When Stanford University’s speech code was struck down by a California court this year, free-speech advocates across the country cheered. But the crusade against speech codes has little to do with free speech and much to do with an attempt by right-wing groups to convince the public that “thought police” are enforcing political correctness on the nation’s campuses. While conservatives complain about speech codes, they never speak out against far more dangerous threats to individual expression. On the contrary, some of the conservative groups that complain the loudest about the mythical P.C. police are leading efforts to censor campus life, especially by restricting the activities of gays and lesbians.
It is important to remember that despite the cries of censorship and political correctness, not a single person was charged with violating the Stanford code during its four years of existence. Yet a group of conservative students, aided by the well-financed Center for Individual Rights, went to court claiming that the code nevertheless had “chilled” their free speech by its mere unenforced existence. Even though Stanford’s was probably the most narrowly drawn and well-written disciplinary code in the country -- it required the use of “fighting words” intentionally directed at another individual for sanctions to be invoked -- the court held that it was too “broad” and violated the First Amendment.
Robert Corry, the leader of the Stanford students who sued, called the court’s decision “a victory for academic freedom and free speech.” Mr. Corry, who is now a lawyer for the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, also called the case “a big part of the battle over political correctness in the country.”
Yet while conservatives complain about unenforced speech codes, they ignore or participate in attempts to harass and censor gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and members of other campus groups they deem radical as well. Consider some examples:
* In May, the Iowa House of Representatives passed a bill with an amendment that would have prohibited public colleges from using tax money “to implement or carry out a program or activity that has either the purpose or effect of encouraging or supporting homosexuality as a positive lifestyle.” Its sponsor, Iowa Rep. Charles Hurley, contends that the University of Iowa “has an actively pro-homosexual agenda.” Although the controversial amendment was removed in the Senate, conservative legislators and Iowa alumni indicate that they plan to continue putting pressure on the university to restrict the freedom of gays and lesbians.
This is not the first attack on homosexuals at Iowa colleges. In 1993, the state Board of Regents decided (after an optional film about gay men was shown to German classes at the University of Iowa) to require all public colleges to warn students about potentially offensive material in their classes. The University of Iowa’s president imposed a policy that requires such a warning whenever “unusual and unexpected” material is to be presented. In one case, a teaching assistant was reprimanded for showing Paris Is Burning, a film about drag queens.
* Sodomy laws in a number of states are being invoked to cut off funds to gay and lesbian student groups. In 1991, for example, students at Auburn University collected 21,000 signatures protesting the administration’s decision not to ban gay and lesbian groups from the campus. The students contended that such groups violated state sodomy laws. In the wake of the protest, Alabama legislators passed a law in 1992 barring the awarding of state funds to any group that “promotes a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws.” Auburn administrators tried to force student groups to sign a pledge that members would comply with the sodomy laws. Although the university finally backed down after a public outcry, the threat is still very much present.
Similarly, in Texas, a conservative student group at Stephen F. Austin State University tried to deny funds to the Gay and Lesbian Student Association in 1992, charging that the group might promote pedophilia and sodomy, “in contradiction to Texas state law.” The student government voted 30 to 26 to cut off funds to the gay group, but the administration overruled the decision.
* Some administrators have bowed to conservative threats against the use of public money for gay groups. In 1994, when the University of Texas at Austin planned to spend $882 from student-health fees for workshops to promote safe sex among gay and lesbian students, the leader of a conservative faction in the Texas State Senate charged the institution with promoting homosexuality and vowed to cut its budget. Administrators quickly decided to use private donations to pay for the program.
* The College Republicans at Kent State University this year led efforts to prevent a course called “Sociology of Gays and Lesbians” from being offered. Although they were unsuccessful, the very attempt to single out a course on the basis of its name and subject matter is frightening.
* In 1994, Henry Gonshak, an English professor at the Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology, was under pressure to drop a proposed course, to be called “Gay and Lesbian Studies,” after complaints (based on the title only) from alumni and a local fundamentalist pastor. The college president allowed Mr. Gonshak to teach the course only after the professor had revised the course and retitled it “Differing Views on Alternative Lifestyles.”
* In January, Apple Computer, which had bought 12,000 copies of the CD-ROM history book Who Built America? for use in its computers in elementary and secondary schools, asked the historians who had produced the CD-ROM to remove references to homosexuality, abortion, and birth control. The authors recently agreed to a compromise and will remove the material from a software package for elementary schools but retain it for secondary schools.
Some conservative groups are targeting not only gays and lesbians but also other groups they consider to be radical. A 1993 decision by the California Supreme Court, holding that the University of California could not use student fees for “political” organizations, has given conservative groups ammunition. In April, the student government at Berkeley summoned members of student organizations to hearings and interrogated them about their political views, with the aim of eliminating support for any group deemed too political. As a result, several left-wing and a few conservative groups lost their funds and office mailboxes.
Individual faculty members also may face new scrutiny in coming months. The conservative group Accuracy in Academia announced in January that it would resume using “investigative journalism” to discover what individual teachers are doing in their classrooms. (A decade earlier, after much public criticism, the group had ceased asking students to spy on their professors.) In March, a host of luminaries -- including Lynne V. Cheney, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities; former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm; and Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman -- announced the formation of the National Alumni Forum. The group is urging alumni to use their financial power to persuade their alma maters to crack down on political correctness.
It is no small irony that conservative attacks on higher education -- purportedly in defense of free speech -- now present a threat to intellectual freedom. More often than not, the people who claim to be resisting political correctness actually are trying to impose their own form of correctness on gays and lesbians and leftists. Those of us who truly value tolerance on our campuses must speak up when it is threatened by either the right or the left.
John K. Wilson is editor of Democratic Culture, the newsletter of Teachers for a Democratic Culture, and author of The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education, to be published in October by Duke University Press.