Is the University of Wisconsin At a Crossroads?

By Dr. Donald A. Downs

[Originally published in the Capital Times of Madison, WI, May 10, 2001]

Last week and this Monday a large group of administrators at the University of Wisconsin placed an advertisement in the two student newspapers stating their collective position on what has become one of the most vexing and troublesome issues on campus: the balance between free speech and racial sensitivity. The statement, which espoused the view that concerns about racial sensitivity should be foremost in the minds of those who intend to speak about racial issues, capped a semester steeped in conflict over the role of free speech on campus.

The conflict centered on the Badger Herald, one of the two student papers along with the Daily Cardinal. The Herald committed two acts that triggered turmoil. First, it published a cartoon that showed a member of the Ku Klux Klan unintentionally exposing flowered underwear beneath his Klan costume. Though intended to make fun of the Klan, many on campus considered the cartoon insensitive because it treated the Klan with a sense of humor.

The second act was the now famous publication of the David Horowitz ad that argued against paying reparations for slavery. When the Herald made itself nationally famous for refusing to apologize for publishing the ad, angry students held a hostile rally in front of Bascom Hall and the Herald headquarters. Their anger was spiked by the Herald's earlier refusal to publish a counter-advertisement by a multicultural group of students.

Horowitz also sent his ad to several other student papers. Most of the papers simply refused to print it, whereas all hell broke loose on those campuses where student papers shook the First Amendment dice. At Berkeley, the Daily Californian published the ad, only to apologize profusely in the face of intense anger. The only other paper to both publish the ad and not apologize was the Herald at Brown. (Perhaps there is something about that name). In the aftermath of these decisions, the Brown community was shaken by an extraordinarily tense campus dialogue marked by both brilliant analysis and sheer vituperation. The moral furies were loosed. (Check it out on the web: http://www.Brownherald.com) Brown appeared to be walking on a high wire--one false step could have spelled disaster. The debate at Wisconsin was almost as intense.

The Horowitz controversy has laid bare the cultural and intellectual splits that rivet the contemporary university. Whereas the Herald won respect for standing up for its First Amendment rights in the face of real pressure, the recent ad taken out by administrators has upped the ante, revealing the strength of a competing worldview that places sensitivity on a plane even with, or even higher than, the ethic of free speech and thought. Of course, this conflict has been part of the educational landscape for over a decade now.

That said, the recent events suggest that Wisconsin and other universities are at a cross roads of sorts. The nature and extent of the Horowitz controversy have been unlike anything we have witnessed in many years. Certainly nothing like it has transpired in my fifteen years at Wisconsin.

Over the years, the Herald has found itself the target of several attacks, including a potentially illegal takeover of its headquarters in 1998. But that incident went surprisingly unnoticed compared to the recent events. And never have such a large number of administrators deemed it necessary to take out an ad descrying the negative consequences of free speech.

In some respects, the University of Wisconsin has witnessed more free speech and free thought victories than any university in the country over the last several years. We abolished the faculty speech code in 1999 (an act that is still unprecedented in the nation); and after a group of faculty activists raised the issue last fall, then-acting chancellor John Wiley dismantled a program that had instituted anonymous complaint boxes. These and other actions have led me in the past to proclaim that the mantle of the free speech movement has passed from Berkeley to Madison.

But this proclamation may have been premature. The fact is that Wisconsin and other campuses are still struggling with how to handle the trade-off between the morally important principles of free speech and racial justice. My own position is clear: you cannot have any kind of justice without free speech and thought, to say nothing about a meaningful education that prepares students for the rigors of constitutional citizenship. But it is equally clear that many individuals--some very well placed--continue to disagree with this position. When speech is deemed too offensive to racial groups, a democratic society should countenance its limitation.

For years these two viewpoints have coexisted on this campus. We constantly endure a tense standoff. Can this precarious situation much longer prevail? Perhaps. Another interpretation is that one side has to give. Perchance the logic of free inquiry and speech will reassert itself over time as competing claims get absorbed into the melting pot of liberal freedom and knowledge. This has happened many times in history.

Or a deeper process could be at work. The model of liberal freedom and inquiry could be giving way to a new ethic. Early in the twentieth-century, for example, universities were riveted by the conflict between traditional religion and the emergent ethic of liberal science. After an historic struggle, science and the ethic of free inquiry won the day, and the nature of universities was transformed (with episodic retreats from freedom, as in the McCarthy era). The same process of change could be taking place in this era as various advocates of diversity and racial justice express an ethic of higher education that is critical of the color-blind logic of science and free inquiry. Free speech is valued except when it is deemed detrimental to social justice or group esteem.

A third possibility is to find a way to relink the principles and assumptions of racial justice and free speech and inquiry. This is the resolution for which I and most other liberals hope, as we fear the illiberal consequences of the growing intolerance of dissenting thought as much as we distrust indifference to justice claims. Such a resolution will not be easy. For starters, it obliges university leaders to show as much public respect for free speech and thought as they have for diversity and sensitivity--something the recent ad shows that they are loathe to do. Another intriguing and principled approach is something that students opposed to the Herald's viewpoints are now investigating: establishing a minority-oriented newspaper on campus to provide information from a potentially different perspective. This approach would be based on the marketplace of ideas, not calls for censorship.

Something more constructive has to be done. If we do not find a way out of our dilemma, we risk fulfilling Hannah Arendt's prophecy that freedom is the exception in history, not the rule.

[Donald Downs is Professor of Political Science, Law, and Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.]

To learn more about free speech issues in academia, visit the websites of:

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)

National Association of Scholars (NAS)

Copyright 2001 Issues & Views