Free Expression at Mizzou: Commitment to Free Expression

University of Missouri - Columbia

  • Speech Code Rating
    Green
  • Speech Code Category
    Advertised Commitments to Free Expression
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Because the University of Missouri (“University”) is committed to free and open inquiry in all matters, it is uncompromising in its efforts to provide all members of the University’s academic enterprise the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn. Except insofar as limitations on that freedom are necessary to the functioning of the University, the University fully respects and supports the freedom of all members of the academy “to discuss any problem that presents itself.”

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[T]he University’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed. Individual members of the University community, not the University as an institution, should make their own moral judgments about the content of constitutionally protected speech, and should express these judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas they oppose. Indeed, fostering the ability of members of the University community to engage in such debate and deliberation in an effective and responsible manner is an essential part of the University’s educational mission.

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