What the frell is Harvard Law School, font of such First Amendment champions as Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, doing debating whether to develop a speech code?
If you can’t deal with harassing, offensive language, perhaps the law is not where you should be focusing your attention.
Yet Dershowitz incited even more fury after he challenged a member of the Black Law Students Association to be more specific after the student read a statement reiterating her group’s support for a ”discrimination harassment policy” that includes penalties.
”With all due respect, what you stated is extraordinarily abstract,” Dershowitz said. After the student was not able to cite an example of offensive language that could be censured in a speech code, Dershowitz said of the proposal: ”That’s like asking someone to first vote for censorship, and then figure out later what is censored. With all due respect, I find that statement unhelpful.”
If you can’t even define what you’re looking to ban, it really sounds like law is perhaps not your best career move.
Instapundit quotes the University of Chicago’s stance on the subject.
The ideas of different members of the University community will frequently conflict and we do not attempt to shield people from ideas that they may find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even offensive. Nor, as a general rule, does the University intervene to enforce social standards of civility.” . . .
In other words, the University permits partisan, even hostile statements against groups or states, but not violence or physical intimidation of individuals. And while we do not enforce speech or civility codes, we have long prided ourselves on the kind of respectful environment that encourages all to offer their views. We see this kind of civility not as a requirement, but as a virtue, and therefore worth pursuing. In short, while we sometimes treat ideas here rather roughly, we strive to treat others with the civility we would like to receive ourselves.
How remarkably refreshing — and, dare I say it, appropriate for an academic institution.
Maybe they’ll bring back the dress code, too?
But that might stifle personal expression! No, we’ll only introduce a dress code to restrict offensive, harassing t-shirt designs. That‘ll show those narrow-minded bigots.