Dave Barry on Politics, Free Speech, and Campus Restrictions

Nick Gillespie | September 28, 2009

From The Foundation For Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) comes this video with Dave Barry, whose work has been deemed "patently offensive" and censored by some college administrators:

FIRE's website here.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Read Reason's great 1994 interview: "All I think is that it's stupid: Dave Barry on laughing at Very Big Government."

Comments

ed|9.28.09 @ 7:43AM|#

Silly Boomer and his old-fashioned notions of intellectual freedoms. Go back to the 60s, Dave.
This is the Age of Hope.

Anonymous|9.28.09 @ 7:49AM|#

Yes, Dave, there was a culture clash at universities in the '60s.

The fascists won.

|9.28.09 @ 8:34AM|#

Universities, especially privately owned ones, are well within their right to control content.

What kind of Libertarians are pissed off that universities are exercising their rights as property owners?

Oh, yeah. "Libertarians" who are actually Republicans.

Long time reader|9.28.09 @ 8:38AM|#

Public universities are not well within their right to control content, which is why their retarded speech codes are usually ruled unconstitutional.

|9.28.09 @ 9:16AM|#

Whether you believe that speech codes at universities should be legal or not, if you're a libertarian, you should at least think they're a horrible idea. Free Speech isn't some arbitrary value, only good because the Constitution happens to mention it; free speech is a good thing,in almost any venue (especially college)... for so many reasons... I won't even try to make a list.

|9.28.09 @ 9:27AM|#

Well, having the government intruding on private business on their private property is also a bad idea, according to Libertarian philosophy.

Every workplace has speech codes, so why not a private university?

|9.28.09 @ 9:39AM|#

@DaveK
It's intellectually disingenuous to be a put your "private business" as a place of higher education and then ideas with which you do not agree. It isn't the function of a private university to censor. It's completely the opposite.

The workplace and private universities serve two different purposes to society (I know libertarians hate the concept of society but bear with me :P ) and they aren't comparable in this situation.

Phantom Limb|9.28.09 @ 9:50AM|#

Whether you believe that speech codes at universities should be legal or not, if you're a libertarian, you should at least think they're a horrible idea.

Are you fucking kidding me, Joe_D? I really hope that I missed out on some huge level of sarcasm here. If not:

I agree that speech codes are ridiculous, but the whole problem here stems from the fact that someone is trying to tell someone else how to think because they belong to a specific group. How about you practice what you preach and let libertarians figure out their own beliefs.

Also, in before the No True Scotsman fallacy.

kinnath|9.28.09 @ 9:51AM|#

Dear Dave: Employers have some control over employees, but sellers rarely have any control over buyers (also known as students).

And in keeping with the spirit of lively debate, please go fuck yourself with splintered broom handle.

Best Regards,
kinnath

|9.28.09 @ 9:57AM|#

Sweet, cuddly, and simply adorable kinnath,
Wal-mart does not allow free speech in their stores.

Why should private universities?

And in keeping with the spirit of lively debate:

Good, I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!

Kind regards,
Dave K.

kinnath|9.28.09 @ 10:04AM|#

Wal-mart does not allow free speech in their stores.

Walmart will not allow me to hold a rally in their parking lot.

However, Walmart cannot prohibit me from calling someone a sleazy cunt if he or she scratches my car with a shopping cart.

Universities are imposing 24-hour a day, 7-day a week restrictions on what can and cannot be said on their grounds.

Your argument is specious.

Scooby|9.28.09 @ 10:06AM|#

Dave K,

Private universities do have the right to control speech on their property. We, on the other hand, have the right to look at this (people being offended at Dave Fucking Whitebread Barry) and ridicule it.

|9.28.09 @ 10:07AM|#

Phantom Limb,

No, there was no sarcasm there. This is just a statement of fact about the philosophical underpinnings of libertarianism. If you don't believe that university speech codes are a bad idea, then you don't really believe in freedom of speech. If you don't believe in the freedom of speech, then you're not a libertarian. It's not the No True Scotsman Fallacy because the general belief in liberty, and free speech falls into this category, is a defining characteristic of libertarianism.

What I said is equivalent to saying that if you're a Christian, then you believe in the divinity of Jesus.

|9.28.09 @ 10:20AM|#

Kinnath wrote:

However, Walmart cannot prohibit me from calling someone a sleazy cunt if he or she scratches my car with a shopping cart.


Yes, they can as long as you're on their property.
They just don't bother to do so.

Zeb|9.28.09 @ 10:51AM|#

"Every workplace has speech codes, so why not a private university?"

