Student Union
- By Pete Musto
More US College Students Choose Diversity Over Free Speech
Paula Molina-Acosta’s concerns for her own safety on her college campus first started to grow over a year ago.
Molina-Acosta is a student at the University of Maryland, or UMD, in College Park, Maryland - a Washington suburb. In the fall of 2016, students began seeing the words “Build the Wall” written around the school grounds. This was a term then-presidential candidate Donald Trump used during the 2016 election to discuss security on the United States-Mexico border. Molina-Acosta, who was born in Colombia, South America, says for students like her the words feel like a threat.
Then in March 2017, a student reported seeing a noose hanging in the official housing of one of the school’s social organizations. Nooses have historically been used as weapons against African Americans, and are still seen as a symbol of racial violence.
Two months later, an African American student visiting from Bowie State University was murdered on the UMD campus. A white UMD student suspected of the attack now faces charges of a hate crime.
In light of these events, Molina-Acosta says she wants her school to do more to limit speech and actions she says are hateful. The challenge, she notes, is balancing these limits with the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which protects Americans’ right to speak freely.
“We all have a right to … write or say what we want to, as long as it doesn’t incite violence,” Molina-Acosta told VOA. “And, of course that right has to be protected. But at the same time, ideologies like that are … tied to … racism … which is connected to inciting violence.”
Diversity vs. free speech
A new study looks at exactly the issues Molina-Acosta is weighing. The Gallup-Knight foundation study finds that a majority of today’s college students in the U.S. value diversity more than protecting free speech.
Released in March, the study is a shared effort from the research company Gallup and the non-profit organization the Knight Foundation. In 2017, the two groups asked over 3,000 college students from across the country about how much they valued diversity and free speech.
One major question was: “If you had to choose, which do you think is more important?” About 53 percent of surveyed students chose “a diverse and inclusive society” over “protecting free speech rights.”
Brandon Busteed, executive director for education and workforce development at Gallup, offers a number of reasons why students may value diversity over free speech. For one, the college student population in the U.S. has become increasingly diverse. Busteed points out that the majority of white students chose free speech over diversity.
However, Busteed argues that the preference for diversity over free speech is not the only important point to come from this study. He notes that 56 percent of the surveyed students feel that protecting free speech is important to a democracy. And 52 percent say the same about including and protecting different kinds of people.
So it is not like college students today place little value on free speech, Busteed says. But in some situations, students might feel they have to choose between the two.
“If you look at the questions we asked about them independently, they value both of them very highly,” he said. “But … if you value inclusivity and diversity, and somebody is saying hate speech about, let’s say African Americans students … now you’ve got two things you believe in that are in … conflict with one another.”
Free speech vs political correctness
Still, Nico Perrino finds the results of this study troubling. He is the director of communications for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which fights to protect free speech on college campuses.
Perrino says the movement to defend free speech has long been challenged by another movement: political correctness. The term relates to the belief that words or ideas minority groups might feel are insulting or discriminatory should be avoided. Critics of political correctness say efforts not to offend can be carried too far.
Many American college students identified with the politically correct, or PC, movement back in the 1990s, says Perrino. But he says the rise of groups like Black Lives Matter has brought renewed attention to it. The group campaigns on issues such as police violence against African Americans, as well as equality and understanding of the African American experience.
Perrino argues it is the job of universities to welcome all kinds of ideas, especially ones that some people might find problematic. Otherwise students may not be able to fully examine those ideas and possibly solve the problems surrounding them.
Also, diversity not only means including different races and ethnicities. It means accepting people who think differently from you, he says.
Perrino says he has no problem with debating or peacefully protesting. But he worries that limiting hate speech may become a form of violence itself. What is more, he says, trying to silence speakers who express hateful views may accidentally result in supporting them.
For example, Milo Yiannopoulos is a writer known for supporting ideas that many find offensive. In his speaking and writing he has attacked Muslims, feminists, people whose appearance he does not like, and many others. In February 2017, he was supposed to hold an event at the University of California, Berkeley, but the event was cancelled following violent protests. In the weeks after, Yiannopoulos’s book became the top seller on the website Amazon.
