Hi, my name is Isadore Johnson, I am a senior economics major testifying on behalf of bill RSB-00247, the bill requiring a policy regarding freedom of expression on campus. I want to thank Representative Cheeseman, Vail, Fazio, Haskell, and Caroline Simmons, and others who want to work across the aisle to deal with this pressing issue. I’m hopeful that protecting fundamental rights can remain a bipartisan issue in the Constitution State.
As secretary of CT Young Democrats, and an active participant in local politics, I’ve seen how important it is to have relatively unencumbered speech, and a set of shared assumptions about the norms governing people’s interactions. I think some of the important civic assumptions about open discourse and disagreement have begun to erode, and it is incumbent on the legislature and other actors to restore a civically engaged vision of society…..
With that in mind, I have a couple of specific ideas I want to emphasize to better understand the importance of the bill in front of us today.
Colleges are grounds where students learn to develop intellectually, morally, and emotionally. Because the University of Connecticut is supported by the taxpayer, they ought to be required to push students towards healthy civic norms. After all, the big justification for state funding of universities is that they will produce better citizens…. Many of the norms, and ideas that students learn within college are going to stick with them for their entire life, good or bad.
I wrote an article decrying an inquisitorial role adopted by student government, and was met with a barrage of threats, shunning, etc. Students, in an inverse from Berkeley in the 1950s, claimed that speech was a euphemism for inequity, Rush Limbaugh is hate speech, and was thus disallowed from speaking further, and our student body president says that we don’t have the right to insult somebody, or say anything that negatively impacts’ somebody’s existence and their identity. These statements express that students don’t understand that uncomfortable, and even distasteful.
H.L Mencken, the great satirist puts it well, “It is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”
It should be abundantly clear that students know very little about the rules governing free speech in the world, as well as the workplace. Students think that free speech fails to include ideas that are offensive, uncomfortable, or otherwise bad. This pervasive belief, like other stereotypes, needs to be corrected…
In the same way that we intervene to protect civil rights in the context of colleges, we similarly have an obligation to protect the most fundamental of our rights, our rights to assembly and speech. We emphasize the importance of safely drinking, yet we ignore the risks of failing to socialize students to a free society. The legislature has a vested interest in preserving this right, alongside our republic.
College Administrators have difficult jobs, as demonstrated by the fact that UConn has gone through 3-4 presidents in the last five years. It’s not easy to stand down student intolerance, and whatever the policy ends up looking like, it should emphasize the fact that administrators have a challenging job, balancing rights.
Being clear and consistent early is the way to shape behavior, and that is what I’m calling on our administrators to do. Instead of winging it and being rated some of the worst schools for free speech in the country, we can forge ahead as a statewide leader in the field for free speech.
I urge the leadership to bring this to the house and senate floors for a vote, and to do the right thing.
Isadore Johnson's Website 