A show of belief in the first ammendment from the academic world

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

[From _Inside Illinois_, the staff newspaper of the U. of Illinois.]
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Subject: Senate debates discipline for 'hate speech,' calendar changes 


By Craig Chamberlain


A proposed change in university policy that could bring disciplinary 
action against students for what is commonly called "hate speech" was met
with criticism from the Urbana-Champaign Senate at its meeting Monday.


Mary Ellen O'Shaughnessey, assistant dean of students and a proponent of 
the measure, said students need to be held accountable for certain harmful
speech. "Words can hurt, words can do violence," she said, and so 
regulation of speech intended only to harm is necessary in order to 
provide a supportive environment for a diverse student body.


"If we're going to develop an institution that's inclusive, we're going to
have to change the rules," she said. The campus should not regulate the 
content of speech, she said, but should discipline students for their 
"conduct of speech" in certain cases.


Senators, however, rejected those arguments and instead focused on the 
threat such a measure could bring to free speech. They also repeatedly 
criticized the language of the proposed policy change as vague and 
misleading.
 
The subject of criticism was a document from the senate's Conference on 
Conduct Governance proposing amendments to the campus Handbook of Policies
and Regulations Applying to All Students.


Specifically, the debate centered on one phrase in the proposal stating 
that students should be subject to discipline when engaging in "physical 
abuse, verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, harassment, coercion and/or 
other conduct that threatens or endangers the health or safety of any 
person." 


Stephen Bainbridge, a professor of law who spoke in opposition to the 
proposal, said the proposal's language was vague and "fraught with the 
potential for abuse." It could be used to silence unpopular or undesirable
speech, he said.


Geneva Belford, associate dean in the Graduate College, called the wording
"hopelessly vague," noting that discipline committees would find it 
difficult to interpret.


Emanuel Donchin, head of the department of psychology, said words in the 
proposal seemed "intended to mean something other than what they say." 
Citing difficulties with speech codes at other campuses, Donchin said the
UI had been able to avoid such a problem "and I suggest we continue to 
avoid it."


Chancellor Michael Aiken, who spent last year "embroiled," he said, in a 
debate regarding free speech speech at the University of Pennsylvania, 
said he was "deeply disturbed" by the proposal. "I think anything that can
be interpreted as abridging free speech is very problematic," he said.


On a near-unanimous voice vote, the senate recommended that the chancellor
refer the proposal back to the Conference on Conduct Governance for 
further work. John Pfeffer, chair of the conference, expressed frustration
during and after the meeting that the senate had so quickly shot down a 
proposal developed over three years and with input from several senate 
committees and other groups.


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