When Free Speech Turns Into Financed Ideology

• In Event: Assaultive Speech On-Campus and Insufficient Campus Responses: Now It's Time for Meaningful Change

Abstract

Historically, campus free speech has been represented as the depiction of liberal ideology linked to social movements advancing civil rights (e.g., Cohen & Zelnik, 2002; Sun & McClellan, 2019). Researchers have observed that these critics of liberal campus voices draw on culture, values (including ideological conflicts), national safety, and religion as the rationale behind these differing perspectives on free speech and those expressions not arising to First Amendment protections (e.g., Gerstmann & Streb, 2006). Indeed, the extant literature draws significantly on ideological differences, and the evidence suggests that these ideological differences are significant factors in the messages and actions underway (Ben-Porath, 2017). However, less attention has been placed on a resource-based examination of these groups, especially conservative groups that have moved, through their expressions’ impacts, from ideological positions, which could be deemed as matters of public interest, to financed orchestration of silencing or subduing activities that advance harmful effects onto students and others on our campus communities.
A resource-based lens is not new to critiques and examinations of college agenda, activities, and decisions (Moatter, 2018). For instance, the literature on external drivers and influences onto academic research has trailed corporate voices dictating or persuading decisions, which call into question the neutral environment of our college campuses as searchers for truth (Babina, He, Howell, Perlman, Staudt, 2020; Washburn, 2005). Nonetheless, free speech zones and other designated areas intended for public exchange have not been examined to identify how external power structures and influences have led to financed ideology on-campus. This presentation offers three recent efforts illustrating the concept of financed ideology on-campus.
EFFORT 1: Challenge Campus Policies Representing a Core Concern for Students’ Sense of Belonging - Speech First, a heavily funded conservative group, has challenged the existence of campus Bias Response Teams, arguing that they violate the First Amendment rights of students by chilling speech with an implicit threat of punishment and intimidation (see e.g., Speech First, Inc. v. Schlissel, 2019).
EFFORT 2: Enlist Legislative Support to Investigate and Propose Bills that Frame Campuses as Ideologically Limited - Drawing on significant coalition funds from a conservative group, Alliance Defense Fund, the Michigan legislature declared academic requirements that do not permit religious justifications to deny students in professional programs to deny services (e.g., LGBTQ students seeking counseling) as an inappropriate and intrusive academic decision, introducing Michigan Senate Resolution No. 66, 2011 and House Bill 5040.
EFFORT 3: Establish Student Groups to Maintain Vocal Activism Drawing on Inflammatory and Hurtful Approaches - Funded through various sources to expand their presence and influence college students, groups such as Young Americans for Freedom, Turning Point USA, and Identity Evropa have drawn on national resources helping them to formulate into university recognized/registered student organizations so they may foster “racial awareness” in a radicalized manner.

Author

• Jeffrey C. Sun, University of Louisville