Hate Speech and Bias on College Campuses

Examples of Hate/Bias Speech

At California's Harvey Mudd College, someone wrote on a student's whiteboard following the 2008 Democratic primary, “Hillary is a foxy lesbian.” The incident provoked a response from the college, and was treated as a bias incident. One year earlier, Rutgers University officials in New Jersey dealt with the misogynistic off-campus words of radio icon Don Imus when he referred to the school's women's basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.” The comment served as fodder for discussion for months, raising a myriad of issues in the process. The result in both cases: while neither comment was particularly positive, nor did either foster an environment of openness, the comments were also not illegal. In the latter situation, Imus apologized for his comments but was ultimately fired because of the incident.

In fall 2009, students at Johns Hopkins University protested the university-sanctioned appearance of Tucker Max, comedian and author of I Hope They[Page 666]Serve Beer in Hell. Max is known for his low-brow humor and depictions of women, rating them from “super hottie” to “common-stock pig.” The female students, while protesting, were called a variety of insults, including fat bitches and whores, from male students. They, in turn, blamed the male students’ tirade of hate speech on the degrading messages regularly conveyed by Max.

Similar protests occurred at Ohio State University and North Carolina State University, where Women and Allies Rising in Resistance and the Women's Center, respectively, demonstrated against Max and/or his film. Herein lies another stumbling block of speech codes: whether or not a speech code should apply to visitors or the speech evoked because of said visitors.

To combat hate speech, college campuses throughout the United States have created speech codes that focus on eliminating bigoted, narrow-minded, hurtful, and/or offensive speech from campuses. The codes themselves create several other problems, according to opponents. First, someone must decide what speech is considered offensive, hurtful, bigoted, etc. Second, if codes are followed to the letter of the law and certain words are to be eliminated from the campus, certain pieces of literature and media also run the risk of being banned.

...