Writing in Pepperdine University's student newspaper The Graphic, perspectives editor Brittany Yearout welcomes the impending release of Indoctrinate U, Evan Coyne Maloney's hardhitting new film about censorship and ideological partisanship on American campuses.
Among the film's many topics, Maloney explores the issue of speech codes, controversial policies that aim to "protect" students from offence by restricting what can be said, displayed, written, read, and performed on campus. And speech codes are certainly an issue at Yearout's school. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which tracks speech codes in its comprehensive Spotlight database, has awarded Pepperdine a condemnatory "red light" because its policies so severely curtail student expression. Yearout explains:
More than 90 percent of colleges, both public and private, abide by restrictive speech codes and only about 9 percent of schools in the United States fully allow free speech, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education (FIRE), an organization that defends and sustains students' rights at America's colleges and universities."We surveyed over 330 schools and found that an overwhelming majority of them explicitly prohibit speech that, outside the borders of campus, is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution," Emily Guidry, the attorney and Media Director for FIRE, wrote in an e-mail.
Fire rated Pepperdine University as a "red light," meaning it has at least one policy that clearly and directly restricts freedom of speech. Although I can't speak for every student, and based on most of my classes I don't think that this is a huge problem at Pepperdine, however, there have been some cases.
Maloney said the question is: Does Pepperdine University make it clear to students during the admissions process as to what particular ideology or traditions are upheld. If the school is honest, then nothing is wrong, because the prospective student effectively knows what type of environment in which they will be learning.
"Part of the problem is that in the admissions process all the glossy brochures talk about the pursuit of intellectual enrichment and being able to engage in intellectual discourse," Maloney said. "But then the students get to school and find out they can't actually do that."
As a private Christian university, Pepperdine is not obliged to honor the First Amendment, as are all state schools. But by openly stating its beliefs "That truth, having nothing to fear from investigation, should be pursued relentlessly in every discipline" and "That freedom, whether spiritual, intellectual, or economic, is indivisible," the university creates a contractual agreement to respect its students' individual and academic freedoms, an agreement it then promptly violates with a speech code prohibiting the "exhibition, possession, or distribution of material or representations deemed to be obscene or contrary to the moral standards and/or mission of the University, including, but not limited to, pornography." Lest you think Pepperdine is joking, it recently disciplined Sigma Nu fraternity brothers for wearing T-shirts bearing the punning slogan "Get Nu'de in Malibu." When a university goes so far as to ban puns on the word "nude," it would seem that freedom is very divisible indeed.
More than 360 years ago, John Milton, that most profoundly Christian of English poets, argued in his polemical Areopagitica against the 1643 Licensing Order, a parliamentary ordinance that effectively gave the Oxford University chancellor the authority to censor any book deemed "contrary to ... the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England" -- wording that uncannily echoes Pepperdine's twenty-first century speech code. But Milton understood that Christian values are only truly Christian when freely chosen and vigorously defended in open debate, and not when protected through a regime of censorship. "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties," he thus wrote -- and his rallying cry for individual and intellectual freedom still has extraordinary resonance today.
When Indoctrinate U premieres in Washington, D.C., on September 28th, we hope it will inspire more students to investigate whether their schools are genuinely committed to freedom -- or just to good marketing soundbites. Visit Indoctrinate U's official website for more information about the film, and to request a screening in your area.