Speaking for Us

Since my last piece, I have had time to consider both some thoughtful responses to it and the range of issues bound up in individual questions of the application of the principle of free speech to college campuses.

I had hoped to avoid the broadest issues but just say I did not equate denial of specific platforms and audiences to the suppression of speech.

Of course, it is not that simple. A federal judge ruled Auburn had to let Richard Spencer speak because of school policies that let space to anyone, which liken public universities to public accommodations.

I don't know the jurisprudence, but I really doubt the law is bound by precedent to always regard a college quad as no different from a public park just because the state pays some of the bills for both.

In terms of administration, I'm encouraged that public schools like Texas A&M are making policies more consistent with the view that we take part in distinct institutions within distinct communities where not anybody can make demands on our space.

In this, I think we need only to ask why Spencer and Milo Yannopoulos are drawn to universities in the first place.

Presumably, if they had talks at hotels or community centers, they wouldn't get the same promotion opportunity as saying "Auburn Presents ___" or something to this effect. And in keeping with how I think about public accommodations, I don't think the people who work in hotels or community centers are understood to be responsible for whom they do business with in the same way as we are. 

I was trying to say that in this dynamic of provocation and offense-at-offense, we don't have to be passive. We don't have to "present" whoever wants us to present them. 

However, our communities are shaped by practices of free speech, as Ulrich Baer has argued. In this moment, what ends those practices serve- why speech needs to be free- need questioning and consideration on campus and off.