Free Speech On Campus

4 Pages 1030 Words

Throughout the United States, many colleges and universities are having to face an old but still relevant question: how much can one regulate free speech without infringing on the rights of students and faculty? To answer this question, many of these institutions are finding themselves searching for a happy medium that will allow students and faculty to be able to retain their first amendment rights without breaching the rights of others. This regulation of speech has been the cause of an uproar on campuses nationwide. Neither side is content with the work of their respective universities in regulating speech. The liberals feel that any regulation of speech is an automatic infringement on their first amendment rights. On the other side of the spectrum, the conservatives believe that one’s free speech is free up until the point that it violates someone else’s privacy or causes someone distress or discomfort. The plight of our nation’s universities to be the mediator in this ongoing battle is one of the major issues for college students.
The problem of regulating speech on college campuses is by no means a recent one; this topic has been one of debates for decades. At the turn of the twentieth century, the spirit of rebellion filled college campuses. Young men found themselves away from home and able to act without parental supervision. For the first time in many of their lives, they had the ability to join together and speak out against authority. What ensued were multiple riots against the presidents and faculties of several colleges. While the faculty successfully controlled these riots, the principle of rebellion remained in the minds of the college students, and they began to meet in secret in order to continue speaking of their disputes on college life with each other (Horowitz 3). The acts of these early college students would become the basis for widespread rebellion during later times. These men lived in a society that wa...