College campuses become focus of debate over what constitutes free speech

Geoff Bennett:

Since the terror attack by Hamas and Israel's ongoing response, there have been bitter debates on many college campuses over who bears responsibility.

This plays into already raging debates at many schools over free speech and, increasingly, academic freedom.

Judy Woodruff visited four colleges in an effort to understand how this all fits into America's deep political divide.

It is part of her ongoing series America at a Crossroads.

Protester:

Racist, sexist, anti-gay. Charles Murray, go away!

Protester:

It's disgusting. It's disgusting. It's disgusting.

Judy Woodruff:

These are just some of the things invited guests to college campuses have heard in recent years, as they were shouted down, mocked, and otherwise prevented from speaking.

Protester:

We have to drown you out. We're not here to listen to you. It's not worth it to converse with you.

Judy Woodruff:

In one incident at New York's Cornell University last year, conservative commentator Ann Coulter was met with forceful student protests.

Protester:

No KKK, no fascist USA!

Judy Woodruff:

Students inside the room with Coulter repeatedly disrupted her speech.

Woman:

Ms. Coulter is going to stop her speech if we are not able to hear her. If you would like to protest, there is a space to do that outside.

Judy Woodruff:

Until she walked out after 20 minutes.

Nick Weising, the president of Cornell Democrats and others, protested outside the law school where Coulter was speaking.

Did you think it was a good thing she had been shouted down?

Nick Weising, President, Cornell Democrats:

Her brand is controversy. But I think we need to be very careful about hatred masquerading as, like, argumentation.

Judy Woodruff:

But did you think she should have been allowed to speak?

Nick Weising:

I think that it was pretty immature the way that people interrupted her speech.

Judy Woodruff:

Armand Chancellor is a member of Cornell Republicans. He was in the room during the Ann Coulter event.

Armand Chancellor, Cornell Republicans:

I think it showed at least a dislike of Republicans more broadly and conservatives. Even before she spoke, there were lots of attacks just launched at Republicans themselves.

Judy Woodruff:

Rebecca Sparacio wrote about the incident in the student newspaper, The Cornell Sun.

Rebecca Sparacio, The Cornell Sun:

I don't think we should be endorsing views that are racist or sexist or anything like that. But I do think it is important to hear all of these views, because when you are out in the real world, I think you hear people discussing things that are not for the good of society. And you have to learn how to react.

Judy Woodruff:

Not all students agree. According to recent polling by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonpartisan group that tracks threats to freedom of speech, 62 percent of U.S. College students said that shouting down a speaker was acceptable to some degree; 20 percent said using violence to disrupt a speaking event would be acceptable to some degree.

In recent years, there have been increasing attempts by students to disinvite or shut down speakers with dozens of incidents each year. And Americans across the political spectrum say they view colleges as unfriendly to conservative ideas. Just 20 percent say they feel that conservatives have a lot of freedom to express their views on campus, according to polling done by the Associated Press.

Protester:

My grandparents who never learned English are more American than you!

Judy Woodruff:

Following the Ann Coulter incident at Cornell, the students who interrupted her were sanctioned by the university. And Cornell President Martha Pollack announced that freedom of expression is the theme of this academic year.

Martha Pollack, President, Cornell University:

Free expression is just critical to everything we do in the university.

Judy Woodruff:

Her school is one of a group of 13 universities that have banded together to highlight their concern about this issue.

Martha Pollack:

I felt that it was a moment where free expression is just under attack from both sides of the political spectrum in our nation. And it just seemed to me important that universities like ours take the lead.

Judy Woodruff:

There are students and others who look at Ann Coulter and look at that message and think that's not a message that we should hear. That's a message of hate. Why should we have to listen to it?

Martha Pollack:

Yes, the problem was declaring things as hate speech and putting them out of bounds is, somebody has to get this to decide what counts as hate speech.

So it's really very dangerous to cede the right to express your views or that other person's views to someone else's decision. And history has shown us over and over and over that, when you cede that right, it's the marginalized groups that lose.

Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute:

On college campuses in particular, there's not much civil discourse going on at all.

Judy Woodruff:

Ilya Shapiro is a conservative constitutional scholar who spent many years at the libertarian Cato Institute, and was briefly the executive director of the Georgetown Law School Center for the Constitution.

That job was interrupted almost immediately by an investigation into a tweet Shapiro wrote just before he started, when President Biden committed to nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court.

Ilya Shapiro:

It didn't sit right with me that President Biden said that he was restricting his search by race and sex. And late at night on Twitter, not a best practice — I don't recommend this — I fired off what's known as a hot take before going to bed, didn't phrase it as I would have wished.

Judy Woodruff:

Shapiro says, because this meant his preferred choice wouldn't be named, the court would have, in his words, a — quote — "lesser Black woman."

Ilya Shapiro:

And so we would end up with someone who was less qualified, in this case, a less qualified Black woman. I didn't phrase that very well, and that provoked a firestorm and led to a four month so-called investigation.

Judy Woodruff:

Georgetown administrators ultimately cleared Shapiro of wrongdoing on a technicality. Nevertheless, he resigned in protest.

