The Life of a Free Speech Task Force

On January 9, the DePaul community received an e-mail with the result of over a year of work by the Free Speech and Expression Task Force. The Task Force produced a document titled the "Guiding Principles of Free Speech and Expression." On David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com, Nicholas G. Hahn III, DePaul Conservative Alliance President and Task Force member, reveals what happened behind closed doors during the Task Force's deliberations and discussions.

Here are some excerpts from Hahn's article, "The Life of a Free Speech Task Force"

In the past couple of years DePaul has suspended, without due process, a professor who defended Israel. It has created de facto policies to prevent students from posting flyers opposing an on-campus event featuring the plagiarist professor Ward Churchill. It has also shut down a student-run Affirmative Action Bake Sale in which cookies were sold at different prices depending on the customer’s skin color because the campus left was offended. It later condemned the student group sponsoring the bake sale in a university-wide email. DePaul seemed to have no grasp of the freedoms vital to a university.

[Except] for concerns raised once in a while that our strategy of "no policy" may allow for any speech including that which is "offensive," the drafting of the Principles went eerily well. We even decided to examine existing university policies concerning speech and offer revisions contingent upon the new Principles.

[Sociology professor Ted Manley] and [law professor Sumi Cho] told us our Principles were fundamentally invalid because we lacked a diverse racial make-up in membership. Isn't it important to note the ideological diversity on this Task Force? "No," [Manley] refused, and pointing to the back of his hand added, "it is about this: skin color."

Bowing to Manley and Cho, the Task Force added some new members who met their diversity standard. Our newly assembled Task Force took up the concerns they raised. Not surprisingly, the new members were not only diverse by skin color, they were also ideologically in tune with professors Manley and Cho.

A university is not about feeling “comfortable.” The pursuit of truth is often the contrary. In fact, a university isn’t about “feelings” but knowledge. It is about reason and inquiry.

But they should not think for one second that they are advocates of free speech. Or representatives of what a modern research university should be. The real advocates are those students who give voice to their beliefs and fearlessly engage in the ideas of others.

20 January 2007 Update: Nick Hahn has been removed from the Task Force after exercising his free speech through the publication of his article. The Principles, apparently, have been unable to withstand their first test.