Carolina Journal defends the Free Expression Tunnel

Campus News General Media Tradition86

The Free Expression Tunnel is a unique feature to NC State, but it has come under fire recently. A few jerks wrote some offensive racial comments in the tunnel after election night aimed at Barack Obama, but all the authorities brought in to investigate prevented them from being expelled and brought up on charges of “hate crimes,” since they wrote in a place that openly invites “Free Expression.” So now the entire UNC system is holding meetings to try to write new student codes to include “hate speech.”

NC State alumnus Jon Sanders at Carolina Journal today defends the Free Expression Tunnel as a thoroughly collegiate, adult approach to speech in a free society:

In short, the Free Expression Tunnel is a robust monument to free speech, one that looks even stouter in comparison with other universities’ fearful, flaccid approach to speech, where anything that might be construed as potentially disrupting someone’s comfort is the worst thing imaginable. With “Tuffy” the Strutting Wolf mascot swaggering about with his chest thrust out proudly, however, it would simply not do for the university he represented to be a panic of screaming mimis when it came to an offensive graffito. This is a research university containing many of the state’s highest minds, after all.

Sanders says that if UNC wishes to take a lesson from the Free Expression Tunnel to apply it to the entire system, then rather than use it as an example of why free expression cannot be tolerated by top thinkers in the state, it should be used as a model for how thinking people in a free society can learn to deal with speech, even if it offends them to the core:

Rather than wasting time hammering out speech policies that are bound to be unconstitutional and are demonstrably unnecessary anyway (some scribbles at one university on one day on a “free expression” wall means it’s high time to rewrite the speech codes throughout the whole system?), it would be much wiser to drop the issue entirely and let N.C. State students return to their time-tested, well-practiced way of dealing with free expression that’s offensive: ignore it, drown it out, or just clown it on the side. If UNC wants to export a lesson from the Free Expression Tunnel, what better lesson could they find? Imagine: UNC students systemwide able to deal with offensive ideas with aplomb rather than immediately being reduced to a mewling, quivering heap.

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Campus News General Media Tradition

86 Responses to Carolina Journal defends the Free Expression Tunnel

  1. bradleyb123 01/16/2009 at 12:44 PM #

    “In this case you had the vast majority of the campus responding in strong and united opposition to these ideas. They actually put down their XBOXs and thought and acted. Isn’t everyone involved a more educated, and thoughtful person on the other side. Aren’t we having a great dicussion right now because of it?”

    Well said, Scrotcho.

  2. ppack3 01/16/2009 at 12:44 PM #

    There are (TOB’s) plans to have the Football Field redone, soon. It is beyond possible. But, you know our budget is one of the lowest in the country. Don’t we have a Horticulture school, with Turf Grass Management Degrees? (yes) This is akin to having a Textiles school, whilst the marching band wears the same uniforms, with an old logo, for twenty years. Thank God for donations, or the band would still be trotting around in the same, pit stained, hand-me-down, re-stitched uni’s that ten people before them wore in the hot sun 6-7 times a year. Nice.

  3. beowolf 01/16/2009 at 1:04 PM #

    Gosh, com, maybe we should just force the students to wear pretty uniforms and march and sing the alma mater on their way to class, to beautify the campus and remind everyone why it’s so great.

    The incident wouldn’t have been a national embarrassment if the chancellor had not issued a press release about it. If the chancellor issued a press release over every unfortunate scribble in the FET, he’d have no time left to oversee the death by a thousand cuts of our athletics programs. Wait, now I’m starting to sound as if I favor such a move, which I don’t. What I mean is this:

    A simple statement explaining the “free expression” concept and making the point made by many people here — that free expression isn’t always pretty, but its value is in the fact that it’s free and that it teaches students a valuable lesson about how to deal with and potential overcome offensive ideas through speech — would have sufficed.

  4. Alpha Wolf 01/16/2009 at 1:06 PM #

    ^ Sounds like Fowler has a bit of Everett Case in him.

    I understand budget realities and I understand the recalcitrance of the WPC and the AD to not undertake new projects in a steep recession especially when there is a lot of debt for previous projects.

    What I don’t understand, however is the constant do-it-on-the-cheap mentality from a university with a top 5 athletic donor base.

    What are we paying for and where does this money go, exactly? That is a serious question.

  5. Gene 01/16/2009 at 1:09 PM #

    “And has been for the last 20 years. The difference is the city want to do it instead of the free market. The free market has redone the Glennwood South area started reconstructioin 10 years after the first Hillsborough Street plans and completed, to date before they got one thing done on Hillsbourough St. Free market v. Government. ”

    One complaint from shop owners, I remember, was the companies who owned the areas the shop owners leased, were not flexible with lease terms and rates, which caused some of them to pack up and move off of Hillsborough street.

