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Hate Speech On Campus

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Hate Speech On Campus
Free speech is one of the most controversial and confusing of the amendments. Throw it into a college campus setting and it’s an extremely complex matter, especially when “Hate Speech” is involved. Many people have different views and definitions on what hate speech in tales, for instance in “Hate Speech on Campus”, Joseph S. Tuman, defines it as “Written or spoken words directed towards a particular group (typically although not exclusively a minority group) with the purpose or effect of verbally harassing and harming them” (413). A personal interpretation of hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. With this being said, hate speech is a form of free speech. By removing, or writing codes …show more content…
Even though there has been a large increase in the number of hate speech codes in colleges and universities, the increase in the amount of hate speech incidents across the nation shows that these guidelines have be ineffective. Ben Wildavsky the author of “Rethinking Campus Speech Codes”, talks about how “campus wars over race and gender have hardly died down”, and that the “speech codes have done little to ease tension” (415). Hate speech codes attempt to create a safer more politically correct environment on college campuses by setting forth guidelines for students to follow, but they are failing miserably. The guidelines are so vague that “several major universities have been held unconstitutional”, for trying to write campus speech codes. For instance:
 In 1989, a federal judge overturned parts of the University of Michigan’s speech 
 code after a biopsychology graduate student said he feared the rules would prevent 
 him from discussing controversial theories about biological differences among the 
 sexes and races (Wildavsky 415). 
Making students follow the hate speech codes is a violation of their First Amendment which entitles

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