Last week, the Wyoming House of Representatives was presented with a bill that proposed the protection of free speech on college campuses which then died in committee without discussion.
House Bill 0137, titled the Wyoming Higher Education Free Speech Protection Act, aims to require community colleges and the university to comply with policies regarding the ability to freely engage in discourse on controversial topics for both administration and current students.
“This is an indirect, but undemocratic threat aiming to suppress free speech rights of individuals who serve in senior administration and directly mandates that UW and community colleges, as institutions, should not speak about ethics, values or norms for guiding our higher education community members in any applied or practical way,” Professor of Kinesiology and Health Christine Porter said.
“Most of the complicated problems we have to deal with in life don’t fit into one disciplinary silo. That’s part of what being an educated person is: to be able to apply the knowledge you have and the ability to decipher valid and reliable info from non-reliable and invalid info and apply it to situations you haven’t directly been instructed how to apply.” -Professor Virginia Vincenti of Human Development and Family Sciences
One of the provisions outlined in the bill calls for members of the campuses to take positions on controversies, but reduces the administrative voice in such issues and requires the faculty to remain neutral on the topics if they are not “essential to the institution’s day to day operations.”
In particular, this section of the bill has sparked disagreement among some faculty members, as they feel it asks campus staff to waive aspects of their constitutional right to free speech.
“Most of the complicated problems we have to deal with in life don’t fit into one disciplinary silo,” Professor Virginia Vincenti of Human Development and Family Sciences said. “That’s part of what being an educated person is: to be able to apply the knowledge you have and the ability to decipher valid and reliable info from non-reliable and invalid info and apply it to situations you haven’t directly been instructed how to apply.”
Porter agrees that instructors in the classroom are to be cautious on how they present controversies to students, but it is still their job to teach students how to think critically and be able to evaluate the quality of information and evidence being used to support supposed truths.
“There’s an implicit threat there or an implication there that professors or teachers on campus are frequently going off topic and indoctrinating students and I don’t know what your experience has been, but that’s not been my experience at UW,” Dr. Donal O’Toole of Veterinary Sciences said.
These faculty members agree that the provision being applied by HB 0137 to enforce neutrality and curb involvement in issues of local, regional or national concern, even if it does not directly apply to their area of expertise, is concerning and unnecessary.
“On normative issues, teachers should help students articulate and explore ethical claims, not pressure students about what their values should be,” Porter said. “However, putting such ethical guidance into state legislation risks hindering the free and open debate that this bill purports to support.”
The issue that remains in the wake of HB 0137 is how the administration will deal with the implications when the bill comes back through the House. Free speech remains relevant, but how it is approached will determine the outcomes of any individualized use of the First Amendment.
“I understand that professors and faculty are representatives of the university as a whole and any opinions that are off-base from, say, societal norms, represent the institution of Wyoming and look bad on the university,” said Benkelman.
Vincenti said, “Who’s going to decide what truth is or what truth we can seek or what truth is not right or appropriate.”
HB 0137 allows campuses to become safe spaces where students can approach issues from different points of view while not being taken advantage of by their institution.
