Page 24 - Delaware Lawyer - Fall 2019

FEATURE
The balance struck by the First Amendment is that students are protected against targeted threats and harassment but not against abstract ideas, no matter how offensive or demeaning those ideas might be.
ed out leaflets calling women who had abortions “baby killers”
• White students claiming that white lives were demeaned by an African American group that handed out liter- ature asserting that only “Black Lives Matter”
• African American students claiming that they were demeaned by an anti-af- firmative action group whose literature said that affirmative action favors “less qualified applicants over more quali- fied”
ing signatures for a petition to amend the Constitution to forbid same-sex marriage
None of this hit home for you, how-
ever, until your daughter called to say that a complaint had been filed against her and other members of the Jewish Student Union because of literature they handed out about Israel’s right to exist. Palestin- ian students complained that this litera- ture demeaned the lives of Palestinians.
As a lawyer and parent, you might opt to fight back by advocating that the speech code be amended to clarify that support for Israel is not an expression of hatred toward Palestinians and that, con- versely, criticism of Israel is an expression of hatred toward Jews.
This is not fanciful. The New Jersey legislature recently considered a bill that required institutions of higher educa- tion to punish discrimination by stu- dents or employees that is “motivated by anti-Semitic intent.” The bill defined “anti-Semitism” to include, among other things, “delegitimizing Israel by denying the Jewish people their right to self-deter- mination and denying Israel the right to exist” and “applying a double standard to Israel by requiring behavior of Israel that is not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” 10
What’s happening here? Can institu- tions of higher learning ban discussions of Israel, abortion, same-sex marriage, immigration policy, affirmative action and police brutality because some members of the community might be offended? Doing so might make campus quads safe zones, but they will also be ideological dead zones. Surely this can’t be the best way to prepare students for life in a nation that is profoundly committed to “the principle that debate on public issues should be un- inhibited, robust and wide-open.” 11
The Price We Pay for Freedom
Unfortunately, there is no simple so- lution to the problem of hate speech on campus. Colleges can’t be both safe zones, where students never have to wor- ry about being offended, and effective educational institutions, where students are taught to think critically so they can make ideological and political judgments for themselves.
• Latin
that they were demeaned by the Stu- dent Republican Group selling T-shirts that said “Stop the Invasion — Build the Wall”
• Evangelical Christian students claim- ing that they were demeaned by Marx- ist students who flew a banner that said “Religion Is the Opiate of the People” •Gay and lesbian students claiming that they were demeaned by evangeli- cal Christian students who were seek-
American
students
claiming
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