Red light, Yellow Light, Green Light
Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, June 1, 2018 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler
In this politically correct society, you’d think everyone would bend over backward to keep from offending a majority of the population, but not so! The academic elite have decided college and university students are the only folk who should not be offended. As a matter of fact, that protective mind-set has so thoroughly permeated higher education that administrators comply with the whims of students who demand cancellation of a speaker’s invitation.
If acted upon, those demands become “dis-invitations,” that may materialize in various ways – administrators may issue a formal cancellation, or students may demand cancellation, or a speaker may withdraw due to student rebellion. When speakers DO come, students may persistently disrupt or heckle them during their speech.
While surveying 449 of the 5,300 colleges and universities in the United States, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reported serious free speech violations in a tenth of the schools. Because the federal government subsidizes public colleges, they are required to uphold the First Amendment rights of the students and faculty, as well as visiting speakers. But, right now, some schools are not doing so well with that.To identify each school’s speech status, FIRE used traffic-light symbols in red, yellow and green. Colleges with at least one policy that could restrict the freedom of speech receive a red light. A yellow light identifies a school with a restrictive or vaguely worded speech policy, and green lights are earned by schools that have no apparent serious threat to freedom of speech.
Eight schools in Georgia were awarded yellow lights, meaning they have limited restrictions or vaguely worded policies that could be interpreted as gag orders. Those eight colleges are Armstrong State, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Kennesaw State, UGA, the University of North Georgia, the University of West Georgia, and Valdosta State.
Georgia Southern and Middle Georgia State are the two Georgia universities that earned red lights, because each has at least one policy that clearly and substantially restricts free speech.
Middle Georgia State University, with its five locations, is particularly restrictive. It specifies that the only free expression area at the Macon campus is on “the lawn between the Education Building and the Library, Monday through Friday,” but never on weekends.
Emory University is the only Georgia school to earn a green light for freedom of speech. For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.