression. Israel is cast as the Western settler-colonialist oppressor par excellence.”

2.     Encourage universities to recast their admissions.  Too much focus on race, gender, and stories of lifetime oppression builds student bodies who think of themselves as victims.  These students at Harvard, Penn, and MIT are there because they were admitted, and the admissions system looked for students like them.  That needs to change.  One useful change would be to require that students receiving federal scholarships or loans spend at least on year in gainful employment first, to get some exposure to the real world.  (Note:  White House internships shouldn’t count.)

3.     Demand that universities make students work.  Nearly 80% of the grades at Yale are A’s, and that sort of grade inflation is common throughout the Ivy League.  Require a standard curve, where the average grade is a C, and there are as many grades below the average as above it, and students would have an incentive to work and learn.  Students who have to work and learn have less time for puerile, hateful politics.  Follow up with standardized post-graduation testing. Universities who want to go easier on their students can forego federal funds, including student loans.

4.     Give the universities skin in the game.  Students who can’t pay off their student loans in a reasonable time should be able to discharge them in bankruptcy – but the schools should be on the hook when they do.  They’ll be much more careful who they admit, and what they teach people, if it’s their money on the line, not just the students’.

5.     Require universities to protect their students from bullying and assault by fellow students by making those universities liable for civil suits when they fail to do so.  Don’t create another bureaucracy to police student misbehavior – let plaintiffs’ lawyers do it!

I’m sure that there are other things to do – feel free to add your suggestions in the comments – but these suggestions are a start.  Instead of treating the symptoms, people in Congress should put together a package of structural reforms while there’s bipartisan dismay at what’s going on in higher ed.  It’s time and past time.

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