UNIVERSITIES have struggled to deal with offensive and discriminatory speech for decades, but new technology is creating new challenges as private comments become public on the World Wide Web. Recently, schools have attempted to deal with speech that occurs on the facebook, a Web site that places the social world of the University at students' fingertips.The most recent scandal occurred at Duquesne University, where a student was sanctioned for making a homophobic comment on an anti-gay facebook group. Confronted with a virtual representation of social divisions and prejudices within college communities, schools are right to be concerned when discriminatory comments appear on this site.But rather than punishing students for their views, universities should recognize the reality of prejudice and respond with productive dialogue.
Students have been expressing themselves online for years, but the facebook is unique because it is designed to reflect networks within a college community. The site allows college students to create profiles, select other students as "friends," and create online groups with other students. With new features that allow users to advertise parties and create photo albums, it seems that every aspect of college will soon have a home on the facebook. Thanks to this technology, and its wild popularity, students have unprecedented access to each other's interests and expressions.
The result has been a series of facebook scandals at universities across the country, including our own. Most recently, a student at Duquesne University faced disciplinary action after he started a facebook group in opposition to the formation of a Gay Straight Alliance at the Catholic university. Ryan Miner described gay people as "subhuman" on the group's message board, and when other students complained, the university ordered him to delete the post and to write a 10 page paper about homosexuality.
Miner refused to write the paper, and his case quickly attracted media attention as groups on all sides weighed in on the Duquesne's actions. In another era, Miner might have expressed his opinion to likeminded homophobes without consequence, but when his comment appeared on the facebook, the entire community was forced to deal with the implications of his thoughts. The scandal mirrors one that occurred last semester at this university when students complained about two facebook groups about Asians, "Americans for the Increased Importation of Asian Women," and "People for the Propagation of the Asian Fetish."
Confronted with speech that rightly offends other students, universities must respond without violating the first amendment rights of their students. When the prejudices of students are available to anyone with a facebook account, the lack of coherent policy becomes an even larger problem. While this University offers a monetary reward to anyone with information about who has been shouting racial epithets from cars, students are freely creating tasteless facebook groups about race, gender and sexual orientation. Most of these groups are created ironically, but they can still be hurtful to students in the targeted groups, and the University cannot realistically sanction every student involved.
Although comments like Miner's should be deeply disturbing to us all, we should discourage administrators from punishing students who express intolerant views on the facebook. A more productive response would be to acknowledge and address the discriminatory tendencies that exist among college students. The facebook didn't create tasteless jokes or bigoted comments any more than it invented partying; the facebook merely exposes this reality in a forum where the entire community can observe the prejudices that divide us.
The temptation to deal with these groups by shutting them down is understandable, but universities should allow students to have honest discussions about discrimination. Duquesne University has a problem much deeper than the facebook, a problem that stems from the intolerant teachings of the Catholic Church itself. Punishing Miner might satisfy those he has offended, but it does nothing to address the divisions within the student body. If Duquesne wants to productively address intolerance toward gay students, the administration should allow the Gay Straight Alliance and offer full financial and administrative support. They should allow other students to express their reservations and engage these students in a dialogue rather than assigning extra homework.
Students at Duquesne have already engaged in that discussion in their newspaper, in their classes and even on an anti-discrimination facebook group. These discussions will do far more to address widespread discrimination than punishing the one student who expressed his intolerance online.
Cari Lynn Hennessy's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at chennessy@cavalierdaily.com.
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