When I was in grad school from 1993-1995, policies against “hateful speech” were all the rage on college campuses, especially in the northeast. Respected universities (including the Ivy League and the Seven Sisters) that once had been bastions of free expression and the exchange of ideas, became timid creatures wherein the least off-color remark could lead to firing or loss of tenure or expulsion.
The thinking behind the codes was that sensitive students couldn’t learn if they were in an “oppressive” environment of “hateful speech.” This GD can be about whether that’s a valid position.
By the time the speech code concept had spread to the South and my school, the University of Georgia, the backlash was already beginning, and the local outcry was such that the proposed code was never adopted.
Six years later, are the codes still in place at the schools that had them? I’ve heard nothing about them in years, but my current life is now far from the halls of academe.