Spearheading Speech

On Sunday, the Undergraduate Council took action on behalf of those groups whose issue advocacy campaigns have met with vandalism. The original resolution specifically referenced the Harvard Right to Life (HRL), whose “Natalie” campaign posters have been consistently torn down across the campus. These references were amended out, and the final resolution, which passed 28-10-5, spoke out for all groups on campus—including Students for Choice and the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered and Supporters Alliance—whose campaigns have faced similar defacement.

The council’s condemnation of vandalism is a good first step toward fostering a necessary respect for all points-of-view on campus. Besides urging students not to tear down posters, the council advised the administration to increase its drive to uphold “a community ideally characterized by free expression,” a notion codified in its own Handbook for Students. When a person does tear down a poster or quash a recognized student group’s freedom of expression, the University should not hesitate to send the case to the Administrative Board. Realistically, few vandals will be apprehended, making the need for a sufficiently harsh punishment all the more legitimate. More severe punishments will make clear that the University does not consider the issue of free expression trivial, and will send a message to would-be poster defilers to reevaluate the gravity of their actions.

Despite the council’s wise ideological stance on this matter, the second operative part of the resolution, which establishes a process to refund student groups for lost posters, is procedurally infeasible and ineffective at promoting free speech. First, there is no way for clubs to verify the number of posters lost to vandalism. Second, even if a council committee could somehow discern legitimate claims from dubious ones, simply reimbursing recognized clubs will not alter the community’s feeling concerning the freedom of expression. The dilemma that makes this problem so urgent is not the fiscal loss to recognized student clubs, but the loss of their University-guaranteed free speech.

In this case, no silver bullet exists to compel the Harvard community to respect all viewpoints enough to let them be seen or heard. The battle the University and the council must ultimately fight is one of persuasion—to convince students that the correct way to fight the message of posters is not to tear them down, but to put up their own. Fortunately, most students who fiercely disagree with HRL have already taken this sensible route, retaliating with their own opinions through all outlets of Harvard’s marketplace of ideas. Although the council’s resolution is not without flaws, it nonetheless reaffirms this notion of free expression—a worthy position whatever the circumstance.