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Monday, April 14, 2003

Re: Developing

Alston wrote:
"Whereas the Assembly supports the right of every member of the Dartmouth community to exercise the right of free speech within the constructs of the Principles of Community."

Isn't this just a clever way of saying "speech code"? The Assembly ONLY supports free speech if it adheres to the Principle of Community, a nebulous, subjective principle if ever there were one. At least they're admitting it these days. Emmett, how does this one strike you?
It is tantamount to advocating for a speech code.

It's true that the Student Assembly doesn't get to decide what policy is, so this is no cause for alarm. (Unless you happen to think that students at a liberal arts college should have even a modicum of respect for the principle of free speech.) We shouldn't forget, however, that Dartmouth actually does enforce its Principle of Community -- Greek houses are required to include its provisions in their charters. The College (Redman claims) can punish them for violations not only of this requirement, but for violations of their own charters -- meaning, essentially, that the Principle of Community is actually enforceable for almost half of Dartmouth's students.

I wrote about this a while back in the Review.

Posted by Emmett at 4:23 PM

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