Freedom of Speech on Campuses

The issue of freedom of speech is an eternal one. Censorship occurred in ancient Greece, 1644, and today around the world. The underlying issue behind censorship is the question of who gets to be the judge of what’s allowable and what’s not? And why are we not given the choice to decide what’s morally right and what’s not? No one is incorruptible, and everyone has differing opinions of what crosses the line and what just toes the line.

The fact that Lipscomb uses a filter for the internet, and most likely censures many of its articles submitted for posting in The Babbler made me think about what other university campuses do to suppress the freedom of speech. One such article I discovered addressed the issue in a straightforward manner: “Free speech at public universities and colleges is at once the most obvious and the most paradoxical of constitutional principles.”

Students are here to get an education, to think freely and to question all. But to repress the freedom of expression is to make us into “backward scholars,” as Milton so eloquently put it. God left us the freedom of choice, and we should be allowed to choose what is right and wrong, even when presented with not so “good” material. Perhaps my favorite quote in all of Areopagitica is this: “They are not skilful considerers of human things, who imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin; for, besides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing.” By not allowing us to access or view certain materials or topics, it only encourages us to be ingenious in the way we search for it and feeds the curiosity behind it.

One university, I found, even banned the freedom of speech. In order to submit anything for print, a student would have to submit a request weeks beforehand. Universities may think they are protecting us, but the reality is, we are ADULTS and how does being on a university campus change that fact? We have adult minds, and by stifling us and treating us like children, universities are doing nothing but the opposite of what they are intended for: the repression of education.


“For opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.”



Articles I mentioned:
http://www.petesodyssey.org/node/173
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/speech/pubcollege/overview.aspx