\n<\/p>\n
Last week, the University of Pennsylvania proposed new draft Guidelines on Open Expression that are a disturbing threat to free speech at a campus with a track record of suppressing dissent.<\/p>\n
The goal of suppressing all protests is apparent in these principles: \u201cActions taken beyond making one\u2019s thoughts heard or read\u2014particularly when such actions violate these Principles, Penn policy, or relevant law\u2014do not constitute speech and expression protected by these Principles.\u201d <\/p>\n
The presumption should be that all expressive acts\u2014including the right to protest\u2014are protected by principles of open expression. To claim that \u201cactions\u201d have no protections even when they do not violate any policies or laws is a disturbingly narrow vision of free expression.<\/p>\n
The specific rules on protests and expression are even worse: \u201cDisrupting University operations is not permitted. This includes conduct that interferes unreasonably with the activities of other persons; causes injury to persons or property or threatens to cause such injury; holding meetings, events, or demonstrations under circumstances where health or safety is endangered; or knowingly interfering with unimpeded movement in a University location or with University operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lot of vague language here, beginning with \u201cdisrupting\u201d and extending to \u201cinterferes unreasonably\u201d (which is later expanded to \u201cknowingly interfering,\u201d no matter how small or reasonable) with any \u201cUniversity operations.\u201d And it\u2019s hard to imagine any kind of sizable protest (or even tabling on the quad) that could obey a standard that requires \u201cunimpeded movement\u201d everywhere at all times.<\/p>\n
Most disturbing of all is the rule against \u201cholding meetings, events, or demonstrations under circumstances where health or safety is endangered.\u201d This gives the administration free rein to ban controversial speech. If someone feels \u201cunsafe\u201d because of an event, or if someone makes a vague threat, this provision requires anyone holding an activity to pre-emptively cancel it or face the consequences. <\/p>\n
In fact, it retroactively makes all event organizers personally responsible if anyone\u2019s safety is \u201cendangered\u201d at an event, even if they had no way of anticipating what might happen. And the \u201cthis includes\u201d provision means that so much more could be deemed to be \u201cdisrupting\u201d in violation of these new rules.<\/p>\n
The principles make speech off-limits across the campus and punish anyone who might \u201chold a demonstration or gathering in a clinical care facility, library, museum, private office or residence, or in any facility that normally contains valuable or sensitive materials, collections, equipment, or records protected by law or University policy.\u201d Considering that every campus building contains valuable equipment, this rule effectively bans every \u201cgathering\u201d in every building. And it\u2019s notable that this rule includes nothing about actually being disruptive\u2014a silent protest (such as wearing black armbands in the library) is still completely prohibited. Technically, the rules would even ban a \u201cgathering\u201d of a study group at the library\u2014but we all know that these broad restrictions are purely intended to suppress protests.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a rule that \u201conline harassment or the doxing of students, faculty or staff\u201d can be punished, but neither online harassment nor doxing is defined, and this is alarmingly vague. Criticizing someone and listing their email address may be a deplorable act in certain circumstances, but it should not be punishable by the university. And the rules restricting speech extend even further: \u201cthey may not go beyond criticism to express or imply a threat to an organization\u2019s or speaker\u2019s\u00a0\u2026 affiliation with the University.\u201d <\/p>\n
This seems to be a ban on expression that calls for an organization or a speaker to be disciplined. As much as I hate people urging student groups be derecognized or employees fired for their speech, the solution is not to prohibit such expression and discipline it. This rule would allow Penn to punish any students, staff or faculty who called for Amy Wax to be disciplined for her expression.<\/p>\n
According to these rules, \u201cGiven the open nature of Penn\u2019s campus, the Division of Public Safety (DPS) may ask for University identification in University locations.\u201d That\u2019s a very odd interpretation of the \u201copen nature\u201d of a campus, where guards (including the supposedly \u201cneutral\u201d \u201cOpen Expression Observers\u201d) can demand your papers at any time, and an indication that Penn could use this to ban outsiders from its campus.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a disturbing \u201cpapers, please\u201d mentality to the principles that\u2019s also used to suppress freedom of the press: \u201cNews media are required to produce credentials when requested by University Communications and access may be limited, especially during demonstrations, to allow the Division of Public Safety to maintain campus safety.\u201d <\/p>\n
How do the media threaten campus safety? Why would special limits on journalists protect anyone? Why do \u201cdemonstrations\u201d in particular need bans on the media? And this provision also applies to student journalists, meaning that students who are also reporters can be punished if they fail to identify themselves or if they personally participate in demonstrations in spite of a media ban imposed by the campus police. A policy that truly supports free expression would prohibit repression of the media rather than outlining all the ways the administration can suppress freedom of the press.<\/p>\n
The principles seek to suppress speech in many bureaucratic ways, even decreeing that \u201clivestreaming an event requires approval by the Vice Provost for University Life.\u201d Penn should be encouraging and helping organizations to live-stream their events rather than creating new rules to ban this at the whim of an administrator.<\/p>\n
The principles also suppress political speech: \u201cAny invitations to political candidates or events featuring or promoting political candidates or parties (without regard to political party or viewpoints) are subject to additional requirements due to the University\u2019s tax-exempt status.\u201d In reality, there is no requirement that tax-exempt organizations ban political candidates and parties. The only possible risk to tax-exempt status occurs when administrations impose additional rules such as these that bestow university approval on certain political candidates or parties.<\/p>\n
The University of Pennsylvania has long had one of the worst speech codes on American college campuses. Its Code of Student Conduct declares that \u201cResponsible behavior includes but is not limited to the following obligations.\u201d That kind of catch-all language means that the administration can punish any student deemed to violate a vague standard of \u201cresponsible behavior\u201d for anything they say or do. The first step of any expressed commitment to free speech should be to revise this Penn speech code and limit its power to suppress expression.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the AAUP-Penn chapter criticized the Penn administration for repression of free speech, and many on Penn\u2019s campus have expressed concern that these principles seek to codify that repression and further restrict free expression at Penn while mockingly pretending to adore the concept. Penn\u2019s proposed principles are bad policies, badly written, that too often have the goal of suppressing free expression or the unintended effect of repression.<\/p>\n
John K. Wilson was a 2019\u201420 fellow with the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement and is the author of eight books, including <\/em>Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies (Routledge, 2008), and his forthcoming book <\/em>The Attack on Academia. He can be reached at collegefreedom@yahoo.com, or letters to the editor can be sent to letters@insidehighered.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, the University of Pennsylvania proposed new draft Guidelines on Open Expression that are a disturbing threat to free speech at a campus with a track record of suppressing dissent. The goal of suppressing all protests is apparent in these principles: \u201cActions taken beyond making one\u2019s thoughts heard or read\u2014particularly when such actions violate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[673,24134,3866,24132,24133],"class_list":{"0":"post-47977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-attack","9":"tag-expression","10":"tag-open","11":"tag-penns","12":"tag-unprincipled"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}