"Spec" Speech for a Campus Protest Incident

The following is a speech written on ‘spec’. It was intended for a university’s senior Student Affairs officer, following an incident on campus. It is addressed to a general audience including top level university administrators, government officials, select alumni and donors (prospective and current donors), with the potential for media to be present. Certain specifics have been removed.

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[Greeting]

One of the greatest strengths of our campus is that our students are involved, passionate, and aware. They want to tell their stories; they want their voices heard. But as Chancellor Jones would remind us, “passion must walk hand in hand with compassion.” And, I would add, disagreement must walk hand in hand with respect.

As you may know, on May 17, [student group X] sponsored an event titled “[event title].”  Protesters entered the room and disrupted the event with enough ferocity that the panelists and audience felt silenced and intimidated.

Protests are an inevitable and constitutionally protected part of campus life. We expect them to occur, and we have practices in place for when they do occur. I will read here from our “Diversity and Inclusion” website:

(1) [This university] respects freedom-of-speech, including the lawful freedom to protest.

(2) Protests may not be so disruptive as to silence the invited speaker(s) from communicating with a willing audience.

(3) After a warning, protesters whose actions prevent the event from proceeding will be escorted out, be subject to arrest, and will be held accountable under relevant laws and university policies.

As best we can ascertain, this is what happened. 

• The protesters were disruptive and prevented the speakers from communicating; 

• they were invited to join the discussion in a respectful manner;

• they refused this invitation and continued to be disruptive;

• campus police were summoned and escorted the protesters out of the room;

• the students who were part of the protest are now part of the student accountability process;

• many, if not most, of the disruptors were unaffiliated with our university; for these individuals, we referred all evidence of wrongdoing to local prosecutors to determine whether they have broken the law. 

That is what happened, and that is how we responded. 

But what about tomorrow? We will certainly use this incident to review and revise internal practices and processes to better manage any future disruptions that may occur. And let me be clear: The university is fundamentally committed to protecting the physical safety of everyone in our community and at our events.

But there is more to be done than revising practices and processes. There is a bigger picture here. 

Freedom of speech is being challenged today across this country, in a way it has not been challenged in decades. Words like ‘thought bubble’ and ‘tribe’ are not terms from dystopian science fiction; they are here today.

So I would like to take a few moments to let you know what we are trying to teach our students about what freedom of speech is, and what it is not, at [this university].

First, freedom of speech at [this university] means that students will be held accountable by their fellow students for what they say; that’s how it works. Winston Churchill said that, “Some people's idea of [free speech] is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.” So we let them know that freedom of speech does not mean that their ideas will go unchallenged; a right to freedom of speech is not a right to have your ideas go unquestioned, uncritiqued, or undebated. 

But what freedom of speech does mean, here at [this university], is that such challenges must be carried out respectfully; such disagreements must not disrupt the speaker from speaking or the audience from hearing. Respect is the first of the five [this university] values, and it is first for a reason; it is first because nothing else we do here means anything if we do not respect one another.

Second, freedom of speech at [this university] involves a willingness to learn. Now, our students may say, ‘I have a legal right to not listen to anything I disagree with.’ And that is true, by law they have that right.

But, we would remind them, they are here at [this university] to learn, to grow, to mature; not just to have their biases confirmed and their presuppositions reinforced. Nel Noddings is a philosopher of education, and she says, “We Americans pride ourselves on our freedom to speak, to say what we believe. But of what use is it to speak if only those who already agree with us listen? A first step toward the abolition of war is learning to listen with respect and sympathy.” 

This willingness to learn is a crucial component of understanding how free speech on a campus must work. We are here at [this university] to be better people, and we become better people, more whole people, when we truly listen and try to understand people different from us. We carry only one piece of the human puzzle around with us, so when we fail to engage with others, or we only engage with people who are just like us, then all we ever have is that one piece of the puzzle. The other pieces are in the people all around us. So if we want to ever solve the puzzle, we need those other people...and they need us. We need to talk to them, and we need to listen to them.

And listening is indeed something that needs to be learned. It’s easy to talk; it’s hard to listen...to really listen well. We are teaching our students how to listen well.

Third, freedom of speech at [this university] also means that our students may be offended by something they hear. That, too, is the way it works. They will hear things they don’t like, but, as author Neil Gaiman points out, “if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, [then] when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost.” Noam Chomsky, the linguist and cognitive psychologist, has spoken at [this university] many times, and he says, “If we do not believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we do not believe in it at all.” 

We remind our students that, at [this university], the ideas and ideologies of the entire world are right here, sitting in class right next to them; they are on campus alongside students from 50 different countries and dozens of ethnicities and cultures. We remind them that we have students here from socialist and capitalist and totalitarian nations; we have students who are devoutly religious and students who are deeply spiritual and students who are committed atheists and students who couldn’t care less about such things. We remind them that we have students who are politically conservative and students who are politically liberal and students who are politically moderate and students who are politically apathetic.

