Free Speech?

Is Speech Free on UW Campuses?
Crafting a solution in search of a problem

In November, 2016, Ben Shapiro, a conservative activist and author was scheduled to give a public speech on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. As he was starting his speech, several people in the audience disrupted his talk with chants of “Shame” and “Safety.” Shapiro responded by writing “MORONS” on the blackboard and gave the audience a double middle-finger salute. Students surrounded the stage for a short time and prevented Shapiro from speaking. The protesters were shown the door and Shapiro was able to finish his speech.

In 2017, the Wisconsin Assembly passed a bill aimed a punishing those who disrupt speeches on UW campuses subjecting them to harsh penalties, including expulsion for a third offense. The bill failed to pass in the state Senate after the UW Board of Regents passed temporary new rules that provided much of what the Assembly bill contained. The Regents are currently in the process of formally promulgating these rules to be part of the state’s Administrative Code which will need final approval by the legislature and the governor before they take final effect.

Notwithstanding this march towards curtailing speech on our state university campuses, four members of the current legislature have introduced a new bill more draconian than the first one. Republican Representatives Cody Horlacher, Robin Vos and Dave Murphy were joined by Senator Chris Kapenga in sponsoring the new bill. The new one goes further than the first by allowing recovery of attorney’s fees and damages if a violation is found.

In an accompanying memo, the sponsors declared, “Campuses across the country have erupted in protest, including violent riots, as the growing debate over who has the right to speak threatens our nation’s first amendment.” Their memo, aimed at finding legislative co-sponsors for the measure, continues claiming free speech violations have taken place on several UW campuses, including Madison, Oshkosh, Stout and Stevens Point. The memo offers no details of these alleged violations and none of the four sponsors provided any details when asked if there were any other events than the one involving Shapiro. 

Mark Pitsch, a spokesman for the UW System, confirmed that there have been no free speech rights violations on any of the state’s 13 universities and 13 branch campuses since the Regents adopted the current rules in 2017.

It appears that our GOP controlled legislature is proposing solutions to a problem that does not exist. 

Even if it was a problem, passage in our current divided government is far from certain. Governor Tony Evers sat on the UW Board of Regents as the State Superintendent of Public Instruction when the first rules were passed. He cast the sole dissenting vote on the new rule indicating it would chill free speech rights of those opposed to a speaker’s views. His current spokeswoman indicated that his position has not changed, signaling a probable veto of the bill and new Regent rules should either pass.

State Senator Chris Taylor (D-Madison) claims the new bill is being pushed by the Republicans knowing it will be vetoed in order to use it for political messaging. Taylor indicated they will claim Evers and Democrats are anti-free speech when, in fact, the new bill is anti-free speech. 

The bills both appear to track model language suggested by the Goldwater Institute, an Arizona right-wing think tank funded by the Bradley, Walton and Koch foundations, among others. So far, 17 states have enacted a variant of the model campus free-speech legislation with bills pending in several others. 

A key provision requires state campuses to “remain neutral …. on the public policy controversies of the day.” The clear intent of these bills is to take our universities out of the debates on current public policy issues. They are based upon the discredited notion that universities are inherently liberal and anti-conservative and skew instruction to match those views. 

To the contrary, our universities are places where all can come to learn and develop their own world view based on history and accumulated knowledge. There is no better place to develop personal views about the policies and debates that form our society and culture. Universities can supply the instruction that links the past to current issues of public interest and concern.

You cannot understand racism without knowledge of our history of slavery and the post-civil war efforts to keep newly freed slaves in bondage. You cannot understand why oil and gas pipelines are being protested by Native American tribes as threats to their very existence without an understanding of the history of the attempts to obliterate Native people and their cultures. You cannot understand the current fascism of the right without knowing the history of European fascism and our involvement in two World Wars to end it. The birthplace of the modern environmental, civil rights and anti-war movements was on university campuses across the nation.

After learning these foundational histories, it is only proper that protests over the current iterations of these evil movements be not only allowed, but encouraged, on our campuses and in our communities. Punishing people who stand up against oppression is the wrong message.