Dan Marsh ENGLISH 1010 10/21/2013 Response Paper School Codes

Nat Hentoff wrote "Speech Codes" On The Campus And Problems OF Free Speech. He is a well educated professor and has a great resume of work that includes many colleges and Universities. Nat Hentoff was born in Boston. He graduated from Northeastern University at age 20 and then studied at Harvard University and the Sorbonne. Nat Hentoff has served as an editor of The Village Voice, board member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and professor at New York University. Widely published, Professor Hentoff has written for Dissent, The New Yorker, The Progressive, The Village Voice, and The Washington Post. Professor Hentoff was a columnist and staff writer with The Village Voice for 51 years, from 1957-2008. Professor Hentoff has lectured at many colleges, universities, law schools, elementary, middle and high schools, and has taught courses in journalism and the Constitution at Princeton University and New York University. Professor Hentoff is one of the foremost authorities on the First Amendment. While his books and articles regularly defend the rights of Americans to think and speak freely, he also explores our freedoms under the rest of the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment by showing how Supreme Court and local legislative decisions affect the lives of ordinary Americans. 1 His purpose of this essay is to give clear examples of those for and against speech codes. In this essay Professor Hentoff uses examples from several Universities. He shares opinions of other professors and students on their points of view. He writes and quotes others from separate articles to encompass the entire spectrum of opinions about the issue of speech codes. Although Nat Hentoff points out two sides about having speech codes policies he feels that there should not be any type of speech codes on campus. Three years were spent on the research for the speech codes. During this time period over twenty colleges and universities were visited. Professor Hentoff mentions that his most dismaying revelation took place at Stanford. A two year debate on the speech codes took place at Stanford. A letter in the Stanford Daily called for a harsh code. In this letter it reflected an earlier declaration of a black

student government student Canetta Ivy. "We don't put as many restrictions on freedom of speech," she said, "as we should." This statement and opinion was opposite of the Stanford president. President Donald Kennedy surrendered his position that once you start telling people what they can't say, you will end up telling them what they can't think. After the two years of debate Stanford now has a speech code. I personally agree with the Stanford president we spend too much time concentrating on what people cannot do or say. It restricts our free thinking and creativity. As adults we should be educated enough to choose our words carefully. In the education system students and teachers are learning each day on how to interact with each other. Manners and speech is a common place in the classroom. On another campus a political science professor has kept a silent opinion. Well maybe anonymous and not silent. He did not want to use his name. In the essay the professor said, "It doesn't happen in my class. There's no politically correct orthodoxy here. It may happen in other places at this University, but I don't know about that." He said no more. What he meant by that in simple words is that he does not have an speech codes in his class. Other classes may follow the campus standards and stick to the letter of the law but in his class he allows students to think and speak on their own without any restrictions or censorship. I like this style of thinking. I feel the instructor should be the guide and example in each classroom setting. They can create an atmosphere worthy of speaking and good treatment of others. In a third example of the speech code Jeff Shesol a Brown University graduate and current scholar at Oxford gave some statements to Brown University before he left. He said, "He wished he could tell the new students at Brown to have no fear of speaking freely. He didn't tell them that. He advised the new students to stay clear of talking critically about affirmative action or abortion, among other things, in public. Mr. Shesol did not address the students with his true thoughts. For the sake of being politically correct he reworded what he said in his actual speech. I like this part that Professor Hentoff wrote about. This example was clear that Mr.Shesol censored himself on what he wanted to say. Professor Hentoff discovered this information by conducting a personal interview for his own essay. Gwen Thomas a black community college administrator from Colorado is a fierce persistent exposer of racial discrimination. She stated, I have always felt as a minority person that we have to protect the rights of all because if we infringe on the rights of any persons, we'll be next. From all these examples given it shows both sides of the speech code issue. In my opinion the speech codes is just that, an opinion of how to interact with each other with speech in a classroom setting. For a black person to say nigger it seems ok for a white person to say nigger it seems wrong. The author did a great job on showing examples

and true life experiences from professors and students at several universities. This debate will continue in the future. I am certain that laws and codes at schools will also continue to change and be updated as time and society changes along with it. He did conclude that it should be the freedoms of us to censor ourselves. It is in the constitution and amendments to have freedom of speech. If this is the case then there should not be a code set in place for our speech.

1 Hentoff, Nat, Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/people/nat-hentoff retrieved 10/3/2013 as part of the information used in the power point presentation.