The fallacy of free speech zones
Issue date: 10/15/09 Section: Perspective
The policy is a "time, place, and manner" restriction on free speech. These restrictions, when challenged by courts, must be proven to be content-neutral and narrowly tailored to serve significant governmental interest, such as preserving park property or keeping streets clean, in order to be constitutional.
The university isn't shutting down assemblies based on which group it is or what they have to say, and preserving the academic effectiveness of the university seems like a reasonable end here.
Students have paid to attend Eastern and receive an education, and that education would be clearly interrupted if an outside protest group began clamoring just outside their classroom window on campus, or better yet, inside a classroom building.
With no policy creating "free speech zones" for students, does that mean students are free to do that?
Maybe, but we can hope they wouldn't want to.
That's because for all the talk about college being a haven for new experiences and ideas, college is supposed to focus on some concrete things as well - like time inside classrooms and concepts learned from lectures and class discussions. Those are new experiences and ideas, too, and for as much as we're paying in tuition, they deserve to be protected at Eastern.
It's not that Eastern hates free speech: far from it. If they did, you likely wouldn't be reading an uncensored and unregulated student publication right now.
It's just that universities are strange places in society - public property, but with an obligation to those paying customers we call "students."
Conflicts inevitably arise, tempers flare and policies get misunderstood and "misapplied."
But when you stop to think about it, if only in this one case, can't we all just get along?
The university isn't shutting down assemblies based on which group it is or what they have to say, and preserving the academic effectiveness of the university seems like a reasonable end here.
Students have paid to attend Eastern and receive an education, and that education would be clearly interrupted if an outside protest group began clamoring just outside their classroom window on campus, or better yet, inside a classroom building.
With no policy creating "free speech zones" for students, does that mean students are free to do that?
Maybe, but we can hope they wouldn't want to.
That's because for all the talk about college being a haven for new experiences and ideas, college is supposed to focus on some concrete things as well - like time inside classrooms and concepts learned from lectures and class discussions. Those are new experiences and ideas, too, and for as much as we're paying in tuition, they deserve to be protected at Eastern.
It's not that Eastern hates free speech: far from it. If they did, you likely wouldn't be reading an uncensored and unregulated student publication right now.
It's just that universities are strange places in society - public property, but with an obligation to those paying customers we call "students."
Conflicts inevitably arise, tempers flare and policies get misunderstood and "misapplied."
But when you stop to think about it, if only in this one case, can't we all just get along?
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