We hear frequently about the hostility to freedom of speech on our campuses these days — people being prevented from speaking because an academic mob has decided that their ideas are “offensive.”
But there is another sort of free-speech problem, namely that of compelled speech. That is, people (particularly faculty members) being required to say certain things.
In this Law & Liberty essay, Professor George LaNoue examines compelled speech. He writes, “Free speech controversies are often focused on acts of censorship such as speech cancellations, speech codes, safe spaces, and bias response teams. There is another type of free speech issue, however, that receives much less attention: speech that is not censored but compelled.”
One example is the “land acquisition statement” that some schools insist that faculty members include. The statement informs students that the land upon which the institution sits was “stolen” from its true owners, the Native Americans. The language is silly since the school isn’t going to do anything to rectify the alleged injustice, but professors ought to be free not to put the words on their syllabi.
Another, of course, revolves around “diversity,” with more and more schools requiring what amounts to a pledge of allegiance to the DEI creed.
LaNoue writes, “A far more common problem can be found in required Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statements. Some dimensions of DEI just offer a counter interpretation of the more traditional American narrative and deserve a place in the campus dialogue, but other versions are much more coercive and require individual adherence to a set of beliefs which may not only be factually incorrect but trample individual conscience.”
I agree with LaNoue that it is time to challenge compelled speech in the courts. Public institutions cannot force people to say things without violating the First Amendment.