Bob Dunning: Safeguarding free speech, and easy listening – Davis Enterprise

After issuing a warm Aggie welcome to incoming UC Davis chancellor Gary May from Georgia Tech, interim UCD chancellor Ralph Hexter delivered A message to our campus community about a completely different subject.

Hexter, who has agreed to carry on in his interim role until the new chancellor comes aboard on Aug. 1, begins with the words I have no doubt that the next few years will be ideologically charged ones for many college campuses across the country.

Certainly doesnt take a Ph.D. behind your name to agree with that statement.

As I said at our Fall Convocation, Hexter continues, I cannot recall a moment in my lifetime when the discourse of our national community was more vitriolic and polarized.

Given that I have a few years on the interim chancellor, I can state with authority that his words are correct. We are most definitely sailing in uncharted waters.

Hexter then leaves the national arena to discuss recent polarizing events on the UC Davis campus itself.

Because UC Davis is a public university, he notes, our faculty and duly registered student clubs are allowed to invite speakers with diverse perspectives to share their views and insights with the larger community. Consistent with our legal responsibilities, we do not screen these speakers based on the content of their views.

Many U.S. Supreme Court decisions have rested on that very principle. However, there are still folks out there who wish to ban anything that might hurt their feelings or rupture their eardrums.

Added Hexter, We have for many years received demands from individuals in our community to ban invited speakers whose views they found objectionable, and those demands have recently intensified. (Can you spell Yiannopoulos?)

Again, consistent with our legal responsibilities, grounded in the First Amendment to the Constitution, we do not exercise prior restraint on speech.

Thank heavens for clear thinking in the face of the recent ugliness on campus.

We understand that controversial speakers may well inspire protest, and we fully support properly conducted protests. Protesters, too, enjoy free-speech protections, but like any expression, protest is subject to time, place and manner restrictions.

Which means no reading the Bible out loud in advanced calculus, and no yelling someone stole my popcorn in a crowded theater.

Yes, all you purists, free speech does come with limits. But not many.

Unfortunately, at one event last year, protesters shouted down and for a time physically blocked the audience from observing the speaker. Recently, a student club invited a speaker with views abhorrent to many. On this occasion, protesters managed to prevent the orderly entry of ticketed audience members to the lecture hall so that the speech was cancelled before it could even begin.

A hecklers veto, as the court would call it.

I am mindful that some speakers may be extremely upsetting to members of our community, particularly those who believe they are targets of the speech. However, I am also vigilant about our obligation to uphold everyones First Amendment freedoms. This commitment includes fostering an environment that avoids censorship and allows space and time for differing points of view.

UC Davis is a community for all ideas, and our campus is committed to ensuring that all members are allowed to freely hear, express and debate different points of view. In the incidents I described above, we fell short of permitting free expression and exchange of ideas.

Indeed, it was an unnecessary, but well deserved black eye.

Our First Amendment rights are treasures provided to every member of our American community, but those rights do not include the silencing of speakers or blocking of audiences from hearing speakers. When we prevent words from being delivered or heard, we are trampling on the First Amendment. Even when a speakers message is deeply offensive to certain groups, the right to convey the message and the right to hear it are protected.

Hexter has hit on a key, but unwritten part of free speech when he talks about the right to be heard. While the Constitution does not specifically say that anyone has a right to be heard, the whole reason behind free speech goes out the window if no one can hear you.

Of course, no one can be forced to hear what you have to say, but on the flip side, no one should be allowed to prevent others from hearing you.

Hexter also is right to point out that the campus oft-mentioned Principles of Community are aspirational in nature and not grounded in Constitutional law.

Concludes Hexter, In the coming weeks, I will be creating a work group of campus representatives students, faculty and staff and key campus constituents to develop recommended practices and policies to ensure invited speakers can deliver their messages unimpeded.

Hopefully, participants will take a serious stroll through the First Amendment and study the many volumes of case law on the subject before instituting any such practices and policies.

Reach Bob Dunning at [emailprotected]. Catch Bobs Tuesday and Thursday columns at http://www.davisenterprise.com, under web update

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Bob Dunning: Safeguarding free speech, and easy listening - Davis Enterprise