While the Master Plan established the blueprint for California higher education, it said nothing about the kind of community that should exist on the university campus. The Free Speech Movement tackled issues of community, undergraduate education, and the relationship between the university and the outside world. Developed by administrators, the Master Plan delivered students to classrooms. Built by students, the Free Speech Movement challenged administrators to heed students’ concerns about the direction of their education and the environment on the university campus.
In 1959, the UC regents established a political advocacy area at the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft streets in Berkeley where students could set up tables and promote different political and social causes. Turmoil began on September 14, 1964 when the UC Berkeley administration prohibited students from setting up tables on the strip, claiming that the area was university rather than city property. On October 1, students protested by setting up tables on the Sproul Hall steps and when police arrested Berkeley student Jack Weinberg, thousands of students surrounded the police car and several delivered impassioned speeches defending free speech from the car’s roof. The Free Speech Movement formed on October 3 out of a bipartisan coalition of student groups and demanded the administration lift restraints of freedom of speech and that the administration protect students’ civil liberties. Lasting four months and involving thousands of students and faculty, the Free Speech Movement sought to establish freedom of speech as a right on campus and for students to play a more active role in determining the shape of their own educational experience. While the Free Speech Movement came to an end in early 1965, the legacy of the movement continues across the University of California system today.
The Free Speech Movement unearthed an important, complicated, and contemporary issue. It exposed the tension between freedom of speech and campus community. The university must protect students’ first amendment rights, yet the university is also a community that strives to abide by rules of civility and respect. What is the appropriate response from the university when
one student’s freedom of speech allows for the expression of ideas in a manner that another student might find deeply uncivil? Universities have responded to this tension in a variety of ways, ranging from speech codes to statements affirming diversity and community. In an increasingly diverse campus climate, how can the university best protect each student’s right to free speech while also cultivating an environment that guarantees safety, dignity, and respect to all of those within it?
To honor the Free Speech Movement, UC Berkeley has a Free Speech Café and a monument to the movement. To guard against forgetting the struggles of the movement, UC Santa Cruz professor and former Free Speech Movement leader Bettina Aptheker reserves the blackboard in her lecture hall as a “free speech area.” UCLA has designated Meyerhoff Park as a Free Speech Area. Finally, the recent incidents at UC Irvine and UCLA have inspired a serious conversation over the meaning of free speech on campus. How do we resolve the tension between the need to protect free speech but also maintain civility on campus?
Can students say anything they please on a university campus? Should they be able to or should limits be placed on their speech?
In 2010 UC Davis received a red light. In 2011 UC Davis earned a yellow light. These assignments came from an organization called FIRE, which stands for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. FIRE rates universities according to how well they protect students’ first amendment rights. A red light denotes that the campus has at least one policy that limits students’ freedom of speech, a light yellow indicates the campus has at least one policy that may interfere with freedom of speech, and a green light institution has no policies that curtail freedom of speech.
UC Davis received the red light in 2010 primarily for its sexual harassment and resident hall policies. UC Davis has since removed these policies, although not in reaction to the FIRE red light. One year later, FIRE assigned the campus a yellow light, citing the university’s Principles of Community as a potential restriction on freedom of expression. According to a Cal Aggie article, FIRE contended the Principles of Community violated “students’ right to conscience” by mandating students abide by a university prescribed code of values.
Do the Principles of Community infringe on student’s freedom of speech or do they protect student’s dignity? The Principles of Community are not policy; they are guidelines for civil behavior. On the one hand, a university is not exempt from protecting students’ first amendment rights. But on the other hand, a university is a community that feels a responsibility to ensure that civility, tolerance, and respect exist on campus. Debate and contention are vital parts of an academic environment and students should be encouraged to speak their minds. But members of the campus community must also be cognizant of past discrimination committed against groups of people based on their race, gender, religion, or political beliefs.
How has FIRE rated the other UCs? UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, and UC Santa Barbara also received yellow lights, while FIRE gave red lights to UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz, and UC San Diego.
UC Davis has not been the only UC to receive attention from FIRE. In 1999 a Master’s student at UC Santa Barbara included a “disacknowledgements” section in place of the traditional acknowledgements in his thesis where he referred to the library staff as “draconian” and the department “fascist.” For one year, the university denied the student his degree. Defending his first amendment rights, FIRE assisted the Master’s student, to whom the university eventually awarded a degree.
