A woman shouts at Richard Spencer, the prominent white supremacist, during his appearance at the U. of Florida on October 19. Senate Democrats wrote in a letter on October 25 that President Trump’s rhetoric had fueled the popularity of hateful speech like that used by Mr. Spencer.
The U.S. Senate’s education committee will be tackling free speech on campuses in a hearing on Thursday. And Democrats plan to use the hearing to talk about the rise of hate speech and violence on campuses.
In recent years, and especially in the Trump era, Republican lawmakers and politicians have been eager to make a cause of fighting perceived censorship on college campuses.
The Department of Justice on Tuesday filed a statement of interest in a second case in which a student says administrators violated his First Amendment rights. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced during a speech in September at the Georgetown University Law Center that the department would take a closer look at, and weigh in on, such cases. The Tuesday statement provides further evidence that such intervention is likely to continue. “Freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack,” Mr. Sessions said in the speech.
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Joe Raedle, Getty Images
A woman shouts at Richard Spencer, the prominent white supremacist, during his appearance at the U. of Florida on October 19. Senate Democrats wrote in a letter on October 25 that President Trump’s rhetoric had fueled the popularity of hateful speech like that used by Mr. Spencer.
The U.S. Senate’s education committee will be tackling free speech on campuses in a hearing on Thursday. And Democrats plan to use the hearing to talk about the rise of hate speech and violence on campuses.
In recent years, and especially in the Trump era, Republican lawmakers and politicians have been eager to make a cause of fighting perceived censorship on college campuses.
The Department of Justice on Tuesday filed a statement of interest in a second case in which a student says administrators violated his First Amendment rights. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced during a speech in September at the Georgetown University Law Center that the department would take a closer look at, and weigh in on, such cases. The Tuesday statement provides further evidence that such intervention is likely to continue. “Freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack,” Mr. Sessions said in the speech.
Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, has struck a similar chord. “We all have the opportunity to use our bully pulpit and bring light to places of darkness where speech is not being allowed to be free and open and heard,” she told state legislators during an address in July at the annual American Legislative Exchange Council meeting.
The Trump administration was harshly criticized — including Ms. DeVos, by some of her own staff members — for not vehemently condemning white-supremacist violence sooner. In an email to her staff the following week, Ms. DeVos offered a forceful denunciation. “The views of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and other racist bigots are totally abhorrent to the American ideal,” she wrote. “We all have a role to play in rejecting views that pit one group of people against another. Such views are cowardly, hateful, and just plain wrong.”
Racist Incidents on the Rise
A spate of racist incidents quickly followed President Trump’s election in November. They ranged from white-supremacist posters, which have been found on dozens of campuses, to swastikas and other vandalism, to what authorities allege was the racially motivated killing of a black student near the University of Maryland at College Park. A BuzzFeed News report found 154 incidents of hate speech and violence on more than a hundred campuses since the 2016 election.
“We are deeply concerned that President Trump’s tweets and remarks have normalized bigotry, racism, homophobia, and misogyny, and that his behavior has fostered discrimination, enabled bullies, and threatened the safety of students,” the senators wrote. They also requested a briefing to discuss how the department planned to deal with hate-speech.
The slate of witnesses for Thursday’s hearing seems to reflect Republican lawmakers’ focus on how free speech is being limited on campuses. Allison Stanger, one of the witnesses and a professor at Middlebury College, was injured last spring when an appearance by Charles A. Murray descended into violence; Robert Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago, leads an administration that has decried the use of safe spaces and trigger warnings; and Nadine Strossen is a former president of the American Civil Liberties Union. The group recently defended the right of white nationalists to appear at the University of Virginia, which prompted protesters at the College of William & Mary to shut down a speech by the head of the ACLU’s Virginia chapter in September.
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But Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, will also testify. The center has been among the most vocal organizations in decrying the rise of hateful incidents on campuses.
Adam Harris, a staff writer at The Atlantic, was previously a reporter at The Chronicle of Higher Education and covered federal education policy and historically Black colleges and universities. He also worked at ProPublica.
