Classroom Limits on Free Speech

Recently in California, a prize winning journalism professor halted a student's speech on gay marriage, calling that student a "fascist bastard." The student has since filed a complaint and lawyered up, seeking to sue the school, discipline the professor and overturning a school ban on offensive speech. Here are some clips from the story as it has been unfolding:
From the LA Times

Student Jonathan Lopez says his professor called him a "fascist bastard" and refused to let him finish his speech against same-sex marriage during a public speaking class last November, weeks after California voters approved the ban on such unions.

When Lopez tried to find out his mark for the speech, the professor, John Matteson, allegedly told him to "ask God what your grade is," the suit says. Lopez also said the teacher threatened to have him expelled when he complained to higher-ups.

In addition to financial damages, the suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeks to strike down a sexual harassment code barring students from uttering "offensive" statements. Jean-Paul Jassy, a 1st Amendment lawyer in Los Angeles, said a number of cases have explored the tension between offensive speech and the expression of religious views. Often, he said, the decision depends on the specifics of the situation.

"Free speech really thrives when people are going back and forth, disagreeing sometimes and sometimes finding things each other says offensive, but there are limits, particularly in a school setting," Jassy said after reviewing the lawsuit.

Lopez, a Los Angeles resident working toward an associate of arts degree, is described in the suit as a Christian who considers it a religious duty to share his beliefs, particularly with other students. He declined to comment. Matteson could not be reached.

Lopez is represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization based in Scottsdale, Ariz., and co-founded by evangelical leader James Dobson of Focus on the Family. The group also advised proponents of Proposition 8 and sued, unsuccessfully, to stop the release of the names and addresses of donors, who said they had been harassed during the weeks of demonstrations that followed the measure's passage.

Alliance staff counsel David J. Hacker said Lopez was a victim of religious discrimination.

"He was expressing his faith during an open-ended assignment, but when the professor disagreed with some minor things he mentioned, the professor shut him down," Hacker said. "Basically, colleges and universities should give Christian students the same rights to free expression as other students."

In the letter, Dean Allison Jones also said that two students had been "deeply offended" by Lopez's address, one of whom stated that "this student should have to pay some price for preaching hate in the classroom."

Hacker said the district's response was inadequate.

"What they didn't do was ensure this wouldn't happen to other students," he said. "The dean accused Jonathan of offending other students."

Lopez is asking for a jury trial.

OK, part of me lol'd when I read this and part of me cringed. I liked the "Ask God what your grade is" jibe. But I have wanted to yell a number of my things at my students during class, including "Fucktard," "Nincompoop," and "Knuckle dragging mouth breather." But I don't do it. There have even been situations in class where I thing the rest of the students would have agreed with calling the other student a knuckle dragging mouth breather. But you just don't do things like that, because it damages your trust with the other students. It makes it look as though you aren't in control, that you lost your temper. And students need you to be in control, pretty much above all else. So the prof here did a bad thing.

But some of the flapdoodle I'm reading on the internet about this seems to suggest that people think the 1st Amendment covers whatever you want to say. It doesn't. You can't, for example, yell "Fire!" in a theater or "Bomb!" in an airport. I've also seen some comments about how since universities are publicly funded, they should allow whatever free speech they want. That's just not how it works. (Meg's son, take note--not that he'll ever have a problem, but, you know, advise your friends.) Classrooms are considered protected areas. Most colleges have what they designate as "free speech zones" (which I have some problems with, but that's beside the point). That means that everything else that is not in this "zone" is not considered a "free speech" area. That spot of grass and concrete, usually somewhere near the student center, is where all groups regardless of agenda have to go in order to get their message across. Fred Phelps cannot simply barge into the classroom and picket around it while yelling something about God hating gays. Think of it like a job site. No one has the right to walk into the local Pizza Hut breakroom and start proselytizing people for some reason, or protesting, or delivering a speech on an upcoming Congressional vote. The 1st Amendment has limits.

But for me, even more importantly is that the classroom is like an environment that everyone has to walk into sometimes several times a week. It has an "atmosphere" in the same way that the outside has an atmosphere--sometimes it feels sunny, sometimes it feels cold and miserable. These "weather patterns" are created by the dynamic in the classroom and by the way the prof conducts things. It is supposed to be a safe place to learn. I strive for fair weather. When gay students are forced to endure speeches designed to mark them out as second class citizens, or worse, a marked people who somehow "deserve" to be punished, and the professor does nothing to stop it, that tells the LGBTQ students that such speech is tolerated with the same sense of worth as their assertions that they be treated fairly. Even when it's not a speech, but a group of students like to do wrist flips and other idiotic bodily motions when a gay person is speaking or giggle when he or she talks, and the professor does nothing about it, that tells the gay person that this sort of behavior is acceptable, and that he or she should not expect any sympathy if s/he has a problem stemming from this in the future. Not in my fucking classroom.

I view that sort of shit as akin to people making speeches that blacks are somehow less than whites. LGBTQ issues are the challenge of our century, our generations that are in power today have a responsibility to move humanity forward in this regard. I'm not saying all the other issues have been solved and so we can move on--they haven't. But our grandchildren are going to look back on Prop 8 and the way we responded to it with shame. And we should be ashamed, either for voting for it or for not putting up more of a fight about it.

Fascist Bastards.

-- Dante's Virgil