On Thursday, October 19, Richard Spencer delivered a hateful speech at a university in Gainesville, Florida. Although Spencer denied being a white supremacist, he is known for conveying pro-Nazi and racist beliefs. Students and citizens gathered outside of the event and protested, telling Spencer that "Nazis are not welcome here." The university did not condone Spencer speaking but by law and his right to freedom of speech, they were required to give permission. The massive protests resulted in Florida's governor declaring a state of emergency and police were on standby, though the opposing sides were mostly peaceful.
As aforementioned, the university did not have much of a say in the matter because of laws protecting rights to the first amendment, even though they knew it would cause immense controversy. Do you think this is ethical? Should the university be allowed to deny speakers they disagree with, or is it important to uphold constitutionality in this situation? Why or why not?
Edit: Later news revealed that supporters of Spencer were violent and shot at protesters.
6 comments:
I don't think there's an easy answer to this one, but I personally think that the university should be allowed to decline certain speakers if their speaking could result in violence on the campus. Considering that the governor declared a state of emergency because of this event, I think that the university would be justified in preventing a highly controversial speaking on campus for the sake of student safety. The cost of bolstered security for the school, which is being passed on to taxpayers, is another thing to take into account. Perhaps the University of Florida could do what Texas A&M University did and change their campus speaker policy so that outside speakers must have a sponsorship from a group in the university in order to reserve a spot to speak on campus. This might diminish the backlash from the student body.
I think that no matter how inflamatory or offensive somebody's speech is they must have the right to express it. If we begin to censor speech that is deemed offensive, where will we draw the line as to what is considered offensive or not. This would ultimately result in a system that shuts down opinions that they don't like. What is considered offensive too one person may not be offensive to someone else else so deeming something unworthy of being expressed because of somebody's opinion that it is offensive sounds like something that would occur in a dictatorship.
Although I don’t believe that speech should be prohibited simply because the university disagrees with the speaker, I do believe that the university should be allowed to deny speakers who promote violence or cause disruptions on the campus, as was the case with Richard Spencer. I agree with Emma that the fact that a state of emergency declared in Florida -- as well as the actions that the universities took in preparation, such as using helicopters and drones and positioning snipers on top of buildings near the event -- is excessive and should not be necessary for any speaker coming on campus. However, given that the university seems to be unable to deny any speakers to the campus, I don’t believe that there is a clear way around upholding constitutionality in this situation.
If a crowd is resorting to violence because of speech, than it's the crowd's fault, not the speakers. Speech isn't violence. Respond with a better argument. I feel that if we need to use police to uphold this basic American value, we should.
Universities should be allowed to deny speakers, but as they are an educational institution they should let most if not all speakers do their thing. Even if a white nationalist speaks, it lets people know how that person thinks and makes them better at arguing against it.
Freedom of speech should definitely be protected. Especially at a public university people should be allowed to speak their mind no matter how controversial it might be. I do agree with Lily's point that if the speaker is inciting violence then they should not be allowed to speak but the fact of the matter is that most speakers actually don't do that. No public speaker is going to go up onto a stage and say hey lets go kill the president and beat up all the people who oppose our viewpoints. Most of the violence comes from protesters and supporters who feel like they need to fight each other because their view is obviously the better one. A speaker making people in the audience feel passionately about their views is not cause for denying the speaker his constitutional right to free speech. Overall, I agree with Robert on the fact that usually its the crowd's fault and the speaker should not be punished, the crowd should be.
Although What Richard spencer said is something that I do not agree with entirely. I watch that whole lecture, the crowd was being incredibly rude to him throughout the entire hour that he spoke. They were screaming at him to go home, when he tried to do a Q&A they were completely childish in both question and answer. I agree with Matthew that, This was unacceptable behavior on behalf of the student body, the speaker said nothing in his lecture that was provoking violence. this is the crowds fault, not the speakers.
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