Yale newspaper editorial: idiotic speech is still speech
Feb 18th, 2008 by Rob
The Yale Daily News printed a criticism Thursday of the legal threats that have been leveled by the Yale Women’s Center against a university fraternity whose pledges posed for photos outside the center with signs that said “We Love Yale Sluts.”
Representatives with the women’s center said they felt threatened while trying to approach the building, and they later circulated a campus-wide email that read, “This is sexual harassment. Lawyers have been consulted, and we are taking legal action.”
The Daily News wrote:
“…Yale should bolster institutional resources supportive of women and strengthen its sexual-harassment education and reporting policy for 2008.
Administrators, however, need not regulate fraternities or render more non-gender-neutral speech as harassment. Doing so could have unintended consequences, such as provoking campus resistance to the litany of otherwise sensible reforms or chilling speech. Our community is stronger when ideas, however uncomfortable, are exchanged freely—and without the threat of punishment.”
Please listen to my discussion with First Amendment Center Executive Director Gene Policinski for more on campus speech codes.
