Lessons from Emory
Years of debate surrounding the merits of safe spaces versus freedom of expression came to a head a few weeks ago at Emory University. After someone wrote “Vote for Trump,” “Accept the Inevitable: Trump 2016,” and a number of related messages in chalk on the sidewalk of the Atlanta campus, a few dozen students protested vigorously, claiming that the sentiment constituted a violent threat against their safety. “I legitimately feared for my life,” one student said.
Eager to avoid a public relations disaster like those experienced by institutions that have come across as insensitive towards similar protests, Emory initially bent over backwards to accommodate the concerned students. The chalk messages conveyed “values regarding diversity and respect that clash with Emory’s own,” University President James Wagner wrote in a campus-wide email. He pledged to use surveillance footage to identify the perpetrators and to respond with disciplinary action or trespassing charges.
Likely sensing that policing speech as simple as “Vote for Trump” would appear absurd, the Emory administration seemed to rush to find some deeper justification. At the very least, it made the vague assertion that there was one. “If we look at the [demands of the students] just at face value, we’re missing something,” Emory’s dean of campus life said.
Perhaps. But those demands, to punish a student or individual in the surrounding community who did little more than reproduce a generic bumper sticker slogan, would be tremendously inappropriate. After all, whoever was responsible agreed politically with nearly forty percent of Georgia’s Republican primary voters. More importantly, a university should be equipping students to make their own decisions, not endorsing or condemning a candidate. Besides, students opposing Trump would do well to realize that attempts to silence his support only bolster his supporters’ narrative that they are fighting an establishment uninterested in hearing Trump’s truth. Similarly, the notion of college students claiming to perceive something as banal as “Vote for Trump” as a death threat supports the idea that these students use their own supposed fragility as a weapon—taking advantage of a liberal echo chamber to silence any ideas that challenge their own.
Emory’s administration gradually backtracked from its original position. President Wagner wrote his own message in chalk: “Emory stands for free expression.” Of course, in the context of campus speech, the conventionally and legally understood concepts of free speech are not always what is meant when a college promises them. Washington University, for instance, has freshman and sophomore floors agree on a set of prewritten guidelines. One of these is “freedom of expression”, a category that effectively serves as a reminder to students not to say things that might offend others in order to provide a safe space for everyone to feel comfortable communicating.
Avoiding blatantly offensive speech is a thoroughly decent and considerate thing to do. There is nothing wrong with a university reminding its students that their peers might experience and react to certain speech differently than others. At the same time, universities should be mindful not to coddle their students or trample on fundamentally American rights. As nice as Washington University’s official dorm definition of “freedom of expression” – essentially allowing others to be comfortable so that they can express themselves freely – may be, freedom of expression means the opposite. It is of course about free expression, not restricting expression.
To be fair to universities, they toe a fine line of including students of different backgrounds, educating students, and preserving their institutional reputations. To be fair to social justice protesters, they fight against centuries of oppressive power structures, which they feel Trump reinforces. To be fair to the students at Emory alarmed by a simple declaration of support for a political candidate, support for Trump, while obviously and rightfully protected, is not support for a normal candidate. Trump, through his own actions, has transcended the normal definitions of political discourse.
Through his rambling style and revelry in bullying his opponents, Trump has profoundly blurred the lines of what constitutes political speech. No other candidate has been so determined to harass his or her opponents – Trump publicly reported Lindsey Graham’s personal phone number and purchased the rights to jebbush.com, for example. Nobody else has spent as much time boasting and answering questions with insults. Trump’s foes have done their best not to stoop to his level, but after seeing their failure to stop his momentum, even the conventional Marco Rubio resorted to insinuating that his opponent had a small penis.
With Trump, there really is no line between his political speech of the 2016 election and anything else he has ever said or done. We have simply seen a continuation of bragging, bullying and egomania. More than with any other candidate, the protesters against Trump have been forgiven for conflating the severity of “Vote for Trump” with the horrible things he has said. “Vote for Trump” is not equal to “Vote Against Islam Because American Muslims Celebrated 9/11” or “Vote for Torture and Killing the Innocent Families of ISIS Members,” but it might seem that way.
Ultimately, the Emory protesters were in the wrong more than others on the campus. They were seeking to stifle some of the most foundational speech rights. They were asking their university to condemn possible supporters of a man who might in fact be the next President of the United States. If anything, the protesters’ methods only added fuel to Trump’s fire. However, they also stumbled upon what will be either a lasting legacy or a disturbing memory of the 2016 election: a dramatic expansion in the boundaries of political speech.