So of course there are going to be disagreements, and conflicts, and points where they cannot see eye to eye. Some of these may be trivial or minor, but others may touch them deeply, and feel threatening to their sense of identity, their core beliefs, and their life’s purpose. And we will remind them that it is no sin to feel passionately about those things, to want to defend them with intensity and fervor.

But [this university] still expects respectful dialogue from everyone on our campus. 

Respectful dialogue is not synonymous with meekness or conformity; to the contrary, it is the highest expression of courage and integrity. It is not only ‘respectful’ but it is also ‘dialogue,’ and dialogue requires us not only to speak but also to listen. Respectful dialogue does not mean that we tell them that ideas don’t matter, or that our differences are inconsequential. But we also tell them that to see only the differences is to miss the bigger picture.

Because we do have much in common. We are all human, which means we share some very basic needs, some very basic desires, some very basic questions: Who am I? Why am I here? We are all here at a university, at least in part, because we have commitments to the life of the mind, to learning, to challenging, to testing and to growing in both mind and character. We are all here at [this university] because we felt that [this university] was the place where those commitments could best be fulfilled. 

But we also do have differences. Some of those differences are innate. We are not all made the same, and that is something to be celebrated, not something to be hidden or mourned. Some of those differences are matters of culture and experience and perspective. We bring our ideas to this place and we put them out there, to be discussed and challenged and defended and debated. That is what this place is; not a place of indoctrination, but a place where, like a poker game, I put my ideas like chips in the middle of the table with all the others and say, “I’m in.” Others may be persuaded, or they may not, but unlike poker, the goal is not to win—the goal is to be richer for the experience. Everyone at the table ends up with more chips.

And if there are some people who are of the belief that all our differences must be settled, not accepted, and they must be settled with intimidation, coercion, or violence, then we tell those people that they have no place here. Because that is not our way. 

And so we expect respectful dialogue.

Now, that may make them laugh...and they have a point. I mean, where do we hear respectful dialogue anywhere in our culture today? Where is this being modeled? We don’t hear respectful dialogue online, or on TV, or from our politicians or other leaders…and yet, our students say, you expect it from us?

And we say, “Yes, we do. We expect you to be better than they are. We expect you to be better than the brutal often-anonymous voices online, better than the talking heads on TV, better than the uncivil divisiveness we see in our elected officials. In fact,” we say with a wink, “we expect you to be better than we are.”

Because they are the future. They have to be better than we are.

They are the next wave of governors and senators and presidents. They are the next wave of doctors and teachers and innovators and CEOs. They are the next philosophers and filmmakers and philanthropists, the next musicians and marketers and middle-linebackers, the next architects and authors and archaeologists and astronomers, clergy and chemists and computer scientists. They are the parents and the citizens, the activists and the leaders, the voters and the voices of tomorrow.

It will soon be their world. And so they have to be better…better than we are.

And if they cannot understand and practice ‘respectful dialogue,’ if they cannot live together, if they cannot work together, if they cannot talk to each other and learn from each other here on these [XX] acres in one of the most diverse cities in the world…if they cannot get along here, then I fear that they cannot get along anywhere. And that would cause me great worry for the future.

But I am hopeful today; hopeful for the future. I am encouraged by our students. Incidents like this become news because they are the exception, not the rule. I see our students every day, and I watch them work through these things together. I watch them talking and listening to each other. I watch them playing together, working together, learning together. I watch them being stretched in ways they never imagined. I watch them being challenged; sometimes getting knocked down, but getting back up. And I watch them doing the best they can to care for each other. 

This year, I watched the Visual Arts Club, the Hunger Project, and the LGBT Campus Resource Center work together to expand a clothing donation program. I watched our students work hand-in-hand with local homeowners and business owners during an election that will help decide the future of our neighborhood. I watched our medical, health, social work, and business students working together on a program to help patients who may have difficulty navigating the healthcare system. I watched grad students working together on a new way to improve coordination between different mental health and suicide awareness groups at [this university]. And there are dozens and dozens of other stories.

To be sure, our students still make mistakes. They don’t always get it right. But I see in them a desire to be prepared not only for successful careers, but for successful lives...to be part of something bigger than themselves, to be part of the solution, to leave things better than they found them.

And we are committed to walk alongside them in this. Freedom of speech issues are not going to go away; they never have. Freedom of speech is a messy, maddening, controversial, wonderful, life-giving thing. It says that all voices matter, which in every age has been a dangerous thing to say. 

But that is where we stand. Our goal is to build a community of scholars and citizens, a community honest and humble, curious and respectful, principled and open-minded, critical and constructive, rigorous and kind, physically safe and ideologically challenging; a community where our differences are not our weakness...they are our strength. 

That is where we stand.