First Amendment rights are not absolutely guaranteed on college campuses, according to administrators, professors and journalists who spoke as part of a live videoconference shown in Silsby Hall yesterday.
College President James Freedman played a minor role in the videoconference. In a taped segment, Freedman responded to three hypothetical conflicts involving the first amendment by saying the conflicts should be handled with "good sense, civility and a respect for others."
The majority of the videoconference focused on five live speakers who said first amendment rights are limited on campus.
"While this is a fundamental right -- freedom of speech -- it is not one of the absolute freedoms," said Orlando Patterson, a sociology professor at Harvard University said,
Patterson said the university is a special community different from general society and that this qualifies the First Amendment as it relates to campus issues.
Freedom of speech must be balanced by respect and consideration for others, said Isabel Marcus, a law professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Marcus wrote a speech code for SUNY-Buffalo's law school and said she supported regulated speech on campus.
But Patterson said disputes should be settled through discourse and not by enforcing speech codes.
According to Marianne Merritt, a former clerk with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, there is a "general breakdown of civility and communication" on campuses today.
"Students don't feel compelled to respect each other," she said.
Panelists suggested several solutions to insensitivity on college campuses including required courses on women's issues, pornography and other social issues.
Merritt suggested applying a law like the Title VII civil rights law to college and university campuses. Title VII is a federal law that prohibits offensive or sexist remarks in a workplace.
The videoconference discussed three hypothetical First Amendment situations to illustrate the complexity of the issue.
In one scenario, students upset with the content of a college newspaper, confiscated 10,000 copies of the paper from distribution points in dormitories.
The situation resembled an incident at the University of Pennsylvania last spring, in which African-American students removed 14,000 copies of the Daily Pennsylvanian to protest a conservative columnist.
In the scenario, the school's president said the students who collected the papers were not breaking the law or violating anybody's first amendment rights.
But SUNY-Binghamton President Lois DeFleur said that "robbing one's vehicle" to express opinion did constitute an infringement on First Amendment rights.
Patterson and Marcus responded by suggesting that college newspaper content should be controlled so it is more representative of the community and does not discriminate against minorities.
Another scenario involved offensive fraternity posters. In the hypothetical situation, a fraternity announcing rush distributed posters depicting women in "suggestive positions."
A group called the Feminist Coalition tore down all the posters. As a result, the college decided to cancel classes and hold special meetings and dialogues.
DeFleur said that even though the posters may have been tasteless and vulgar, they are still protected by the first amendment.
Marcus suggested forming a committee to look into what things are offensive to people and inform people about those things.
Nat Hentoff, a columnist for The Washington Post and staff writer for The New Yorker, said it is very difficult to assign people the task of saying what is and what is not offensive.
Freedman, in his taped segment discussing the scenario, said a college runs risks when canceling classes to sponsor mandatory dialogues, especially when professors are asked to lead discussions when they may not feel comfortable doing so.
Freedman said behavior on campus should be based on "good sense, civility, and respect for others.
Another situation dealt with students' and professors' rights in the classroom. The scenario depicted a conflict over an American Literature and Myth class that used "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," by Mark Twain as one of its texts.
The student refused to discuss the novel because he felt the novel was racist and depicted African-Americans in an offensive manner.
The professor reacted by trying to explain the complexity of the novel and forcing the student to read the passage out loud. When the student still refused, the professor threatened the student by saying his grade would be affected.
Freedman said the professor was right to choose the novel as relevant to the course, but did everything else wrong.
Freedman said it was wrong to try to force students to read what they don't want to and to threaten their grades and futures. Freedman said the professor should have been more accepting of the student's reading of the novel and should have tried to discuss it more fully.
Nat Hentoff said Freedman was correct in his assessment of the situation, but Freedman "should learn from himself and not try and suppress The Dartmouth Review."
Hentoff accused College presidents of being "the most cowardly group" he knows of in terms of dealing with First Amendment issues.
