Hate Speech Doesn’t Belong on Campus

We are deeply disturbed by the fact that some UCSC students held a birthday party for Adolf Hitler complete with a cake filled with Nazi symbols.

It’s something we didn’t think could happen in this time and place and it’s seriously frightening that it did—and that the university has done nothing about it.

But it also tugs at our gut in another way. We believe in freedom of speech at almost all costs. It’s one of the things that makes this country a bastion of liberty. The right to speak freely is protected in the Constitution and the protection isn’t for speech we agree with but for all speech, especially that with which we disagree.

But where do you draw the line between speech that can incite violence or spew hatred in a university that is a temple for the exchange of ideas? And what should the school’s administration do about it?
We suspect in part that it’s more acceptance of antisemitism, something that frankly, we have witnessed at the school before. If students dressed as KKK members and feigned a lynching of a black person, would that be accepted?

Years back while I was working for Santa Cruz Patch, I covered a Hanukkah celebration on campus and while waiting in line at the ATM heard a group of students behind me use the most disgusting epithets to describe Jews, in plain sight of the celebration. It was chilling and heart-wrenching to hear from people who are supposed to be on the top of the educational food chain, admittees to one of the most prestigious schools in the country. Years later, it still hurts.

The best writing we’ve seen about the issue came from a UCSC student who wrote an editorial for Lookout Santa Cruz.

“UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive put out her own May 5 statement,” wrote Bodie Shargel. “In contrast to the clear, honest and deeply human message from Provost Abrams and other members of UCSC’s Jewish community, the chancellor’s statement was bland, naïve, and to me, infuriating.”

He calls the missive, which said the university was investigating the incident in relation to the school’s conduct and procedures, “rote” and “vapid” because it doesn’t explain what happened nor what the school may do. And he points to the growing amount of antisemitism on campus, including swastikas painted on buildings, and the lack of response from the school.

“I want Nazis off my campus,” Shargel wrote.

“Students should expect more from their university when their identity — whether it be ethnicity, religion, race, sexuality or gender — is under attack. We should be talking openly about this; I expect to see the administration doing things.”

We agree with his suggestions:

“Administrators should make clear the repercussions for such acts. I haven’t even heard the chancellor commit to expelling the students who celebrated Hitler’s birthday. Steps like these are key in showing the will to address this problem. The university has the right to expel students, regardless of whether they committed a crime, as long as the students violated UCSC’s principles of community, which the chancellor indicates they did. Whether it’s a class, a club, a dining hall or a dorm, students shouldn’t be forced to share spaces with Nazis.”

What do you think? Is this hate speech or protected speech? Should the University, in its lack of action be held accountable for condoning something so harmful?

Thanks for reading and please send your thoughts to [email protected]

Brad Kava,
Editor and Publisher