A Critical Race Examination of Free Speech in U.S. Campus Communities: Words That (Still) Wound

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

Abstract

The “weaponization of free speech” (Scott, 2018, para. 9), whereby the far-right uses free speech rhetoric as a cloak to attack minoritized and marginalized people and promote assaultive speech as normal, serves as an effective tool inside and outside of higher education to maintain white supremacy. As a result, individuals who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) receive messages from society, higher education institutions (HEIs), and the courts that everyone must bear the burden of this type of speech.
Numerous reports of incidents motivated by racial animus in campus communities, such as hanging nooses in residential living spaces and holding derogatory cultural-theme parties at White fraternities and sororities, are evidence of persistent patterns of hatred of and intent to exclude BIPOC (Anti-Defamation League, 2018). The recent escalation in the appearance of White supremacist propaganda on campuses subverts higher education administrators’ equity and inclusion goals, which are frequently espoused in mission statements and strategic plans.
It is necessary, however, to distinguish what is offensive from what is assaultive; the latter poses real threats to the dignity and personhood of those in BIPOC communities and consequently deprives them of equal participation in higher education. Critical Race Theory (CRT) legal scholars published truncated versions of their work in the compendium Words that wound: Critical race theory, Assaultive speech, and the First Amendment (Matsuda et al., 1993). Situated in their positionalities as “outsider law teachers who work at the margins of institutions dominated by white men” (p. 2), the scholars declared, “We do not attempt to present all sides of this [assaultive speech] debate. Rather we present a dissenting view grounded in our experiences as people of color and ask how those experiences lead to different understandings of racism and law” (p. 2). To disentangle the problematic conflation of free speech, hate speech, and hateful speech, CRT legal scholars argue that hate speech should be labeled more accurately as assaultive speech, which they define as “words that are used as weapons to ambush, terrorize, wound, humiliate, and degrade” (Matsuda et al., 1993, p. 1). The term assaultive speech better articulates the harm and effects of speech which should not qualify for First Amendment protection in campus communities.
Their foundational volume about free speech jurisprudence, and their rejection of the ahistorical insistence on weighing “all sides” when certain individuals and groups are clearly harmed, remains applicable and pertinent to interrogate contemporary legal reasoning and policy formation in higher education. Each scholar’s contribution to the compendium vitally deconstructs traditional free speech jurisprudence and introduces race-centered transformative legal perspectives that address the realities of BIPOC in campus communities, work environments, and broader society. Clearly, issues of free speech versus assaultive speech in campus communities are a crucial concern. To equip institutional leaders to assess assaultive speech for what it is, Ward will use CRT to delineate the meaning of assaultive speech so that institutional leaders can use this term as a conceptual and legal tool to create safe and inclusive campus communities.

Author

• LaWanda W. Ward, The Pennsylvania State University - University Park