Discuss The Role Of Freedom Of Speech In The Civil Rights Movement

As American universities and colleges grow their demographics, diversity and ideas there is a continued and an accelerated debate regarding freedom of speech within these higher education institutions. College campuses are struggling to simultaneously provide a learning environment that is inclusive to traditionally unrepresented students while also providing an environment that allows for ideas to be challenged and debated no matter how offensive or controversial.

With a wide variety of people on colleges campuses, it is almost impossible to please everybody; whether it comes to class times, bus schedules, or grading rules, somebody is upset. As well as these smaller issues, more controversial arguments come into play. One of these arguments is against free speech zones on college campuses. These zones restrict speech to a specific area on campus, however, still allowing any type of group to express their beliefs to anybody passing. Some claim these zones as unconstitutional because it restricts a student’s right to free speech. However, others view the zones as helpful in controlling protests and current tensions on campus. Open speech across campus is incredibly difficult to monitor because of the enormous size of current day campuses and the immense amount of different views. In the past, there have been situations relating to violent protesting and negative speech across campuses. Because of this, campuses have begun enforcing free speech zones in which students and faculty may verbally express their beliefs.

College is a time when most individuals are experiencing major changes and begin to explore new perspectives. The transition in becoming more independent, creating new insights and peer influence are key factors in changing the perspective of an individual. Students are faced with new ideas from their professors, family and fellow peers. Through that acquired knowledge many students decide that they either agree or disagree with the perspectives that they are taught. Allowing the right of ‘Free Speech’ on public college campuses has become an important issue that many public colleges are starting to address. In college students are capable of

Freedom of speech gives people The right to free speech, which is one of the most precious rights an individual has as a citizen of the United States of America. This right gives people the opportunity to speak their mind and give their opinions of what they think should happen. These rights have been questioned and exercised throughout history and have produced extremely positive things in a lot of cases. The questioning of these rights are

“Free Inquiry? Not on Campus” by John Leo is an important essay that shows exactly how important it is to protect people's political views and opinions. In Leo's essay, he elaborates how times have changed and how we live in more of a liberal left-wing society and because of this everyone has to be more politically correct. Leo talks about the social change universities and colleges on how they used to promote free speech, but now are more like the speech police telling us what's opinions you should have on any given subject and any other opinion is considered wrong. Leo gives an example of this and writes “in October 2007, for instance, a student mob stormed a Columbia University stage, shutting down speeches by two members of the Minutemen, an anti-illegal immigration group.The students shouted they have no right to

The right of freedom of speech is the ability to express one’s opinions without fear of government retaliation or censorship and social sanction. Basically this is the right to have your own opinions and be able to express them without interference from anyone. This right includes the ability to speak freely, to not speak, to protest, and it also protects the right to receive information. This right does not include the use of words that incite actions that could harm others and it doesn’t protect obscene materials and speeches.

Freedom of speech is the balance between personal liberty & government authority. Free speech started & began when the settlers came over to the United States from Europe & made the original British colonies (Freedom Of Speech, 2014). Because of this right being made, having the liberty of free speech means that an individual or the press have the absolute right to talk or express their opinions freely (Freedom Of Speech, 2014).

“Over the years, courts have ruled that college officials may set up reasonable rules to regulate the ‘time, place and manner” that the free speech can occur, as long as the rules are “content neutral,’ meaning they apply equally to all sides of issues” (Fisher, 2008). Speech codes and free speech zones on campus do exist for many reasons: many of the causes or topics that students or others looking to interact with students take up are controversial and can frequently take on less of an academic or social justice overtone and more of a hateful one. Hate speech is the greatest threat to freedom of speech on college campuses, and the limitations colleges and universities put on student’s verbal freedoms are largely in place as efforts to avoid it. Religion, in particular, is a hot topic on campuses and it has an unfortunate tendency to become more aggressive and argumentative than universities would like. However, under the First Amendment, individuals do have a right to speech that the listener disagrees with and to speech that is offensive and hateful. It’s always easier to defend someone’s right to say something with which you agree. But in a free society, you also have a duty to defend speech to which you may strongly object.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental American freedom and a human right, and there’s no place that this right should be more valued and protected than in colleges and universities. A college exists to educate and to advance a student 's knowledge. Colleges do so by acting as a “marketplace of ideas” where ideas compete. It is important to be able to compare your ideas with everyone else as it helps to open your mind to other people’s views and can give you a different perception on things. In the article “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukiankoff talked about how too many college students engage in “catastrophizing," which is in short, the overreaction to something. They also said that “smart people do, in fact, overreact to innocuous speech, make mountains out of molehills, and seek punishment for anyone whose words make anyone else feel uncomfortable.”(Haidt) Many colleges have the belief that prohibiting freedom of speech will resolve such issues. But instead, colleges should take a different approach on the matter by teaching students how to properly utilize their Freedom of Speech which will help to resolve future conflicts and misunderstandings.

