WHEN LIBERTY LOSES OUT
Vancouver Sun, 02 March
2000, p. A19
by
Andrew Irvine
A
philosopher chastises the University of British
Columbia for waffling
on issues of free speech in the recent fracas involving
the debate over abortion.
Is
tolerating hate
speech ever beneficial?
Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is
Yes. But because we are so often reminded of the many potentially
harmful
consequences of hate speech, we sometimes forget that allowing people
to speak
their minds has its benefits.
For example, although hate speech
sometimes advances the goals of its advocates, it more often
effectively
identifies the hate mongers. And having done so, it allows us to take
issue
with what they say.
Who among us would vote for a Holocaust
denier such as Ernst Zundel if he were to run for our local school
board? How
many of us would elect Jim Keegstra to represent us as our MLA? Not
many.
In fact, were they to run, Zundel and
Keegstra would receive far fewer votes than the largely anonymous names
and faces
that we sometimes support as part of a local electoral slate, or that
we
support because we are dissatisfied with a current incumbent.
Simply put, we know what Zundel and
Keegstra stand for. And it is because we, as Canadians, have allowed
them to speak
their minds that we recognize they don’t represent either us or our
values.
Outlawing hate speech means that it is
harder to discover just who the hate mongers are. It is not a
coincidence that
many of those who advocate stricter laws banning hate literature also
advocate
the increasing use of surreptitious surveillance to help law
enforcement
agencies root out such people once they are forced to conduct their
business in
secret.
In contrast, if we as a society want to
know who they are, why not simply let them tell us?
Permitting
hate speech also forces us
to pay attention to social injustices, and to confront and address
hateful
stereotypes. For example, denials of the Holocaust have been a great
spur to
the careful historical documentation of Nazi atrocities. They have also
encouraged the pursuit and prosecution of war criminals and the
commitment of
resources to fight racism and all manner of other prejudices against
minorities.
These are no small benefits. As the
great 19th century defender of free speech, John Stuart Mill
recognized, truth
lapses into complacent dogma when it faces no quarry from falsehoods,
and
complacency often leads to inaction.
It can also be more difficult to
identify hate speech than we are sometimes lead to believe. For
example, last
November, a number of UBC students were caught on videotape overturning
tables
and ripping up the posters of a highly publicized anti-abortion
display. By way
of justification, some of these students have claimed that the
display’s
controversial comparisons of abortion to the Holocaust and to lynchings
of
blacks by the Ku Klux Klan constitutes hate speech. And it is for this
reason
that they believe that the display should not have been allowed on
campus.
But if something as central to our political
culture as the debate over abortion is to be curtailed in this way,
surely many
other controversial presentations will also have to be classified as
hate
speech. Controversial comments about immigrants, or about religious
groups, or
about the gay and lesbian community might all end up being be
classified as
hate speech.
Unfortunately, when it comes to
tolerating the views of others, it is too easy to think that everyone
deserves
the right to free speech, provided that they don’t disagree with our
own most
cherished views.
How has the UBC administration reacted
to this event? Unfortunately, rather than come to the defense of its
students’
free speech rights, UBC has decided to take a largely “hands off”
approach. In
documents filed in court last week, UBC stated that it would take “no
position”
with respect to those students who requested that an injunction be
granted to
protect their right to free speech while on campus.
With regard to larger issues, however,
UBC has taken a position. And for anyone concerned about free speech
rights on
campus, it is not an encouraging one. Not only has the University
declined to
assist its own students in defending their free speech rights, it has
also
taken the position that, while on campus, students have only those free
speech
rights that the University may choose to extend to them.
In the words of UBC’s lawyers, “UBC
recognizes the Plaintiffs’ contractual right to conduct presentations
of this
or other types pursuant to the terms of any license granted by UBC. UBC
does
not agree that in conducting the presentation the Plaintiffs are
exercising any
other contractual, common law, or constitutional rights as alleged in
the
Statement of Claim.”
It goes without saying that
institutions such as UBC have long enjoyed the right to enforce place,
time and
manner restrictions on public displays and demonstrations. Just as
guarantees
in favor of freedom of information don’t mean that I have a right to
read your
private mail, guarantees in favor of free speech don’t mean that you
have the
right to disrupt my classroom lecture, or to insist that the University
allow
protesters to speak whenever and however they choose. One person’s
right to
free speech doesn’t translate into another person’s obligation to
listen.
But neither does it follow that
students have no rights to free speech, other than those licensed to
them by
the University. In making the claim that, while on campus, students
have no
“contractual, common law, or constitutional rights” other than those
granted to
them by UBC, the University has gone well beyond its right to enforce
place,
time and manner restrictions.
In taking this position, UBC runs the
risk of compromising its central mandate, namely its duty to encourage
the
advancement of knowledge. And as such, the University’s position can
only serve
to further chill expression rights at UBC and on other university
campuses
across the country.
Andrew Irvine teaches in
the Department of Philosophy at the University of British
Columbia.
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