Once professors retire and become emeritus, they retain certain campus privileges. These might include parking, library, maybe an office if there’s enough space, catalog listing …. stuff like that. This Faculty Retirement page from the University of Oregon is pretty typical.
Although the UO page doesn’t mention it, it turns out that retired professors there can also rent university space to hold meetings.
One UO emeritus, who seems to be a Nazi, regularly invites his friends to campus in order to exchange fascist salutes and get up to date on what other white supremacists around the country are doing.
So far the university has issued badly worded statements about what a disgrace this is. But you gotta wonder: What kind of policy forces a school to host brown shirts? I think it’s nice that the University of Oregon respects its retirees, but this seems excessive.
January 9th, 2010 at 10:26AM
‘“Mr. Marr,” I said, civilly, “I’m glad we live in a country where you’re free to express your views. I don’t think you’re a bad person….’
Buy yourself a clue, you dope. He IS a bad person.
January 10th, 2010 at 12:14PM
You seem to be hitting the same note you did a few days ago in the context of radical Islamic speeches in the UK: you equate a university’s toleration of offensive speech to endorsement of that speech.
UO’s first statement was the correct answer: these talks don’t reflect our opinion. “Groups such as this that use University facilities from time to time do not speak for the University of Oregon. Nor does the appearance of any invited speaker or the use of our facilities imply the institution’s endorsement, support, or even its moral indifference to the content of a message.” You describe that as “badly worded,” but it appears unusually straightforward compared to the pablum that usually comes from the pens of university presidents.
You ask “What kind of policy forces a school to host brown shirts?” In the case of GWU, a private university, it’s academic freedom and open mindedness. You endorsed those virtues when you wrote that you wouldn’t want GW’s president to ban any sort of speech. Although you were referring to radical Islamic speech, the principle would apply to the Pacifica Forum, too, wouldn’t it?
In the case of UO, a public university, it’s also the First Amendment. Once the university provides a forum, as by allowing retirees free meeting space, it can’t constitutionally regulate content. Contrary to popular belief, there’s no exception in the First Amendment for hate speech. The Brown Shirts enjoy the same free speech rights as English professors.
UO could expand on its position by specifically criticizing the reported statements, and faculty and students could protest the meetings or (more productively) express contrary opinions in other forums — in short, they could exercise their own free speech rights. What they shouldn’t do, and what you shouldn’t encourage, is to deprive others of their rights.
January 10th, 2010 at 12:47PM
Actually, what I should have made more explicit is my confusion as to why the university seems to feel it’s compelled to give emeritus professors access to campus for their meetings.
There are many ways, short of formally banning speech, to discourage behavior (and we can tussle as to whether a roomful of people doing a Nazi salute is speech) that is profoundly at odds with the values of universities.
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Here’s an update on the UO situation.
January 10th, 2010 at 1:18PM
Oh, OK. Content-neutral restrictions are more likely to be constitutional. That doesn’t eliminate the issue, though. If a public university rents out facilities, it can’t rent only to those whose speech it favors. So the same group could continue to meet just by paying the rental fee that anyone else would pay. And if the university provides free rooms for current faculty or students, the group would just need a different sponsor. Finally, a public university can’t impose unduly strict time or place restrictions, either. Lots have tried to limit “free” speech to a certain remote area during certain limited times. Fortunately groups like FIRE challenge those restrictions in court and win.