In 2009 FIRE stepped in to prevent UC Berkeley from charging a student group $3,000 for inviting a controversial, pro-Israeli speaker to campus. The university argued that they needed the money for police security. FIRE contended that each campus speaker must have the same amount of security and UC Berkeley lowered the fee to $460.
Perhaps the most sacred of part of the constitution is the right to freedom of speech. Many Americans define freedom by their ability to speak their minds without fear of repercussion. Even racist speech and expression is protected by the first amendment. In 1977 the American Nazi Party planned a march through Stokie, Illinois, a town largly populated by Holocaust survivors. In contrast, in Canada, France, and Germany it is illegal to deny the Holocaust. But what happens when one person’s freedom of speech infringes on another person’s dignity, especially on a university campus? Each individual and each institution must grapple with the balance between first amendment rights and creating a climate of civility.
What is the meaning of free speech? How free should speech be on a university campus? What are the consequences of free speech?
On September 23, 2011, the trial of the ten UC Irvine and Riverside students came to an end. The students were convicted of two misdemeanors for interrupting a speech given by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren on the UC Irvine campus on February 8, 2010. The students were found guilty of conspiring and disrupting Oren’s speech and face community service and $270 in fines. The sentence could have meant one year in jail but the judge determined jail was not warranted because the students “were motivated by their beliefs and did not disrupt for the sake of disrupting.” UC Irvine punished the students by suspending the Muslin Student Union but the Orange County District Attorney brought charges against the Muslim students. Defense Attorney Lisa Holder has vowed to appeal the decision and even take the case to the Supreme Court.
The case, nicknamed the “Irvine 11” before charges against one student were dropped, has gained national attention. The incident raises a lot of hot button issues: free speech, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and how respected Muslim and Jewish students feel on campus. The question of free speech has been particularly volatile. Some contend Ambassador Oren’s right to speak was impaired, while others defend the student’s actions as an acceptable example of campus protest. The defense likened the student’s actions to the civil disobedience practiced by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Yet Shalom C. Elcott, president and chief executive of the local Jewish Federation & Family Service, argued the student’s actions "crossed the moral, social and intellectual line of civility and tolerance.” The Irvine 11 case forces us to consider what limits, if any, should be placed on campus activism, on free speech, and how intensely sensitive and contemporary issues like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict should be handled on the university campus.
The Free Speech Movement in the mid 1960s fought for students to have the right to advocate for social and political candidates and issues on the university campus. The recent case at UC Irvine demonstrates that issues of speech on campus remain a salient topic today.
Could a two minute and fifty-two second speech change your life? It did for former UCLA student Alexandra Wallace.
In March 2011, Wallace recorded a video rant about Asian students at UCLA, which she then posted on YouTube. In the video, Wallace complains that Asian students don’t act according to proper codes of conduct and that they need to learn “American manners.” She derides Asian students for talking on their cell phones in the library, imitates their speech in their native languages, and refers to them as “hordes.”
The YouTube video went viral and the nation was quickly swept up in a discussion over free speech, civility, discrimination, and tolerance. Wallace apologized twice in the UCLA Daily Bruin and removed the video from YouTube; however, it had already been circulated widely via internet. UCLA denounced the video but decided against disciplining Wallace as the video did not violate the school’s code of conduct. Despite that decision, Wallace withdrew from UCLA after receiving death threats and being ostracized by the community.
The Asian Pacific Coalition at UCLA composed a response to the incident urging thoughtful action: “As a community, we should respond with the grace, sensitivity and civility afforded us through the manners we learned from our parents, and their parents before them.” The Coalition requested an apology from Wallace and asked UCLA to take appropriate action against speech violating the university’s Principles of Community.
Not all student responses were formally—or civilly— issued. The comment thread on the YouTube video includes remarks from “I would fuck you but ur a racist bitch = turn off” to “she should be jumped.” Commentators criticized her appearance and questioned her admission into the university. While Wallace’s video is clearly racist, ignorant, and insensitive, the comments the video elicited carry the same derogatory tone.
Most agree that Wallace’s video was racist, most also agree that she had a right to say it. One can condemn her words while defending her right to speak them. Disagreement exists over how UCLA ought to have responded. Groups such as FIRE – Foundation for Individual Rights in Education – support UCLA’s decision to withhold disciplining Wallace and applaud the campus for not infringing on her first amendment rights. Others argue the university needed to take a stronger stance, perhaps requiring Wallace to take an ethnic studies class or disciplining her for violating the university’s Principles of Community. Most agree that in such a case, some official response is required from the university; there is far less agreement on what that response should be.
