Universities should be allowed to implement speech codes restricting offensive speech on campus

I want to be clear about what I am and am not arguing. I am not arguing for speech codes that punish political viewpoints, that silence conservative students, or that make universities ideological monocultures. I have three kids. Two are conservative. I want them to be able to debate their ideas at any university they attend. What I am arguing for is the authority of universities to establish reasonable conduct standards — including speech conduct — for their campus communities. Specifically: harassment directed at individuals, repeated targeted conduct intended to intimidate, and speech that creates conditions in which members of a community cannot safely access university facilities and programs. This is not a radical proposition. Every workplace in America has conduct standards. If a colleague at work repeatedly makes derogatory comments targeting your race or gender in a way that interferes with your ability to do your job, HR can act. We do not call that censorship. We call it a functional workplace. Universities are communities with similar obligations to their members. The First Amendment applies to government censorship of political speech. It does not require a university to allow one student to conduct a targeted harassment campaign against another student. The line is not "offensive speech" generically — it is speech that crosses into conduct that materially interferes with someone's ability to participate in university life. That line exists in tort law, in employment law, and it can exist in university conduct policy.

The argument my opponent just made is very different from what the title of this debate describes, and I think that gap is where the real argument lives. Speech codes, as implemented at American universities, have consistently overreached the targeted harassment framing and moved into regulating ideas. The University of Michigan's speech code, struck down in Doe v. University of Michigan (1989), covered any speech that stigmatized people based on race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and other categories. Students were disciplined for saying things like believing that some mental illness was heritable — a scientific claim. The University of Wisconsin's code, struck down in UWM Post v. Board of Regents (1991), covered "discriminatory comments" that were "demeaning" to individuals. FIRE — the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression — has documented hundreds of cases of clearly protected speech being punished under university speech codes over the last 30 years. My opponent is describing a harassment standard. The debate title is about speech codes. Those are not the same thing. Harassment law already exists and already applies to universities under Title IX and Title VII. It does not require a speech code. The cases that universities use speech codes to address are overwhelmingly not targeted harassment. They are offensive speech, controversial opinions, jokes in bad taste, and political views that someone found upsetting. The marketplace of ideas is not a comfortable place. It is not supposed to be. The point of a university is to encounter ideas that challenge you, including ideas that are wrong, offensive, and upsetting — and to learn to argue against them rather than avoid them.

Universities are communities, not just venues. They have obligations to ensure that all their members — not just the most rhetorically combative ones — can participate in university life. A student who is subjected to repeated targeted harassment does not benefit from the marketplace of ideas. She exits the market. I came into this debate defending speech codes as a general proposition and I want to be honest that my opponent pushed me to a more precise position. The cases from the late 1980s and early 1990s were real failures of over-broad drafting. Modern conduct policies that track existing federal harassment doctrine are more defensible and most of the ones I would actually defend fit that description. The thing I want to hold onto: the absolute free speech position — anything legal can be said anywhere at any time on campus — ignores the power dynamics of who speaks and who is silenced. The formally free marketplace produces outcomes that are not equal when some participants face systematic intimidation and others do not. That is why conduct standards in speech exist in every other community context. Universities are not special exceptions to that principle.

My position is simple and I have held it throughout: universities can enforce federal harassment law. They should enforce federal harassment law. They cannot use speech codes to suppress viewpoints, regulate offense, or give administrators discretion to punish speech they personally find objectionable. My opponent ended in a more defensible place than she started. When she defends conduct policies that track existing federal law with clear definitions and robust appeals processes, I do not have a major objection. When the debate title says "speech codes restricting offensive speech" — the version I came to argue against — that is something different and I oppose it. The marketplace of ideas is not for the comfortable. I am 24 and I have been told my views are offensive plenty of times. I am still here, still arguing. The answer to bad speech is more speech and better arguments. Not an administrator deciding which speech is too offensive to permit. That administrator will not be neutral and the history of campus speech codes proves it.