Guest: Free speech is central to Oklahoma's higher education system
Recent headlines underscore the fact that free expression is under attack on college campuses nationwide: “Cancel Culture Causes Confusion on College Campuses,” “Academic Freedom and Religious Rights Clash” and “Law Schools Face Free Speech Reckoning.” Seemingly every day, a new story appears detailing yet another instance of the denial of free speech on college campuses — Yale and Harvard, Duke and Georgetown, William & Mary and UCLA, to name a few.
Within the past decade, examples abound. A crowd of students at Claremont McKenna College prevented fellow students, faculty and others from attending a pro-police lecture by Heather MacDonald, of the Manhattan Institute. Middlebury College students prevented conservative political scientist Dr. Charles Murray from speaking there and even assaulted and injured the professor assigned to interview him. A dozen individuals at William & Mary shouted down the director of the Virginia Chapter of the ACLU, who, ironically, planned to speak on college students’ First Amendment rights. At Rutgers, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was disinvited to speak during commencement for her conservative views.
Last April, the Oklahoma Legislature took a significant step to ensure that our state’s higher education system protects free expression on its college campuses when Gov. Kevin Stitt signed into law House Bill 3543, creating the Oklahoma Free Speech Committee to the State Regents for Higher Education. The state regents then adopted a version of the so-called Chicago Principles, committing to the tenet that colleges and universities may not suppress debate or deliberation because the ideas put forth are thought by some to be offensive, unwise, immoral or wrong-headed.
The law empowers the Free Speech Committee to take the necessary steps to implement the policy to protect free expression, reviewing each public institution of higher education’s free speech policies and recommending improvements where warranted. Additionally, the committee is developing a biennial First Amendment training for deans, department heads and other individuals responsible for enforcing free speech rights at public colleges. Notably, the committee also will implement a process for reviewing complaints of free speech deprivations and advising complainants of their rights.
The committee is politically and personally diverse. But the members are united in their unwavering commitment “to the principle that freedom of expression lies at the core of the Oklahoma System of Higher Education.”
Some say a commitment to free and open inquiry on all matters is not enough for today’s college campuses. Perhaps more could be done. However, everything starts with an idea. Oklahomans can be proud that our state leaders have made freedom of expression a paramount guiding value of our public colleges and universities, thereby committing them to respect the right to freely formulate, express and debate ideas.
Andy Lester chairs the Oklahoma Free Speech Committee created by the passage last session of HB 3543. He is former U.S. magistrate judge for the Western District of Oklahoma, and former member of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. He currently has an active civil litigation and appellate practice at Spencer Fane law offices in Oklahoma City.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Guest: Free speech should be a guiding value for Oklahoma colleges
