Civility important, not paramount

Each month, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) features a college or university with a particularly egregious speech code as its Speech Code of the Month -- a feature that serves both to educate the public about the broader problem of speech codes on campus and to use public pressure to encourage particular institutions to abandon repressive policies.

The "To Be an Illinois State University Student" part of Illinois State University's student conduct policy [pdf] has received recognition this month, as it requires "civility" from students as a "non-negotiable value."

"When individual behavior conflicts with the values of the university, the individual must choose whether to adapt his or her behavior to meet the needs of the university or to leave the university," the policy reads. So if officials deem someone is not meeting that standard, he or she will be asked to leave.

Shibley

But Robert Shibley of FIRE, a group devoted to free speech, individual liberty, religious freedom and the rights of conscience, says this language is constitutionally impermissible.

"You're allowed to have values that conflict with the university's values," Shibley asserts. "Simply having those values at a public university doesn't mean that that university can tell you that you have to leave. Public universities are arms of the government, and they're just as bound by the Constitution as the rest of the government would be."

While he agrees that civility is important in order to get along with others, the FIRE spokesman contends it needs to be subordinate to another values.

"Civility is an important value if you want to get along in society, but in a free society, it can't be the paramount value," he contends. "Free expression needs to be more important than civility, because sometimes things are important enough that not everybody can afford to be civil."

So far, the university has not responded to FIRE's letter of concern.