Table of Contents
Speech Code of the Month: Davidson College
FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for March 2006: Davidson College.
Attention, theater majors at Davidson: you’d better think twice before putting on a production of Guys and Dolls or Funny Girl. That’s because Davidson’s Sexual Harassment Policy prohibits the use of “patronizing remarks” such as “referring to an adult as ‘girl,’ ‘boy,’ ‘hunk,’ ‘doll,’ ‘honey,’” or “sweetie.”
I also hope that Davidson students are prepared for four years of romantic solitude, since that same policy prohibits “comments or inquiries about dating.” Good luck finding a date without making a comment or inquiry about dating.
Also prohibited, among many other things, are “jokes,” “teasing,” “dismissive comments,” “making [offensive] facial expressions,” and “wearing inappropriate or sexually suggestive clothing.” The policy kind of leaves you wondering what you can do or say at Davidson. And that is precisely the problem. While I seriously doubt that Davidson would actually discipline a student for staging a production of Guys and Dolls, this policy explicitly bans so much speech and expression that students must watch everything they say or do to make sure they do not run afoul of it. That is what we call a “chilling effect” on speech, and it is unacceptable.
Davidson’s homepage proclaims: “Let learning be cherished where liberty has arisen.” Liberty will not arise at Davidson until it grants its students the rights they deserve.
If you believe that your college or university should be a Speech Code of the Month, please email speechcodes@thefire.org with a link to the policy and a brief description of why you think attention should be drawn to this code.
Recent Articles
FIRE’s award-winning Newsdesk covers the free speech news you need to stay informed.
FIRE statement on Gov. Abbott’s campus anti-Semitism executive order
State-mandated campus censorship violates the First Amendment and will not effectively answer anti-Semitism.
May public officials block critics on social media? It depends, says the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court decisions vindicated FIRE on public officials’ use of personal social media accounts.
She’s back! Strossen’s new and updated edition of ‘Defending Pornography’ — First Amendment News 417
First Amendment News is a weekly blog and newsletter about free expression issues by Ronald K. L. Collins and is editorially independent from FIRE.
Cornell concedes small changes to otherwise substantially restrictive new speech policies
Cornell’s ‘Year of Free Expression’ is shaping up as a mixed bag — at best.