ASHE SCHOW: Restoring Campus Free Speech:

In an article for National Review, Stanley Kurtz, a Harvard graduate and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, proposes “A Plan to Restore Free Speech on Campus.”

Kurtz’s plan includes five parts. The first involves adopting a policy based on Yale’s 1974 Woodward Report, which stated the importance of intellectual freedom.

“While the Woodward Report forthrightly acknowledges the importance of solidarity, harmony, civility, and mutual respect to campus life, it unmistakably marks these values as subordinate in priority to freedom of expression,” Kurtz wrote. “In accordance with this, the Woodward Report rejects the proposition that members of an academic community are entitled to suppress speech they regard as offensive.”

The second part of Kurtz’s plan would encourage colleges and universities to “systematically educate members of their community in the principles of free expression.” He suggested using freshman orientation as a means to do so.

Third, Kurtz suggests holding students who try to disrupt free speech on campus accountable. He points to recent examples of a Yale student who disrupted a speaker and was dragged out of a lecture hall by police when he refused to leave. Upon being dragged from the lecture he began screaming. His actions violated Yale policy, but since his actions were coming from the “politically correct” side of the current campus revolt, he has faced no punishment.

One can’t imagine the same rules applying if the tables had been turned.

“We will not see freedom of speech on our campuses until disruptors face discipline for silencing, or attempting to silence, others,” Kurtz wrote.

True. Congress and state legislatures need to make universities liable for abuses of power in this regard.