The conversation around free speech on college campuses is nothing new. From the 1960s in Berkeley to protests surrounding the war in Gaza today, universities are hotbeds of expression. While the First Amendment protects even the most offensive speech, when it takes place in educational spaces, students, faculty, and policymakers must ask the question: How far is too far?
Recently, preacher Adam LaCroix was caught on camera using the N-word in response to a student on campus, sparking debate. Legally, FGCU is a public campus, meaning that visitors and students can exercise free speech in accordance with federal and state laws, as well as FGCU’s policies. Yet, students feel FGCU has a responsibility to provide a safe environment on campus.
These conversations around campus aren’t new. In 2016, FGCU students organized a rally on campus as a result of the university failing to investigate racial slurs and hate speech that were left on a whiteboard overnight.
Could it be that the most important thing is really us talking, or was this just rhetoric to assuage students’ anger?
When we are faced with an exigency, how do we respond? Do we wait until anger recedes?
No, anger is a driving force. Anger means that we are passionate enough about justice to be moved into action by an injustice. When our country’s forefathers wrote the First Amendment and decided it was important enough to be first, did they do so passively? No, they did it out of anger after living under English laws prohibiting speech critical of their government.
Over the years, anger has received a bad reputation, and we’ve lost the ability to hold both anger and respect in our hands. But, as a generation, the decision is ours on how we respond.
This balance is delicately articulated in the Supreme Court’s decision in Snyder v. Phelps, when Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and—as it did here—inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation, we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”
While incredibly offensive and disheartening, I also cannot ignore the fact that LaCroix’s words force us as students to navigate tough questions and decide how we want to respond as the next generation.
According to the State University System of Florida’s 2022 Civil Discourse Report, “A fundamental purpose of an institution of higher education is to provide a learning environment where divergent ideas, opinions, and philosophies, new and old, can be rigorously debated and critically evaluated.”
Can free speech be taken too far? Maybe. But, instead of focusing only on whether it crosses a line, we should ask: Are we willing to engage with it when it does? At its best, free speech empowers us. At its worst, it can inflict great pain. In both cases, it creates an opportunity—an opportunity to understand one another better, to challenge and create real change.
