​Whose freedom of speech?

Today, there is no shortage of American pundits who love to denounce the PC culture and discuss the death of free speech on college campuses. While a debate is to be had, what many campus-free-speech crusaders fail to acknowledge is how such measures are often selective, resisting speaking truth to power such as criticisms of college race relations or of Israel and Palestine.

Illustrations of a trend to police marginalized voices of dissent are easy to find. Last year, Professor Steven Salaita was effectively fired by the University of Illinois for “uncivil” tweets about the Israel-Palestine conflict. This summer, Boston University’s Saida Grundy stirred controversy with tweets about “white college males” as a categorically “problem population.” Both professors acted, for better or worse, outside of their classroom settings and on personal social media platforms.

Indeed, if one were to take a look at the growth of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, which has achieved marked success in the University of California school system, one of the most significant threats to campus free speech has been emerging at the highest levels of the UC system. The system’s Board of Regents alongside President Janet Napolitano has been attempting to adopt “new speech” to ban anti-Semitism, cordoning off criticisms of Israel and rising anti-Israel activism across campuses. Not only does this move disregard the growing number of Jewish people who have qualms with the conflict’s handling but also creates false equivalencies. To equate valid critiques of certain Israeli acts with “anti-Semitism” grossly conflates the plurality of positions taken by all sides. By also assuming that the actions of the Israeli government are tied to being Jewish, her move is itself limitingly anti-Semitic. To attempt to ban socio-political ideas threatens not only vital collegiate academic freedom but also subverts student activism.

For every student who argues their freedom of expression allows them to crack racist jokes, organize campaigns supporting what some have called Israeli apartheid, make sexist statements, etc., it should be natural to extend that same right to others who wish to speak and dissent, to question and critique racism and ideological violence. Male, white, pro-Israel identies and positions are biases too. Does the ongoing collegiate debate on identity politics not apply to marginal groups finally being brought into the fold?

The denial of freedom of expression to those who dissent, the constant posturing for “civility,” and the academic freedom questions sideline the reality of who is eventually accorded these freedoms. In questioning “civility,” the policing of their words is taken as more pressing than discussions of oppression the words are trying to produce. When Professor Grundy’s tweets gained traction, the explicit focus on her words—rather than the structures she was trying to shine a lot in and invite substantive criticism on herself in turn—was nothing new.

Freedom of speech is at peril across the country, but it is often the freedom of those critiquing privilege and those speaking truth to power. This is not to immunize those causes from substantive criticism but to increase scrutiny on how they have been criticized. It is important that we uphold the broadest mission of academia and maintain accountability to these professors and students who speak up. In an age of supposed “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings,” it is imperative that we do not imperil voices that have already been marginalized. In silencing or ignoring criticisms of the traditionally-backed, like Israel, across our college campuses, not only does “neutrality” lend tacit credence to the oppressor, but it extinguishes the flames of academic dissent.