Thursday, September 20, 2012

Colleges Under "FIRE"

FIRE is an organization that strives to protect the individual rights of speech, religion, liberty, and the sanctity of conscience of students attending higher education. They have a whole database where you can look up your college and see if your school is listed as a school that limits the students individual liberties. It all sounds very great that they are protecting the rights of those who are not protected by the "violations" but here's my question; what does FIRE suppose we do instead of using speech codes and restrictions to make the educational environment more tolerant? There is no denying that something needs to be done about the extremely offensive harassment and hazing that occurs in colleges across the country. I don't mean to suggest that this is what FIRE is saying, but if FIRE wants to argue that all speech should be protected in education, is it ok for teachers to exclude all minorities from their classroom? Is it alright for white fraternity members to dress up in KKK costumes and blackface (read previous post about this below)? It is okay to physically harass another student at the university because they are gay and your religion "condones" (don't get me started about that) gays? In that case, is your freedom of religion protected over the other persons personal freedoms? I get what FIRE is saying and I would agree with them more if they gave a good alternative to completely getting rid of the speech codes at all. I am not necessarily for or against the speech codes as I would never say or do something to harm another student based on their race, religion, or any other point of discrimination. Because I am compassionate person, I don't feel the need to put others down and I try to be as conscious of other peoples beliefs as possible. In a way, I have already implemented my own "speech code" and therefore don't feel restricted by a college speech code. The way I learned my speech code was by following someone else's code and adding in by own research to make it more specific. Maybe the best way to become more compassionate beings is by implementing speech codes. I don't disagree with you, FIRE, I just don't know if someone's personal liberties to make completely vulgar and racist remarks outweighs the other persons rights to be protected from that language. 

On a side note, none of the small liberal arts colleges I am applying to showed up on the FIRE database. Ah, the quaintness of a small school... 

2 comments:

  1. I completely agree with you in the respect that FIRE is combating Speech Codes, but poses no solution to the problem at hand. It's sad to think that irresponsible and immature college kids make such decisions that cause insult and possible injury to student who are attending a university to better themselves as a person.

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    1. Exactly! Glad to know that someone else shares my viewpoint! So the school implements speech codes to create a more tolerant environment but FIRE works to take away those codes. In your opinion, what would you suggest the colleges do?

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