Perrino says students must understand that the U.S. Supreme Court has never provided a legal definition of hate speech. Therefore schools cannot limit a person’s speech, even if it makes another person feel unsafe. And that is with good reason, he says.
“The reason … is … the question ‘Who decides?’” Perrino said. “Who decides what speech is allowed and who decides what speech is not allowed?’ In the era of Donald Trump, if you asked he and his administration to define what hate speech would be, my suspicion is it would be groups like Black Lives Matter. It would not be, for example, the Milo Yiannopouloses of the world.”
Paula Molina-Acosta of UMD agrees that open discussion between people who hold opposing beliefs is important, and violence is never the answer. Given the choice, she says protecting free speech is more important than diversity.
But Molina-Acosta does wonder if there is middle ground between the two sides of the issue. She admits that students may not be fully right in their aim of banning everything they consider to be hate speech. After all, she is only 19 years old and doesn’t have all the answers, she says. But she also believes the next time someone draws an image related to Nazism, as was the case at UMD last October, university officials should take action.
See all News Updates of the Day
Tips for first-year international students in the US
Book your flights right away, get a U.S. phone plan, make sure you have linens for your dorm and attend orientation – that’s some of the advice international students have for first-year college students coming from abroad.
U.S. News & World Report compiled helpful tips for students studying in the United States for the first time. (July 2024)
Survey: Social integration, career prep are important to international students
A recent survey of international students in the United States found that before starting school, they were concerned about personal safety, making friends and feeling homesick.
Inside Higher Ed reports that international students want specialized orientations, peer connections, career preparation and job placement to help make their college experiences successful. (July 2024)
US advisory council ends Nigeria visit, signs student exchange deal
Members of a U.S. presidential advisory council have approved a student exchange deal between an American college and a Nigerian university as part of the council's effort to strengthen collaboration on education, health, entrepreneurship and development between Africa and Africans living abroad.
The council also visited a health facility supported by the United States Agency for International Development in the capital.
Nigerian authorities and visitors chatted with members of the U.S President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement as they toured a healthcare facility in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, on the last day of the council's three-day visit to Abuja and Lagos.
The facility is one of many supported by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, to improve the management of childhood illnesses, family planning, immunization and delivery.
The tour was part of the council's effort to promote African diaspora-led investments in technology entrepreneurship, education and healthcare delivery.
"They're doing a phenomenal job there, it really gave us a sense of what the healthcare system is in Nigeria," said Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the advisory council. "This is our first trip as a council to the continent and we chose Nigeria for a reason — the diaspora in Nigeria is very active, very influential, and they're really a source of strength when it comes to our U.S.-Africa policy. And so for us coming to Nigeria was very intentional."
The council was created by President Joe Biden in September to improve collaboration between Africa and its diaspora in terms of economic and social development.
Akila Udoji, manager of the Primary Healthcare Centre of Karu, said officials in Nigeria were pleased that the council members were able to visit.
"We're happy that they have seen what the money they have given to us to work with has been used to do, because they have been able to assist us in capacity-building, trainings, equipment supply and the makeover of the facility," Udoji said.
Earlier, the council signed a deal for a student exchange program between Spelman College in the southern U.S. city of Atlanta and Nigeria's University of Lagos.
Laurent-Mantey said education exchanges are one of the council's top priorities.
"In Lagos, we had the president of Spelman College — she's also a member of our council — she signed an agreement with the University of Lagos to further education exchange programs in STEM and creative industries between those two universities," Laurent-Mantey said. "And I think for us it's very important, because Spelman College is a historically Black university, and so here we are promoting the importance of collaboration between African Americans and Africans."
In March, the advisory council adopted its first set of recommendations for the U.S. president, including the student exchange initiative, advocating for more U.S. government support for Africa, climate-focused initiatives, and improving U.S. visa access for Africans.
The council met with Nigerian health and foreign affairs officials during the visit before leaving the country on Wednesday.
