Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus

Vol. 15 No.9 (September 2005), pp.802-805

RESTORING FREE SPEECH AND LIBERTY ON CAMPUS, by Donald Alexander Downs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 318pp. Cloth £25.00 / $28.99. ISBN: 0-521-83987-4.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Ellen Gordon, Department of Political Science and International Affairs, Kennesaw State University. Email: egordon [at] kennesaw.edu .

In his book RESTORING FREE SPEECH AND LIBERTY ON CAMPUS, Downs addresses the suppression of free expression by left-leaning political forces within the academy. While he acknowledges that universities have often struggled against censorship from the right and from outside the campus, he claims that from the 1990s onward, there has been a trend toward internal “politically correct” suppression, and it is no more justified than the traditional brand. To make his points, Downs employs the case study methodology and goes into a great amount of well-documented detail in discussing episodes where free speech was threatened at UC-Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Columbia University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He definitely sides with those feeling threatened by speech or conduct codes on campus; in fact, as he quite openly admits, he was actively involved in the free speech movement at Wisconsin in the 1990s. In no way is he detached from his subject, although he thoroughly and conscientiously lays out the facts in each situation and often interviews – or more often attempts to interview – people active on the other side of the issue.

The four case studies are chosen, according to Downs, “to show different forms of the politics of civil liberty on campus.” The first case study focuses on the politics surrounding Columbia’s sexual misconduct policy, which was instituted in 2000. The policy’s goal was to encourage victims to come forward with their charges, but Downs argues that the new policy presumed guilt and robbed the accused of their rights to due process. In the next case study, Downs describes the race-based agitation at Berkeley spurred by the passage of California’s Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action programs in university admissions. Next he turns to the University of Pennsylvania’s code of conduct (or speech code, depending on one’s point of view) that gained notoriety after the infamous “water buffalo” case, in which a Jewish male student likened a raucous gathering of African-American female students to the aforementioned animal. Whether or not the remark was racist was unclear, but the University chose to aggressively pursue the matter as a violation of the school’s racial harassment code, thereby igniting a free speech backlash. The last case study examines the free speech movement that arose at the University of Wisconsin in response primarily to a controversial faculty speech code that many saw as overly broad. The code made punishable “expressive behavior” that is commonly seen as demeaning by members of a number of demographically defined groups. In determining culpability, intention was seen as less important than subjective [*803] impact. Downs recounts the growth of an anti-code movement and its ultimate success in convincing the faculty senate to abolish the code.

In all four of these cases, Downs’ perspective is that the anti-free speech policies and actions are more pernicious than the problems students and administrators attempt to mitigate through their use. He is critical of the other side’s argument that speech is actually a form of conduct and should be treated as such. Instead, Downs insists that speech is just speech, and that speech being allowed to operate with few impediments is critically important for the intellectual development of all in academia. For him, the free exchange of ideas is crucial to the mission of universities generally. He states that “a problem arises when philosophical and political differences are dealt with not by discussion and debate but by the recourse or reference to coercive, punitive measures and powers that in effect ‘criminalize’ disagreement,” a theme he explicitly cites as “perhaps the single most important point in this book.”

Downs shows that these anti-free expression forces are rooted in critical theory and related academic perspectives, and he freely takes swings at their assumptions. He decries the tendency of these campus movements to turn political disagreements into personal attacks, and muses that “[p]erhaps this tendency is the natural outcome of a philosophy that invariably considers ideas the mere masks of power,” one of critical theory’s major premises. He continues: “If ideas are primarily derived from power, then bad ideas are seen as the products of bad people.” This linkage, however, ignores the fact that personal attacks in politics are hardly the exclusive domain of the radical left. Anyone tuning in to right wing talk radio even for a brief period of time would be exposed to multiple personal attacks on their opponents, without any similar underlying philosophy.

Downs’ criticism of left-wing campus movements certainly has some justification, and he chooses case studies that demonstrate how insensitive remarks and careless classroom practices can be exaggerated for political gain. However, he does not seem to take into account to any great extent the justification for the “political correctness” movement in the first place: that policies neutral on their face favor those in power. While one may argue that absolute free speech protects the minority voice, it is not hard to argue the converse, that free speech in many ways advantages the group with the loudest megaphone, the biggest soapbox, the most bountiful budget, and the endorsement of the powerful. Without a doubt, codified protection for the minority sometimes results in injustice, but it is also apparent that allowing an intellectual free-for-all without a supporting culture of tolerance disadvantages those already arguing from a disfavored position. Clearly he calls for just such a culture of tolerance, but the reality is that our society is not yet blind to or especially tolerant of the differences celebrated by identity politics. Leveling the playing field in a deeper sense is the underlying motivation for these PC movements.

It is important to remember, too, that what Downs discusses here is free [*804] speech as a norm or ideal more than a legal imperative. He is addressing university-level politics, rules and procedures. While the outside world of courts and laws sometimes intrudes in these campus controversies (which Downs does not advocate), the main actors in his case studies are students, campus groups, campus media, faculty and administrators, and to a lesser extent, outside pressure groups and outside media. That the campus environment focuses and intensifies political conflict is not surprising. Activist students who are often young, unencumbered, and experimental, tend to take larger social complaints and craft them into campus issues because the campus is a much smaller arena than American society at large. If they do not feel empowered (yet) to change their nation, then perhaps students feel they can actually do something about racism, sexism, sexual harassment, lack of opportunities for minorities, and so on, at the campus level. Under such conditions, students can easily go overboard. And certainly, Downs is less critical of student activists in his case studies than of faculty and administrators who either go along with the students’ distorted claims or do nothing at all. He admits his own initial reluctance as a faculty member at Wisconsin to take a stand against the speech codes, and describes the circumstances that moved him to action.

An underlying theme throughout the book is the expansion of conflict: the decision about how to bring new interests into a dispute, when to do it, who to bring in and the consequences thereof. Downs argues that the wider society is more supportive of free speech than the universities, and that “going public” is not a betrayal but a necessary step if “the institution is betraying its principles . . . and attempts to address the problem internally prove futile or unproductive.” He first favors informal dispute resolution of these situations, mostly without institutionalized rules or procedures, except where real harm or intimidation has occurred. (Of course, what constitutes “real” harm or intimidation is precisely the matter in dispute.) Likewise, he argues that a climate of civility on campus should be established informally, through example, through policies promoting tolerance, and “through nourishment of informal networks of mutual respect and support.” While all this is admirable, Downs possibly underestimates the partisanship and divisiveness of contemporary politics. When our top political leaders and media figures eschew civility daily in support of what they consider to be righteous causes, can we realistically expect college students to do better with little more than polite guidance from faculty and administrators?

It is interesting to note that all his case studies are from large, elite research universities. One wonders if the same forces are at work in other kinds of colleges and universities in this country, including those with a teaching focus, or those with smaller, closer-knit student bodies, or those with mostly conservative student bodies. Is the dilemma he discusses really just the problem of institutions where students read critical theory and follow faculty steeped in the praxis model of empowerment? On many campuses, it is more common to hear faculty complain about lack of student activism in any direction than about such activism run amok, and a backlash against anything [*805] perceived as “politically correct” is well underway, and has been for some time. Given these considerations, and the conservative national political climate, this book is likely to seem less provocative to many undergraduate readers than their professors might expect.

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