Ithaca Freshmen favor speech limitations

the Ithacan ^ | October 23, 2003 | Brooke Bennett - Senior Writer

[Behind Liberal Lines]

ITHACA--Only 15 percent of Ithaca College freshman think college officials have the right to prevent people with radical views from speaking on campus, but 65 percent said the college should prohibit racist and sexist speech on campus, according to the results of the freshman attitude survey, which were released last week.

Broken down by school, the highest percentage of students agreeing with prohibiting racist and sexist speech were in the Roy H. Park School of Communications. Sixty-eight percent agreed, a figure that surprised Policello.

“This year’s communications responses were a bit different,” she said of the survey results.

Freshman journalism major Anna Uhls said she was surprised that communications majors were in favor of a prohibition, since she believes most journalists are supportive of the freedom of speech.

She said the college administration should not interfere with radical views on campus and should only get involved if someone is going to get hurt.

However, she said, “It’s not an acceptable thing to have on campus, and we should try to limit it as much as possible.”

Freshman television and radio major Ram Calley said he thinks the issue is complicated because students would be upset if the college tried to limit political speech, but that hate speech is different.

“I’m surprised that 68 percent of [communications] students agreed with prohibiting speech, but on the grounds that it’s hateful speech, I’m not surprised,” he said.

[Behind Liberal Lines]

So that means ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN and NYT will be recruiting heavily on the Ithaca campus in three years

Sadly, they already do.

[Phantom Lord]

Anyone who violates the speech code or engages in hate speech will be sent to the Death Camp of Tolerance where intolerance will not be tolerated.