In today 's society we see college as a Location for students to gain education and by the students gaining the education they obtain from colleges they than can use those skills to acquire a job that benefits the society we live in into a positive way. Freedom of speech is the right to express any opinion without being restrained by anyone, expressing ourself in part of being a person in that 's what makes up who we are. We could believe in things,people or anything we have strong beliefs in. Students of any college should not be told by any any college officials what they can say and what they cannot say, they should be able to express any beliefs they feel strong about .students should be able to express what they out without being …show more content…
A case that occurred on University of South Alabama is an example of when college official limits the right of Freedom of speech . According to Mitchell, Michael A., Ph.D. ("University of South Alabama: Student Directed to Remove Pro-Trump Sign." FIRE. FIRE, 11 Apr. 2017. Web. 10 May 2017) it stated that “Months after Donald Trump was elected president, a University of South Alabama student was ordered by a campus administrator to remove a “Trump/Pence 2016” sign from his dorm room window. The administrator cited the university’s tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status, which prohibits the university from endorsing or opposing a political candidate. The student refused, citing the First Amendment. FIRE wrote to the university explaining—for the third time—that 501(c)(3) did not require or permit the university to censor student political speech that no reasonable person would believe to constitute action by the university itself. The university dropped the charges against the student.” It 's not right for a college to restrain a student from expressing himself even if they believing something that they don 't even agree with. In this case The student had a sign that supports
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.
Colleges and universities are places of higher education and learning. Part of this learning comes from listening and understanding opposite views from your own. Positively, these zones have allowed students to avoid any ideas they may not want to hear; however, avoidance is not the way around life. Another positive outcome of free speech on campuses is that students are able to bind together
“Free speech” often has negative connotations because the negative outcomes are publicized more than the positive outcomes. ‘Free Speech’ is a time for individuals to express their beliefs and topic on an important issue. People chose to present themselves in a vast majority of ways such as, holding signs, making t-shirts, shouting, etc. People who chose to present themselves in disrupting ways such as, foul language, inappropriate attire are more likely to be noticed than another student that is holding a simple and respectful sign. Schmidt states, “Universities cannot censor or suppress speech, no matter how obnoxious in content, without violating their justification of existence” (2). There is no definition of what type of ‘free speech’ should be censored and not allowed. With that said, there should not be a limit on ‘free speech’
The University decide who can write what where does negatively impact the first amendment right of students. However, I also believe that the way they showed their support for Trump can be found as offensive to some. In this case, more political correctness may have limited the negative light shined on this situation.
“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
How much we value the right of free speech is put to its severest test when the speaker is someone we disagree with most. Speech that deeply offends our morality or is hostile to our way of life warrants the same constitutional protection as other speech because the right of free speech is indivisible. However, in recent years, the right to free speech is one of legal and moral ambiguity-What separates offensive free speech from dangerous or threatening (and presumably illegal) hate speech? Under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, every American citizen should be entitled to the right of free expression, thought, and speech. While free speech, including racial, sexist, or otherwise prejudiced remarks, must protected no matter
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution authorized citizens with the freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. This amendment also goes to the college students. However, colleges limited the students constitutional rights by enforcing the “free speech zones”. Colleges are places where it enable students to encounter new and challenging ideas through open debates, but free speech zones limited this. You can only express your ideas in the free speech zones, nowhere else. This can be related to burning the flag (an action that intended to make a political point against a country or its policies), if you can’t express your ideas anywhere you wants, doesn’t it also indicates a person can’t randomly choose a place to burn the flag, it have to be in a specific area. Both theses is a way to express your rights as a citizens of U.S. Therefore, colleges shouldn’t restrict the political speech of students to free speech zones.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.” Indeed, free speech is a large block upon which this nation was first constructed, and remains a hard staple of America today; and in few places is that freedom more often utilized than on a college campus. However, there are limitations to our constitutional liberties on campus and they, most frequently, manifest themselves in the form of free speech zones, hate speech and poor university policy. Most school codes are designed to protect students, protect educators and to promote a stable, non-disruptive and non-threatening learning environment. However, students’ verbal freedom
Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. Whether or not on a college campus, people (especially college students) should have the right to speak freely. Everyone does have the right to speak freely, because it is one of the twenty-seven amendments. Colleges all around the United States are now home to many restrictions on free speech. For example, the idea and use of “free speech zones” has made its way to colleges everywhere. A “free speech zone” is a sidewalk sized place where students are allowed to speak their minds freely on college campuses. I know what you’re thinking. This sounds ridiculous. Why are there specific places for people to speak their minds? Aren’t colleges suppose to be a place where students speak their minds and learn new things? Universities should not be able to put any restrictions on free speech.
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
While the First Amendment does protect the right to freedom of speech, university officials have some authority in defining the limitations of freedom of speech and press on a campus setting. However, this mostly applies to private colleges, as students enrolled in public universities often receive protection under the First
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion regarding free speech on college campuses. Our first amendment gives us the right of Free Speech but many groups retain the ability to censor it within their own organisation, such as in the workplace and in both public and private lower education. I believe that the ability should be extended to colleges and universities (both public and private). Students should have the right to be at school while feeling physically safe. An example of this right being violated because of someone else’s “free speech” was last spring at American University in which bananas were strung up on nooses around campus with AKA (a historically-black sorority) labeled on them the day after AU’s first black female student
Why is freedom of speech important to college students? That is a question that some higher intuitions seem to forget (or knowingly ignore). Freedom of speech is important to students because it gives them the opportunity to practice their right and be more than just a student, but part of the actual body. By being part of the university body, they are just as involved and opinionated about issues revolving around the campus as so the board or the dean are. They can write petitions or disagree with the school’s new agenda if they please. They are just as important as the main decision makers. They are even more important if the school’s decision directly affects them. Freedom of speech is a very important right to the students and they should have the basic right to voice their opinions.