Changed my mind about free speech zones after last month

I used to think free speech zones on campus were fine, a way to keep things organized. But last month at my school, a guy tried to hand out flyers about the administration's spending just 20 feet outside the zone. Security told him to move into the zone or leave. That zone was this tiny patch of grass behind the library where nobody goes. It clicked for me that the zone isn't about organizing speech, it's about hiding it. Has anyone else had a similar moment where a rule suddenly seemed wrong?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_cameron26d ago

Happens with a lot of stuff once you see it. It's like those "quiet hours" in apartment buildings. Seems fair until you realize they only enforce them on people they don't like. Took me seeing a neighbor blasting music at 2am with no problem, but a kid practicing guitar at 7pm getting a warning. The rule wasn't about quiet, it was about control. Same with these free speech zones. They make a rule that sounds good on paper, then use it to shut down anyone who's inconvenient. It's a pattern where rules that seem neutral end up picking winners and losers. Your guy handing out flyers in a spot no one sees is basically invisible speech, right?

calebm4626d ago

Whoa, hold on. I gotta push back on this a little. The thing with quiet hours is that they HAVE to be enforced subjectively because noise complaints are almost always he-said-she-said. The kid practicing guitar at 7pm might have been doing it way louder than the guy at 2am, or maybe the neighbor has beef with the kid's family. It sucks when it's unfair, but that's more about the people enforcing the rule being inconsistent, not the rule itself being about control. Free speech zones are definitely trickier, but even then, they usually exist to keep crowds from blocking sidewalks or causing traffic, not to silence anyone specifically. It's more like a messy compromise than a secret plot.