Paying the Price for Free Speech: Discourses of Civility and Curricular Violence on College Campuses

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Emotion and Discipline Within "Civil" State Discourse

Abstract

In this paper, we seek to deconstruct the ways higher education’s curricular discourse about hateful and assaultive speech is constructed as a matter of “free speech” rather than what it is, the verbal expression of violence and dehumanization. We also question how this privileges the discourse of hetero white (male) supremacy while serving to silence the voices of women, people of color, and queer folks, marginalizing and trivializing their concerns, while diminishing their presence in the public space. We ask, “through what framing does verbal assaults and harassment against marginalized peoples become understood as an exercise in free speech?”

Authors

• Kirsten T. Edwards, University of Oklahoma

• John F. Covaleskie, University of Oklahoma