American Academy of the Arts College announces closure
The American Academy of Art College in Chicago announced it would be closing after 101 years of preparing students for careers in art and illustration.
WTTW news reported that like other art colleges, the academy saw enrollment drop after the pandemic, and officials made the decision to close the college last month. (July 2024)
5 killed, dozens injured in clashes over Bangladesh jobs quota system
At least 5 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate incidents in Bangladesh as violence continued Tuesday on university campuses in the nation's capital and elsewhere over a government jobs quota system, local media reports said quoting officials.
At least three of the dead were students and one was a pedestrian, the media reports said. Another man who died in Dhaka remained unidentified.
The deaths were reported Tuesday after overnight violence at a public university near Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. The violence involved members of a pro-government student body and other students, when police fired tear gas and charged the protesters with batons during the clashes, which spread at Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, outside Dhaka, according to students and authorities.
Protesters have been demanding an end to a quota reserved for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971, which allows them to take up 30% of governmental jobs.
They argue that quota appointments are discriminatory and should be merit-based. Some said the current system benefits groups supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Some Cabinet ministers criticized the protesters, saying they played on students' emotions.
The Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily newspaper reported that one person died in Dhaka and three others, including a pedestrian, were killed after they suffered injuries during violence in Chattogram, a southeastern district, on Tuesday.
Prothom Alo and other media reports also said that a 22-year-old protester died in the northern district of Rangpur.
Details of the casualties could not be confirmed immediately.
While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh's private sector, many find government jobs stable and lucrative. Each year, some 3,000 such jobs open up to nearly 400,000 graduates.
Hasina said Tuesday that war veterans — commonly known as "freedom fighters" — should receive the highest respect for their sacrifice in 1971 regardless of their current political ideologies.
"Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had," she said during an event at her office in Dhaka.
Protesters gathered in front of the university's official residence of the vice chancellor early Tuesday when violence broke out. Demonstrators accused the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student wing of Hasina's ruling Awami League party, of attacking their "peaceful protests." According to local media reports, police and the ruling party-backed student wing attacked the protesters.
But Abdullahil Kafi, a senior police official, told the country's leading English-language newspaper Daily Star that they fired tear gas and "blank rounds" as protesters attacked the police. He said up to 15 police officers were injured.
More than 50 people were treated at Enam Medical College Hospital near Jahangir Nagar University as the violence continued for hours, said Ali Bin Solaiman, a medical officer of the hospital. He said at least 30 of them suffered pellet wounds.
On Monday, violence also spread at Dhaka University, the country's leading public university, as clashes gripped the campus in the capital. More than 100 students were injured in the clashes, police said.
On Tuesday, protesters blocked railways and some highways across the country, and in Dhaka, they halted traffic in many areas as they vowed to continue demonstrating until the demands were met.
Local media said police forces were spread across the capital to safeguard the peace.
Swapon, a protester and student at Dhaka University who gave only his first name, said they want the "rational reformation of the quota scheme." He said that after studying for six years, if he can't find a job, "it will cause me and my family to suffer."
Protesters say they are apolitical, but leaders of the ruling parties accused the opposition of using the demonstrations for political gains.
A ruling party-backed student activist, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that the protesters with the help of "goons" of the opposition's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami party vandalized their rooms at the student dormitories near the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University.
The family-of-the-veterans quota system was halted following a court order after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh's High Court nulled the decision to reinstate the system once more, angering scores of students and triggering protests.
Last week, the Supreme Court suspended the High Court's order for four weeks and the chief justice asked protesting students to return to their classes, saying the court would issue a decision in four weeks.
However, the protests have continued daily, halting traffic in Dhaka.
The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, disabled people and ethnic minority groups, but students have protested against only the veterans system.
Hasina maintained power in an election in January that was again boycotted by the country's main opposition party and its allies due to Hasina's refusal to step down and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the election.
Her party favors keeping the quota for the families of the 1971 war heroes after her Awami League party, under the leadership of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the independence war with the help of India. Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975.
