Cal State Faculty Senate Rejects Speech Limits : Teaching: A proposed code to ban the use of discriminatory language against minorities was voted down after more than 2 hours of debate at Northridge campus.

The Cal State Northridge Faculty Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to impose a speech code banning the use of discriminatory language against racial minorities, gays and other groups.

After more than two hours of debate, the senate voted 43 to 12 not to endorse a “policy against discriminatory harassment” developed by a task force appointed by President James Cleary. Seven faculty members abstained from voting.

“I don’t want to have to go to class wondering if my muzzle is in place,” said Robert Gohstand, a geography professor.

“Taming one’s tongue is a challenge at the best,” said Nicolas Breit, a professor of kinesiology and physical education.

The senate’s action kills any attempt to impose the policy, which was proposed by a group of faculty members and students who maintain that a university’s mission is to safeguard the civil rights of students by providing a learning environment free of racism and bigotry.

Although Cleary has the right to enact such speech prohibitions, a CSUN spokeswoman said the campus president would not do so after the measure was defeated by faculty leaders.

The proposal called for the establishment of an informal committee of students, faculty and administrators to mediate complaints of people who say they have been harassed. The committee would have had no power to discipline those brought before it, but could have referred complaints brought before it to the university’s affirmative action office, which has the authority to punish violators of university discrimination policy.

Jeannette Mann, CSUN’s affirmative action coordinator who helped write the policy, said the committee studied other policies and attempted to strike a balance between free speech and civil rights.

“It isn’t intended to curtail the free flow of ideas,” she said. But opponents of the policy argued that a university, above all, should protect the 1st Amendment guarantee of free speech.

“I’m bothered by the whole notion of political correctness on campus,” said Ron Davis, a history professor, adding that such policies create an “arena of confrontation” on college campuses. Such a policy “won’t enable us to grapple with the causes of racism,” Davis said.

“I cannot support this policy for a number of reasons,” said Tung-Shan Chen, a home economics professor. “This asks us to do what we do worst--form a committee--not what we do best, and that is to teach. The solution is not another committee, but in our teaching.”

Faculty Senate President Albert Baca argued in favor of the policy, claiming that opponents want the absolute right to say anything regardless of whom it hurts.

“Why cannot ideas be couched in language that is not offensive?” he asked.

Dudley Blake, a professor of social and philosophical foundations, argued that the 1st Amendment “has frequently been used by white people to denigrate blacks.”

Zeke Zeidler, student body president in 1984, called for the senate to approve the policy. As an openly gay man, he said, he was “afraid to walk across the campus. It may have felt unsafe because I had to endure being called (a derogatory term) as I crossed the campus.”

Also arguing in favor of the discriminatory harassment policy were Michelle Cooper, student body president, and David Weiss, who will replace Cooper as CSUN student leader in the fall. The Associated Student Senate endorsed the policy last month.

In a separate action after debate over the proposed speech code, members of the Faculty Senate voted unanimously to develop a written statement opposing discriminatory harassment and to devise a plan to educate the campus communities about the evils of bigotry.

BACKGROUND

Over the past two years, more than 130 universities have sought to enforce “politically correct” speech in various forms. Most banned slurs directed at minority groups. Others went further. The University of Connecticut, for example, banned “inappropriately directed laughter” and “conspicuous exclusion of students from conversations.” First Amendment advocates have criticized such policies, maintaining that universities should be bastions of free speech. A speech code at the University of Michigan was declared unconstitutional last year. In a speech at the university May 4, President Bush came out against such codes, declaring that the movement to restrict speech “replaces old prejudices with new ones.”