NCJ Number
151506
Date Published
1992
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This report analyzes the constitutionality of policies regulating hate speech and ethnoviolence on college and university campuses by looking at the nature and causes of campus harassment, free speech versus equality, basic features of university hate speech policies, and court views of university hate speech policies.
Abstract
Many colleges and universities appear to be arenas of isolation and intimidation instead of institutions that provide equal educational opportunities for women and minorities. Problems associated with determining primacy between free speech and equality values are complicated. Further, university hate speech policies vary in tone from student-centered statements that focus on the quality of campus life to detailed and formal policy declarations that focus on off-campus constituencies. Court decisions have considered hate speech policies but have not resolved the tension between free speech and equality. Free speech issues often overwhelm the problem of ethnoviolence on college and university campuses. In formulating appropriate policies to regulate hate speech, college and university administrators and legal counsel are now considering free speech issues as much as, if not more than, the race conflict issue itself. Because focusing primarily or exclusively on freedom of speech concerns reflects prejudicial priorities of some members of the dominant social order and not minority concerns, college and university administrators need to consider the extent to which free speech or racial conflict should be given priority. In addition, criminal harm may need to be viewed as the moral balance between ethnoviolence and the tolerance of free speech. 29 endnotes and 2 figures