To the Editors:
I don't think it is a matter of dispute that we do not allow a child to say everything that enters his mind, allow him to do anything he wants or grant to him everything he asks for. Explicitly, we want the child to learn patience, tolerance, self-control and respect for others. Implicitly, we are setting reasonable and proper boundaries at an early stage so that he will learn to exercise his freedom responsibly and prudently in the future. We encourage the child to develop his potential and pursue a life of purpose and self-fulfillment, and to those ends, it is important that he is given equal opportunity and the freedom to express himself. But we also remind the child of the higher meaning of freedom -- that is, the ability to do what he ought to do, not simply what he wants to do -- and caution him not to abuse his freedom to selfish, destructive ends.
An analogy is not perfect, but it helps illustrate a point: When does a child pass into maturity when we can trust him to exercise his freedom responsibly? When he enters high school? When he enters college? When he turns 21? Or should we even care? Kiran Parkhe '07 wrote (The Dartmouth, March 8) that "if Dartmouth really cares about fostering diversity, it should foster the most important kind of diversity of all: diversity of thought, point of view and expression." Kiran appealed to Thomas Jefferson and reminded readers of our "rightful liberty." But what was Tommy Woon's concern? An alumnus from the Class of 1988 was putting up posters to direct people to a website that contains "incendiary messages about Jesus Christ, abortion and homosexuality." He was trying to decide if that incident constituted a bias incident, which he defined as an action that "expresses hatred or bias because of someone's actual or perceived race, gender, sexual orientation, class or other identity, and therefore affects an entire class of people." I agree that "putting up posters does not rob anyone of his liberties," but should we not care about the content? What if posters contain incendiary messages about a person or issue sacred to some? What if pejorative statements about women are made? What about vile attacks at those with different sexual preferences? Or even hateful anti-Semitic claims?
Which brings me to my last question: do we care more about the right to free speech, or the character of free speech? Stressing either has definite consequences, and I hope we recognize them.
