Cotterell: Students need schooling on freedom of speech

A new survey of college students by a Brookings Institution senior fellow indicates that a great number of college students really don’t understand what free speech is all about.

In fact, almost one-fifth of those surveyed last month by UCLA professor John Villasenor think offensive speech justifies a violent response.

Villasenor also found wide support for the utterly wrong notion that “hate speech” is not protected by the First Amendment, and that heckling or shouting down someone you disagree with is a legitimate exercise of your own free speech. His survey of 1,500 students at four-year institutions across the country also showed that many of those young people believe institutions have a legal duty to balance appearances by speakers on both sides of an issue.

That’s downright scary. It means a lot of young people think the government should select what we may say and hear – and that many believe they, themselves, can use their fists, when reason fails.

But there might be some mitigating factors in the Brookings survey.

First, it was conducted Aug. 17-31, starting just five days after the violence at Charlottesville, Va., in which one woman was killed and about 34 people were injured. If that was fresh in the minds of survey respondents, they may have been a little more willing to sacrifice a little freedom of speech in exchange for peace and quiet.

Second, they’re college kids. Most haven’t had the life experiences to realize that anything done to speakers they don’t like today can be done to speakers they do like tomorrow. And youth imbues them with a conviction of their own rectitude and a moral duty to make everyone see things their way.

Third, they want to be nice and, if a little technicality like the Bill of Rights permits bad speech, they’ll just assert new rights. All of us, not just collegians, seem to think we have a right to go through life perpetually un-offended. If some people say things that upset us, or which we believe are wrong or harmful, we don’t have to rebut them – the government ought to just stop them from saying those things.

By the numbers, here’s what Villasenor’s survey found:

• Four out of 10 students believe the First Amendment does not protect “hate speech.” Yes, it does.

• Six in 10 believe the First Amendment requires public universities to match a speaker on one side of a political argument with one from the other side. No, it doesn’t.

• Half believe the “heckler’s veto” – shouting down or otherwise disrupting a speech you find offensive – is a form of free speech. No, it’s not.

• And 53 percent of respondents believe universities must “create an environment that shelters them from offensive views,” what are known as “safe spaces.” Nope, the free speech zone in this country starts at the rocky coast of Maine and runs through Guam.

• Worst of all, 19 percent of those surveyed believe that when reason fails, violence is permissible to prevent a speaker from expressing unpopular views. No, it’s not. Not ever, no matter how repugnant those opinions may be.

“College students’ views on the First Amendment are important for another reason as well: Students act as de facto arbiters of free expression on campus,” Villasenor wrote in his survey report. “The Supreme Court justices are not standing by at the entrances to public university lecture halls, ready to step in if First Amendment rights are curtailed. If a significant percentage of students believe that views they find offensive should be silenced, those views will in fact be silenced.”

It’s an interesting coincidence that the University of California at Berkeley is having “Free Speech Week” in the next few days. The university already spent $600,000 on security preparations, when the first right-wing speaker came to campus last week, and more are scheduled this week.

Little more than 50 years ago, Berkeley was the birthplace of the “free speech movement.” Students wrote four-letter words on their foreheads and shouted obscenities at cops, asserting their right to say and hear anything they wanted.

Now, on campuses all over the country, the grandchildren of some of those 1960s radicals are demanding protection from speech they don’t like. And at many campuses, administrators are caving in to those demands.

For those who run the tabs on polls, Villasenor’s research was funded by the Charles Koch Foundation at UCLA, but Koch did not design the questions. The sampling was limited to U.S. citizens, with 697 Democrats, 261 Republicans and 431 independents. The rest “don’t know” their party affiliation.

Bill Cotterell is a retired Tallahassee Democrat reporter. He can be reached at bcotterell@tallahassee.com