He now contends that his experience is representative of a general climate of fear and censorship on campuses across the nation.

Ilya Shapiro:

There's a bureaucracy that has sprung up, particularly the diversity, equity inclusion offices, that I think foment an illiberal trend to stifle freedom of speech.

Kevin Boyle, American University:

I want you to disagree with me. I need you to disagree with me. I look out of different lens than you all look out of.

Judy Woodruff:

Whether from the right or the left in response to what virtually everyone agrees is a hyperpolitically conscious atmosphere on campuses, some colleges are now taking steps to encourage productive conversations among students and faculty.

Kevin Boyle:

And I have to understand your experiences and you have to understand mine.

Judy Woodruff:

The American University Project on Civic Dialogue created what they call Disagree With a Professor sessions.

Kevin Boyle:

My position is, we should still keep that option that a juvenile is tried as an adult.

Judy Woodruff:

On a recent Wednesday night, Professor Kevin Boyle gave a lecture designed to provoke disagreement among students.

College student:

Juvenile sentencing and juvenile cases are about rehabilitation and helping kids and juveniles. But adult prison is just — it's like — it's like a sentence to nothingness, you know?

Judy Woodruff:

American university students we spoke to had varied opinions on the state of dialogue at their school.

Do you feel like, when you finish school and you're out in the world, that you're going to be able to have conversations with people who have profoundly different political views from you?

Chanelle Bonsu, College student: Yes. I feel like I have been exposed so much that when it does come up again in the future, I'm not going to be shaken by it or taken back or, like, scared to speak up.

Judy Woodruff:

Is there a sense that students can speak up and speak their mind?

Julian Weiss, College student: Well, I don't think so. If you're looking for a job and you're looking to have a social life, you don't want to be at the center of a firestorm around politics.

Judy Woodruff:

Professor Lara Schwartz teaches in American University's Department of Government. She founded the Project on Civic Dialogue, which hosts the Disagree With a Professor sessions, and she encourages students to engage in dialogue.

Lara Schwartz, American University:

We're in a time when many, many people, instead of coming to conclusions based on inquiry, check what their team thinks about an issue and says, well, that's what I think about an issue.

So when you poll students the overwhelming majority, up in the 80 percent or more, say, it's really important to hear from different perspectives, but we don't have a lot of practice in our society doing that.

Judy Woodruff:

But even as a number of campuses, like American and Cornell, move to confront concerns about limited speech, there's a growing worry among other schools, as conservative state governments are moving in the opposite direction.

Eight states now have laws on the books that limit what state-run college and university professors can teach in their classrooms. Florida's law is the most specific and so far the most restrictive. The law S.B.266 makes it illegal to teach students that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.

It also restricts funding for any campus activities that advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion, or promote or engage in political or social activism.

Sarah Hernandez, New College of Florida: We want to be able to have academic freedom. It's very simple.

Judy Woodruff:

Professor Sarah Hernandez teaches sociology at the New College of Florida, a public four year school in Sarasota. She is also the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the state of Florida that challenges S.B.266.

Sarah Hernandez:

The legislation is saying that the state has the authority to dictate what can or cannot be taught in the classroom in terms of gender equality, issues of race and ethnic equality, so they don't allow one to be teaching about activism.

Judy Woodruff:

So you have made changes in what you teach as a result of this?

Sarah Hernandez:

The changes that have made are primarily in informing the students that what I'm telling them could be interpreted as being illegal, but always with a concern that I just might be fired at any point.

Judy Woodruff:

Governor Ron DeSantis took a special interest in the New College earlier this year.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Presidential Candidate: Some of these niche subjects like Critical Race Theory, other types of DEI-infused courses and majors, Florida's getting out of that game.

Judy Woodruff:

Igniting protests when he replaced six members of the board of trustees with conservative activists, who fired the college president, denied tenure to professors and plan to phase out the gender studies program.

Sarah Hernandez:

We have lost a lot of professors. They just don't feel safe working here, and they have no other options. Similarly, we have had staff who have — some of them have been let go. And I'm thinking of the dean of DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion.

Chai Leffler, a student of Professor Hernandez, is a senior who joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff.

Chai Leffler, College student: So I am an urban studies student at New College, and we no longer have any urban studies faculty. And a lot of the urban studies programming and classes directly challenge the laws that are currently in place.

Judy Woodruff:

Gaby Batista is a senior who has been organizing students to protest the changes at New College.

Gaby Batista, College student: We have been trying to go with this tagline, your school is next, because, in actuality, that's the real fear, is that we're the canary in the coal mine.

Judy Woodruff:

Forty percent of the New College faculty has quit since the DeSantis-chosen board of trustees was installed.

Sarah Hernandez:

It's a very tense, I think, environment.

Judy Woodruff:

For her part, Professor Hernandez has decided to stay put.

Sarah Hernandez:

I left my country of birth many years ago. There was some degree of political oppression. I'm done running. I feel that it's important to stand and say, no, I believe in the importance of academic freedom.

And unless somebody stays and stands for it, we just might lose it.

Judy Woodruff:

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Judy Woodruff in Sarasota, Florida.