The University of Minnesota at Twin Cities is considering a set of statements on free speech that, if passed, could be the strongest such affirmation seen on any campus. Yet the statements’ future is uncertain, given concerns — especially those from students — about free speech being “paramount” to other values. At the same time, it’s unclear whether free expression can truly be protected without declaring it paramount.

“Ideas are the lifeblood of a free society and universities are its beating heart,” reads a statement passed by a majority of members of the powerful Faculty Consultative Committee and now under debate before the Faculty Senate. “If freedom of speech is undermined on a university campus, it is not safe anywhere. The University of Minnesota resolves that the freedom of speech is, and will always be, safe at this institution.”

The statement says that embracing free speech involves four core principles , including that a public university “must be absolutely committed to protecting free speech, both for constitutional and academic reasons.” The university must accordingly guarantee every member of its community “liberty to express ideas regardless of viewpoint,” and officials “must neither implicitly nor explicitly suppress, punish or regulate protected speech because of its content. … No member of the university community has the right to prevent or disrupt expression.”

Free speech includes protections for speech that some find “offensive, uncivil or even hateful,” according to the statement, and it can’t be regulated “on the ground that some speakers are thought to have more power or more access to the mediums of speech than others.” And while the university encourages respectful dialogue and understands that the “shock, hurt and anger experienced by the targets of malevolent speech may undermine the maintenance of a campus climate that welcomes all and fosters equity and diversity,” it says, “no word is so blasphemous or offensive it cannot be uttered” at a public university.