Free speech fumbles at UW

Listen to this article

What to make of the current University of Wisconsin System brouhaha over a free speech survey? It sure doesn’t feel like all the facts are known yet.

A handful of details are clear. The system planned to send students a survey asking their thoughts on how free speech rights are handled on campus. Jim Henderson, the former interim chancellor at UW-Whitewater, resigned over the plan. Thursday, the day on which the survey was apparently scheduled to be sent out, it was put on hold.

Henderson told the Wisconsin State Journal his resignation followed an about-face on the issue by Michael Falbo, the system’s interim president. Falbo, in turn, said concerns from the system’s chancellors led him to decide against the survey.

That stance was reversed after Falbo said Tim Shiell, director of the Menard Center (which was tasked with carrying out the survey) blamed those concerns on incomplete information. And it was Shiell, apparently, who on Wednesday sent Falbo an email delaying the survey until next fall “given current circumstances.”

There are local ties to the story beyond the fact local communities host UW-Eau Claire and UW-Stout. The Menard Center is at UW-Stout in Menomonie. It was founded after a grant from the Charles Koch Foundation, a well-known backer of conservative causes. The name changed after the Menard family, also major donors to conservative causes, gifted it $2.26 million.

We see several things worth untangling here. Let’s start with that last paragraph.

We know the very name Koch is like waving a red flag in front of the political left in much the same way the name Soros is to the right. But there’s a difference between donations and control. None of the coverage we’ve seen indicates the Menard Center or Shiell are stepping outside the bounds of academic activities.

It is true that the question of whether students with conservative views are punished on campus has long been a conservative talking point. There have also been a handful of cases in which such accusations seem credible.

It seems Falbo has mishandled the situation. When you reverse decisions multiple times within a short time span, people rightly begin to question why. At minimum, it appears Falbo failed to communicate with the chancellors effectively. A statement he released said some chancellors “were disappointed” in his decision to proceed with the survey. It’s a curious choice of phrasing, one that suggests ire directed at him specifically as much as the decision.

But the overriding issue here is what free speech means and how it is handled. That’s nothing new to college campuses, though it often seems those involved fail to understand the fundamental concepts involved.

Speech has comparatively few restrictions, as befits a right laid out in the First Amendment. Slander and fighting words aren’t protected, nor is the oft-cited example of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. The exercise of free speech does not, however, ensure avoidance of consequences or counterspeech. Protests fall within protected speech as surely as the speech being protested.

People often forget that freedom of speech does not extend to every time and place. Private businesses can restrict the distribution of leaflets on their property, for example, despite that being a form of speech. And college campuses can take steps to protect order on their campuses when protests interfere with functions. A protester being asked to leave an auditorium after disrupting a guest speaker’s address is not a violation of their rights.

Recent years have seen a series of incidents nationally in which a failure to understand what freedom of speech is resulted in conflicts on campus. It has occasionally been improperly wielded as a cudgel to silence people whom others simply do not wish to hear, with targets spanning the range of political and social views.

Free speech is not a guarantee your views will be embraced. Nor does it give license to act in a way that others cannot be heard. And, like all rights, it assumes a degree of responsibility in its use. Ideally, the concept of campus free speech would simply be a given rather than being used as a political football. But we don’t live in a world of ideals.

It’s still not too much to expect, though, that those at the head of Wisconsin’s universities would be able to deal with free speech without fumbling this badly.

– Eau Claire Leader-Telegram