    Also the local residents getting parking banned, in their neighborhoods, around 1995 or 1996 also hastened the decline of Hillsborough street.

    There are plenty of reasons Hillsborough street has struggled to become vibrant, without getting into a market v. government debate.

    Getting an honest assessment of what needs to be done would do a lot for the city of Raleigh. I really believe there’s a lot of pent up demand in Raleigh for some night life, with many people getting jobs in the area after graduating from college. Combine that with the college age crowd and you need to figure out how to get people to places, without driving, since parking seems to be one of the primary contraints.

    Seriously, besides the need for a night life, the one major area of pent up demand in Raleigh, as far as I can see, is the lack of an IKea outlet.

  6. ldr of the pk 75 01/16/2009 at 1:15 PM #

    Welcome to the world we’ve all had a part in building (tearing down?) in the last 30 or 40 years. We have let PC hijack common sense and the constitution so many have served to protect. Certainly most right thinking people would take issue with whatever racist comments were made. By the way, in my day at State it was just called the tunnel, no need for Free Expression Tunnel. Perhaps we still had some semblance of Free Expression back then and didn’t worry a whole lot about the PC police. Contrary to popular belief, you do have a right to be offended at, but not squash out, free speech. I’m surprised no one here has mentioned Chapel Hills (UNC’s) infamous “pit”. Over the last 30-40 years, the biggest inhibiters of free speech have been the far left leaning administations of pretty much all of our universities. The same element, university admins, that pride themselves at being tolerant, compassionate etc, are among the worst offenders of tolerance of free speech. Most every year, conservative messages, on campus speeches by national speakers etc are thwarted by these pinheads of academia. At the very least, anyone right of the middle seems to have to jump through hoops and prove themselves in a way that anyone left of center doesn’t have to. The geniuses in Washington haven’t done much to help the situation as well. They simply pander to whatever goofball group seems to be offended. Your vote really does matter. Voting for people who flop in the breeze but pass themselves off as progressive and “enlightened” can have consequences.There’s nothing wrong with progressive as long as you don’t tread on my rights guaranteed by our founders. Racism has no place in any society. But the freedom to call someone a dickhead, or worse, is your right, regardless of who likes it or not. If you tend to ignore idiots, they usually crawl back in their holes. If after their rhetoric and the shun of society, these idiots transfer their hate into violence, then you have laws to protect. There are punishments if used correctly. But then, the same people who are the PC police, somehow believe punishment to be not quite the measure we should take. God forbid we would mess with someones psyche, teach them a lesson, and expect them to straighten up. Oh well, it’s been a great 30 or 40 years. Here’s to a better 30 or 40 to come. By the way, wouldn’t a fresh coat of paint over the comments been enough?

  7. buttPACKer 01/16/2009 at 1:24 PM #

    well said, ldrofthepk75.

  8. Alpha Wolf 01/16/2009 at 1:29 PM #

    ldr, you make good comments, but they are incredibly difficult to read. Try bite-size paragraphs. That’s not a grammar criticism, it’s an “it hurts my eyes to read a paragraph long” criticism.

  9. Packster 01/16/2009 at 2:00 PM #

    When did we, as a socitey, become so thin skinned that we could not handle offensive remarks? Sure what they wrote was ignorant but whether they write or not, they still think it. You can never change what people think. You can only control what they say. Free speech is free speech. We don’t have to like it but it is a fundamental right in our country and should be protected. One thing leads to another, first it’s not proper to speak about race, next it will be improper to say something negative about the government. Where is the line drawn?

  10. WolfBrew 01/16/2009 at 2:12 PM #

    I was always pretty fond of seeing the “Jesus Saves….
    Gretzsky Rebounds … SCORES!!!!!” on the FET.

    It was on the wall in the Mitch’s Tavern mensroom too, for those playing along at home. Good Times!

  11. choppack1 01/16/2009 at 2:36 PM #

    Packster – a certain segment of the population only wants free speech that they like. As long as it doesn’t offend THEM, it’s fine.

    I’m sure that when the FET was envisioned, the PTB at the university imagined signs of “Make Love, Not War”, “Legalize It!”, “End Apartheid Now!” “Power to the People!” or “Save the Whales!” – you know the kind of anti-establishment views that were near and dear to the academic establishments heart or to which they were sympathetic. But funny thing about freedom of speech – it can be offensive, stupid and downright mean.

