Promoting Inclusion Through Exclusion: Higher Education's Assault on the First Amendment

17 Pages Posted: 18 Sep 2015 Last revised: 27 Apr 2016

See all articles by Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Georgia College and State University; Assistant Professor of Public Law

Date Written: September 16, 2015

Abstract

To obtain a meaningful educational experience and achieve the benefits of a diverse student body, students should confront beliefs they find abhorrent and discuss topics that bring discomfort. As it stands now, universities are transforming classrooms and campuses into sanctuaries for the over-sensitive and shelters for the easily-offended. In so doing, higher education is embracing a new, and bizarre, form of homogeneity that subtly coerces faculty members and students into restricting, not expressing, their views, and creating a climate that favors less, not more, expressive conduct. This approach undermines First Amendment values and further divorces higher education from the real world.

The purpose of attending college or graduate school is not merely to acquire knowledge or develop expertise in a chosen field. Students must learn how to interact with people, how to cope with distasteful behavior, and how to learn and respond to adversity. When universities avoid rather than acknowledge the world in which we live, they implicitly cultivate a mindset that views diversity as less, not more, desirable, and that shuns, rather than embraces, a true marketplace of ideas where all viewpoints are welcomed. In a society that values democracy, autonomy, and individuality, nothing is more poisonous or antithetical to the pursuit of knowledge.

Keywords: free speech, first amendment, higher education, Title VII

JEL Classification: K30

Suggested Citation

Lamparello, Adam and Lamparello, Adam, Promoting Inclusion Through Exclusion: Higher Education's Assault on the First Amendment (September 16, 2015). University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2016, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2661723 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2661723

Adam Lamparello (Contact Author)

Assistant Professor of Public Law ( email )

Georgia College and State University ( email )

Milledgeville, GA 31061-0490
United States

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