November 8, 2007

Federal Court Strikes Down University's Civility Policy as Basis for Discipline

California State University cannot use its civility policy to investigate or discipline students, a federal magistrate ruled last week.

The case stemmed from an incident in which members of the College Republicans at San Francisco State University stomped on flags representing Hamas and Hezbollah during an anti-terrorism rally in October 2006. Later, another student complained to the university that the Republican group had committed “actions of incivility,” thereby violating San Francisco State’s policy manual.

The university investigated, and while nobody got in trouble, the College Republicans sued, hoping to ensure that the university could not use the civility code to discipline students in the future. The university’s lawyers contended the policy was a goal — not a rule.

But, just in case, the federal magistrate judge, Wayne D. Brazil, said he would issue a preliminary injunction barring the university from invoking the policy in a disciplinary hearing, according to today’s San
Francisco Chronicle. —Eric Hoover

Comments

1. Good for the judge. Free speech up the point defined by the “clear and present danger” standard trumps civility every time.

   — 11134078    Nov 8, 11:56 AM    #

2. No one has a right not to be offended. If they did, I would have had to have remained silent throughout my 30-year academic career. Now who would have wanted that?

   — arnold asrelsky    Nov 8, 03:41 PM    #

3. Maybe I don’t have a right not to be offended, but it should be done in a civil manner. Intellectual discourse should be civil if nothing else.

   — Chuck Haine    Nov 8, 04:12 PM    #

4. “A goal—not a rule.” Ah yes. As with the University of Delaware’s recent contretemps, it’s remarkable how quickly “mandatory” programmes and sanction-laden ordinances metamorphose into mere suggestions, diffidently offered, as soon as their authors are hauled into court. Of course, as a quick look at the relevant Standards for Student Conduct (online at http://www.sfsu.edu/~ospld/conduct/policies.htm — but who knows for how much longer?) makes clear, San Francisco State is hardly being candid with the court. Those who simply hold up laudable objectives for emulation do not typically, as do these Standards, threaten to “impose appropriate consequences” upon those who violate them.

   If universities would get into the habit of thinking of their students as citizens rather than children, most of these problems would not arise.

   — Gustave    Nov 8, 04:14 PM    #

5. Gee – that means I can be rude and commit acts of incivility and no one can do anything to me. How nice to know that my right to be a total jerk is constitutionally protected.

   — TDD    Nov 8, 04:15 PM    #

6. It’s a little more complicated than free speech. Should an institution, as a condition of admission, not be allowed to require its students to be civil to one another and to the faculty? Should there be any distinction between public and private colleges in this regard? And having set the requirement, should the institution not be allowed to enforce it according to some predetermined set of guidelines?

   Surely there is some limit to the degree of incivility that the typical member of the campus community should be expected to accept. Cursing at a professor during a class seems to go beyond the bounds, for example.

   — marshall w    Nov 8, 04:22 PM    #

7. Free speech should not be equated with incivility. They are two very different concepts. Perhaps if we as a nation could become more civil in communicating our differences of opinion, more citizens would find themselves willing to engage in serious, democratic discussions about important issues and come to reasonable compromises about contentious issues. So, free speech does not trump civility; incivility diminishes free speech.

   — Rick DeJesus-Rueff    Nov 8, 04:24 PM    #

8. What would have been the reaction if this had been an American flag? I think that no one but the College Republicans would have noticed.

   — Rob    Nov 8, 05:02 PM    #

9. It’s those darned liberal judges, legislating from the bench – issuing an injunction BEFORE anyone was harmed. Will the College Republicans be calling for this activist judge’s removal?

   — gfh    Nov 8, 05:03 PM    #

10. Free speech, yes. A childish act of petulance by the Young Republicans, ditto. Perhaps simple frustration that their right wing philosophy is diminishing in influence in our Nation.

    — Art Wegweiser    Nov 8, 05:29 PM    #

11. Striving for civility is laudable, but making it a rule is laughable. Who decides what is civil conduct? The leftists who run the modern university? I think not. Such codes — either for speech or behavior — have but one goal: to silence any and all who do not agree with the ruling class. In the case of universities, I think we all know who the ruling class is, and I think we all know who they want to shut up. Three cheers to the judge who says they have to listen to those with whom they disagree after all. It’ll be good for their intellectual inquiry.

