Using history to move forward the public dialogue on free speech and social justice.

Free Speech News Round-up 8 | June 10, 2020

In free speech news this week, the Trump administration continues to threaten the free speech of protesters, while some protesters are encouraging public universities in Southwest Virginia to reject students solely on the grounds that they have made racist social media posts. In other words, it is business as usual.

Trump Administration Targets Nonviolent Protests

President Trump's use of military force against peaceful protests in D.C. last week has been roundly condemned, but the threat to free speech from such actions has not disappeared. After former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis condemned the use of violence against civilians, Trump's former lawyer, Jim Dowd, rushed to the President's defense with a letter.0 In it, he tries to justify the use of such force by claiming, without evidence, that the protesters were acting violently and associating them with violent actions taken elsewhere by other people.

It is the same sort of generalized, slippery slope logic that has been used to justify censorship and suppression for centuries. Luckily for us, thanks to a century of legal battles, there exists a bulwark of judicial precedent that explicitly repudiates such logic. In the United States political speech is free, and can only be restricted when there is an imminent incitement to violence. Condemning the police is protected speech. Protesting to condemn police brutality is protected speech. Nonspecific threats without an actual intention to carry out the threat are protected speech. To call peaceful protesters “terrorists” as Dowd does in his letter, is to challenge a century of legal precedent over free speech.

Students Denied College Admission for Racist Posts

In another in a series of similar events, students to several colleges, both private and public, in Southwest Virginia have either been definitively or likely denied admission to a college to which they were previously admitted. 1The basis for this denial were racist posts each student supposedly made on social media accounts in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Each student’s fate is not entirely clear. While the article does cite Ferrum College officials explicitly denying admission to a student due to racist posts, officials from Virginia Tech did not specify what actions were taken against whom. They did however, state that, “when the university is made aware of such racist posts, the dean of students office reaches out to the accused individual ‘to understand all the circumstances of each case...In all cases the university seeks to educate our students that hate, hostility, and discrimination are detrimental to the aims of a Virginia Tech experience.’”2 In the vein of all classic organizational statements on anything remotely controversial, it is not clear to me whether or not students have been denied admission solely on the grounds of such posts or not. While this statement seems to imply not, the same official also said that, “’I just don’t think it would be OK to have someone on those views on campus.’” Radford University took the even braver highroad of making no comment at all.

However, regardless of whether VT or RU have denied students admission on the grounds that they made previous racist posts on social media, Ferrum College has and this is the stance being asked for by most of the people interviewed in the article. One rising senior argued that, “’I do not feel safe knowing that the university would allow someone of this ignorance and racist manner to attend a school that speaks so highly of Ut Prosim,’...referencing the university’s motto ‘That I may serve.’ ‘Please be aware of this situation and understand that as a minority at the university, I will not feel at home at a university that turns a blind eye to this situation.’” She went on to add that this was not just about her, though, saying, “she felt it important to rescind admissions offers because students who may harbor racist beliefs would go on after a college degree to become doctors, engineers or others in positions of power.” Annoyed at the silence of the RU administration, one student said that, “Silence is compliance,” implying that if the university failed to rescind admissions offers to these students that it would be supporting white supremacy. Another student took a slightly more moderate approach, merely asking the university to condemn the student’s view. Celebrating the action taken by Ferrum College, one alum noted hopefully the potential for this decision to be used against students in the future. He said “this set a precedent...by taking ‘a hard line in the sand’ against racism. That means Ferrum needs to take similar actions against future racist incidents, even once the current news cycle dies down.”

The logic presented in the article3 is that if you have made a social media post that enough alum and students deem racist, you should not be allowed to attend a college or university in the United States. Indeed, colleges and universities are supporting racism and white supremacy if they allow you to attend. The justification for this view is two-fold. First, there is the potential harm or a general anxiety for students, particularly minority students, knowing that they have openly racist classmates. Second, there is the concern that the racist student will be given legitimacy and power by the virtue of their degree, and then will be able to use that to inflict harm in future employment they would not otherwise be able to access.

I have problems with this logic.

In the first place, I think it violates an important argument I and many others on the left have made in recent years, that education is right and that this right should extend to the free provision, at public expense, of colleges and universities (through a 4-year degree). When we say it is a right, we mean that it is universal. One should not be denied access to education because of social status, class, gender, race, and so on. Yet, if we follow the logic of this article, students deemed racist by enough current students or alum can be denied that right.

In the second place, the argument seems to me a bit counter-intuitive, especially for those concerned about social justice. What better place for someone with clearly racist views (and let’s be clear – the posts are racist) than a place specifically designed to educate and challenge previously-held beliefs? That has always been the highest and most significant function of the institution of higher education, not mere career education. Is there no way that such students would be exposed, in their classes and incidentally through protests, etc. on campus, to compelling and forceful arguments and testimonials against racism and white supremacy? Are they more likely to rescind their views on account of being denied a right to education, or less so? I would say they do belong in a place, like college, that challenges ones view – and that if they manage to get through without that view being effectively challenged than it is the university that needs to revamp its educational program and activists who need to rethink their strategy. After all, one of the reasons that universities do (or should) strongly support liberal arts disciplines like philosophy, history, critical studies or require students to take such classes is to encourage critical thinking and debate. A liberal education, though no guarantee, is far more likely to result in a student changing their view on any issue, including racism, than denying them their right to education.

In the third place, there is a dangerous slippery slope here if universities are empowered to reject students they otherwise accepted solely on the grounds that those students said something that others found racist. If I had to wager, I’d wager that those in the article calling for students to be denied admission on the grounds of having made racist comments, would agree that students should be denied admission for sexist, homophobc, transphobic, or other derogatory language. But the boundaries of acceptable language is not always clear or obvious to all, or event most, people, including those most at work on the side of social justice. This is not a trivial point. Some feminists, for instance, have rejected some art or pornography made by women on the grounds that anything they deem “pornographic” is misogynistic and undermines women’s rights.4 They have succeeded in censoring these actions and beliefs through the passage of laws and binding court precedent. I, and most feminists these days, find that ridiculous. Yet, if they complained to a college admissions board, would they succeed in getting a student rejected on these grounds? According to the logic in the article, they would be.

Finally, and I have brought up this point before in other contexts, but the news article here does not quote a single alum or student who disagrees with this. It does not fit into the current media narrative of “PC/Social justice college student” v.s. “Racist, free speech, right-winger.” There is not a single voice for what has historically been the most dominant view – that free speech and social justice are necessary for one another. This is a problem. Supporting the argument expressed in the article would mean sacrificing our own values and beliefs about the importance of education, and yet be less likely to actually result in less racism, while leading to a precedent which could easily be used to target the same people such rulings would supposedly protect. That voice, though, because it does not fit into the media narrative, was not included.