Attacks on Free Speech are Undermining UConn’s Commitment to Diversity

I’d like to thank Professor Kenneth Gouwens for helping me edit this piece

I authored a free speech petition ten days ago aimed at protecting student’s rights to free expression at the University of Connecticut, and encouraged only UConn Students and Faculty to sign. We received 139 signatures in 10 days. This was accompanied by legislation requesting that the Undergraduate Student Government honor the will of the student body and protect student speech. 

My co-author in this legislation is Michael Hernandez, the current Student Body President. Hernandez was voted in during a special election (the previous president was ousted after accusations of racism). Hernandez ran on a platform of encouraging and protecting free speech. Consistent with this position, he has insisted that USG “must remain a non-partisan association,” which enables it to serve the student body as a whole. When this stance entailed his opposing a “Statement Denouncing the Capitol Riots and White Supremacy”—an overtly political resolution that included a call on UConn to defund its police department—he was accused of being a white supremacist: a slur perhaps made in ignorance of the fact that Hernandez is a first- generation Hispanic immigrant. His being vice president of the Connecticut Young Democrats presumably doesn’t count for much, either, with these critics: dissenting from their radical agenda is ipso facto proof of benightedness. This kind of crude binarism does not allow for the possibility of nuance: for example, a view of political positions as being on a spectrum.

Our legislation is crystal clear about the need to protect all speakers, including students, from political censorship. Yet its opponents overwhelmingly ignore the substance of the document: opposition to this bill has consisted almost entirely of ad-hominem personal attacks and conspiracy theories.

Under the original Facebook post where I announced the petition, one commenter pleaded, 

 “Please don’t be deceived by the wording. Don’t sign this. It’s a petition essentially asking USG to allow elitist, white supremacist, misogynistic and homophobic groups to spread their ideas on campus.” He’s not alone in thinking that. More than 40 people “liked” his comment, evidently unbothered by the complete absence from it of any evidence that might support his judgment. 

It does not take any particular courage to make such assertions, particularly when one can anticipate the approval of dozens of the like-minded. Nor does doing so require deep reflection: the sort of thing that, in fact, open discussion of controversial topics has been known to stimulate. We can take this post as “Exhibit A” of a knee-jerk attribution of conspiratorial intent to advocates of free speech.

Unsurprisingly, a similar accusation of conspiracy has been voiced by a candidate for USG’s new office of Chief Diversity Officer, a paid position created to censor those who disagree with the prevailing narrative. B Diaz alleges that there is something suspicious about who is presenting this legislation, and attacked our uconnforfreespeech instagram. While some may find its botched syntax and occasional incoherence distracting, Diaz’s post deserves to be reproduced in full so that its misology and wild misrepresentations can be systematically rebutted:

Let’s consider just the first three assertions in Diaz’s list:

1.  “Almost everyone who follows them is a white male.” At present, less than half of those who support the statement are white males. Feel free to count them.
2. “Including maga supporters and folks with all lives matter in their bio”: given that 46.8% of voters in the 2020 presidential election chose Trump, having “maga supporters” as signatories might be seen as supportive of ideological diversity: an extremely important kind of “diversity” that seems often to get ignored by those who invoke that buzzword. Yes, there are Republicans, including Trump supporters, in the ranks of those who advocate for this legislation. There are also Democrats and Libertarians. Surely this kind of conversation and consensus among those of varying political positions is something that we should cherish and celebrate if indeed we really believe in “diversity.”
3. “Some of these people (MAGA and All Lives Matter supporters) are the same damn people who took forever to denounce the capital riot…and failed to act on hate incidents within USG”. That there may be “damn [sic] people” among those who favor the initiative is irrelevant. Similarly, should there be a bad apple or two someplace in the ranks of campus social justice warriors (perish the thought!), that would not ipso facto discredit their shared platform.

I could easily go on, but why? Suffice it to note in passing that prioritizing “individual belief over community demands” seems rather like what prisoners of conscience around the world have been so bold as to do (human rights, anyone?). Most importantly, our proposal deserves to be weighed on its merits, not on whether “some” who support it do not share Diaz’s politics. Note how she attributes nefarious motives and uses guilt-by-association to condemn a movement for freedom of expression. Such an approach may gratify those who find it empowering to shout others down, but it is a sorry substitute for the give and take of free exchanges of ideas. It’s worth noting that our petition would not in any way prevent Diaz from expressing her positions: precisely the opposite! We would like to imagine that she could be convinced to extend others the same courtesy. 

Another opponent of the petition, Daniel for UConn, makes an argument that is similarly jaundiced, specious, and in places flat-out wrong. He starts by claiming that uconnforfreespeech is anonymous (our faces are literally plastered all over the Instagram). He asserts that free speech is not a problem at our college because hate speech is a problem at UConn (a non sequitur). He claims, on the grounds that some people use racial slurs, that our initiative is a ploy to prevent people from being held accountable for inciting violence (another unsubstantiated slur that bears no resemblance to the contents of the document).   

This proposal has more student sponsors than any other legislation in USG. Multiple law professors have endorsed it, as has the democratically elected USG President who ran on its tenets. Again, the bill has support from the UConn Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians. Yes, its supporters include “some” people with whom many will not agree. So what? That does not constitute evidence of an ideologically driven cabal that wants to vaunt hatred. 

Given the intensity and invidious assumptions of the attacks on our proposal, one might wonder if these critics have considered that their own speech might betray a modicum of hatred. Not without reason has the phenomenon of projection become firmly entrenched in psychological literature. Might virulent unfounded attacks upon those with different views on speech codes tell us something about those launching the attacks? Perhaps they should reflect upon their own speech and hold themselves accountable for it.

The brilliant thing about free expression is that accountability does not run contrary to it. Instead, free speech is a tool used to fight for justice, liberty, and equality. Free expression and first amendment rights were used to topple racial hierarchy, pass gay marriage, and give women the right to vote. Frederick Douglass, one of my heroes, once observed pointedly that “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.”

I’m sure my critics have some common ground with me. I believe that we both see the progress towards a better society as incomplete. We probably both see a lot of injustice in the world that we’d like to remedy. I have hope that in the future we may find ourselves pursuing shared goals. Meanwhile, I believe it’s crucial that our advocacy of “diversity” at UConn explicitly include diversity of ideas, not only allowing but celebrating one’s freedom to express views that run contrary to the preferences of any powerful political faction.