    — DKM    Nov 8, 05:36 PM    #

12. Excellent!!!! Poor liberals got offended…too bad. That is the point of the First Amendment; freedom to be offended, and to make an ass of yourself. About time someone told those brats that they are in college to learn!! I remind my students this every lecture. In graduate school I had a professor tell me that if Mommy and Daddy stopped paying the bills, 90% of the student body would not be there. Coming from a small, private liberal arts school, I did not believe him. After graduate school and teaching at two large public universities, I believe him.

    — flaming conservative    Nov 8, 05:47 PM    #

13. #9 gfh: Well, yeah. Sauce for the goose will flavor the gander. It offends you that others are able to take advantage of the tactic you pioneered, right?

    Regards,
    Ric

    — Ric Locke    Nov 8, 06:06 PM    #

14. Does this mean people can flush the Koran at a public university? What if it is their own Koran? Cheers, Mark

    — Mark    Nov 8, 06:37 PM    #

15. “Surely there is some limit to the degree of incivility that the typical member of the campus community should be expected to accept.”

    The only time I have ever heard of ‘incivility’ as a limit on the freedom of speech, is when liberals are offended. I have never heard of the ‘incivility’ argument in regards to the burning of the American flag, an act which I find most uncivil.

    How novel. Lets stretch the limits of liberal tolerance!!

    — missesminka    Nov 8, 07:37 PM    #

16. 1. You have the right to be a jerk. I have the right to call you one.

    2. Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it.

    3. Reactionary anger yields only more anger. Hatred yields only more hatred. One would hope intelligent people would recognize the dynamic and act accordingly.

    — kgotthardt    Nov 8, 08:56 PM    #

17. Until now, I thought only Muslims and leftists had free speech. Hope the Judge doesn’t get in trouble.

    — Pat    Nov 8, 10:15 PM    #

18. #10 No more childish than burning an American flag, waving a flag for known terrorists, calling soldiers all kinds of nastiness and vandalizing recruiting and ROTC offices, or shouting juvenile nonsense like “Give Peace a Chance.” That last is both ridiculously childish and naive as hell.

    — Cameron    Nov 8, 10:56 PM    #

19. “Maybe I don’t have a right not to be offended, but it should be done in a civil manner. Intellectual discourse should be civil if nothing else.”

    Well…what if…one is offended by an ideology?

    Anything concerning government policy that a liberal says to me, I consider uncivil anymore.

    My door was slammed in the face of leftism years ago.

    — Al-Ozarka    Nov 8, 10:59 PM    #

20. Dr. James Watson’s recent comments offended a great many people. Was he uncivil, in any reasonable sense of the word? No, and furthermore he expressed — in a less-than-cautious manner — views that are entirely mainstream in fields such as population genetics, though far from universal.

    And look what happened to him. There are far too many people willing to define “civility” as “opinions that agree with mine.”

    — Linda Seebach    Nov 9, 08:37 AM    #

21. Linda’s comment about people defining “civility” as “opinions that agree with mine” is spot on.

    — Jethro Bodine    Nov 9, 10:39 AM    #

22. I think it is astonishing that we have lost our ability to examine for ourselves what is right, decent and civil. From all the foregoing comments, and indeed the article itself, it would seem that we need the law to tell us how to behave. If a law does not prohibit a certain act, then it is automatically good?! And if the law does prohibit a certain act, it is automatically bad?! Such uncritical thinking – and laziness, for yes, it is laziness when we take the easier route of just doing what everyone else is doing or behaving because the law allows it – will lead us into the forms of tyranny that have plagued history. We become pawns in the hands of those who legislate.

    — thoughtful    Nov 9, 10:49 AM    #

23. Ric (#13) – we’re on the same side on this one. I’m not the least bit offended. I am amused, however, that these kids were protected by a process they persistently denounce.

    I’d love to see panels of judges routinely toss out all sorts of crazy laws before people are harmed by them.

    Start with the entire “Patriot” Act.

    — gfh    Nov 9, 04:12 PM    #

24. Dr. James Watson is a jerk. He came to speak at my campus when I was in college, and he gets his giggles out of trying to offend those whom he considers ignorant, i.e. anyone who is not an atheist like himself. He is not content with his own non-belief, he has to be nasty to anyone with a conflicting ideology. Let’s not even get started on the man’s ego… and poor Rosalind Franklin…

    — Former EIC    Nov 12, 10:00 AM    #

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