Free Speech on Campus Teach-Out
Campus Views on Free Speech / Lesson 4 of 4
Student Response: What does "Free Speech" Mean to You?
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Here on the University of Michigan campus, we polled students to ask them "what does free speech mean to you?". Here are some of the responses we received.
- "Free Speech to me means the establishment of a marketplace of ideas, where the best and most valid ideas will always be the final victor."
- "The ability to state your opinions, ideas, and thoughts without persecution. However, there should be a distinction between free speech and hate speech. Free speech does not include hate speech, if it's causing or threatening harm to another individual or group."
- "In my opinion, free speech means being able to express any idea that can be academically challenged."
- "Speech can only be free when all speakers are equal. Speech is not free if it leads to the oppression, limitation, and confinement of people. Speech is not free if only White, cis-male, straight, abled, rich voices are validated at the expensive of non-White, non-male, queer, disabled, poor backs. The literal ability to say what is on your mind regardless of the circumstances."
- "Free Speech means I can say what I feel." "To engage in conversation based on one's point of view or perspective. However, this dialogue should not promote the physical, mental or any form of symbolic violence on anyone or anything, at least when the dialogue is in public space."
- "Free Speech is the right to share your thoughts and beliefs. Of course, this gets tricky, because students on campus also have a right to learn and learn in a safe environment. Basically though, I think when we hear 'free speech' we think pro white (male) speech is going to be shared and protected in a way that POC [people of color's] speech never has been. The challenge becomes when folks say 'we have to protect pro white speech so we can speak freely ourselves'. I think we often don't recall hearing that prior [to now]."
- "Free Speech Is the story of the anti-Vietnam war movement at the University of Michigan and the student activists and faculty who pioneered the first “Teach-in” in 1965. It is the story of Keisha Thomas, who in 1996, here at this institution, threw herself down to the sidewalk to protect a Klansman from an angry mob—to protect a man whose ideas were in direct conflict with her own existence. Free speech is the story of all the women who marched down State Street the day after the inauguration as a part of a movement of millions of women around the world who understand that the future is female. It is the story of Dana Greene who, dissatisfied with a racist national dialogue and administrative responses to racist events on campus, kneeled in the Diag for 24 consecutive hours. Freedom of speech is Michigan. It’s the story of us, of this community. Free speech is what we do here. This academy—a precious and fragile achievement, indeed—is where views and ideologies come to collide. Collision is in the DNA of the academic enterprise. Freedom of speech allows us to criticize and interrogate ideas with impunity. Critic, satirist, dissident, renegade, heretic, inquisitor, skeptic: these are the roles we scholars play. Freedom of speech is the only barrier that secures these roles. For me, free speech is really the cornerstone of any open society. Freedom of speech is not a nuisance. It isn’t a cute idea. It’s the idea. It’s the whole ballgame."
- "It means that you have the right to express your opinion and it is protected by the first amendment. This means that this right must be granted to everyone including total losers like Richard Spencer. I do not like this but unfortunately it is the truth."
- "I think all students and faculty should be allowed to share their ideas that are grounded in reason and science. This shouldn't be free of criticism, but should be accessible."
- "The opportunity to publish or share a popular or non popular belief without legal condemnation."