No matter what people do, everybody will have their own opinions on things and will have their ways of how they want to communicate it to other people. The different communications involve politics, problems, religion, talking over the phone, etc. In You’ve Been Warned: Speech Under Fire, it says, “A majority of college students believe universities should restrict which kinds of expression are allowed on campuses”(Robby Soave). There is a lot of talk that happens on college campus’ that offend people and even students believe that we should be limited on the things that they say. Another issue that has occurred with college campus freedom of speech is said by Catherine Rampell when a college professor was speaking of her opinions politically and a student had recorded her in the classroom. That student had posted it on the internet where it had gone viral and even got onto Fox News where they referred to the words she told the students to be an assault. This professor received threats and riots to get her fired which required her to flee her state for safety. When she was teaching her class and claiming her opinions it was obvious that she was a liberal so according to the Knight Foundation Survey, it claims that, “colleges should be able to restrict campus speech that expresses ‘political views that are upsetting or

One of the most landmark cases on free speech was Schenck v. United States in 1919 where Charles Schenck mailed letters to draftees of World War 1 stating that the draft was wrong and to “not submit to intimidation”. The court concluded that Schenck was not protected under the 1st amendment in this situation because it was an attempt interfere with the draft which is a criminal offense. More specifically, there has been many cases involving college speech in the 1st amendment. There has been times where college speech has been restricted through history and times where it has been encouraged. College is a place where student speech should be open but also respected. There are many famous court cases involving fan profanity, student clubs, the newspaper, on college campuses. One of the first college speech cases was Sweezy v New Hampshire where the court had to decide if the Attorney General of New Hampshire could prosecute an individual who refused to answer questions about a lecture he gave on a college campus. The court ruled in favor of Sweezy. College speech became an issue ever since that

Most would agree that faculty members at universities across the country should not be permitted to make racial, prejudicial, stereotypical, and highly offensive comments in the classroom toward particular students or groups. The difficult question is delineating the line between unpopular speech that offends members of the student and academic community, and unpopular speech that, while offensive, must be tolerated as part of classroom and university discourse.

College campuses are supposed to be bastions of free speech and one of the first places one truly experiences a wide range of opinions and beliefs different from their own. Sadly, college campuses have become a place in which unpopular speech has been completely shut down. In this case, the dominating ideology on college campuses is liberalism. Those delivering unpopular speech are no longer invited to give their opinions in an open dialogue, rather they are intimidated into keeping their opinions quiet. The most famous case of this free-speech shut down is happening right now at the University of California, Berkeley. On February 1st, 2017, famed alt-righter Milo Yiannopoulus was scheduled to make a speech at the school. As a result, hundreds

Civil rights and liberties are protections granted to United States citizens through the Constitution. The key difference between the two is that civil rights are rights that need protection by the government. Examples of civil rights include laws ensuring people 's’ physical integrity and safety, laws to make sure that people are not forced into labor, and laws providing equal access to health care, education, culture, etc. among others. These are important because they ensure that every citizen receives equal treatment, regardless of who they are. Civil liberties on the other hand, are rights that need protection from the government. Examples of civil liberties include freedom of speech, press, and assembly, the right to vote, and the right to equality in public places, along with others. They are important because they guard the rights and freedom of citizens of the United States. Without them, we would not be able to have certain rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of press, fair trials, or other essential liberties that make us uniquely American. A current issue that deals with our civil rights and liberties is the topic of gay rights, specifically gay marriage. This is a controversial issue that has become prominent in recent years due to members of the LGBT community taking a stand and making sure their voices are being heard. Gay rights are an important topic because in some states, it is illegal to marry a person of the same sex, which some may argue is

When one can speak their mind they receive the opportunity to develop their mind. Say a student says that they believe something is in the wrong. This gives someone else the opening to oppose that belief and give reasoning. Just this one interaction can change that one student’s belief and further expand their mind. If a campus were like University of Cincinnati and had a small area designated for free speech, a student wouldn’t be as likely to have as many of these exchanges. In college there are many different people, who have completely diverse beliefs, and a student has thousands of opportunities to take these differences and change their mind for the better. College is where many people learn what they believe and discover who they truly are but if a campus restricts development of the mind this is lost.