A Student's Case for Speech on Campus
by Alec Greven:
Being committed to open inquiry is one of the most important tasks facing our society. Human progress is predicated on removing ignorance and cultivating knowledge and open inquiry is the most reliable mechanism we have for bringing this about. Open inquiry is also central to the democratic project and promoting a system of deliberation and dialogue that can lead individuals to come together in a community to decide its fundamental character. However, promoting open inquiry is hard. Humans have a natural instinct to be excessively sure of themselves, to prefer dogma to truth seeking, and to avoid ideas that challenge their most deeply held beliefs. A system of open inquiry requires that no ideas can be safe from investigation. Open inquiry ultimately leads to a jagged but upward trend towards truth. Many students that come to a university for knowledge prefer something that is more of a sure thing, something that is less jagged. This preference can lead members of a campus to turn away from open inquiry and all of its benefits.
Free expression is the central medium for bringing about open inquiry. If fewer ideas are expressed then we will have fewer approaches and ideas that we can investigate. Open inquiry plays a particularly important role on a college campus which is dedicated to the production of knowledge. As Keith Whittington explains, “Free speech is important to universities because it is constitutive of the institution, not because it is imposed as a legal restraint by an outside force” (Whittington 29) Students also agree with the claim that First Amendment freedoms are very important. A 2020 Knight Foundation and Gallup survey of students on college campuses found that 68% of students “regard citizens’ free speech rights as being ‘extremely important’ to democracy.” Additionally, 81% of students favor a campus environment “where students are exposed to all types of speech, even if they may find it offensive.” Thus, free expression and open inquiry are foundational values to the mission of the university and enjoy widespread support from students in the abstract.
While concepts like free expression and open inquiry enjoy widespread support and acceptance, this does not mean that they are being adequately protected on college campuses. In fact, the Knight Foundation and Gallup survey notes that only 59% of college students think that free speech rights are secure and this number has fallen significantly from the 73% agreement with the same statement in 2016. It is also troubling that 63% of students have expressed that “the climate on their campus deters students from expressing themselves open, which is up from 54% in 2016. Self-censorship has also been reported on in the classroom with a survey finding 69% of conservatives, 49% of moderates, and 24% of liberals saying that they have refrained from sharing an opinion relating to a class discussion because they are worried about the consequences of sharing their opinion. If such large percentages of students across the political spectrum fear sharing their thoughts related to class discussions then the classroom environment is not one that is enabling open inquiry.
The phenomenon of self-censorship has also permeated beyond college campuses. A recent Cato survey discovered that 62% of Americans say that they have political views that they are afraid to share and the current social climate prevents them from sharing. 34% of college graduates stated that they were worried about their careers being harmed if others discovered their political opinions. This is an enormous amount of people who are engaging in self-censorship and the Cato study found that self-censorship was observed across all races, political parties, and economic classes. If students are not effectively taught how to cultivate an environment of open inquiry in schools then we should not expect it to be cultivated in our wider democratic society.