Word: speech
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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During the past year or two, we have had several incidents on campus that provoked concern about freedom of speech. Last October, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger was heckled and interrupted in Sanders Theater and could finish his speech only with difficulty. In 1983, members of the audience interfered with another speech by alternately booing and cheering a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization who had been invited to speak by the Black Law Students Association (BLSA). Last April, the moderator at a panel arranged by the BLSA did not recognize Jewish law students who wished to question a speaker...
Against the background of these events, I have decided to write an open letter on the subject of free speech and its application to a university community. Some readers may question the need for such a letter. After all, almost everyone understands the importance of free speech under our Bill of Rights, and the few who deny its importance will not be persuaded by anything that I might write...
There are several reasons for discussing this subject openly and carefully. To begin with, commentators have pointed out for years that Americans give overwhelming support to free speech as an abstract proposition but quickly change their minds when they encounter concrete cases involving the expression of unpopular ideas. Not so long ago, for example, a national poll revealed that 68 percent of people 25 to 35 years old and 78 percent of all 17-year-olds favored a ban on any statements on radio or television indicating that "Russia is better than the United States" or "Some races of people...
Even if such polls do not reflect the prevailing sentiments in this community, the principle of free speech is not always easy to apply in specific cases. When is heckling an interference with free speech and when is it simply a means by which an audience communicates its disapproval? Does one promote free speech or infringe on it by requiring a speaker to submit to open debate as a condition of appearing on campus? Does a student organization interfere with free speech if it excludes nonmembers from attending and listening to a speaker on a subject of great interest...
...need more comic relief." Axelrod went on. "I think a lot of people come here and have their aspirations shattered by the seriousness and the intellectual demands. I want more freedom of speech, action and thought...