In Defense of Free Speech for Exeter

Last Friday, Principal Rawson sent out an email to the school community outlining the Academy’s response to the incident at this Halloween’s costume contest. In it, he expressed the Academy’s willingness to meet all four demands made by La Alianza Latina (LAL): (1) “transparent, thorough, and frequent cultural competency training for all adults on campus, (2) “a response from the Academy reinforcing our school values and principles,” (3) “an explicit policy clarifying boundaries of political speech by faculty and staff,” and (4) “continued, impactful conversations on our community values and how we can maintain them.”

Firstly, I ought to say that I find these goals quite laudable, and am frankly amazed at the student body’s effectiveness in pushing for change; within a day, LAL, ALES and others reached an agreement with school administration. It is a powerful display of our student body’s strength, and one that ought not be derided.

Having said this, I am interested in seeing how school administration will go about implementing the third demand, “an explicit policy clarifying boundaries of political speech by faculty and staff.” On face value, I am not necessarily opposed to such a policy. After all, the excessive politicization of the classroom by teachers risks stifling dissenting opinions, isolating students with divergent thought and stepping over emotional landmines. In an academic setting, there absolutely could be a reason to limit, at least to a degree, political speech. And I should further note that the school, as a private institution, is absolutely in its right to do so.

Now, of course, the question turns to where these “boundaries of political speech” are drawn. For instance, I don’t think anyone would object to faculty and staff members facilitating political discussions, even to the point of acknowledging the merits of certain opinions. I also think it would be farcical to deny faculty or staff members the ability to express their own political opinions; some of my most insightful and respectful political discussions on this campus have happened with my teachers. The school has even taken stances on certain political issues, or at the very least implied as much. So, I think a vast majority are in agreement that faculty members should retain freedom to express at least some opinions.

Then what is the nature of these boundaries? If we’re not comfortable with a fascist or a Stalinist faculty or staff member expressing their political views, but are comfortable with moderate conservatives, at least, where do Trump supporters fall? From those who I’ve talked to, it seems that many wish to draw a distinction between Trump supporters and conservatives more generally; they see every right to restrict the former, but do not intend to quiet the Never Trumpers in quite the same way.

This raises immediate problems, in my estimation. Firstly, I do not believe that one needs be racist to vote for Donald Trump, and I am not willing to write off half of the country as racist. And I think most of the campus would agree on this point. As much as Trump himself makes racially-charged statements, some of which have provided cover and legitimacy to racists, and as much as I oppose Donald Trump, there are reasons people have to support him.

Many Americans felt left behind by the political status quo, for a variety of reasons, and saw Trump as an outsider, ready to bang the keyboard until he hit upon the change they needed. Others supported his economic policies, and still others supported his stances on social issues for non-racist reasons: opposition to abortion is not a racist stance, for instance.

Sure, you may decide that these are bad reasons to support Trump, and frankly, I agree, but that is a terrible way to go about constructing a policy about free speech. Given the demographics of Exeter’s campus, which The Exonian found to be the most liberal of the Eight Schools Association per its yearly survey, and given that I have not heard one Assembly delivered from a conservative point of view at this Academy, I have reason to doubt that such a policy would be implemented fairly or with respect for diversity of opinion. It could very easily slide into a gag rule against conservatives and those with other divergent opinions.

If your intent is to limit political speech that invokes racist rhetoric about issues like the Wall or the Muslim ban, then the school should tackle racially charged speech or attacks on personhood. Such speech has different defining characteristics, though there may be some overlap—political speech relates to any topic at play in the modern political arena, whereas racially-charged speech refers to any sort of speech, political or not, that invokes racially-charged language. Is some racially-charged speech political? Yes. But we ought to draw a distinction between the two.

The issue in this case seemed to be that the message the costume sent was perceived as an attack on personhood. Then address the issue at hand, I say, which is not per se political speech by faculty and staff members, but rather, racially-charged speech. Thus, to limit political speech would not be particularly relevant to the case and would misconstrue the problem at hand. Impose explicit regulation on speech that invokes racial stereotypes or tropes. It is far more potent and meaningful for our community.