COLUMN: "Does Free Speech End Where the Campus Begins?"

From Brian Newberry's "A Thousand Words," Fall '92 Mo: "There is no law against that." R: "There is! God's law!" Mo: "Then God can arrest him . . . I know what's legal, not what's right . . . I am not God." -- Robert Bolt's "A Man For All Seasons" · Last summer, the Supreme Court ruled that a St. Paul city ordinance forbidding "hate speech" violated the First Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. As a consequence of this ruling, many campus speech codes and verbal harassment policies seem to be in danger. Here at Penn, President Sheldon Hackney took a great deal of heat last year when he supported a watered-down version of Penn's own harassment code. The critisism was undeserved. The fact is that speech ordinances such as St. Paul's law -- or overly restrictive harrassmant policies like the one recently overturned at the University of Wisconsin -- are fundamentally flawed, no matter how noble their intentions. It is fascinating that so many people seem to know their "fundamental rights" under the Constitution, when most have probably never read it. This occurs in a country with a basic education system so poor that half of our elementary students can't find their own home state on a map. Everyone, it seems, can tell you all about how they are protected under the Constitution. But our memory conveniently fails when it comes time to extend that protection to people one doesn't approve of or like. Despite the best efforts of extremists on all sides, no issue -- be it tax policy, environmental regulation, abortion or what have you -- can ever be reduced to simple black and white terms. First Amendment issues are no exception. In an ideal world, the issue of what punishment, if any, should be meted out to someone who calls another a "bitch," "fag," "nigger," or a "cracker" for that matter, would be irrelevant. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world and -- despite the best efforts of some Utopian-minded individuals -- I doubt we will anytime soon. Consequently, verbal slurs are an issue we must deal with. Certainly words can hurt. I am not going to deny the fact that carefully chosen language can make a human being feel lower than dried gum on the bottom of a shoe. But where do we draw the line? Unlike a gunshot or a punch, not all words hurt everyone every time. What is offensive to some is humorous to others, and vice-versa. What is painful to some seems irrelevant to others, and vice-versa. As a native New Englander, I was offended by George Bush's 1988 campaign when he practically made Massachusetts -- his own birthplace -- seem like some kind of un-American alien world. Were I an irrational person, could I not claim that his political ads hurt me deeply, engendered anti-New Englandism and therefore should be banned and their creators punished? You laugh -- I hope -- but according to the logic of hate speech codes, I deserve justice in this case. Irrational or not, I was hurt by words spoken by another that were intended to put down me and my kind. Freedom of speech is an ideal. Ideals are fragile things that must always be carefully guarded or they will be lost. Contrary to their writers' intentions, laws can easily be twisted to fit one's point of view. While this flexibility may be a tempting tool for those of us who always consider ourselves to be on the side of righteousness, think for a minute about what happens when the moral pendulum swings away from our point of view. A law which we bend one way to our advantage can just as easily be bent another way against us. It was only thirty years ago that officials of the State of Alabama sued The New York Times for libel regarding an article it had published describing the terrible state of race relations and the quality of black Alabamans' lives. The logic the Supreme Court used in overturning the state court's conviction was not very different from arguments used in overturning St. Paul's ordinance. Those who support campus speech codes often use the argument given by a homosexual student at Michigan State -- or by several recent letter writers to this newspaper. They argue that "having hatred directed towards" them makes it "difficult to learn." Well, for better or for worse, welcome to the real world. Does anyone really believe that the best solution to this problem is to simply silence the offenders through codes? That is akin to putting a bandage on a deep cut and letting the infection fester underneath. Silencing a racist does not make the problem go away. It actually just makes the problem worse by breeding resentment, and hate through fear. I, for one, would rather have someone who did not like me tell me so to my face, rather than smile pleasantly and then stab me in the back. I am not so naive as to pretend just having everyone "get to know each other" is a simple solution to the divisivness in our society and our world, but it is the only real solution. When people from different groups approach others with an open mind, highlight their similarities as human beings (rather than their differences) and cease to categorize themselves, then we will truly have a multicultural society. Unfortunately, a few generations of enlightened thinking is not going to wipe out centuries of distrust and hate. History shows that it takes a very long time to change an attitude. We here on Earth in 1992 are nothing more than a speck in the universe. To believe that in the short span of our lives we can reverse forces which have washed one way for so long, is to deny the reality of human nature and live in a dream world. The best we can do is add a few more rocks to the dam. To force conformity in thought and attitude through terror is the first and most important step to an Orwellian world. Many of the Nazis initially thought they were building a perfect world. So did the communists in Russia. They created Hell instead, first for others but ultimately for themselves. The writers of our Constitution, and especially our Bill of Rights, knew better. We should follow their lead, or risk sowing the seeds of our own destruction. · R: "You would give the devil the benefit of the law!" Mo: "What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get to the devil?" R: "I'd cut down every law in England to do that!" Mo: "Oh? . . . and when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you -- where would you hide Roper, the laws all being flat? . . . This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- Man's laws not God's -- and if you cut them down . . . d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? . . . Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake." Brian Newberry is a senior Urban Studies and American History major from Wallingford, Connecticut. "A Thousand Words" normally appears alternate Tuesdays.