Because they tend to claim to be places for open intellectual exploration and censorship is totally contrary to that? No one has said it ought to be illegal for them to have speech codes. Just that anyone who cares about freedom ought to have a problem with it. And universities are not usually private organizations in the same way as a company. They are generally organized as non-profit institutions with an explicitly stated goal of free intellectual activity. It is not the same thing as Walmart kicking you out for calling someone a cunt.

Zeb|9.28.09 @ 10:52AM|#

I also should have mentioned the loads of tax dollars that every supposedly private university rakes in as fast as they can.

Sean W. Malone|9.28.09 @ 10:55AM|#

Dave K;

Not really sure where you're goin' this one dude... I have every right to amble out onto a street corner outside the Apollo Theatre and start spewing racial epithets against black people. Still isn't a good idea.

A private university has the right to restrict speech on their campus - some religious universities require prayer in classes and such too - but as Dave Barry said; "It makes a complete joke out of intellectual diversity!"

|9.28.09 @ 10:59AM|#

It seems to me that there's a conflict between private property rights and free speech rights.

Which one is the most important?

Sean W. Malone|9.28.09 @ 11:03AM|#

Oh... Plus I should add this fun little quote from a Mises article a while ago:

Why Intellectuals Still Support Socialism

Excluding student financial aid, public universities receive about 50 percent of their funding from federal and state governments, dwarfing the 18 percent they receive from tuition and fees. Even "private" universities like Stanford or Harvard receive around 20 percent of their budgets from federal grants and contracts.[4] If you include student financial aid, that figure rises to almost 50 percent. According to the US Department of Education, about a third of all students at public, 4-year colleges and universities, and half the students at private colleges and universities, receive financial aid from the federal government.

20%+ tax funding seems like a good reason for them to simply not be allowed to impose speech codes of any kind.

Anonymous|9.28.09 @ 11:24AM|#

Which one is the most important?

Property rights. Otherwise I'm censored on my own turf. Doesn't mean I can't stand on friendly turf and bitch about unfriendly turf.

The US federal government was not instituted to control individuals. It was instituted to control government. It failed.

|9.28.09 @ 11:40AM|#

What kind of Libertarians are pissed off that universities are exercising their rights as property owners?

The kind who get pissed off at idiots.

Robert Shibley|9.28.09 @ 11:41AM|#

Dave K.:

This is Robert Shibley of FIRE (the bald guy at the beginning of the video). FIRE's policy is to hold private universities to their own promises of freedom of speech. Marquette makes such promises to its tuition-paying students. Here's an excerpt from our original letter to Marquette:

--

Marquette's Student Handbook further recognizes the rights of its students to express their political or ideological opinions. The Handbook states, "It is clearly inevitable, and indeed essential, that the spirit of inquiry and challenge that the university seeks to encourage will produce many conflicts of ideas, opinions and proposals for action." Marquette thus recognizes the "right of the members of the university community freely to communicate, by lawful demonstration and protest, the positions that they conscientiously espouse on vital issues of the day." The posting of a single quotation on an office door surely qualifies as such protected expression.

--

Nobody is forcing Marquette to commit itself to freedom of expression, as it is a private university. It has chosen to do so of its own free will, though, and is taking money from people while representing itself in this manner. Unless we as a society are willing to countenance fraud, I think we can all agree that Marquette should be honest about whether it respects free speech and fulfill its own promises.

You can read more about Marquette's speech code here: http://www.thefire.org/spotlight/codes/1827.html

|9.28.09 @ 12:35PM|#

What kind of Libertarians are pissed off that universities are exercising their rights as property owners?

The kind who feel free to express their opinions about things that go on in society that don't involve idiocy by the government.

You got a problem with that? Maybe I didn't the updated Libertarian Rule Book, but my copy says we can say what we want about who we want. Just because you are acting within your rights doesn't mean you aren't being an ass.

Michael Ejercito|9.28.09 @ 2:03PM|#

Universities, especially privately owned ones, are well within their right to control content.

Just because they have the right to do so does not make it a good idea.

States have the power to regulate how much cold medicine you could buy; that does not make it a good idea.

Joshua Holmes|9.28.09 @ 2:07PM|#

I have no problem with speech codes so long as the university receives absolutely no funds from the government, nor any student of the university receives government funds or government-backed loans to attend.

What's that leave us, Bob Jones University?

|9.28.09 @ 8:33PM|#

Robert Shibley,
if you or anyone else feel that the universities are acting in a fraudulent manner by breaching what was contractually agreed upon, please feel free to sue them.

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