Contradiction — Students favor ‘free speech’ and policies that restrict it such as safe spaces

Washington Times ^ | March 14, 2018 | Bradford Richardson

[Mafe]

Free speech may not mean what most college students think it means.

The majority of college students surveyed in a Gallup/Knight Foundation study said they support free speech and believe it is vital to the health of democracy.

Yet droves of students also said they favor policies that restrict free speech such as safe spaces, free speech zones, speech codes and bans on offensive Halloween costumes.

Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, said “the discrepancy between what undergraduate students say they believe and what actions they are willing to take is really breathtaking.”

“Students like the ring of the phrase ‘free speech,’ but when it comes down to the question of what sorts of speech should be allowed, they have a Swiss cheese of exception clauses,” Mr. Wood said. “‘We like free speech, but not free speech that contradicts our personal opinions, our likes and dislikes.’ This isn’t free speech at all.”

[Mafe]

In my opinion, all the more reason to boycott public universities. I know that if I have kids, the only way they will ever attend a public university is if they pay for it themselves.

Luckily more and more states are taking action banning safe spaces and speech zones (as Florida just did), and I sure am glad that ultimately the law and not the students are in charge of these policies. I wonder what percentage of public (or private) universities restrict speech vs. don't. I was an outspoken conservative in college, at least in my classes, and I had no idea that there was even such a thing as a safe space, until I left college. But then again the college I went to was in a town of 21,000 people in rural Illinois.

[Teacher317]

The Virtue Signal Whores just want to parrot whatever they feel sounds “nice” and will thus gain them approval of those around them. They have no grounding for any of their opinions, and thus their opinions are worthless.

[Steely Tom]

You’re free to agree with me.

[goldstategop]

Snowflakes are totalitarian thugs.

They get offended by every one and by everything.

Most of all, they’re offended by life. They can’t function in the real world.

For that, they can thank their university education.

[Mears]

” In my opinion, all the more reason to boycott public universities.”

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That makes absolutely no sense.

You actually think that private universities are more conservative?

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[bigbob]

Free speech for me but not for thee.

[Mafe]

The Christian ones usually are (that’s kind of the whole purpose of those schools). Besides, this can’t be true of ALL universities. If so, I guess we’ll just have to stop attending college altogether and revert back to an early 20th century economy.

[Mears]

The Christian colleges may be conservative but there aren’t that many of them.

Not everyone is Christian and public universities are no more liberal than the vast majority of private universities.

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[Billthedrill]

One of the highest and most neglected missions of higher education is to get - to force, in fact - students to examine their core beliefs and to understand that even the noblest abstractions tend to conflict in the real world. And to give them the tools to choose. To discriminate, if I may use a Bad Word.

On the most obvious level these are young minds who want to have their cake and eat it too, unaware that they can't have, say, coercion where they think they're valuing freedom, inclusion that is achieved by excluding any who have different life views, reason that is achieved by violence. This is not critical thinking that is easily achieved by young minds still grappling with what these grand abstractions really mean, which is why there is a faculty composed of minds that presumably have.

Unfortunately the latter is no longer the case, and large swathes of faculty and staff have never elevated their intellects past the grand illusions of youth, seeking instead to be forever young themselves. The madness feeds on itself. And so there is no appreciation that no one side can lay claim, as the Left does, to complete and exclusive possession of every ideal that pretends virtue, consigning its opponents to sole possession of every ideal that is wicked. And by the time this dawns on the now-impoverished victim of this intellectual charade, it's too late to learn the tools of discrimination (that Bad Word again) any way but the hard, real-world one. And so their collegiate experience becomes one of joining a tribe and avoiding any tendency to challenge its verities. It's a cheat, in short.

[Mafe]

There is still hope on the horizon. In the future, more and more people will opt for an online education. I’d even be willing to wager that 3 decades from now, the majority of college students will attend online universities. At least then they won’t physically be in the PC leftist university environment.

Another hope is that as speech zones are banned, more and more students will become accustomed to speech they dislike (I know I have), and won’t feel the need to try and ban it.

[BEJ]

Bill, many students not interested in a higher education, especially at elite or prestigious schools. They are there to parrot and mimic the ways of the elite so that they think they are a member of that class. They copy the jargon, the dress, the various signs that tell the world they are in that special coterie, the elite. That is the real learning going on...

You can get a decent education almost anywhere. But to go to university is a big financial outlay. So you want a return on that investment — meet the right people, make the right connections, etc.

[virgil]

I think the discrepancy indicates that college students are being subjected to a lot of propaganda, a lot of it likely by the faculty. It’s happening with grade school students now. It’s a commie wet dream to politically activate students.

[DoughtyOne]

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Mafe.

[wbarmy]

This is the place where Inigo Montoya tells us that they keep using those words wrong. Am I right?

[FreedomNotSafety]

This writer has a hard time writing a meaningful first sentence. “Free speech may not mean what most college students think it means.” Free speech is defined by the 4th. Its meaning is not subject to the variation that “may not mean” implies. Clickbait style writing is killing clearheaded thinking.

How about: “College students do not understand the meaning of free speech.”

[WayneS]

Once students from the first generation indoctrinated by the left became teachers, the game was pretty much over...

[Right Wing Assault]

Free speech for me but not for thee.

Isn't that the motto of the democrat party? I think you need to get permission to use that.

Then there's, "Body guards for me but not for your children."

[Mears]

“There is still hope on the horizon. In the future, more and more people will opt for an online education. I’d even be willing to wager that 3 decades from now, the majority of college students will attend online universities. At least then they won’t physically be in the PC leftist university environment.”

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I agree 100%.

I have grandkids in college,paying tuition,and some of their courses can be taken on-line.

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