Marathon Pundit: Good God! Free speech tackled at DePaul University

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Good God! Free speech tackled at DePaul University

You have the right to free speech
As long as you're not
Dumb enough to actually try it.
"Know Your Rights," The Clash, 1982.

Nicholas G. Hahn III, a DePaul University student, is no dummy. But I'm sure he's dumbstruck as to what is going on at his school, one that promises a Catholic education and like all colleges, portrays itself as steadfast supporter of free speech.

Just be careful if you try to use it.

From FrontPage Magazine:

DePaul University, which bills itself as "the Largest Catholic University in America," was described as a "basket case" on a Hannity and Colmes segment because of its questionable "commitment" to free speech. In the past couple of years DePaul has suspended, without due process, a professor who defended Israel. It has created de facto policies to prevent students from posting flyers opposing an on-campus event featuring the plagiarist professor Ward Churchill. It has also shut down a student-run Affirmative Action Bake Sale in which cookies were sold at different prices depending on the customer's skin color because the campus left was offended. It later condemned the student group sponsoring the bake sale in a university-wide email. DePaul seemed to have no grasp of the freedoms vital to a university. To cope with the public relations problem its actions had created, last year DePaul president Rev. Dennis Holtschneider assembled a Free Speech and Expression Task Force, of which I was a student member, and charged it with creating a "policy" concerning speech on campus.

Okay, so far so good. The task force included Hahn, who is the president of the DePaul Conservative Alliance.

More from Nick:

The Task Force has finally produced a document: Guiding Principles of Free Speech and Expression. The Task Force chose a wise path in deciding against adopting speech codes against "hate speech," a term which does not appear in the Principles. In fact, the language of the document seems to open the doors of the University to all ideas––as it should. It respects "open discourse and robust debate" and at the same time remains "open to a broad range of ideas and opinions" as a way to “create the best conditions for discovering the truth." Most importantly, it’s not patronizing and it respects the "right of listeners to respond with their own expression, or choose to turn away."

It's also eloquent in its commitment to "ennoble the God-given dignity of each person"––wait just a minute, I’m sorry. Scratch that whole part about dignity being "God-given." Such a reference would alienate members of our community who do not believe in God.

"What?" a concerned friend asked me when I informed him of what had happened.

"Yes," I said, "the Task Force voted to remove "God-given" from the Guiding Principles before releasing it to the university community. That's not all. The Task Force also voted to remove the phrase 'create the best conditions for discovering the truth.' 'Truth' was too 'strong' and too 'offensive' a word for a free speech document."