Since the 1980s, college campuses have started instilling speech codes for their students and faculty to abide by. This has imposed on people's intrinsic rights that was given to them by the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Private universities can easier get away with enacting these speech codes because they are privately funded. However, it is a person's given right to freedom of expression and if need be, they have the opportunity to fight against what is stripping them of it.
This article stated, "In a study of 392 campus speech codes last year, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education... found that 65 percent of the colleges had policies that in our view violated the Constitution's guarantee of the right to free speech." Then the article used an example saying, "Last year, incoming Harvard freshmen were pressured by campus officials to sign an oath promising to act with 'civility' and 'inclusiveness' and affirming that 'kindness holds a place on par with intellectual attainment'." These speech codes are in some ways controlling people's thoughts and actions, which is, in fact, not true freedom, at all.
It is understandable for colleges and universities to want their students to act kindly and justly, but by having these stringent speech codes in place, it hinders them more. A closing sentence that the article stated was, "Students can't learn how to navigate democracy and engage with their fellow citizens if they are forced to think twice before they speak their mind." This topic can and obviously has caused debate, but for the free expression advocate, it is not right to impose on what was given to someone in the First Amendment to try and get the specific behavior a university is wanting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/opinion/feigning-free-speech-on-campus.html?_r=1
-Bailey Clampitt
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