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Education Innovation

Studies in the First Amendment, Playing Out on Campus

Andrea and Scott Quenette at their home in Lawrence, Kan. Ms. Quenette, a professor at the University of Kansas, was criticized for using a racially charged word in a class discussion on race.Credit...Amy Stroth for The New York Times

Ask Andrea M. Quenette if she thinks that colleges and universities are doing a good job refereeing the debate over free speech, and she’ll respond with an emphatic ‘no.’

“Schools are not doing enough to protect free speech,” Ms. Quenette, a communications professor at the University of Kansas, said in an email. “Specifically, they are protecting the speech of some, those whom they fear or those voices which are loudest, but they are not protecting the speech of those whose voices are easier to silence. Generally, these quieter voices are those of faculty and staff who should rightfully fear for their jobs should they use unpopular, but legally protected, words.”

If anyone has a personal stake in the issue, it is Ms. Quenette, 34, who took a paid leave of absence after students criticized her for uttering a racially insensitive word during class. The word was spoken during a discussion on race and recent protests on campus.

Offended students wrote a letter calling for her resignation for use of the word and for seeming to suggest that some minority students who were dropping out were simply academically unfit rather than the victims of discrimination. The letter called her words “terroristic and threatening to the cultivation of a safe learning environment.”

Although the university cleared Ms. Quenette of violating its nondiscrimination policies, it denied her bid for tenure and said it would not employ her after next May. Joseph Monaco, a university spokesman, said in a statement that the decision was a “personnel” matter unrelated to the racial issues, but he did not elaborate.

Ms. Quenette and her husband, Scott, a software engineer, have joined a chorus of voices calling for stronger support for free expression on campuses — even as students themselves are often seeking some curbs on speech they deem offensive.

According to a poll recently released by the Gallup Organization, 78 percent of 3,072 students from 32 four-year private and public colleges believed their campuses should strive to create an open environment where they would be exposed to a range of speech and views. Twenty-two percent noted that “colleges should prohibit biased or offensive speech in the furtherance of a positive learning environment.” But 69 percent favored limitations on speech when it came to language that was deliberately upsetting to some groups.

An October 2015 survey of 800 students nationwide, sponsored by the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale, reported that 63 percent favored requiring professors to use “trigger warnings” to alert students to subject matter that might be unsettling. By a 51 percent to 36 percent margin, students also supported speech codes to regulate speech for students and faculty.

The controversy has brought disruption to many campuses. In February, a student at Gettysburg College, a small liberal arts institution in Pennsylvania, hung posters featuring a photo of a baby and the sentence, “Abortion is the number one killer of black lives in the United States.” It ended with the hashtag, Black Lives Matter. Some students demonstrated, saying that the posters singled out African-American women in an effort to promote an anti-abortion campaign. They also said the posters made misleading use of the “Black Lives Matter” slogan. In April, the school revised its Freedom of Expression policy, re-emphasizing the school’s commitment to free speech — even when the speech may be offensive.

In late May, students at DePaul University in Chicago stormed the stage while the conservative blogger Milo Yiannopoulos — who had been invited on campus — was speaking.

The fracases have left colleges struggling to figure out how to help students and faculty members balance respectful discussions about race and diversity with open conversations on difficult topics. They are asking: How can campuses best navigate inclusiveness and debate while being mindful of students who feel marginalized, disrespected and overlooked?

“These are complicated issues, balancing a commitment to academic freedom with these demands for censorship and the greater awareness of the negative impacts on people of hearing speech that makes them uncomfortable for whatever reason,” said Geoffrey R. Stone, a professor of law at the University of Chicago, noting that the First Amendment applied only to students and faculty members at public institutions, not private ones. At private institutions, he said, the issue is one of academic freedom as a matter of policy.

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Jonathan Peraza, a sophomore, led chants at Emory University in Atlanta after students were upset by sidewalk “chalkings” they said were threatening.Credit...Julia Munslow/The Emory Wheel

In November, the University of Kansas held a meeting on race that drew more than 1,000 people.

But during the event, a group of students took over the stage, saying that the forum was organized in an effort to silence voices rather than to listen to them.

“There is a fine line, and I don’t necessarily know where that fine line is,” said Harrison Baker, 21, a senior and a member of the Student Senate who attended the event.

In May, the City University of New York created both a Task Force on Campus Climate and a Working Group on Freedom of Expression. More recently, Columbia University in New York announced the creation with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation of the $60 million Knight First Amendment Institute at the university to promote free expression.

“Schools need to have statements that clearly express the importance of free speech on campus,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine. “Universities have to be about open inquiry and ideas. But campuses need to say, ‘We’re a community and we want everyone to be comfortable.’”

In the early 1990s, more than 350 schools adopted hate speech codes, he said. But about a half dozen were struck down as unconstitutional, and most schools had not written new statements addressing these questions.

In late 2014, Professor Stone and other faculty members created the University of Chicago’s Statement on Freedom of Expression, which was released January 2015.

“The 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 wrongheaded,” they wrote, in part.

“It is for the individual members of the University community, not for the University as an institution, to make those judgments for themselves, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas that they oppose.”

Thirteen schools including Princeton, Columbia and Purdue have adopted some versions of the Chicago Statement, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. At Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., a version of the statement was adopted by the faculty in February but was later vetoed by the board of trustees, which said it had legal concerns over the “uninhibited but still respectful exchange of ideas.”

“Right now, the faculty has academic freedom, but there is nothing that comprehensively guarantees students free expression,” said Matthew Hoffman, an associate professor of history at Franklin & Marshall who initiated the motion to get the Chicago Statement into the faculty handbook.

One school that received praise in certain circles was Emory University in Atlanta. A few months ago, some students were enraged by the appearance of sidewalk “chalkings” of “Trump 2016,” which many considered racist and intended to intimidate. About 40 students protested outside the administration building, and later met with the president, James W. Wagner.

In a campuswide email, Mr. Wagner wrote, in part: “As an academic community, we must value and encourage the expression of ideas, vigorous debate, speech, dissent, and protest. At the same time, our commitment to respect, civility, and inclusion calls us to provide a safe environment that inspires and supports courageous inquiry. It is important that we recognize, listen to, and honor the concerns of these students, as well as faculty and staff who may feel similarly.”

As for Ms. Quenette, who was unclear about her next career move, if the situation arose again, she said she would “absolutely” use different language. She said she had used the racially charged word solely as an example of how words could be used to discriminate or to victimize others.

“Although I never intended to hurt anyone or offend anyone,” she said, “I am sad that this was the outcome of my words.”

A correction was made on 
June 25, 2016

An article on Thursday about free speech on campuses referred incorrectly to action taken by the board of trustees at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., on a faculty statement promoting free speech. While the board would not adopt the faculty’s language as part of a universitywide statement, it did permit the faculty to include the statement in its handbook; the faculty statement was not “vetoed” outright by the board.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section F, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: Studies in Free Speech. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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