Free Speech on the Campus
This is the text of a statement made byPresident Dickey before the EducationCommittee of the New Hampshire Houseof Representatives, February 24, concerning a bill to ban Communist andother subversive speakers from state institutions.
I WELCOME this opportunity to share my views with you regarding a proposal to regulate by legislation the appearance of speakers on the campus of a public American institution of higher education.
First, a word about the common ground on which public and private universities stand in this matter. My twenty years an an academic administrator have been spent in a private institution, but during this period I have been close to the experience of both public and private institutions. I am, of course, aware of various things that are different as between public and private educational enterprises, but over the years I have become increasingly clear that a free society such as ours will not be well served by a public education that in respect to education principles is shackled and compromised by political considerations.
A generation ago it was popular, particularly in private educational circles, to say with a certain sense of superior worth that private colleges were necessary in our mixed system of public and private institutions in order to set standards to which the public institutions could point and repair when the going got rough for academic freedom and free speech on the campus. I assume there was and still may be an element of truth in this private pride, but I am certain that the day has passed when any of us who care about the quality of all education in America dare fool around with a double standard of educational virtue in these fundamental matters.
From coast to coast public higher education is now the dominant educational experience of American youth. If those who enjoy this education have a bad experience with academic freedom and free speech during their learning days I am sure the day is not far off when every sector of American life, private as well as public, will in some measure be less free.
This brings me to what I believe is the first educational principle for all of us to try to hold onto, namely, in the most fundamental things the great teacher is the enduring "climate of the place." God knows, we'll all always have our troubles with stormy days and unexpected fog patches, but they will pass without ireparable harm if what I call the "climate of the place" is right.
I am sure it is fair to say that educators generally, whether in public or private institutions, regard open discussion as the most fundamental factor in a good educational climate. Any attempt, however well-intentioned, to restrict or regulate that open discussion from outside the institution itself is bound to be regarded as, and therefore in fact to be, a distorting and distracting influence that in spite of all else will pervade the educational experience of the place. Many other things may be arguable, but I hardly think it can be doubted that this must be the inevitable outcome of any effort by legislation to remove these matters from the responsibility of an institution's trustees, faculty, and academic officials.
A word about a few of the practical considerations. It is sometimes said that the prohibition of certain speakers from the outside does not prevent the faculty from giving students all sides of an issue. This is true as far as it goes, but as a practical matter you can never convince students that they are not being barred by such prohibition from an opportunity to come face to face with the real thing and to judge it on its own rather than on a second-hand report of it. Undoubtedly a few speakers come or are brought to our campuses primarily as a form of defiance or to raise trouble rather than for enlightenment, but whether this be annoying or just amusing immaturity, it is still infinitely better than to permit these elements on the campus to poison the climate for everybody by giving them a freedom of speech grievance. I personally don't care for the reasons some people are brought to speak, but I should dislike a lot more the reasons behind a policy of prohibition. And as for the consequences of the two courses, on any count the prohibition policy is all but certain to be both more painful and more harmful.
In any event, if foolishness in these matters is pushed to the point where it becomes manifest knavery, it is the part of wisdom to let the faculty and institutional officials deal with it on the spot rather than attempt to shield them from their own "business troubles" by some outside fiat. The campus has ways of working its own cures for this kind of trouble if it is not distracted by what looks like an overriding challenge to its fundamental principles.
Finally, a word about the fundamental principle behind academic freedom and free speech on the campus. I've come to believe that we mislead a lot of good people by talking about these as ideals rather than as down-to-earth working propositions that are just as basic to the daily work of education as the profit principle is to a man's private business. In a fine sense they reflect the ideal - "I disagree with every word you say, but I'll defend unto the death your right to say it." But if they're viewed simply as ideals they usually get less than their due in the market place of affairs where, for better or for worse, most men are accustomed to settling for less than the ideal and naturally enough they don't see why professors and students shouldn't do the same. However, when a man begins to understand that in the business ofhigher education these principles are notjust nice luxuries, but they are in fact theprofit principle of the enterprise, then we usually get to the kind of hearing we need.
In short, in this business of seeking that most elusive possession, human truth, we only make a "profit" insofar as we produce men and women who can face the best and the worst of human experience with an uncompromising determination to know and to understand. In this business to the extent that open discussion is foreclosed by outside edict the "profit" is gone from this business. I am confident that if we can help those outside the business of education to understand this working function of these freedoms on our campuses we will have little reason to worry about unwise measures that could impair or even bankrupt a quality enterprise of higher education such as our State University.