    It looks to me like the right thing was done here by the Feds. Investigate the kids who did it – make sure they are not serious – let them be thoroughly embarassed, hopefully resulting in these knuckleheads being shunned by the majority of the student body and future employers.

    However, as one would expect from university leadership w/out true courage, morals or intellectual consistency – rather than doing as Beo or BJD suggested, they don’t state the simple fact that free minds don’t always think popular or even decent things.

  12. Alpha Wolf 01/16/2009 at 2:56 PM #

    ^ There you go, Chop, being all sensible.

    Keep on and you will lose your Internet Lunatic certification. 😉

  13. Gene 01/16/2009 at 2:58 PM #

    “We have let PC hijack common sense and the constitution so many have served to protect. ”

    That’s why I bought a Mac, this past summer…no more PC hijacks from me 😉

    Now we’re no longer worried about political correctness, maybe we should go back to being the Red Terrors?

  14. choppack1 01/16/2009 at 3:05 PM #

    Don’t worry Alpha – I got my dig on the university leadership so I’m still a card-carrying member.

  15. Alpha Wolf 01/16/2009 at 3:09 PM #

    Blake to UT rumors are heating up:

    http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=7&f=1372&t=3780964

  16. 4in12 01/16/2009 at 3:10 PM #

    I think the FET was only created because the university gave up on fighting graffiti and agreed to let students deface the ugliest and most inconspicuous place on campus.

    As far as beautification goes – the campus today looks WAY better than it did in the early 70’s. Winter time was especially depressing with nothing to look at but dormant trees and brick everywhere. I never could understand how a campus with an architecture and landscape school could look so bad. I guess the engineers had more to do with the planning than the design-os.

  17. Alpha Wolf 01/16/2009 at 3:19 PM #

    “I guess the engineers had more to do with the planning than the design-os.”

    Maybe. But then again, hey, some engineering designs are works of art in and of themselves. I used to have a photo print of an 8086 chip in a scanning electron microscope up as the main picture in my living room because it looked like an abstract of a city. Even artists asked me what it was because they thought it cool.

  18. 4in12 01/16/2009 at 3:29 PM #

    I currently have hanging on the wall of my office a poster from Intel that features a photograph of a Pentium Processor die. It’s quite nice. It’s also not made solely out of red brick.

  19. old13 01/16/2009 at 3:45 PM #

    “Make Love, Not War!”, “Legalize It!”, “End Apartheid Now!” “Power to the People!” “Save the Whales!” Ah, the good old 60s – when I was young and knew everything – afterall, I WAS a State student then! :>)

  20. Wulfpack 01/16/2009 at 4:30 PM #

    “Perhaps the most vital component of the college experience is the free and open exchange of ideas, with people who have a broad spectrum of backgrounds and ideologies.”

    Well said. Now if only our basketball team would play with as much furvor as our student body has to express itself, we might actually be talking about something exciting today that can unite the NC State community.

  21. Classof89 01/16/2009 at 4:49 PM #

    The worst feature of this whole episode were the attempts by the NAACP state head to extort stuff out of the university to “make up” for the unfortunate incident. Glad Oblinger grew a pair and told him to take a hike…

  22. Wufpacker 01/16/2009 at 6:03 PM #

    Freedom of speech/expression is easy [to defend] when everyone agrees. Its when there are differences of opinion that people tend to want to place limits on the freedom of speech of others with whom they disagree. The irony, however, is that this is when it becomes most important to defend.

    Freedom of speech is at the heart of our system of free government, and short of inciting others to violence it should be vehemently defended.

    I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will certainly defend your right to say it.

  23. highstick 01/16/2009 at 6:20 PM #

    Here’s some hate speech for the tunnel………..Fire Lee Fowler!!!

    Also I wish you guys would quit trashing my first dorm at NC State, i.e. Riddick Stadium!

    You students need to not let these folks push you around. They tried to rename us the University of North Carolina at Raleigh when I was there and we raised enough hell to stop that!

    Keep in mind that history always shows that censorship is the major tool of an intolerant facist government. That’s how they keep control of everything!

  24. tractor57 01/16/2009 at 6:44 PM #

    I join the chorus that doesn’t like the racist tones but the free speech tunnel should remain as is.

    Idiots, fools and simpletons but I defend their right to be such.

  25. BladenWolf 01/16/2009 at 7:02 PM #

    I don’t subscribe to the liberal (read: Carolina and some mis-guided State folks) point of view that seem to shout “Tolerance” and then simply degrades, or worse, tries to prohibit anything that counters that particular (read:enlightened) point of view.

    Funny how Moo U (the bastion of red neck technology) is teaching the elitest how to think openly and clearly.

    It’s called the “free expression tunnel” for a reason…

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