UVM’s Not-So-Free-Speech Movement
As has been noted here before, sometimes very smart people act in ways that are…oh, for now let’s just say that are not very smart.
As has also been noted here before, some of these very smart people are senior officials at the University of Vermont.
Their very-smartness is proven not simply by their advanced degrees, fancy titles, high salaries and sumptuous offices, but also by their obvious success as senior officials at UVM. The university is bigger than it was a few years ago. Its larger student body has higher SAT scores. Its larger faculty earns more money. The entire institution has a higher reputation in academia nationwide. These officials must be very smart people, indeed.
So why do they want to suppress freedom of speech on campus?
Well, that’s a stupid question. All people in power want to suppress free speech in their realms to avoid being criticized, ridiculed, and opposed. This instinct applies to governments, corporations, foundations, universities, churches, and the Kiwanis Club. So let’s re-phrase the question.
Considering that this particular attempt to suppress free speech on campus is possibly illegal, probably unconstitutional, certainly confrontational, and therefore doomed to fail, why did the very smart senior officials at UVM decide to make themselves appear to be not simply would-be tyrants but bungling tyrants?
In fairness, the University has not circulated a document entitled “Proposed Policy to Suppress Free Speech on Campus.” Furthermore, the document that was circulated by UVM’s Provost and the General Counsel’s office – the “Interim Policy on Solicitation,” has not been vetted by a lawyer for either the News Guy nor the UVM faculty. It is conceivable, then, that the policy does not attempt to suppress free speech on campus, but only seems so to attempt.
Meaning the folks who composed it brought trouble down upon themselves unnecessarily. Still not smart.
But not likely, either. Laymen though they may be, the News Guy and the professors can read. And if the words on the page are not designed to give University officials the power to decide what may or may not be espoused, opposed, posted, organized for (or against) or debated, they’re a mighty good imitation thereof.
To be sure, colleges should have policies restricting commercial solicitation. Students ought not be bothered in dormitory rooms, study halls or library stacks by peddlers of software, soap, or sandwiches. But this policy statement is not limited to commercial solicitation. It also covers “Noncommercial solicitation,” which “includes, without limitation, petition drives, public opinion polling, membership drives for recognized groups and organizations, preaching, proselytizing, political organizing, political canvassing, and political campaigning.”
For such activity, the policy says, “prior approval” of the University administration is required. As Alan Gilbert of the Vermont American Civil Liberties Union pointed out, “prior approval is prior restraint,” which is Constitutionally questionable.
Not that the university shouldn’t impose some reasonable restrictions on where political activity could take place; the petition-gatherer need not pursue students into their dorm rooms or laboratories. But on all campuses certain areas are recognized as public forums. At UVM, these would include the big bulletin board outside the Bailey-Howe Library and the Green between the library and the buildings fronting Main Street, including the massive new Dudley Davis Center.
But the solicitation policy asserts that “Because of its fragility and its designation as a historic landmark, the University Green’s availability for solicitation is limited.”
Come on! This doesn’t meet the laugh test. As pointed out by David Shiman, the education professor who heads United Academics, UVM’s faculty union, “the University Green has historically been the agora for campus and community,” the place where debate, demonstration, and, yes, even confrontation, have taken place. It is the obvious site for them to take place. Requiring individuals or organizations to get “prior approval” before expressing themselves on the Green would constitute a blatant inhibition of free expression.
(Full disclosure: The News Guy, very part-time adjunct faculty at UVM, is a member of the union).
To give the credit which is due (which is minimal) the solicitation policy does promise a version of “viewpoint neutrality,” saying, “(i)n those instances in which the University, through the official and deliberate action of authorized officials, chooses to open a designated forum for public expression, the University will not discriminate on the basis of the viewpoint of those engaging in expression allowed within that forum. Defamation, obscenity, and other forms of unlawful speech are prohibited in all instances.”
Oh, now UVM hot-shots proclaim themselves arbiters of which speech is and is not “lawful.”
And no “defamation”? The heart of debate is defamation. All authority should be defamed, starting with presidents (of the United States and the University) and extending to almost everyone else, including the writer of this post.
Besides, as Shiman points out, the “neutrality” pledge is belied by another clause stating that the “approval of solicitation activities will generally be subject to applicable time, place, manner, and subject matter provisions unless, in the considered judgment of the responsible administrative official, the proposed activities are unlawful or are likely to be disruptive, to cause undue interruption of the essential operations of the University, or to infringe significantly upon the rights of University community members or members of the public lawfully using campus grounds or facilities, such as rights of privacy, personal security, or reasonably unimpeded ingress and egress.”
“These grounds for denial,” Shiman wrote to the Administration, “are so vague that the clause about neutrality becomes meaningless. The University…asserts that they may deny permission whenever they want. This is unprecedented for any university, other than perhaps a tightly controlled religious institution.”
Not unreasonably, Shiman wondered whether one of the administration’s goals was to stifle union organizing efforts. Labor organizations are not official university-recognized entities, and under the proposed rules their on-campus activities might have to “be sponsored by authorized University officials…”
or University-recognized student groups or organizations,” which, he noted, could “have a particularly chilling effect for union drives.”
Interim Provost Jane Knodell said it was not her office, but the General Counsel’s office which was in charge of the solicitation policy, and referred the News Guy to Deputy General Counsel Tom Mercurio. Mercurio did not return a phone call, nor did UVM spokesman Enrique Corredera. They might not have had time. Or they might not have wanted to try to defend the indefensible.
OK, it’s an “interim policy.” Perhaps before making it final, the very smart people of UVM will remember that universities are and ought to be places of vigorous, spirited, even if sophomoric (after all, some of the participants are actual sophomores) debate. The folks who run universities should encourage such activity, not stifle it.
Otherwise, they aren’t even slightly smart.
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Tags: UVM
