Safe Spaces On College Campuses

Recently, free speech on college campus has become a great controversy as the First Amendment is a right granted to every US citizen by the Constitution; this is an unalienable right that cannot be denied from an individual. Yet, the true inquiry is how much one can exercise their First Amendment right in college and what is considered a right. There have been many controversial speakers on college campuses because, on the one hand, it is safer to ban these speakers from spreading their hateful message that marginalizes people, but this arises another problem. By disregarding these contentious speakers, students are limited and censored to certain types of ideas or beliefs because they do not agree with the institutions’ ideas. This question

of how much free speech should be allowed on college campuses continues to plague society today, which is important because free speech can either foster or deter our learning. Thus, the difference between hate speech and free speech is hate speech marginalizes specific groups of people, whereas free speech does not. Private institutions of higher education view freedom of expression to promote learning for educational purposes, while public institutions of higher education view freedom of expression as a way to create safe spaces for student; the responsibility of college administrators in creating safe spaces for students is to limit censorship in the classroom and allow free speech as a way to diversify a student’s perspective for educational purposes. This means the Bias Response Team (BRT), which helps to make appropriate referrals for response to bias incidents in a timely and restorative manner, promote civility and respect, and educate the campus community and recognizing and reporting bias incidents, has a positive impact on campus culture across America. Accordingly, we must educate both students and faculty about contemporary issues in freedom of expression including safe spaces, bias incidents, and microaggressions in creating seminars that educate faculty and students and campus life including classes, residence life, and student activities; this can be achieved by placing an Honor Council on campus to ensure the students and faculty are not over exercising their First Amendment rights in a disrespectful way.
Free speech promotes learning for educational purposes and exposes students to different understandings about a particular topic, while hate speech marginalizes people and is not based on supporting evidence. In the Brown vs. Board of Education case, Charles R. Lawrence raises an interesting opinion: he found if African Americans are equal to whites, the underlying principle will be that each individual is given respect without there being any inferior beliefs. In all cases, free speech is a speech that does not marginalize any group or race nor does it make them feel inferior in any way. People are given the respect they deserve, while they are still listening to an opinion that is not in favor of their personal beliefs. Free speech expands a student’s knowledge for an educational purpose and does not show hate towards a specific group of people. On the other hand, “the goal of hate speech is to silence and marginalize minority groups” (Jimin) or any group for that matter. A hate or an offensive speech does not allow the listener to reflect on what is being said since these are opinions that have an immediate impact or “injury.” Hate speech directly attacks a certain group of people and makes a specific group feel inferior in comparison to their counterparts. Though anyone can find any offensive speech hate speech, but hate speech particularly blames and singles out a specific minority group towards a problem. Regardless of there being an evidence or not, hate speech should not be tolerated on a college campus in any way since it limits freedom of expression.
Private institutions have the ability to practice hate speech, but this is not the same for public institutions. Freedom of expression within higher education has decreased over the years due to the oversensitivity safe spaces, an environment where students are not exposed to challenges, emotional harm, or discrimination being created for students, which leads to students ignoring pressing issues and difficult topics to speak about. Freedom of expression should be allowed in all higher education, but there are often limitations because of trigger warnings, a message that alerts student about the gruesome or distressing topics, and safe spaces being created. In particular, Wendy Kaimer finds that trigger warnings and safe spaces are decreasing free speech and “demanding protection from emotional disturbances sparked by unsettling ideas” is a way to ignore the pressing issue. There are certain times when “students talk about threats to their safety and demand access to ‘safe spaces,’ they’re often talking about the threat of unwelcome speech and demanding protection from the emotional disturbances sparked by unsettling ideas. It’s not just rape that some women on campus fear: It’s discussions of rape” (Kaimer). In this case, freedom of expression is limited from safe spaces because it does not allow one to talk about important issues but rather ignores the problem to protect oneself emotionally, which occurs more often in public institutions. In many cases, private institutions have the abilities to permit certain hate speeches or cancel certain speeches on campus to allow a diversified understanding of certain topics on campus. While hate speech should not be accepted, this allows students to acknowledge different opinions from different guest speakers without having to agree with that particular opinion. In public institutions, however, all hate speeches are denied. There are certain limitations in a public institution that is not present in a private institution. For example, a public university has more limitations since “it does bar public universities from protecting some speakers based on viewpoint but denying such protection to others” (Bomboy).
This means administrators should not exercise their power to create safe spaces in a classroom in order to ensure students are exposed to different perspectives on a particular topic. Greg Lukianoff, the CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and Haidt, a social psychologist at NYU and the director of Heterdox Academy, support that colleges are avoiding essential topics as a way to protect students from emotional and “psychological harm” (Haidt). Often times, safe spaces protect a student from the emotional occurrences that they are occurring, not to diversified one’s opinions and ideas, but in doing so, colleges are using safe spaces as a sanctuary or are ignoring the problem that continues to persist. The hard truth is that people are often going to disagree with others wherever they go; even though hate speech is not and should not be tolerated, a good institution teaches students how to deal with certain speeches instead of coddling them. Nowadays, many of the colleges are aligned with liberal ideas, and providing students only with ideas that align with their beliefs do not challenge their minds. Once a student questions and challenges the ideas, this is when they truly learn. The unfortunate truth with safe spaces is that “speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate’” (Chemerisky), and in “Freedom of Expression in the United States,” the author reinforces the U.S. Constitution protects even the most offensive and controversial speech from government suppression and permits regulation of speech only under certain limited and narrow circumstances.” Regardless if a speech is hateful, this should be accepted on college campuses because free and hate speech can be freely expressed to an extent, and safe spaces only reinforce the idea that students should not listen to ideas that do not align with their beliefs because it is easier to ignore the problems than face it. DiPietro, an intern at the Center for American Progress, notes, “They [politicians] state that those who protest hate speech are ultimately promoting censorship as a means of controlling and avoiding speech with which they do not agree—speech that is free under the Constitution.” I agree that people should listen to opinions that disagree with one’s beliefs, but the problem with hate speech is it can influence other members to act on the guest speaker’s ideologies on campus, which can become extremely dangerous. In this case, if the speaker is not forcing their opinions on certain groups of a race but presenting their opinions with reasons and facts for this, this should be allowed.
Having safe spaces on campus can have a positive impact, while limiting freedom of expression, as well.

Cherminsky, for example, finds that safe spaces are helpful. He finds the campus administrators have the right to protect students and their safety, so the administrators can treat crude and hate speeches on campus as unacceptable. This means colleges have the right to cancel certain guest speakers to protect the students. Yet, the difficult part is identifying whether a college is cancelling a certain guest speaker to protect the students from riots that accompanies the guest speaker or because the guest speaker’s ideas do not align with the common majority. The difficult part about safe spaces is it protects students from ideas they do not agree with. Greg Haidt is against creating safe spaces on campus, however, because safe spaces lead to protecting students from certain ideas and beliefs that lead to poor professional lives and harm their mental state. Safe spaces are teaching students that they can respond to hate through their emotions and disregarding the matter, which teaches students the ability to be nurtured with hypersensitivity. In the article, “Freedom of Expression in the United States,” the government even finds that “allowing citizens to openly discuss topics of public concern results in a more transparent and representative government, more tolerant ideas, and a more stable society.” Having people who disagree with one another allows colleges and society to function as a whole because the differing opinions allow society to gain abilities to rebuttal instead of agreeing with one another. With having safe spaces, “a person cannot develop an independent point of view about the world unless he or she is exposed to different ideas about what is important and what beliefs are most meaningful and is permitted to converse with others about their experiences or beliefs” (Chemerinsky and Gillman

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