{"id":647,"date":"2013-05-17T14:36:47","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T18:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jparnell.com\/blog\/?p=647"},"modified":"2013-05-17T14:36:47","modified_gmt":"2013-05-17T18:36:47","slug":"speech-control-on-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/?p=647","title":{"rendered":"Speech Control on Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greg Lukianoff wrote an interesting op ed in today\u2019s Wall Street Journal<\/em>. It deserves serious attention because it illustrates the complex web of government control within higher education.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice recently investigated the mishandling of sexual assault cases at the University of Montana, determining that the school failed to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. A joint letter from the departments announced a \u201cresolution agreement\u201d with the university, but it extends well beyond Montana. The document, touted as a \u201cblueprint for colleges and universities across the country,\u201d expands the notion of sexual harassment from \u201cobjectively offensive\u201d behavior to include all \u201cunwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,\u201d including speech. Put another way, students have a right not to be offended by what they hear on campus.<\/p>\n

There is an obvious problem with this ruling. Not only should professors and students refrain from harassing speech, but they must also refrain from any speech that might be perceived<\/em> as harassing. This clearly violates the first amendment, creating a chilling effect on speech with no clear standard concerning what is acceptable.<\/p>\n

But what empowers the federal government to issue such a directive concerning speech on college campuses in the first place? You need only follow the money trail to get the answer. Federal financial aid\u2014including both grants and loans\u2014is an essential part of almost every college\u2019s revenue stream. Choose not to accept it and you most students will be at a financial disadvantage if they attend your school. Choose to accept it and you get the unwanted oversight as well. For this reason, only a handful of colleges (Hillsdale and Grove City College are two of them) reject federal aid for their students.<\/p>\n

This is truly the devil\u2019s dilemma. Tax revenues\u2014present and future\u2014are confiscated every year to provide financial aid. The federal government issues $112 billion in student loans in 2012 alone. Like the system or not, all of us must pay for it, and opting out is costly to say the least. It\u2019s like paying to send your kids to private schools after you\u2019ve already been taxed to pay for public schools. Technically, we can choose to avoid government intrusion in education, but the system requires us to overpay<\/em> to exercise the choice.<\/p>\n

The fundamental problem here is the federal control of activities over which it should have none, in this instance student financial aid. The Feds took over the program from banks in 2010, ostensibly to run it more efficiently. But the greater the role the federal government plays in financial aid, the more control it has over what happens on college campuses. The University of Montana case illustrates the type of overreach that occurs when the Feds have too much power.<\/p>\n

It should go without saying that I favor and attempt to model civil discourse on my college campus, and insulting or harassing behavior is inappropriate. Nonetheless, we need more<\/em> speech on college campuses, not less<\/em>. Any steps the federal government takes to restrict speech on campus will inevitably limit the robust exchange of ideas, shortchanging students as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greg Lukianoff wrote an interesting op ed in today\u2019s Wall Street Journal. It deserves serious attention because it illustrates the complex web of government control within higher education. The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice recently investigated the mishandling of sexual assault cases at the University of Montana, determining that the school failed to comply […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}